Roger Pearse

But remember that we have databases of inscriptions, which they did not. It is not clear that they cared enough to record the sort of things we look for.

That said, we should also remember that they had far more data than we do.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

Whatever you think of Richard Carrier, Steve Mason is hardly "fringe." He is "Canada Research Chair in Greco-Roman Cultural Interaction, York University." I don't see that he has any ideological reason to try to rewrite history.

Steven Carr

Mormons knew exactly where Utah and Salt Lake City was, just like Luke knew where Malta and Crete were.
.

This must mean that the Book of Mormon is true.

Luke,of course, messes up the closer he gets to Jesus.

And the more accurate 'Luke' is, the more Jesus disappears from everybody's memory.

The Romans have no clue that Paul was a follower of a crucified criminal, alleged to be 'King of the Jews'

By the time you get to Acts 24, Paul is not even a follower of Jesus ‘However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect.’

Paul was a follower of 'the Way'.

In Acts 26, Paul is baffled that anybody thinks he is there because of what a historical Jesus might have done.
‘And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our fathers that I am on trial today.’

What? Did a historical Jesus promise nothing?

And it was the resurrected Jesus who preached ’But I have had God’s help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen— that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles.’

Jesus rose from the dead and then proclaimed light to his own people and to the Gentiles.




Notice the order….

Paul is clear that the prophets and Moses had proclaimed this. No Christian witnesses had said that this Jesus had risen. The prophets and Moses said Jesus would rise.

It seems Paul deliberately wanted to spite Victor by never saying that these Gospel characters had existed, in the only bits that Victor can attempt to show are historical.


And it remains a simple fact that as soon as there is a public church in Acts, almost the entirety of the Gospel characters disappear as though they had never existed.




Just like the Angel Moroni disappeared.


As does any physical resurrection.All we have after their is a public church are visions and trances, where 'Luke' thinks real people teleport from Macedonia to appear in trances.

As soon as Victor feels he is on safe historical ground, his Gospel stories almost entirely disappear from Christian testimony!

To be replaced by visions and trances.

Oh Yahweh, thy name is irony!

Steven Carr

Really?

I thought 'Luke' managed to get to interview Mary to ask about the fetus John the Baptist leaping for joy when the fetus Jesus entered the room.

Surely people were able to track down these anonymous '500' that Paul refers to and ask them about what they saw.

It turns out that that sort of research was impossible....

stephan huller

And as a graduate of York who's spent hours debating Mason I should add that he's surprisingly tall with a very deep and intimidating voice. He's also one of the most popular professors not in the least because of his matinee idol good looks. He also likes horseback riding, hand gliding and para-sailing.

Steven Carr

MCGREW
The correct implication that sea travel is the most convenient way of reaching Athens, with the favoring “Etesian” winds of the summer sailing season

CARR
I do like the claim that after 70 AD, nobody could have known that Athens was on the coast....

Steven Carr

MCGREW
If you cannot see such evidence in the accuracy of numerous details in Luke's description of the journey across Asia Minor -- including passing references to overland routes, sea routes, prevailing weather, local customs, local languages and dialects, local ethnic identities, local religious practices, local titles, local industries, a Roman official who held office in a particular location for only half a year, and the anomalous and temporary presence of two proconsuls in a region where normally there would be only one...

CARR
Astonishing!

Luke was not writing a geography, or history book.

The genre is quite different.

And yet McGrew points out all the passing references ,of things mentioned in passing.

And when people point out that Paul has ZERO passing references to any miracle or parable of Jesus, and ZERO passing references to Judas, Thomas,Lazarus, Joanna,Salome,Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene, Bartimaeus, Simon of Cyrene, Joseph of Arimathea, and empty tomb, Mary, Joseph, the other Mary, Martha, etc etc etc, we are told that we should not expect such passing references, and their abscence means nothing.

