Ben C Smith

I assure you I am not.

To the contrary, it is a piece of Greek historiography.

You must surely realize that these kinds of connections are simply unpersuasive to a lot of us. I tend not to use them even when they would help me out.

What happens in the temple that you are calling portentous?

Never in real history, of course, has a local potentate put down a potential riot.

Modern mystics receive what you are calling magic word all the time. I imagine ancient mystics did likewise.

What, a church escorting Paul out of town? Come, now.

I once noted that a sufficient number of real baseball games end with a game-winning home run, yet game-winning home runs are a staple of sports fiction.

I honestly think, Michael, that you have been doing so much with so little for so long that you are now qualified to do anything with nothing.

Really, to argue that Acts is fiction is fine. There is a debate to be had there. But to act as if the opposing side is a joke (You've got to be kidding me, Ben) is a sign that a man is beginning to believe his own rhetoric.

Acts is pretty standard ancient historiography. (One good assertion deserves another.)

Yes.

The problem is that fiction is often meant to look like history, and history is often written with fictional touches to make it more dramatic. You cannot just pull out a list of general similarities between Acts and the ancient fictions; another list just as long could be compiled between Acts and the ancient histories. That kind of argument is a dead end in both directions.

Ben.

Vorkosigan

Fiction, top to bottom, full of literary devices, tropes, and conventions. Greek fiction grew out of Greek historiography.

That's because you've become taught to think about the problem in a certain way.

What is the common sequence in Acts? Paul enters a city, goes to the temple, causes a tumult, there's a mob scene, he receives instructions from heaven, he is hauled before the authorities, he has a trial/hearing etc, he leaves the city to the acclaim/condemnation of crowds. His prayers are heard, and the gods warn him in dreams. He travels around the Med basin meeting famous people. There is a magical jailbreak. Sometimes he voyages on ships and is shipwrecked. These scenes, not always in the same order in Acts, are all conventional scenes in Greek romantic/historical texts. What doesn't Paul do? the same thing that doesn't happen in Greek fiction: the range of scenes is highly restricted. Paul rarely goes into shops, bars, or inns, quarries, smithies. Neither do the heroes of Greek fiction. Instead, they spend time in the same places that Paul does -- temples, ships, shipwreck sites, prisons, homes/courts of potentates, courtrooms, private homes. Etc.

Naturally, since the writer of Acts has different fictional goals, his book goes in a different direction. But like the writer of Mark, he borrows the conventions of the popular writing of his day in inventing his tale of Paul's career. Just as Left Behind and Ben Hur and Pilgrim's Progress and similar religious fictions have borrowed the conventions of their day.

"Apocryphal" Christian fiction partook of these same things (paul and thecla), as did Joseph and Asenath. a fact that is slowly being recognized, but since they haven't been ruled canonical history, nobody seems willing to defend them.

It's not any single event, Ben, it's the repetitive presence of them. Of course in real life people become buddies. But the buddy scenes in 48 hours or Star Wars are entirely conventional Hollywood.

Scenes in which the hero is warned by the gods are conventional in Greek fiction. So is the hero who goes willingly and innocent to his own death.

The writer of Acts is borrowing a convention.

Acts is bogus historiography. It is meant to look something like history, but it isn't.

What books have you read on this topic? Anything on ancient fiction? _Lies and Fiction in Antiquity_? _Ancient Epistolary Fictions_?

I didn't pull out a list of "general similarities." I pulled out a list of conventional events scenes in ancient fictions that are conventional events and scenes in Acts.

Show me an ancient history that has the same sequences of events and conventional scenes, and I'll agree that Acts is closer to ancient historiography.

Michael

Ben C Smith

Yes, I have. You?

Going back to the education in my childhood or early adulthood is not going to solve much here.

No, he enters a city and goes to the local synagogue. Thrice Acts tells us this is his custom.

Sure, but he goes into churches and homes.

I for one am unwilling to defend them because even the ancients did not defend them.

If Acts is fiction, then it is not conventional fiction. It is deceptive. The author is passing his work off as history. He did not mean it to be read as fiction.

You can argue that the author has fooled me, but I do not think you can argue that the author was writing conventional fiction, not meant to fool anybody.

Ben.

Gamera

Well, almost. Greek historiography grew out of Greek fiction. Herodotus' use of narration as the form of historiography (other forms could and have been used) brings with it its own content and presuppositions, that were first developed in fiction.

See Haydon White's The Content of Form: Narrative Discouse and Historical Representation.

jakejonesiv

Revisionist history, packed full of propaganda to harmonize and homogenize the legendary secterian leaders, Peter and Paul, into the Saints of the Roman church. If you want to to call it deceptive, then be my guest.

All of these church fathers, and heretics alike were out to push their "talking points" at all costs. Think about the spin that the RNC and DNC put on virtually any subject that arises. Both sides will lie like dogs on any particular situation, but only in service to a higher goal, the success of their respective parties, and hence the good of the country as they see it, patriots all.

andrewcriddle

Hi Michael

I do not see how your conclusion follows from your premises.

The only way that Acts can be fiction is by being a mixture of fictional characters and real characters used fictionally.

The prophetic daughters of Philip could on your premises have been genuine characters in the Jerusalem church used fictionally by the author of Acts to add local colour.

If so Papias might have met them or known people who had done so.

Andrew Criddle

jakejonesiv

Andrew,

That is an astute observation. I like the way you are able to look at all the possibilities. The answer is also nicely phrased.

Jake

Gamera

This is well put Andrew, and it highlights an important point. I think any critical analysis of any historical text from the classic period must conclude that they are pastiches -- a mixture of historiography with encomia, hagiography, theology, and pure political agitation, depending on the author. It isn't an either/or.

Acts stands in the range of texts like Agricola or The Lifes of the Ceasars, which mix historical narrative with other agendas in a way that is disfavored in modern historiography (though arguably we still do it, though more subtely).

It shouldn't surprise us that the daughters of Philip were real people used narratively any more than a biography of Orson Wells has all kinds of mythic events (like his supposed meeting with Hitler), which probably never happened but are so mixed up with this real life, it's hard to separate them.

Casper

And what of the Illiad? It seems to be just as "unconventional" to me.


I admit I only read English so i refer to translations, of course

Chris Weimer

Except the Iliad is poetry...