Ted Hoffman

You earlier stated:
Now you state:
[edited by me]

Can you tell us whats going on here Amaleq? You seem to be contradicting YOURSELF.

If I write about Amaleq between the months of Jan 2000 and Nov 2003 when we travelled together from New York to Cairo, the crowds Amaleq addressed and the miracles he carried out, that information is biographical.
Right or wrong?
Now, a biography is "An account of a person's life written, composed, or produced by another". Biographers, besides other things, look at newspapers to get biographical infrmation about (public) people. In that sense, newspapers, while not biograhies, can be said to contain biographical information.'
Do you agree with this assesment?
Assuming that AActs is accurate, can we say it contains some biographical information about Paul?

It is not. The word 'biography' is not necessary to my argument since it seems to be your main focus. As has been made clear in this thread, neither me nor Rick used it in the conventional sense.

My starting point is that AActs 'wrote extensively about Paul' plus AActs 'claims to have been Paul's companion and to have travelled with Paul'
Mentioning what somebody did is reporting fact - if you think that serves no purpose, we agree to disagree.
You claim that talking about the south wind is verisimilitude'

V e r i s i m i l i t u d e!

How about reporting accurately for a change?
Reductio: Ignoring the letters ignores the reality the communities faced, thus shunted what was known from what AActs portrayed.
More importantly, he could mention the letters, downplay any conflicts, water down any rifts, smooth out creases and proceed to paint a unified picture. How about that?
Shall we conclude then that AActs is insane then (I mean, why argue against reality?) Or is Acts a polemical work? propaganda?

If he was sober, as I assume he was, he was overzealous and managed to fabricate a story about a unified community, he even made himself Paul's companion and even 'apotheosized' Paul, but he forgot one point:
Paul wrote letters.

Big mistake <boom>
Wrong. Several alternatives existed. I have added one above.
But that isn't your argument. Is it? If he travelled with Paul, he MUST have known Paul wrote letters.
Interesting shift. Are you arguing that AActs intended readers were non-Christian?

No wonder its referring to Christian apostles!

What about ignorant christians? posterity? christians who lacked the knowledge of the early Acts of the apostles?
I think its specious to attempt to argue that the intended readership were primarily non-Christians.
Remember words like 'smoothing', 'watering down' and 'downplaying'. Very effective in dealing with conflict situations and bringing two divergent views together.

"Ducking" seems to be the only option in your menu. I think you are more imaginative than that.

"can be considered a biography of sorts" does not mean "is a biography".

Amaleq13

You said this before and I explained then why you were incorrect. The presence of some biographical details about a particular figure in a story does not make that story a biography. This is simply common sense yet your initial assumption asserts precisely the opposite.

Both statements you quoted were in my initial criticism of your assumptions though in reverse order. In fact, they are the first two sentences. That you have taken my very first statement and presented it as though it were new and as though it were a change in my position is bizarre if not deliberately disingenuous. You might want to review our exchanges because it has become painfully clear in this most recent post that you have not been reading them very carefully. This apparently includes your own OP.

You are correct that the information is biographical but the point is, ultimately, irrelevant. To make this relevant, you need to also note that this reference to our travels is but a portion of a larger story you have written that attempts to portray the community with which we shared a particular theology as unified in its specific beliefs.

Now, would it be accurate to characterize this story you have written about our community as a "biography of Amaleq" simply because you included some stories of our travels? Obviously not.

I already said this in my very first post criticizing your assumptions. Whether or not Acts is accurate, the author is clearly relating some details from the life of Paul. That those details exist within and agree with the larger framework of a depiction of a unified early community is nowhere near sufficient to consider it "a biography of sorts".

Then you probably shouldn't have used it in your opening assumption

To quote you yet again:
"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."

If you did not intend to claim that Acts could be characterized as a "biography" (even with the ambiguous qualifier), you should not have written this sentence as your initial assumption.

Your cart is in front of your horse. The story is written to serve a purpose. The specific facts included in the story follow from the purpose.

Specify the inaccuracy or withdraw the accusation. I've quoted your initial post verbatim and it clearly contains the claim you deny is "not necessary" to your argument. If your error is simply poor wording, then, by all means, fix the damn thing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "shunted" here but I certainly agree that Paul's letters and Acts offer significantly different depictions of the early community. They also offer significantly different depictions of Paul.

"What was known" would only be known to those who had read Paul's letters.

I think that his task is made much easier by simply ignoring the letters. Assuming the author knew of them, apparently he agreed.

I don't see any reason to assume he was arguing against a well known reality. In fact, he clearly states in the beginning of the first part of Luke-Acts that there are many other versions going around but that he intends to present the most accurate one.

The author explicitly states his intent to be establishing the "certainty" of Christian beliefs.

As I have also stated previously, if we assume the author knew about the letters, he has clearly deliberately ignored them. I have suggested that this is most likely because they contain information contrary to his purpose and that this is entirely independent of whether the author was a former companion of Paul.

Not necessarily though I don't think the "we" passages are sufficient for the conclusion that the author actually travelled with him. Do you imagine Paul was writing letters while on the ship? Otherwise, why assume his shipmate would know about them?

Given how differently Paul is depicted in Acts from Paul's own letters, I don't see how the possibility that the author was ignorant of them can be rejected. That is why I included the possibility in my response.

It isn't a "shift" at all. Why would Christians need to be told the "certainty" of already firmly held beliefs? I suppose his audience could include new believers as well as the unconverted but the author explicitly states his intent is to inform "Theophilus" of the "certainty" of Christian beliefs.

At least one of the commentators I've already quoted from Kirby's website disagrees. Wallace finds it difficult to determine whether or not the author is addressing already converted Christians. Under the assumption that the work is intended for Paul's defense during his Roman trial, non-believers would obviously be the primary audience.

Whether or not his audience consisted of converted Christians is ultimately beside the point. The author clearly has good reason to ignore the letters whether or not he was a former companion of Paul.

And I know you are capable of formulating a much better argument against identifying the author as Paul's companion than you have done. Given the rapid pace with which you are backing away from your initial assumption characterizing Acts as a biography of Paul, I think you must agree.

Ted Hoffman

Amaleq,
How about we forget about this debate, declare me the winner and have some beer?
What do you say?

Amaleq13

If by "winner", you mean you're buying, then I am all for it.