Toto

Review essay

John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg coauthor The First Paul (or via: amazon.co.uk)

A refreshingly direct review by Allen Dwight Callahan

jakejonesiv

Hi Toto,

GLuke is obviously the redaction of earlier gospel material that ultimately originated from an early version of Mark. That Luke and Acts were produced as a unit is apparent from the fact that several passages were omitted from the gospel and moved into Acts.

The ludicrous claim that Acts of the Apostles was written by Luke, a companion of Paul is first found in Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.14.1. Irenaeus likely had no traditional information about Luke. Irenaeus’ alleged biographical information about the author is in context of his equally absurd defense of the apostolic origin of his fourfold gospel.

The author of Acts obviously utilized the works of Josephus. For example, Acts 5:36-37 mentions the two Jewish resistance fighters Theudas and Judas noted by Josephus in Antiquities Book 20, chapter 5, section 1 (Theudas) and section 2 (Judas the Galilean).
http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-20.htm
The author of Acts dependence on Josephus is established by two points. Josephus is the only known source to name Theudas. Additionally, he is named as an insurrectionist. Secondly, the author of Acts makes a chronological mistake, “After him (Theudas) Judas the Galilean rose up.” But this mistake is based on the fact that Josephus mentions these two out of chronological order! The author of Acts is following the order of mention (Theudas the Judas) in Josephus Antiquities 10.5.1-2 without a careful reading of the context. This is typical of “Luke” who, when redacting the gospel, botched the census story from Josephus.

Richard I. Pervo (Dating Acts, 2006)has documented many other dependencies of Luke/Acts on Josephus to the extent that no reasonable doubt remains.

But we are hardly finished with pushing back the date of Luke/Acts. Joseph B. Tyson http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/2007/3650.html has demonstrated that Acts was written with an anti-Marcionite agenda. (Tyson’s date of 120-125 CE is still a bit early, but is movement in the right direction). see Joseph B. Tyson, Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle.

Marcion, quite rightly, maintained that there was no prophecy or connection between Jesus and the Hebrew scriptures. All of the so-called prophecies that Christians point to are invalid. In this, Marcion and the Jews were united in agreement against the proto-orthodox.

“Our heretic [Marcion] will now have the fullest opportunity of learning the clue of his errors along with the Jew himself, from whom he has borrowed his guidance in this discussion. Since, however, the blind leads the blind, they fall into the ditch together.”
Tertullian AM 5.7.1.

Modern scholars (other than apologists) would agree in this point with Marcion. Likewise, Marcion, in his “Antithesis” demonstrated that the cruelty of the God of the Hebrew scriptures (genocide, killing children, etc) was incompatible with the merciful God the Father of the New Testament. Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book IV, Chapter XXIII. (the bear of Elisha that killed the children, the killing of the first born in the Exodus story, etc). Again, Marcion was ahead of his time, anticipating the objections of modern skeptics.

The book of Acts was written as a response to Marcion’s challenge, particularly the role of the Apostle Paul in Marcion’s doctrine. The author of Acts repeatedly claimed that Paul (and the other apostles) preached that Jesus fulfilled the Hebrew prophets.

Marcion claimed that Paul was the only Apostle. Acts portrays Paul as “one of the boys” subservient to the others on occasion. Acts even defines apostleship in manner that excludes Paul. “Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, … Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the eleven Apostles.” Acts 1:21,26. In Acts, Paul may have been an apostle figuratively with a small “a”; the Twelve were Apostles with a capital “A.”

The portrayal of Paul in Acts is completely out of sync with the Pauline epistles, particularly Galatians. Marcion called Peter and the others false apostles. But in Acts, Peter even supplants Paul with the first conversion of a Gentile, Acts 10:1-11:8. The Paul of the epistles (and Marcion!) proclaimed the Grace of God and the end of the Torah (law). But Acts portrays Paul as a Torah observant Jew, and Paul went along with some elements of Torah were required even of Gentile converts, Acts 15:19-21.

