Ted Hoffman

Continued from this thread: This thread will focus on Paul's letter writing and exclusion of its mention in Acts.

Assumptions

Even if it can be argued that AActs main theological reason for writing Acts was to glorify God and not Paul, he nevertheless included the details of Paul's Life and can be considered a biography of sorts.

a) We therefore assume that AActs would have included everything he knew about Paul in Acts and would not have excluded Paul's contribution to the earcly church.

b) Acts of the Apostles was written many years after Paul's death.

Premises

1. Biographies of people often include even minute habits of subjects like being an early riser and eating habits.

2. Literacy level was low in early Palestine and literacy was valued. Thus one compiling a biography of sorts for Paul would have considered Paul's letter-writing even more noteworthy both in terms of skill and usage and for the reasons in (1) above.

3. People who knew Paul (publicly) knew that he wrote letters because he used letters to communicate to many communities.

4. People who knew Paul and read his letters, or heard his letters being read, knew that his letters were more powerful than his speech.

Inference

Anyone who travelled with Paul, and later chose to write about Paul's life, based on assumption (b) and premises 1+2+3+4, could not have failed to mention Paul's letters or letter writing.

Conclusion

The athor of acts writes about Paul's journeys and activities but fails to mention Paul's letters or Paul's letter-writing.
Therefore the Author of Acts was not a companion of Paul as others have argued.


Rick's Objection

Rick wants an example of someone in Paul's time who was recognized for letter writing.

There are two problems with this objection.

1. For someone writing Paul's acts to indicate that Paul wrote letters does not equal recognizing Paul for his letter-writing abilities. Mentioning something about someone doesn't mean its worthy of praise. My biographer for example can mention that I was a chain smoker. This does not mean I deserved a medal for this. He would write it solely because its something I did and he is writing about me.

Thus, Rick's demand above is illegitimate.

2. Rick's demand for an example of someone who was recognized for being a letter writer, similar to JBap being recognized for baptizing people, is based on the following argument:

a) For one to be recognized for letter-writing, recognition of letter-writers must be part of the surrounding culture.

b) Paul wrote a lot of letters to christian communities and even to people.

c) But we have no reason to believe that letter-writing was recognized in early Palestine.

d) Therefore we should not expect Paul to be recognized for letter-writing.

e) Thus someone can write about Paul and fail to mention that he wrote letters to early xstian communities.

This whole argument means that all unprecedented things are either unlikely or impossible, which is false.

It also equates mention by an individual (biographer) to mention by a society. This is also false. The biographer is, by definition, interested in the individual's activities and life.

Individual actions are not predicated in presence of a precedent of those actions. Therefore, absence of a precedent does not in any way reduce the possibility of an action happening - unless Rick wants to argue that AActs' actions all had precedents.

A Reductio ad absurdum for Rick's argument:

a. There are no examples of People who were recognized for baptizing people.

b. Before JBap, no one was recognized for baptizing people.

c. Therefore, one who was close to and travelled with JBap could write a bio of JBap and not recognize him for Baptizing people.

*Replace JBap with Paul above and "Baptizing people" with "letter-writing to christian communities" and you have Rick's argument.

Paul's letter-writing to christian communities is unprecedented just like JBap's baptizing activities.

Ted Hoffman

Below, I illustrate that Rick commits a non sequitur as he engages in Denying the Antedecent

This is the format of his modus tollens:

If P, then Q.
P is false.
Therefore, Q is false.

replace P with "there are examples of people recognized for letter writing"
replace Q with "Paul's letter-writing should be mentioned in Acts"

Premise 1: If there are examples of people recognized for letter writing, then Paul's letter-writing should mentioned in Acts.

Premise 2: there are no examples of people recognized for letter writing.

Conclusion : Therefore, Paul's letter-writing should not be mentioned in Acts.

Notes

1. Rick's argument is invalid unless the first premise uses if and only if. Since it does not, it is not only false, but invalid as well.

2. The first premise is wrong. The conclusion is therefore wrong.

3. If Rick makes the argument valid by using "if and only if", he would then have to prove that mention of Paul's letters or letter writing is solely dependent on the existence of the practice of mentioning that letter-writing was mentioned in Paul's cultural milieu.

4. In the absence of (3) above, Rick's demand for examples of people mentioned for letter-writing is an illegitimate condition/demand - at best a red herring.

5. Remember the reduction ad absurdum with JBap above.

6. The error of attempting to establish what a writer will/should write about his subject based on societal practices. Explained in my OP.
QED

Rick Sumner

1) I never said that Luke was Paul's companion.

2) Acts isn't a biography in any contemporary sense of the term.

3) You've misrepresented my argument, I'm not making a claim, you are. Your claim: "Letter writing was itself a distinction worthy of mention."

Reality: Distinctions worthy of mention get mentioned. That's what the phrase means.

4) People wrote letters before Paul, there were no Jewish Baptists before John. John's career was defined by baptism--he was known primarily as a baptist. You've conceded on the other thread that Paul probably wasn't known "primarily" as a letter writer. This is a horrid analogy.

