Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Brooke · 08-13-2008, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brooke

If, and only if, Acts fails to narrative later events because the author did not know of them. Personally, I think that the most probable solution. However, it must be recognized that c. 64-65 is not an absolute terminus; there is no compelling reason that Acts could not have been written later in the century (someone here said that most scholars would date Acts to c. 110. I doubt it: I think most would hold that Luke and Acts were written close together, probably in the mid-80s. Personally, I think that the reasons for doing so are weak indeed, and that is one of the reasons I date both to the early 60s).

You have failed to take into consideration that the author of Acts knew he was writing fiction. You cannot ignore that possibility.

The author wrote that the ascension of Jesus through the clouds was witnessed by disciples, this event is not only implausible but fiction.

The author of Acts wrote that upon receiving the Holy Ghost, there appeared to be something like fire on the heads of the disciple, again implausible and fiction.

In Acts of ther Apostles, Peter healed a man born lame by just talking to him and even Peter's shadow had the ability to heal.

The author wrote that Peter talked to people and they just died and even an angel helped to remove chains from the hands and feet of Peter so he could escape from jail.

The conversion of Saul, as written by the author, is also not credible.

These anecdotes show that the author very likey knew he was writing fiction and the author never even identified himself and stipulated exactly when he wrote Acts.

If Acts was written at around 61 CE, while Peter and Paul were alive, it would have been immediately realized that the author was writing fiction.

It seems, more likely to me, that for those implausible and incredible fables to be believed to be true, that they were all written very long after the supposed events.

This sort of baby and bathwater argumentation does not hold water (largely because it was thrown out with the baby). Yes, of course, Acts contains mythological embroidering. Few ancient texts do. Indeed, if we threw out every text with any such embroidering, we would know almost nothing about the ancient world. No doubt, also, Luke gets certain details of Paul's life simply wrong. There are other details which are remarkably consistent Paul's letters (for instance, the flight from Damascus).

The irony with your argumentation is that it is just an inversion of fundamentalist thought. The fundamentalist argues that all must be true or none is true. You appear to agree with him or her on this point. You and he/she differ only when it comes to whether or not it is true. What I am suggesting is far more subtle: that some is true (in the sense of being more or less accurate history), some is not. This neatly cuts the Gordian Knot which binds both yourself and the fundamentalist, and in doing so opens us up to a more critical engagement with the texts.

Brooke · 08-13-2008, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

To me, the work smells of the period before all of these events had taken place, when attitudes on all sides were really rather different to what we find thereafter. The church was still part of the synagogue, both in reality and legally.

Preaching to the choir. I'm just not sure I'd stake money on this claim...

aa5874 · 08-13-2008, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brooke

The irony with your argumentation is that it is just an inversion of fundamentalist thought. The fundamentalist argues that all must be true or none is true. You appear to agree with him or her on this point. You and he/she differ only when it comes to whether or not it is true. What I am suggesting is far more subtle: that some is true (in the sense of being more or less accurate history), some is not. This neatly cuts the Gordian Knot which binds both yourself and the fundamentalist, and in doing so opens us up to a more critical engagement with the texts.

And, your argument is even WORSE.

Your argument is that you know ALL that is likely to be True and ALL that is likely to be False in the NT without any external non-apologetic support or information.

You approach appears to be that whatever is implausible is likely to be false and whatever is plausible is true.

But, you know plausibility is not a function of veracity.

I reject the NT because I cannot tell what is true and what is false.

But, whatever you imagine is true, you believe it is and you reject whatever you imagine needs rejection and then imagine you have re-constructed the history of Jesus and that it MUST be true.

Your imagination is NOT true.

08-13-2008, 05:07 PM

Hiya,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brooke

I think it fair to say that most professional Historical Jesus scholars active today would reject this theory, at least as articulated here. The inverse proportionality is really between credibility and access to eyewitness testimony. Let us say (for the sake of argument) that Mark wrote in 50 and John in 90, but John was an eyewitness and Mark not. We would do better to favour John after Mark, if that were the case.

AFAIK,
it is the consensus of "most professional Historical Jesus scholars active today" that not one of the NT documents was written by anyone who was an eye-witness to Jesus.

None of the Gospels are considered to be written by any eye-witnesses.

Iasion

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