Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 04-08-2008, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eheffa

....
I guess I will need to order more books from amazon.ca but of the two, Pervo vs Tyson, which would you recommend if you had to pick one?

For your purposes, find a copy of Tyson. I enjoyed Pervo's earlier book, Profit with Delight, which seems to be out of print and hard to find. I think that Dating Acts might be a little too detailed for what you want.

Quote:

I again struck by how little information / attestation / documentation we have around these issues. Surely, the early Church would have expressed more interest in these canonical works (& specifically Acts) and written about them prior to the mid 2nd century if they were in existence & available to the church leadership?

That is an argument for the late dating, or at least for the incoherency of the standard model of early Christian history.

Quote:

It seems that the anti-Marcion themes of Acts gives some traction to the idea of this book dating from 120+ CE, but this seems to be nothing more than just another bit of literary criticism based hypothesis with no other supportive data or evidence? When do other authors first refer to the book of Acts as an entity?

Doherty answers this

Quote:

3. Who has quoted the Acts of the Apostles for the first time ?...

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, in Book III of his Against Heresies (Chapter 12) quotes Acts copiously. This was written around 180. Acts is known in the apocryphal Acts of Paul, which was written sometime before 197. There are many "allusions" claimed to be found in earlier documents, but none of them are conclusive and are generally rejected—with a possible exception allowed for Justin Martyr—by scholars such as Ernst Haenchen, an authority on Acts. The closest Justin comes to 'echoing' Acts (in the middle of the second century) is in his First Apology 50.12: ". . .and when they had seen Him ascending into heaven, and had believed, and had received power sent thence by Him upon them, and went to every race of men, they taught these things, and were called apostles." However, Justin, unlike his attribution of many Gospel quotations to "memoirs of the Apostles" (he gives no names for these Gospels), does not identify this 'echo' as being found in any specific document.

If Acts were in existence as an accepted record of church beginnings for the better part of a century, as many claim, such a lack of clear attestation before Irenaeus would seem impossible. Note also that Eusebius quotes Papias as speaking of collections of sayings and anecdotes attributed to a Jesus, allegedly compiled by "Mark" and "Matthew," but there is no mention by Eusebius of Papias speaking of any document that could be identified with the Acts of the Apostles. Here again, especially in regard to a writer who was said to have stressed his connections with and knowledge of the apostolic age and its figures (some of whom were allegedly followers of Jesus), Papias' apparent ignorance (c.130) of such a document belies any claim that it could have been written and in circulation from 50 to 80 years earlier.

eheffa · 04-08-2008, 05:04 PM

Thank you Toto.

I appreciate your insights & the recommendation.

-evan

Solo · 04-09-2008, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Paul is a slippery character who both embraces and denigrates his putative Jewish background,

I would like to see where Paul's letters "denigrate" his Jewish background. The passage of Philippians where he speaks of his past as "excrement" clearly operates only as comparison to what he has gained in his new life in Christ. (3:8 For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse (skybalon) in order that I may gain Christ). The remark concerns Paul's life "in flesh" even as a righteous and accomplished Jew. This rhetorical device is deployed to stress contrast and only that (I believe). Paul himself consistently flashes his former credentials as mark of his apostilic superiority or (no lack of) apostolic equality (in Phil 3, in the 2 Cr 11:21-23 that Ben quotes, in Gal 1:13-14). It was obviously important to Paul to present himself as a Jew who was blameless by the Law. This is an important point because of what everyone wants to overlook. Paul's did not view the earthly Jesus as "blameless" in the Law. God made Jesus human; he made him sin.

So here I agree with Ben. I see no issue with Acts 23:6 as far as Paul's view of himself as a Jew is concerned.

Jiri

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04-08-2008, 05:04 PM	#12
eheffa Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Victoria, BC, Canada Posts: 84	Thank you Toto. I appreciate your insights & the recommendation. -evan

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