Ted Hoffman

I am reading Gunther Bornkamm's Paul (I will post a review of it when am done) and, whereas he attempts to be critical, it is disheartening to see him employing selective judgement and arbitrary logic in deciding when to rely on Acts as a source for the life of Paul.
Does anyone know of any criteria that has been used to determine which parts of Acts can be relied on and which ones cannot be relied on?
Bornkamm appears to use the following reasons in a rather arbitrary fashion to argue that sections of acts are unreliable:

• Where Acts conflicts with Pauline Epistles and sources like Philo and Josephus
• Where Acts contradicts itself (in these cases of internal conflict, Bornkamm does not appear to resolve such conflicts in an objective and systematic fashion)
• Where the Author of Acts is "ignorant" of certain issues that we find elsewhere.
• Where the author of Acts is allowing his idealized view of the Church to guide his narration and fill knowledge gaps.
• Where the author of Acts is serving a theological, polemical or apologetic agenda.
• Where the author of Acts is avoiding an embarrasing fact.

The list is not exhaustive but the arbitrariness that is at play is distrurbing.
Any work you know of that attempts to provide a criteria for picking the corn from the crap in Acts? Or do we just give up on Acts?

Carrier attempted to defend Acts as having miracles that can be explained naturalistically and so Acts should be treated as historical, but that argument is easily dispensed with upon closer examination.

Chris Price wrote a lengthy article in Kirby's site. Layman, can you summarize for us how we can systematically determine which parts of Acts are historical without playing fast and loose with the text? Or is Acts 100% historically reliable IYO?

Toto

Paul searchable on Amazon.

I know of no criteria for extracting historical data from Acts. I think Layman argued that since parts of Acts could be corroborated by Paul's letters and Josephus' history, that it should be assumed to be a historical document. But I don't think there is any corroboration, since I think the author of Acts used Paul's letters and Jospehus as sources, so any part not contained in Josephus or Paul's letters could be the creative product of Luke's mind (e.g., the story about the road to Damascus, Paul's trip to Rome).

Clivedurdle

I noticed somewhere that Josephus was actually part of some versions of the NT canon. Would a Josephus Marcion Acts trajectory make sense in the evolution of the NT canon?

Toto

Josephus was never part of the canon, but some printed copies of the Bible included his text. The Crusaders read his text as a travelogue and guide to the country that they invaded.

Christians valued Josephus because he showed a picture of God raining destruction on the Jews, which they interpreted as judgment for killing Christ.

Acts was probably written as anti-Marcion propaganda. I don't know if that is what you mean by "trajectory."

Ted Hoffman

If AActs used Paul's letters and expanded upon them, you think the expansions were 100% a product of AAct's imagination? No chances of him having blended Paul's letters with stories floating around?

Toto

Stories about Paul? possibly. But how would you separate out the stories about Paul from the other good stories incorporated for their moral or entertainment value?

I strongly suspect but have no way of proving that the character of Paul in Acts is a composite of at least two people, one of whom was named Saul (or Silas, or Silvanus). But I suspect that most of Paul's adventures didn't happen to him or anyone else.

TedM

I assume you are talking about Paul's adventures in Acts. "Most" covers a lot of different experiences. Are you saying that if he is said to have gone to 50 places, you think he went to less than 25? Can you clarify what it is you are saying, which ones it applies to and why you think they didn't happen to him or anyone else?

ted

Ted Hoffman

Where do you think he went?