gnosis92

Some posters here have repeatedly affirmed the entire NT as pure fiction with no basis in history.

As far as fiction is concerned, I find it rather suspicious that the author of Acts would invent a new fictious character "Saul-Paul" as the primary preacher of the early fictious Jesus movement, superseding other fictious characters, like James or Peter.

Wouldn't it be narratively simpler to simply take one or two of Jesus alleged disciples, like Peter or James or John, and make those 3 the primary figure of Acts?

My own position is that the reason "Luke" elevates Paul above the Twelve is that actual history puts constraints on his narrative -- Luke's intended audience would not have accepted a document which has Peter or James travelling the world doing the deeds attributed to Paul.

andrewcriddle

IMVHO the best explanation for the resemblences between Acts and the Antiquities, is that Luke had heard Josephus reading early versions of the Antiquities but wrote Acts before the written version was available.

(This suggestion goes back to Streeter's The Four Gospels. )

Andrew Criddle

gnosis92

Well exactly. :wave:

So the Jesus-myth hypothesis, and whether Paul regarded Jesus as a man or a purely spiritual figure, depends, on part, whether Acts is accurate on Paul (perhaps as a result of Luke's own personal knowledge of Paul) or pure fiction.

Incidentally, for the Christ-mythicist, if Luke got his source about Paul solely from reading his epistles, and if, as Doherty alleges that Christ-mythical thinking was widespread throughout the ancient world, why didn't Luke understand Paul as a Christ mythicist?

Toto

I think that the idea that Acts was written (or at least edited in final form) by a companion of Paul is a distinct minority among liberal scholars, including most historicists. (I have not done a survey, but the well-remarked differences between Acts and the epistles seem to indicate two radically different points of view, and two authors.) I think that Peter went out on limb in trying to claim that a young companion of Paul wrote Acts as an old man.

Doherty alleges that the earliest Christians, in the mid first century, were mythicist. By the time Acts was written, sometime in the second century (whether in 110 CE or 150 CE), this thinking had morphed into a belief in a literal, if supernatural, human. The author of Luke-Acts probably had as a goal reshaping the earlier mystical writings into a historicist tale, so that the second century church could trace a clear line of authority from Jesus through his disciples, and demonstrate that Paul was a part of this unified chain of authority.

If Acts were written by a companion of Paul (call him Luke), and if the epistles do represent Paul's original thinking, Luke was not concerned about representing Paul's thinking accurately, so I don't think any strong conclusion can be drawn about whether Paul believed in a HJ or not.

gnosis92

In Doherty's account, did Luke or Matthew or Mark or John knew of or met any Christ-mythicist?

I agree with Doherty that Paul does not say much about an HJ. I agree with Doherty that if the only documents about HJ that survived consisted of the undisputed Pauline epistles and books like Revelation and epistle of the Hebrews, that it would appear the earliest Christians saw J as a MJ rather than a HJ.

There are passages in Paul that Doherty acknowledges as human-sounding, from "born of a woman, born under the Law, in the days of his flesh, on the night he was betrayed" "Christ was crucified".

One obvious question that comes to mind, in evaluating Doherty's thesis, is how would Paul's immediate and intended audience have understood these admittedly vague statements. Did they have an HJ in mind or an MJ.

If Luke were a companion of Paul, then he may well be part of the intended audience of Paul, when Paul wrote these epistles. So how would Luke have read these statements, and understood the Pauline epistles within the larger context of his own interactions with Paul.

If Luke were a companion of Paul and if he had read the undisputed Pauline epistles, and Acts represents how he understood his previous personal interactions with Paul and Paul's preachings, how would he have read Paul's epistles, and esp the human sounding passages, as speaking of a purely spiritual figure crucified in heavenly realms, or as a flesh and blood person?

So if Acts were written by a companion of Paul (call him Luke), and if the epistles do represent Paul's original thinking, Luke would have understood these human sounding passages to refer to an HJ rather than a MJ "sublunar fleshy realm" so we would be able to draw the conclusion that Paul believed in an HJ rather than an MJ.

If Luke did know Paul personally, wouldn't Luke then be part of the "earliest Christians" who, it is alleged were all originally Christ mythicists?

