jackal5096

But why would Luke need to? Church tradition holds that Mark wrote what he learned from Peter. Why couldn't Luke write what he learned from Paul, rather than plagarize someone else's gospel? Luke apparently knew nothing about the wedding at Cana, about the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, of Jesus healing the sick man at the pool at Bethesda, Jesus giving sight to the man born blind, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (even though he knew of a Lazarus dying before a rich man's house and going to heaven), Jesus washing the disciples' feet, any clues about the "disciple whom Jesus loved", the post-resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene alone, the post-resurrection appearance to Thomas. Did Paul not know of these? If Paul did know of them, why didn't Luke, or why didn't Luke not mention them, and coincidentally mention essentially only what is mentioned in Mark and Matthew?


Since Paul tells essentially nothing of the life and times of Jesus, except that he was born of a woman and brief discourse of the Last Supper, it would be a baseless assumption to assume it did come from Paul.

My question posed both alternatives, and positing piercing Luke/Acts on the horns of a dilemma. If Jesus, arguendo, was mythical/mystical, and Luke knew of Paul's teachings consistent with that, why would he write the gospel, plagarizing Mark et al., when he would have known it were false. On the other hand, if Jesus, arguendo, was historical, and Paul knew of a historical Jesus but didn't repeat the obvious in his letters, why did Luke have to plagarize GMark et al. and not know of Jesus independently, including any those events unique to GJohn but not found in the works Luke plagarized?

John Kesler

This statement indicates that your request for proof of Pauline influence in GLuke can never be satisfied, because you are already convinced that such material can't exist. The reasoning seems rather circular. Although you make allowance for the possibility that Paul believed in an HJ, you then reject the possibility of Pauline material in GLuke using reasoning that better fits with a CM view--i.e. that because Paul doesn't mention X biographical details about Jesus in the epistles, Paul must have believed in a mythical Jesus.

jackal5096

Not at all. What it indicates is a dilemma and inconsistency between what Luke writes, regardless of the Pauline influence. I am not necessarily convinced that it can't exist, but I see no evidence that it does. Paul's epistles do not show hardly any evidence (which is a foundation of Doherty's Jesus Myth arguments), and Luke's almost total dependence on Mark and Matthew indicate little of any prior, independent knowledge. But, regardless of whether or not Paul had knowledge of a historical Jesus, Luke's gospel and Acts seem to have contradictions in either case.

I am not trying to prove what Paul believed one way or the other, and your confusion comes from mixing the premises of the two scenarios I posed. In the two hypothetical scenarios posed - one of a historical Jesus and the other of a mystical Jesus, Luke's two books appear self-contradictory. If assuming arguendo (you do know what that means? I wasn't saying how likely was the possibility that Paul knew, only assuming so for the sake of the hypothetical scenario) Jesus was historical, that therefore if Paul knew, why did Luke plagarize the other gospels rather than write independently, as Mark appears to have, from what he would have learned from Paul. On the other hand, if Jesus, again assuming arguendo, was myth/mystical, then Paul would not have known the gospel details, or even that Jesus allegedly walked around Jerusalem ca. 32. Under this scenario (again, assuming arguendo that Jesus was not historical), Luke would know that Paul's Jesus was not historical, yet he writes a gospel inconsistent with that, and plagarizes others for his material.

Toto

The solution to your dilemma is that gLuke-Acts was not written by someone who knew Paul. The "we" passages are either a mystery or a literary convention, or an indication that another account was folded into Acts (which might have just been a sea voyage, not necessarily about Paul).

What is wrong with this solution?

jackal5096

Because it goes against a large majority of scholarship. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong or prohibited in that, but I would want something more substantial before hanging out on that conjecture. As Peter Kirby notes at EarlyChristianWritings, there are no other examples from that time period of using the first-person plural as a literary device. Scholars largely agree that the author of Acts was Paul's companion. I would rather not simply dismiss it as some other author just to be able to sleep at night.

Your other alternative, that it was an earlier account by a companion that was later incorporated into Acts by Luke, is a distinct possibility, which I have been looking at, especially in light of the possibly late date of its authorship. Right now, though, I can't go either way on that hypothesis.

Toto

I think I have given you the consensus view of secular and liberal Christian scholarship. Evangelical scholars hold to the idea that the author of Acts was a companion of Paul, but I don't think you will find many others who do.

No, scholars do not agree on that. Peter Kirby came up with his explanation, after he decided that Robbins was wrong on the issue of literary convention. But that's just Peter's theory. He was not able to get Robbins to engage him on the issue.

That's a theoretical possibility. But there's no way to prove it unless there is an unprecented new discovery of ancient documents...

Doug Shaver

I can't find anything in it that confirms what you said. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough. Would you quote the passage that you had in mind?

Indeed? The consensus is almost universal that the gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written by the same author, and that Acts is essentially a continuation of the gospel narrative. But you're saying that even if it were reasonable to think the gospels are fiction, it would be "hasty generalization" to think that Acts, too, is fiction?

My argument is only about the gospels and Acts. The Pauline epistles, the catholic epistles, and Revelation are irrelevant to what one may infer about the factuality of Acts from an evaluation of the factuality of the gospels.

The historicity of his journeys is not in question. We know from Paul's own writings that he made journeys to spread the gospel. The question is whether should think that Acts should be considered a source of factual information about those journeys. The historicity of the French Revolution is not in question, either, but that doesn't mean we can learn any facts about it from A Tale of Two Cities.

No, not really. If I were, I would still be a Christian.
I fail to see how anything I have said implies a closed mind.

Rich Oliver

Either Paul is lying or the author of Acts hasn't got his (/her) facts straight.

aa5874

A book of fiction is classified as such when it contains fictitious events, names or places.
The book called Acts can be shown to contain fictitious events or events that are not likely to have occured.

All the post resurrection events of Jesus and conversations recorded in Acts are fictitious or improbale, yet they are witnessed.

Acts 1.9, "And when he (Jesus) had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.

All the miracles reported in Acts are fictitious or improbable yet they are witnessed. These improbable acts are found all over Acts.

Acts2.2-3, "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them".

The death of Ananias and his wife, in Acts 5, the conversion of Paul and the conversations with Jesus, in Acts ch9, ch22 and ch26 are all improbable events.

Acts is littered with events most likely to be false.