aa5874

Well, let us deal with the EVIDENCE from antiquity.

More from John Chrysostom from 1500 years ago, around the end of the 4th century.

Homily on Acts I really don't understand Pervo. The evidence from antiquity show that Acts of the Apostles and its author was hardly known.

Even Paul CONTRADICTED the author of Acts so I really don't understand how Acts committed "a perefect crime".

Bernard Muller

Let me say that on 'Acts'.
Yes I think Acts was written soon after gLuke, sometimes around 90. I think Acts is 70% crap but there is some valuable information in it, which can be used, together with the Pauline epistles (especially Galatians) to determine most of Paul's story, especially his 2nd and third journey. The whole result makes a lot of sense, everything fits, and BTW, is very unpleasant if you are a Christian.
There are external evidence about dating Acts in the first century, or at least before 120, but they are debatable, as almost all other external evidence for gospels (except maybe for gMatthew).
There are many reasons why Acts was not trumpeted from the end of 1st to most of 2nd century. Here are three of them:
a) Paul became unpopular in some circles, especially among anti-gnostic orthodox Christians, Ebionites, Jewish Christians, etc.
b) Acts has Christianity propagated outside Palestine by "Greek" (including Paul), non eyewitnesses of Jesus. That went against the prevailing propaganda in the second century that eyewitnesses of Jesus were the ones to preach Christianity all over the known world, right after the crucifixion/resurrection. Ref: the added ending of gMark, ending of gMatthew, Aristides' Apology and Justin Martyr's works.
c) Acts has its share of mythical stuff, unhistorical items, errors, etc.

willingtolearn

So...yes:constern01:

willingtolearn

Quoted from another conversation of acts that I am taking part in.

"With regard to quotations or references in other works, Acts is somewhat unique in terms of New Testament books because it is concerned primarily with history (albeit theological history) and less directly with doctrine. Since most of the works written before 200 which reference other NT books are theological in nature, the subject matter of Acts makes it less likely to be referenced than other works. Also, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, dating from mid 2nd century (150-160 according to the early christian writings site you linked,) does contain allusions to the account of Stephen's stoning in Acts 7. This is exactly the sort of work where you'd expect references or allusions to the book of Acts, and sure enough they are there. (Compare ch. 14 of Martyrdom of Polycarp with Acts 7:54-60, quite a few parallels.) "

aa5874

There is ZERO corroborative evidence for Acts of the Apostles from any credible source of antiquity to date it before the mid 2nd century.

And further, it makes NO sense for 2nd century Church writers to have ridiculed and contradicted Acts of the Apostles if they wanted to appear credible.

Once there were actual Pauline letters that were KNOWN throughout the Christian community of the Roman Empire then it makes NO sense whatsoever for authors who may have even been contemporaries of Paul and the author of Acts to discredit and contradict them.

The chronology of the writings of the NT Canon is RATHER easy to follow--Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings are all AFTER the Jesus story was KNOWN and publicly circulated in writing and AFTER the mid 2nd century.

Toto

Canonical Acts and the gospel of Luke are clearly the product of the same final editor. But both probably incorporate earlier material.

Pervo does not think that Acts was written by a companion of Paul named Luke.

Duvduv

And therefore you must dismiss the fact that nowhere in Acts does the Paul figure invoke anything, a single story, location or aphorism of the Jesus of the gospel of Luke. And this is dismissed by the idea of "well, it's all been discussed in Luke anyway, so why would or should Paul bring any of them up again anywhere in Acts?"

Toto

But Paul as a character in the story never met Jesus in the flesh, never saw him, never heard his parables. Why would the author of Luke have him speak about such things?

It is clear that early Christian preaching did not spend a lot of time recounting anything about the historical Jesus. This is part of the argument for a mythical Jesus.

Iskander

Perhaps you are right, but...


SIFREI HA-MINIM

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...8_0_18487.html

Duvduv

The censored text in the commentary does not sound like Rashi and is evidently a marginal gloss that was incorporated into the commentary not into the text of the Talmud. The entire discussion of gilyon has nothing to do with anything Christian. There is no evidence of this whatsoever. It's more anecdotal Judaism.

Furthermore, there were no Christian texts as evangelion around the Jews at the time of Rabbi Meir to be burned.
A text written by non-Jews is not something of "minim" -- only Jews who stray from the religion are called minim.
And the Talmud provides absolutely no evidence that there were any Jewish Christians at all in those days.