If Luke can fill Acts with 'passing references' to 'thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine islands', why does Paul not have one miracle or parable of Jesus, or one 'passing reference' to the vast cast of Gospel characters that vanish from Luke's work as soon as there is a public church?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Deus Ex,


from "Merchant vessels and maritime commerce in Roman times"
While Rome was the biggest city in the empire with over one million people, many cities had over 100,000 people and had to be supplied with enormous quantities of food on a regular, if not daily basis.

We may assume that on an average summer's day in the First or Second Century, hundreds of ships were sailing the Mediterranean ocean. Each of these ships would have to employ a pilot or navigator who had exact information about sea routes and overland routes. We may assume that five or ten thousand people at least had this information. It would be strange if they kept this information in their heads - who could trust that they knew what they said, so we can presume that thousands of manuscripts with this information were in circulation. Besides Merchants, every upper level soldier would need this information for the transporting of troops, which would add thousands of more people who needed to have this information and would require manuscripts with such information. We also have to consider the popularity of travel and adventure stories. Naturally the teller of such tales would want to make it as accurate as possible. The number of manuscripts with this type of travel information must have been in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

Thus most of the knowledge would have been trivial information, easily available to anybody with any wealth or status.

Many of things you list seem to be confirmed in highly unusual or highly prejudiced ways. For example #3 seems to be of highly dubious scientific value, #4 may be of value if we could be sure that the Latin documents were not based on Paul's account itself. #5 is worthless because Stephanus is giving us information 500 years later in a society where disagreeing with anything in "Acts" could get you executed.#6 is meaningless as Zeus and Hermes are commonly together in Greek mythology. Hermes was the messenger of Zeus as any Greek schoolboy would have known. It is like saying that I must have been to Israel to know that Moses and God are in the same story together. #16 proves there were synagogues in Thessalonica in the Second Century and therefore we should conclude that the writer is writing in the Second century.

There is not a single detail listed that requires an author from the First century or a traveler from the First century.

Using the same methodology I could say that I must be an interplanetary traveler because I know that Venus is further away from the Sun than Mercury, that the Earth is further away than Venus, that Mars is further away from the sun than the Earth, etc. How unlikely is it that I could have obtained this information without actually having been to all these places?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay





Many Roman cities had populations of over 100,000 people. These cities needed to be supplied with food and other goods on a daily basis. It would seem reasonable to assume that 100's of ships sailed daily into these cities or nearby port cities.

bacht

Here's a quick review of the public figures named in Acts:

ch 4: their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Ca'iaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family
ch 5: a Pharisee in the council named Gama'li-el, a teacher of the law, held in honor by all the people
- Theu'das
- Judas the Galilean
ch 8: Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the nation of Sama'ria
- an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a minister of Can'dace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of all her treasure
ch 10: Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort
ch 11: And one of [the prophets from Jerusalem] named Ag'abus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world; and this took place in the days of Claudius.
ch 12: About that time Herod the king laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church.
- Blastus, the king's chamberlain
On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and made an oration to them. And the people shouted, "The voice of a god, and not of man!" Immediately an angel of the Lord smote him, because he did not give God the glory; and he was eaten by worms and died.
ch 13: Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyre'ne, Man'a-en a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
- When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus
ch 18: Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue [of Corinth]
- Sos'thenes, the ruler of the synagogue when Gallio was proconsul of Acha'ia
ch 21: And [a tribune] said, "Are you not the Egyptian...?"
ch 23: tribune Claudius Lys'ias
- Felix the governor
ch 24: the high priest Anani'as came down with some elders and a spokesman, one Tertul'lus.
- Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus
ch 25: Agrippa the king and Berni'ce
- a centurion of the Augustan Cohort, named Julius
ch 28: the chief man of [Malta], named Publius


As Roger pointed out, it would be difficult for a 2nd C writer to know the names of minor officials from the 1st C. On the other hand, all the witnesses were dead, so who would challenge Luke's account?

show_no_mercy

Surely, the writer of Acts of the Apostles had absolutely no ideological axe to grind. Only the Christians who eventually became orthodox were 100% unbiased and committed to truth.