DevilsAdvocate

As are you and I.

But our madel based on your method of analysis proves this. How can it be wrong?
Rather than I the victim, you have made my point. It is substantiated bythe failure of your modelled analysis. Perhaps we should change the model.

Also supported by our model.

[QUOTE=aa5874;5176383] But that statement is inconsistant with your previous assertions which were incorporated in our model. That any document that has distorted history is fictitious as are all characters within it. These are your criteria applied to the new testament. If they are valid there, they should be valid generally. I am just trying to give them rational structure so we can make a more generalized judgement and test our analysis of historicity.

Amaleq13

Where do you find this in Acts?

Toto

Yup

Have you read Galatians?

You seem to be confusing the story of Saul in Acts with the Paul of the epistles. Can you cite your sources at least?

For example, Paul's oratory in Athens is only in Acts. Please give your sources.

Only if you believe everything you are told.

Once again - I think you are thinking of Acts, where Paul quotes Greek poets. AThere are a lot of commentators who take the speeches of Paul in Acts and attribute them to the Paul of the epistles. There is no validity to this approach.

There is no evidence for these claims outside of the gospels and Acts, and no basis for them in Paul's epistles. You are assuming what you set out to prove.

Or literary borrowing?

They are equally compatible with the idea that Acts is a historical novel. This lends no support to the idea of "authenticity."

Sorry - this is just more evidence of literary invention.

This is evidence that the author of Acts had access to accurate historical details at most.

Start with Richard Pervo, Profit with Delight, or his more recent Dating Acts (or via: amazon.co.uk).

But I'd like to know what you are reading.

Ben C Smith

The suspicious greeting is probably from Acts 9.26, but the span of years is apparently a somewhat generous interpretation of the many days of Acts 9.23. As for staying largely independent of one another, that is probably Acts 9.30 followed by the close association with Barnabas and Antioch starting at Acts 11.25.

If Toto meant to say that Paul in Acts is a loyal footsoldier for Jerusalem (or for her pillars), I think that is surely overstating things; he acts as an agent of Antioch, not Jerusalem, though I certainly agree that any and all tensions between him and Jerusalem have been either toned down or erased.

Ben.

mountainman

Translation: Most scholars ignore the data. Why is this? One common reason provided by commentators is that the non-canonical Acts are a textual critics nightmare. They have been sitting in the too-hard basket. With the discovery of Nag Hammadi and an increasing stack of Syriac and Coptic fragments, they are being buried in the too-hard basket. Most scholars just shut their eyes and whistle dixie. The data is available. At the moment it does not appear to be making sense. Looking at it, and examining the data (especially all the stuff in the too hard basket) is a mandatory requirement of making sense of the data.

Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Ben C Smith

Another is that Tertullian states that the man who wrote the Acts of Paul was actually deposed from his position, apparently for adding stuff that did not belong to the history of Paul.

Ben.

mountainman

Such propositions do not require there to be any conspiracy, since at that time, as it is very well known and acknowledged, Constantine had absolute and supreme military supremacy. He was Pontifex Maximus, and had the millenial right to sponsor the cult of his own selection. This is not conspiracy.

Mao, Pol Pot, Mussolini, Hitler et al required no conspiracy to effect the fraud perpetuated admidst their inhuman misdeeds, so why should Constantine? The military supremacist Ardashir required no conspiracy to destroy the entire Parthian civilisation, he just used his army. What's so hard to understand about this simple thing?

The detractors of the 4th century invention hypothesis are the ones at the source of the conspiracy comments, due to their lack of appreciation of the abovementioned facts, and the similar pattern of evidence and facts. Such comments indicate a certain nievity in worldly affairs.

If you seek a model of argument to understand at the basis of such theories of fiction have a look at The Argument to Ahistoricity, cloned with attributions from Richard Carrier.

Alternatively, if you seek a basic model of hypothesis and consequential logic, contemplate whether or not the series of logical implications that derive from a Eusebian fiction postulate are able to be identified among the evidence, after the fact -- after the boundary event known as the (military supremacist) "Council" of Nicae, into which all attendees walked, between a wall of drawn swords.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Amaleq13

Thanks. I see you skipped over "to confront the Apostles for some of their teachings regarding Gentiles" which was what primarily caught my eye. Is that in Acts somewhere?

I thought the confrontation in Galatians was the sort of thing missing from Acts.

Gamera

A facinating passage. It tells us at the very least that the church fathers were aware of the issue of pseudographia and sensitive enough to it to investigate it when suspicions arose.

aa5874

What is fictional about Jesus son of Ananus as written by Josephus in Wars of the Jews? You probably didn't read the story.

Wars of the Jews 6.5.3 I cannot detect anything fictional in Josephus about Jesus son of Ananus, but I can detect fiction in the "TF" in "AJ" 18.3.3.

Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 This Jesus [the] Christ in the "TF" is a GHOST or some kind of ZOMBIE. He cannot die, this Jesus must be fiction.

I find no fiction in Jesus son of Ananus.