5) I never said it was impossible, I said we have no reason to expect it--remember how the position started, with a reiteration of Doherty's argument for the dating of Acts. For that argument to hold, you need to establish that we should *expect* it. Establishing that it's possible is irrelevant.

"It's not impossible," this is a far cry from adequate support for a premise integral to your argument.

You've misrepresented my position with yet another desparate attempt to shift the burden of proof. You made the claim, you back it up.

If you are aware of a reason to endorse your initial claim, which had nothing to do with what was "not impossible," let me know. Your claims, once again, were 1) We should expect Paul to be mentioned for it, 2) That letter writing was itself a distinction worthy of mention.

My response to your initial claim runs as follows, since you've flagrantly misrepresented that as well:

1) By definition, something is inherently a distinction worthy of mention if and only if it gets mentioned.

2) The ability to write letters does not get mentioned.

3) Therefore it is not inherent that letter writing is a distinction worthy of mention.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Ted Hoffman

Nobody said you did.

You are the one who introduced the word 'biography' in the discussion. If you want, we can withdraw it:
July 17, 2004, 09:57 PM #1715754 / #85
I am using the understanding of the word 'biography' as you meant it - not as used conventionally. You didn't mean it as its used conventionally, did you?

Its your choice whether to withdraw it or let it stay. I am okay either way.

Wrong. We are talking about someone who claimed to have known Paul's activities. Letter writing was one of his activities: it led to his legacy.

Who wrote letters to christian communities before Paul? Nobody.
Who baptized people before John? Nobody.

Analogy is valid on that basis.


You are saying we have no reason to expect it because there are no examples. This is a non-sequitur as shown above. It is enough for me to show your reasoning is flawed.

We should expect it because the author was writing about Paul.


Yours above is a circular argument. Allow me to assist.

If P, then Q.
P is false.
Therefore, Q is false.

Premise 1: If something is inherently a distinction worthy of mention, then it gets mentioned.

Premise 2: The ability to write letters does not get mentioned.

Conclusion : Therefore, letter-writing ability is not inherently a distinction worthy of mention.

Non sequitur. Whether you affirm the consequent or deny the antedecent. Its false reasoning.

QED.

Rick Sumner

No it isn't. The "circular argument" is for purposes of definition, in which case there's no such thing as a circular argument.

For example: A chair is something I sit in, something I sit in is a chair. This is perfectly valid.

You have stated that letter writing was inherently a distinction worthy of mention. I would like evidence to that effect.

And the analogy to the baptist is incredibly weak. Writing letters to communities is nowhere near as anomalous as baptism. If you'd like proof of that, it's really quite simple. Baptism was so anomalous that John became known as J the B. Paul is not known as Paul the Letter Writer. Rather it is "Paul the apostle."

I've repeatedly asked you for evidence. Either you have it, or you don't. If letter writing is a distinction worthy of mention, then by definition it should consistently get mentioned. That is what the phrase means. Either you can support that, or you can't. This is just getting silly.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto

I hesitate to jump into this happy exchange, but in the interests of getting things back to Biblical Criticism -

What is the significance of the fact that Acts does not mention Paul's letters? Choose one or more:

1) Acts was not written by a companion of Paul because everyone knows that Paul wrote letters to churches; the churches shared those letters when he was alive and published them soon after his death.

2) Acts was written before Paul's letters were published; it was only after Paul's death that his letters were collected and circulated, and well after his death people thought of him as a letter writer more than a missionary.

3) Paul was obscure and half forgotten until the author of Acts made him a pop hero; after this, Paul's letters were collected and published.

4) Acts was written by one faction in the church disputes of the early 2nd century, and Paul's epistles were forged by another faction; this explains why the two documents seem to engage with each other but contradict each other on points of theology and politics.

For more enlightenment, read Robert Price's Evolution of the Pauline Canon:
And yes, the first biography of Seneca that comes up on Google mentions that he was a letter writer.

Rick Sumner

I'll leave the question of significance to Jacob Aliet.
This is irrelevant. The question is how Paul was known to his contemporaries. I'll go out on a limb and say that no one writing a biography of Seneca on a web page was contemporary with Seneca.

Besides which, nothing on that page, as near as I can see, says Seneca was a letter writer. Rather it says he was an essayist and a playwright. It's a long step from a writer being known two thousand years + later as a writer, to a founder of churches being known primarily as a letter writer to his contemporaries.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto

Try this:

Rick Sumner

Ah, there it is. I'm lazy and had just done a CTRL+F on the page.

Either way, it's still not even remotely analogous, for the reasons already outlined.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Casper

May I suggest another? I have read some of Price online, so my limited exposure to the debate is tainted, but I present #5:

"Luke" wrote an Ur-Lukas about the same time Marcion started collecting all the writings he could find of Paul for compilation. Marcion's final work was a synthesis of both, possibly (probably?) edited to align with his antithesis. "Luke" takes an affront for some reason, and rewrites it as gLuke-Acts, borrowing from Marcion's Paul, but purposely avoiding any mention of epistles so as to disguise his source. Kind of like "No, mine is the oldest and most correct!" feud.