S.C.Carlson

Hmm... even the print out from IE is messed up: the right margin is chopped off, leaving lots of interesting bits out.

Vorkosigan

I had trouble viewing it in Firefox too.

JoeWallack

JW:
I'm pretty sure you know the difference between articles written Objectively and those written as an Advocate. So fine, you play the Good Coptic and I'll play the Bad Coptic.

To borrow a favorite word of the late, great Raymond Brown, for an article that starts out with:

"A thorough discussion of the evidence"

I find it "fantastic" that in the entire article Price does not appear to give ANY evidence that in his opinion weighs against the historicity of Acts. I applaud his effort to try and itemize support for his conclusion that Acts is primarily history like noting that Acts claims the Temple was in Jerusalem which is confirmed by multiple sources. And of course he has every right to try and compile all the evidence he can find and think of that favors his conclusion. But if that's all he has done than he shouldn't pretend that he was being objective.

In General Price has the following serious problems with concluding that Acts is primarily history which he Ignores/Minimizes:

1) Impossible claims.

This is a characteristic of Fiction. It also creates doubt as to the historicity of Possible claims. Comparing Acts to Paul's letters here it should be noted that Paul's letters generally don't have Impossible claims concerning Paul. History. Acts on the other hand does. Fiction.

2) No Provenance for the Author.

This is a characteristic of Fiction.

3) Credibility of the Author.

This author also apparently wrote "Luke". "Luke" is filled with the Impossible. "Luke" copied most of "Mark" without indicating such and appeared to edit "Mark" for theological reasons.

4) Language.

The author wrote in Greek and appeared to use Greek sources. The primary subjects in the related stories would have spoken Aramaic. Maybe no big deal when you still have sources in the original language, but when you don't?

5) Religious Genre.

"Luke"/Acts is in the genre of religious writing, maintained and Edited by a Biased Religious institution.

6) The difference in Style of Act's Paul and Paul's Paul.

Act's Paul is well-spoken and clearly communicates. Paul's Paul is often disorganized, contradictory and unclear. Read "Romans", probably Paul's most important theological work, in the Greek, before English sanitation, and it's often unclear what the hell Paul is trying to say.

Specifically Price has the following serious problems with concluding that Acts is primarily history which he Ignores/Minimizes:

1) Someone has come up with a list of 202 Errors in "Luke" based on a majority of the available evidence:

http://hometown.aol.com/abdulreis/myhomepage/index.html

2) Someone has come up with a list of 109 Errors in "Acts" based on a majority of the available evidence:

http://hometown.aol.com/abdulreis/myhomepage/index.html

We may have just gotten off the boat with Paul, but it wasn't 2,000 years ago.



Joseph

STORY, n.
A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached:

One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated
at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic.
"Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, The Biography of a Dead Cow,
is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its
authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the
Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?"
"I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did
not occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who
wrote it."

Mr. W.C. Morrow, who used to live in San Jose, California, was
addicted to writing ghost stories which made the reader feel as if a
stream of lizards, fresh from the ice, were streaking it up his back
and hiding in his hair. San Jose was at that time believed to be
haunted by the visible spirit of a noted bandit named Vasquez, who had
been hanged there. The town was not very well lighted, and it is
putting it mildly to say that San Jose was reluctant to be out o'
nights. One particularly dark night two gentlemen were abroad in the
loneliest spot within the city limits, talking loudly to keep up their
courage, when they came upon Mr. J.J. Owen, a well-known journalist.
"Why, Owen," said one, "what brings you here on such a night as
this? You told me that this is one of Vasquez' favorite haunts! And
you are a believer. Aren't you afraid to be out?"
"My dear fellow," the journalist replied with a drear autumnal
cadence in his speech, like the moan of a leaf-laden wind, "I am
afraid to be in. I have one of Will Morrow's stories in my pocket and
I don't dare to go where there is light enough to read it."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors...yguid=68161660

http://hometown.aol.com/abdulreis/myhomepage/index.html

Vorkosigan

They all have trials, so Paul's sequences of travel narrative -- sea journey -- entering the city -- having a trial -- getting released etc are all plot elements of Greek fiction. So is being taken for a god, getting warned in a dream, being placed in a historical context....the list is endless. In fact, the irony might be that there really is real history of Paul in Acts, but it is being used there because Acts is a historical fiction and that is a convention of fiction (same as Gore Vidal's Burr contains real history of Aaron Burr). Scholars who have studied this literature have noted how it interacts with and plays off of the conventions of historical writing too. Greek fiction invites you to treat it like history even though you know it is fiction, sort of the way Crichton's Eater's of the Dead purports to be the true story of a real embassy to the Norseman from Arabia (movie was The 13th Warrior).

At the level of construction, I have a huge list of stuff that I am developing for my Mark book. But the prominence of religious themes and myths, the use of religious themes and myths as structuring elements, the use of historical events as structuring elements (paralleling) and story elements, doublets, chiasms, citation of common sayings, religious sayings, and famous lines from literature, the ending as recognition scene, the way the ending ties back to the beginning, the use of foreshadowing, irony, and other literary techniques and devices....are all integral to these novels. This was a developed literary mode, very sophisticated in many ways, and fully aware of its own roots and conventions. If there was no Xtianity, we would simply see the Gospels as interesting Jewish variants on Hellenistic fiction, I suspect.

One interesting convention is tragic homosexual love affairs. And there's Paul, traveling with male companions everywhere...... <evil laugh>

All the greek novels are scandalous one way or another. They are rollicking good fun, although they are all similar to each other (and borrow names and events from each other). It's hard to say which one is best. I particularly like the Ethiopian Story (the opening is pure Conan) and Chaereas and Callirhoe. Lucian's True History is laugh out loud funny, with its insane events and droll tone. They're a bit old-fashioned and formulaic, though.

This website has some links to articles, online translations and synopses of the plots: Petronian Society. But I really recommend that you get hold of a hardcopy of Winkler's or BP Reardon's collections of all the ancient Greek novels. In the future I predict that knowledge of the techniques of greek fiction will be crucial in interpreting and understanding the gospels.

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

Chris has given me permission to host the Word file.

http://www.christianorigins.com/acts.doc

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Toto

I note that Chris Price aka Layman has reproduced most of his post from Confirmation and Correlation in Acts and the Pauline Epistles. I was not convinced then that the author of Luke had no knowledge of Paul's epistles (Layman argues against literary dependence, but that is not the argument.)

Layman does not seem to have addressed the arguments of Thomas Brodie in "Toward Tracing the Gospels' Literary Indebtedness to the Epistles," in Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity which I referenced in that thread, or explained why Luke had so many sources at his disposal, but none of Paul's letters.

Peter Kirby

Chris argues against the author's use of the Pauline letters in constructing Acts. Why is that not the important argument?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Ben C Smith

I suspect WinAce was asking which Greek novel it was that was originally thought to be a work of history, as mentioned in the fourth post of this thread:

Even if WinAce was not asking about this novel, I for one would be interested to know the story.

Toto

Chris has argued that the author of Acts did not have any knowledge of the Pauline epistles, and that therefore the many points of correspondence between them is evidence that the author of Acts had access to some historical sources, lost to us, other than the epistles, reporting those events, and that this confirms in some way the accuracy and historicity of Acts.

The author of Acts might have known of the Pauline epistles, but not have copied and pasted from them (as s/he did with Mark).

I have some references to papers by Thomas L. Brodie which argue for this sort of dependence by Luke on Paul's letters, in addition to the one paper that I referenced in the original thread.

S.C.Carlson

Thanks for mentioning this book. I've added it to my long and endless wishlist of books to buy, read, and digest.