DevilsAdvocate

If you want to interpret an absolute absence of anything about Peter and James and create a thoughtful silence from that, I will accept your creative license with a chuckle. But it is not in the text.

If you want to gloss over the insertion of jewish food customs into James' instructions to the Antioch Christians who sent Paul requesting the judaizers refrain from just that, then you can ignore it. I chuckle again. By the way... in case you haven't made the connection to Peter's reference to Cornelius ... it was a very strong reference to the food prohibitions being abolished... .

I am in agreement with many of your rants on information I presented that is in Galatians and not Acts. I tried twice to transition you to Galatians with my words and yours, but in the zeal of your determined and absolute opposition you missed it. You should read more carefully and completely before you spend so much time shooting back.

Re-read the previous summary of Galatians, and I welcome your instruction on where I got it wrong. The differences are as critical as the similarities in reconciling them.

DevilsAdvocate

You have the most fascinating positions. I would truly like to see the justification or a source for it.

DevilsAdvocate

Thank you. Well considered and stated...
So, considering appropriate contextualization, how is this in stark contrast to the Acts account?

spamandham

...from the same place I got the idea that it's fictional ....the text itself.

Regarding 'when' those chapters were written, I think we could bound the range even if we could not specify the exact moment. This is all we can generally do with ancient texts.

Amaleq13

So you imagine Peter and James were not thinking about the debate before offering their responses?

Rejecting your interpretation of the offered compromise as indication of prior conflict as unfounded certainly does not constitute glossing over or ignoring it. James offers a compromise so that must mean he was in prior conflict with the Pharisees as well!!

Since I have only pointed out a single error on your part, your "agreement" rings quite hollow though I do appreciate the frustration that is showing. You have yet to indicate that you truly do understand that, contrary to your claim, Acts does not depict Paul in conflict with James or Peter. Instead, you dodge and duck and play games. Boring.

aa5874

Well, your syncretization is based on fiction, and that's not a good idea.

Would a range of about 100 years be enough? Or what about sometime after Justin Martyr and before Tertullian?

patcleaver

Words don't have exact meanings. Dictionaries disagree. Some words mean different things in Pittsburgh and New York. Some words mean different things in 1950 then they did in 1970.

Lexographers collect examples of how a word is used and analyze the examples to determine a few abstract (approximate) definitions for the word. Its not magic - its just the lexographers best guess (opinion) about how a word is generally used. Words can have dozens of subtly different uses so a few definitions in a dictionary are at best, approximations.

A word/statement/communication means what the author thinks he means when he says it.

Lie and mistake are synonyms, but like almost all synonyms their most likely meanings are slightly different.

In response to some author's false statement, If I say they are mistaken, then that probably infers that I think its just an error and that they are not being irresponsible (e.g. "Atlanta is east of Pittsburgh" is just a mistake).

In response to some author's false statement, If I say it is a lie, then that probably infers that I think its original source is dishonest and that the author may or may not be morally responsible (e.g. "Hitler was an atheist" is a lie from some apologist web site).

Saying that something that someone says is a lie is not the same thing as saying that someone is a liar. However, it does raise the issue.

In fact, people often respond to statements, that they know are false, by saying that they are lies instead of calling the author a liar, just because they are not sure whether the author is being deceitful or not.

I don't think that someone is a liar unless they are in some way morally responsible for the falseness of what they are saying.

If someone is a liar and you call them a liar, then they are likely to be highly offended, but you should offend them anyway, unless its too dangerous to do so e.g. your wife or mother-in-law.

spamandham

Sure it is, when combined with the evidence external to Acts. The idea that Acts is a syncretic fiction helps the pieces to fit together. There is a motive to write Acts as a syncretic fiction, an ability to get away with it, and internal signs that that's what it is. It's as strong a case as we could hope for.

Your hypothesis that "it's just fiction" fails to explain the motives, fails to explain the strata we see in the epistles, fails to explain the rather clumsy switch from Saul to Paul halfway through Acts, and fails to explain anything at all.

Since Iraenius discusses Acts c. 180, that places an upper bound on it. In regards to a lower bound, that's more complicated, since Acts is a piecemeal work. We'd need to try to bound each of the pieces. I'm certainly not up to that challenge.

http://www.religion-online.org/showc...le=1116&C=1230

Amaleq13

Unless you have access to a thesaurus of which I am unaware, that is simply not true.

The very significant and clear difference between the two is that a "lie" is defined by a conscious intent to deceive while a "mistake" is certainly unintentional.

On the contrary, it is saying that the statement was known to be false when it was offered and, by definition, that makes the individual a liar.

Unless they are suggesting the author's source was the liar and the author was unknowingly passing on the falsehood, they are choosing the wrong word.

No need to drag in such a vague concept as "some way morally responsible". All you need is to determine that they knew it was false when they offered it.

aa5874

Well, it would appear to me that all the authors of the NT are morally responsible for all the fictitious material in the 27 books of the NT.

I am convinced without reasonable doubt that these authors knew in advance that all events surrounding Jesus, the history of Jesus, his disciples, Paul and the history of Paul were fictitious and attempted deliberately to fabricate a false chronology to mis-lead the readers of the NT into believing that a god called Jesus was living on earth during the reign of Tiberius.

None of the authors of the NT indicated that they might have been wrong about the birth of Jesus, the temptation, the miracles, including raising the dead, the transfiguration, the trial of Jesus, the crucifixion, the resurrection or the ascension.

The first five books all contain the fictitious histories of Jesus and Paul and were erroneously claimed to have been written probably upto 100 years earlier than the true date of authorship, (See "Church History"). All the authors of these first five books never identified themselves even though this information would have greatly improved their credibilty.

All the events surrounding Jesus, the disciples and Paul are completely lacking in any details whatsoever, and this total lack of details seriously undermine the credibilty of their stories.

For example, with regards to the birth of Jesus, the specific day, month or year of the appearance of the special star is completely missing. The specific year when Jesus was crucified year is completely missing from the entire NT. Every event about Jesus is arbitrary. The exact date of Paul's conversion or his entire life is also ambiguous.

The author of Genesis, writting hundreds of years before the NT, realized that specificity and dates was important, he claimed God began Creation on a Sunday, the first day of the week. This author even claimed the flood began in the 600th year, on the 17th day of the 2nd month of Noah's life and that the waters dried up on the first day of the 1st month of 601st year of Noah life.

All the authors of the NT appear to have been aware of Genesis, they should then have seen the importance of details and dates, they instead produce one of the most ambiguous and arbitrary document in history.

Jesus, the disciples and Paul are deliberate fiction.