Ah, therein the difference. To me, Luke is entitled to no such presumption. It's just another ancient text. And primarily a theological, not historical one at that.

I agree. The credibility of ALL ancient literature should be determined based on all available historical evidence, not theological presuppositions.

rodahi

Luke! That darned "biased" theist attempting to bend the facts to suit his silly theology...

Prove to me that Luke was not describing things in a factual and historical way. I have not seen Luke proven wrong yet, only presumed wrong.

If instead, the presumption is that ancient literature is wrong until proven right, then we have a sad history indeed. Should we presume everyone in history to have been liars?

Ish

[This message has been edited by Ish (edited June 05, 2001).]

Actually, Ish, that's not the point. Rather, the suggestion is that Luke displays various objectives - to relate a story, to win converts, to admonish and rouse the faithful, etc. - but accurately recounting history is not important to any of them.

So there's no reason to assume Luke was particularly careful about history. And no reason at all to assume he had access to the sorts of records that would make good history possible. Indeed, the genealogies goof, among others, proves he didn't.

So what? It's still stuid to dredge it up. Hey don't you know about fish stories? Everyone with a fish story has creative licence.

Ok thanks.

We don't have to assume Luke was very careful about history, we can examine Luke/Acts and see that he was, in fact, pretty good with history. Not perfect, but good.

How do the genealogies goof? Are you saying that they goof because they are different than Matthews? I doubt you are assuming that Matthew got it right, so how does the differing genealogies prove that Luke goofed or that he's a bad historian?

And since when does one or two mistakes mean that the author was a bad historian?

Missing the point. I think you would give such presumption to any other ancient text. Look at the thread on "Did Josphus exist." he didn't even know the year for an event that he was prest for and yet no one says "O than it must be fabricated" or "he made it up."

Yes, there is good reason to assume that Luke was careful about history,and it is acciedent that he has for long been a favoirte of histoirans and of most scholars. The situation, once reversed by Ramsay, became the oppossite. It is not because apologists like him that such things are said. It is becasue Ramsay vindicated him. I refur to the early quote the first of the thread where even Von Harnack, the arche liberal of the liberals came around and expressed shame that he had been so treated in the past. The quoation says Luke is vindicate on every point.

Now I've made this point before and I wish you guys would pay attention. No one in the ancient world wrote history just for the love of social sciences. NO one had a concept of history for histories sake. Neither Tacitus nor Josephus nor Pleny, nor any of the major historians of the ancient world wote history just for the pure love of telling what happned, or for documenting to posterity. They all had agendas. Jospehus had a rleigious agenda, he thought he was a prophet. They all had agendas, they were all writing form some political, soical, religious or some other motive. But you give the presumption to all of them merley because they aren't the Bible. It's a double standard and its phony.

Now, I see nothing here that challenges what i've proven with documentaion from five different emmanently qualified sources. So I'm quiting the thread becasue I don't see anything here that isn't just a repeition of what's been said. REad the stuff again, you will see,it's been proven.

I'll check back once just in case someone digs up something new, but I doubt that they will. So until then, I am out of this thread becasue I have the documentation to prove the point and you don't.

Yuor welcome.