Several modern scholars --Richard Pervo, William O. Walker Jr.-- are convinced that the author of Acts knew the Epistle to the Galatians, and was writing specifically to counter it. (To this we may add Heikki Leppä (Finland) http://tinyurl.com/Leppa .) Specifically, Acts 15 was written to subvert Galatians chapter 2. Radical critics, I amoung them, contend that Galatians chapter 1 was then written to counter Acts.


This pushes the date of Acts well into the second century. Indeed, we find no external reference to the Acts of the Apostles until the second half of the second century. It explains another issue that has concerned scholars. The Paul of Acts writes no letters. This seems inexplicable; a Paul with no letters is no Paul at all. This has lead scholars to the erroneous conclusion that the author of Acts did not know of any Pauline epistles. But know we know that the author of Acts did know the epistles. He did not mention them because he despised them and wrote to undercut their authority.

We have identified the Sitz im Leben of Acts. Marcion had appeared with the first canon consisting of ten Pauline epistles and an early version of the Gospel of Luke. He challenged the authority of the Roman church (which appealed to Peter and the Twelve Apostles) and dismissed the validity of the Hebrew scriptures to Christianity. The Acts of the Apostles countered Marcion by subverting the epistles, demoting Paul to a lower position as a “good catholic,” and by insisting that Jesus and the apostles fulfilled prophecies, paved the way for the inclusion of the Hebrew scriptures in the Christian Bible as the “Old Testament.”

I think it is time to consider the arguments put forward by the second century Marcionites. These can be reconstructed from Tertulliian, Against Marcion Book 4, chapter 4.

The catholic gospel is adulterated. AM 4.4.1.
The gospel called Luke is a conglomeration of Marcion's gospel interpolated by the catholics with material derived from the Hebrew scriptures (the law and the prophets) to "enable them out of it to fashion their Christ." AM 4.4.4.

That last point is worth repeating. The catholics fashioned their own carnalized Christ from the Hebrew scriptures.

Jake Jones IV

dog-on

Yup, that's about it, Jake.

gurugeorge

I agree mostly with Jake's idea. I'd just add the twist (and here I follow Robert M. Price and some others) that whoever "Paul" originally was, there are strong hints of the beginings of Gnosticism in the "letters" (whatever they may originally have been). Some scholars believe there's a degree of orthodox interpolation in even the genuine letters - in this, they would be agreeing with Marcion, as Jake points out!

i.e. I think the very original form of Christianity was a kind of proto-Gnosticism, and this proto-Gnosticism was numerically the dominant form of early Christianity (cf. Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy), with orthodoxy an offshoot that only later took centre stage. The real origins were masked and retconned by orthodoxy in Acts, which as jake argues, is late 2nd century.

Another way of saying this: if you take seriously the Gnostics' (and Marcion's) self-understanding as descendants of Paul, a lot of stuff clicks into place about the origins and early history of Christianity. I would encourage serious academic folks to look at the evidence in that light, just as a thought-experiment, and see what comes up.

First step might be to do a serious side-by-side comparison of the language-use in Paul and the language-use in later Gnostic texts. (Did Pagels actually do this?) April DeConick recently did something like the kind of thing I'm talking about here in her blog, with this entry on the beautiful "Prayer of the Apostle Paul" in the Nag Hammadi texts.

Some of the Dutch Radical school also posited that "Paul" = "Simon Magus". Again, this would make sense - the idea being that Acts retcons the real person (whowever he was, and whatever his real name was) who did the donkey-work in setting up Christianity as a viable cult in the earliest days, into a "bad" version and a "good" version. The "good" version kowtows to "Peter" (a fabrication, representing orthodoxy, based on the genuine "Cephas" in Paul's letters) and the "bad" version remains what he truly was, the "father of heretics" (who, ironically, were the originals).

bacht

We know that the developing Catholic church wanted to maintain a connection with the Jewish scriptures. Do we know whether the Christ idea itself came from gentile sources, or do we still look to fringe Jewish thinkers for this? Were there Jewish apocalypticists who found a new interpretation of the messiah that became the gentile Christ? Or are we looking at a Hellenistic divine man, with a Jewish pedigree added later?