chrisengland

Hello
I,m Chris
For while now I,ve been researching amongst other things the evidence for the resurection.
Now it appears that some of it is good, possibly if it were a natural event historians would accept it possibly they wouldn't.
Now I think its important to remember that things like an empty tomb can be explained naturally(if there wasn't guards on the tomb which I expect at least some non-Christians scholars have doughts), if you came to a grave and the body was missing you'd assume that someone took it you wouldn't think they'd rose from the dead'what matters is the appeariences afterwards.
One thing thought that seems like very good evidence to me(althought I could be wrong, I,ve thought some things seemed like good evidence before but they wern't) is the fact that Luke had at least met Paul.
Now what I thought was if he'd met Paul and written an account about him' then when he write his Gospel he must have thought that what he was writing agreed with Paul.
I,m not saying that he only write what Paul told him, alot of scholars think he copied Mark and the Q document but I would have thought that if those documents (which may not be based on eye witnesses and so may have some embellishments)said that Jesus appeared in the flesh but Paul who had spoken to James and Peter said that it was like his expearience a flash of light and a voice or something(which may be easier to explain naturally), then he wouldn't have wrote that it was a physical expearience so they must have said it was a physical appearience.
Which would meen that if you don't beleive in the ressurection you have to find a way to expalin that.
Hopefully someone can say what they think.

Boro Nut

See a lot or resurrections down your way do you? Happen naturally all the time do they?

Surely not.

Ooh they sound quite tasty. How do you cook them?

Not exactly. I'd think there was a hole and I'd better not fall in and fire of an angry letter to the council demanding to know why it wasn't barriered off. A grave is only a grave if it has a body in it. Anything else is a hole.

Book + writing = story. That's all. That's the evidence. It's not evidence. It's just a book with a magic story in it, which conflicts with the same magic stories in the other magic story books, as they all do with each other. Just what you'd expect from 4 different authors telling the same story of Cinderella.

Boro Nut

Toto

Hello Chris

Not really. The idea that there is evidence for a resurrection is a contrived product of Christian apologists.

Paul knew a physician named Luke, and later Christians tried to claim that this Luke was the author of the third gospel, plus the book of Acts. But it is highly unlikely that the author of Luke-Acts knew Paul.

That is a possibility.

This sounds confused. Most scholars who are not evangelical Christians think that the author of the gospel of Luke (who did not know Paul) used Mark and other sources; very few think that there was any eyewitness content to these sources. Paul does not describe his experience of Jesus in his letters; the flash of light that you describe is the author of Luke-Acts account, possibly derived from a literary source.

Paul's letters say that Jesus came "in the flesh" but we don't know what exactly be meant by that. The later gospel writers describe a human Jesus, and the author of Acts describes Paul, who never met this human Jesus, encountering the spirit of Jesus as a flash of light.

Are you following this line of reasoning? Have I understood your argument?

Minimalist

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that he did, what you have just described is called "hearsay evidence."

chrisengland

Hello
thankyou for the replys
what I,m writing now is a reply to toto but of course anyone is free to write a responce.
Anyway, are you saying that most scholars who are not Christians at all think that Luke didn't know Paul or are you saying that most Christians who are not conservative(Fundamentalists) are saying it aswell 'in other words liberal Christians don't think he knew him either.
I, ve been reading an article on wikipedia(type in Gospel of Luke Wikipedia to find it)
and it appears that most scholars think that Luke was a companion even is he wasn't the physician.
Now of course most New Testament scholars are Christians but liberal Christians appear to do more critical investigations into the Gospels and they have said that they think(unlike conservatives) that not all of Pauls letters are authentic and that the Gospels were not written by the diciples so if they think that Paul new Luke I would say that their not so biased that their say it even if the evidence doesn't point towards it.
One thing is that in Acts he does say "we" instead of "they" at some points inpliying he was there.
Some skeptics have said it was an expression used on see voyeages and that it doesn't necesarilly meen he knew Paul' William Lane Craig said this was actually never done(although of course he is very biased) and that when "we" is used its not always on sea voyages anyway.
I,ve read Acts and just had a quick look throught it i,ll have to look at it for longer though to see if it is used to describe of shore events, although of course the odd one could just be a mistake if he was describing sea voyages alot he could easily use we instead of they by mistake.
Also you said it is unlikely that Luke know Paul, why is this? One thing I could think of is that The events Paul described happened around the fortys, if Luke was written in the eightys to ninetys then that would make Luke I would say about sixty because its unlikely I would think he would have gone on a sea voyage younger tan about 20.
Sixty nothing in now days but back then the average age was 40 something. although of course it is possible he could have lived that long.
Again though a conservative scholar could say thats why Luke should be dated earlier.
thankyou chris

chrisengland

Hello
Toto when I mentioned William Lane Craig' what I ment to say was he said that using the expression "we" instead of "they" even if you were not there 'when describing sea voyeages wasn't actually done back then' and when I said he said' "we" is not used always on sea voyages anyway' what I ment was that he said that in Acts when Luke says "we" hes not always talking about a sea voyages.
Sorry didn't write that very clearly hope you get it now.
chris

-Jay-

Hi, Chris, and welcome.

What Toto is saying is that most scholars, both non-Christian and liberal Christian don't believe that the author of Luke/Acts knew Paul.

The most common model among said scholars is that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke reworked Mark a couple of decades later. (The term to search for is Synoptic Problem if you want to dig a little deeper.)

regards,

NinJay

chrisengland

Hello Ninjay
If most libearal and non-Christian scholars think that Luke didn't know Paul , I expect they have good reason to think that. I think that Fundamentalist Chrisitians and strong sceptics aswell are both quite hard to reason with so I tend to look at what liberal Christians and non-Christians who arn't over oppionionated say.
One thing though what about the parts where he says "we"
thankyou

Codec

Some have taken the "we" to be a literary device that was supposedly common at the time to reference a sea journey. There is an explanation and criticism of it here.

Another explanation is that it was recorded from eye witness verbatim sort of.

Here is another view. Who knows the real reason!

Amaleq13

I don't know that the first part is actually true (I suspect the actual case to be more agnostic) but the "good reason" to question the connection between the author and Paul is the apparent disparity between the depictions of Paul and Paul's teachings in Paul's own letters and Acts.

I don't consider the "literary device" explanation to be credible but it seems entirely consistent with the opening paragraph of Luke's Gospel to suggest that he obtained an actual first-person accounts of travelling with Paul and incorporated them along with his other sources. I don't know if one can go beyond merely "consistent", though, without examples of other authors doing the same thing. To my knowledge, there aren't any such examples available.