I agree with Doherty that if you read the undisputed Pauline epistles along with Revelations and maybe Hebrews, that MJ would probably follow. However, even Doherty acknowledges that it's possible to read the Pauline epistles with Gospel Jesus in mind (and goes to great length to ask readers to suspend this). So for me, what did Paul's intended and immediate audience do - read his letters with Gospel Jesus in mind, or in a purely non-historical spiritual way? If Luke was a companion of Paul, it's obvious which of two alternatives is most likely.

Toto

There are many reasons to think that Luke was not a companion of Paul without regard to one's position on the HJ question.

I forget what he has written about that. It is not central to his theory. I think that he believes that Mark was written as an allegory and the other gospel writers treated Mark as history by mistake, but I might be confusing him with some other mythicist.

Peter Kirby

Which means...? (And why is your poll limited to "liberal" scholars? The contingent of non-historicist scholars is quite negligible when compared to the contingent of scholars whom you might deign non-"liberal". That you would take the non-historicist splinter as a contender and ignore the non-"liberal" flank as a non-entity speaks volumes for your own bias.)

I thought 'minority' position does not mean 'wrong' and does not mean 'wrong-headed' either.

I did not 'go out on a limb'. I explained the evidence as I saw it as best I can. You do not present any reasoning about my limb-walking, unless you intended us to glean some from the idea of the author being 'an old man' at the time of writing. If the author were 25 at the time the events of Acts conclude, around the year 65, the author would have been 40 if writing in the year 80, or 50 if writing in the year 90. And if 35 even in 65, likewise 50 in the year 80 and 60 in the year 90. There is nothing in the consideration of age here even to suggest improbability.

You write, "There are many reasons to think that Luke was not a companion of Paul." Many reasons? Does this mean there are... three or four? What are they?

Toto

By liberal scholars, I really meant non-evangelical. I meant to refer to what seems to be a scholarly consensus among those who do not have a religious requirement to believe otherwise.

Of course, the minority position is not necessarily wrong. I merely brought that up for those who take that into account.

I spent enough time on this issue several years ago. I know you changed your position on this issue after your review of Robbins' article, but I thought you were wrong then. I thought that you were influenced by the use or misuse of Robbins article, and once you had decided Robbins was wrong, you reacted by using the "we" passages as evidence for Acts' author knowing Paul. But I don't see them as evidence of any value, even if they cannot be explained away as a literary convention.

Acts is dated by Pervo to around 110 CE, when he would have been 70 - 90. That gets to be improbable. But it's not dispositive.

I'm sure you know them. To start out with, a companion of Paul would probably have identified himself prominently in the narrative, rather than hiding behind a third person pronoun in a few passages. In particular, the prologue to Luke reads:

This implies that several generations have passed, that there were eyewitnesses who handed the story to others, who passed it along. The author of this does not identify himself as an eyewitness, merely as a researcher. I have seen no explanation of why an eyewitness would not prominently identify himself to add authority to his writing.

Then you have the differences in the relationships of Peter and Paul: in the epistles, Peter is bullied to avoid table fellowship with gentiles, while in Acts he receives a revelation from God that all foods are clean and the Gentiles are to be welcomed. In the epistles, Paul claims that his mission is to the gentiles, while Peter's is to the circumcized, but Acts has him converting the Roman Centurion, a God fearer.

One could go on. There are theological differences, which you try to explain away as a student going beyond his masters' teaching.

In fact, I can't think of a good reason to assume that Acts was written by a companion of Paul, since I do not think that the "we" passages are good evidence, and I do not give much weight to Christian tradition on the subject.

Doug Shaver

Seems so to me.
I sort of agree. Luke had to include a prominent role for Paul because it was, in some sense, common knowledge within the Christian community that Paul did have a prominent role in the propagation of Christianity during the time in which Acts was set.

Ben C Smith

How many generations do you think are implied in this verse? Is it like this?

1. The first generation (of the eyewitnesses).
2. At least one other intervening generation (of the servants of the word?).
3. The generation of the author (us).

Or like this?

1. The first generation (of the eyewitnesses and servants of the word).
2. The generation of the author (us).

And if the author does identify himself as an eyewitness, do you take him at his word? Is the gospel of Peter by Peter? The gospel of James by James?

Which is more credible to you? An understated claim to be writing as a one-time attendant of an apostle or an overstated claim to actually be writing as an apostle?

Ben.