vid

What is the level of acceptance of Luke's dependence on Josephus in scholarly circles? Where on a scale between "far out revisionism" and "universally accepted" is this claim?

show_no_mercy

I'm thinking it's closer to "far out revisionism" considering that the "consensus" of biblical scholarship is apologetic in nature.

Toto

The author of that idea is Steve Mason, a prominent academic scholar at York University. I think the idea is not at all controversial outside of evangelical-influenced scholarship.

Petergdi

I'm not sure how much luck Steve Mason has had at convincing people. The idea has been around since the nineteenth century at least. During the twentieth century it was a minority view even among theological liberals. Some thought that Luke had probably seen Wars but not Antiquities.

The main objections were that Luke actually disagrees with Josephus at almost every point where they seem closest, and that it is entirely plausible that the similarities came from their having similar sources and influences.

Peter.

Toto

Do you know of anyone who has commented on Mason's thesis outside of Carrier's article on the secular web or various evangelical apologists who predictably oppose it?

andrewcriddle

FWIW it was proposed in the early 20th century (by Streeter IMS) that the similarities and disagreements between Antiquities and Luke-Acts could best be explained by Luke having heard Josephus give public readings of Antiquities as a work-in-progress before the publication of the finished work (which was too late for Luke to make use of).

Andrew Criddle

hjalti

Richard Pervo agrees with that position in his book, Dating Acts (or via: amazon.co.uk).

aa5874

Once it is not known for certain when gLuke was written it cannot be assumed that Antiquities was published too late for the author called Luke.

There are indications that gLuke and Acts of the Apostles are very late and after the writings of Justin Martyr.

dog-on

Since Luke/Acts is anti-Marcion, I see no reason why the editor could not have been aware of the writings of Josephus.

There are some passages, for instance in Acts, that seem to breach the beyond a reasonable doubt threshold, rendering apologetics, (by which I mean mainstream scholarship), irrelevant.

gurugeorge

Is it anti-Marcion, or is it not rather (as Price suggests) trying to harmonize Marcion with orthodoxy, or bring them together in some way - an attempt to find some sort of middle ground?