Originally Posted by aa5874

But, the supposed resurrection of Jesus on the third day is in total conflict with the beliefs of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. None of them believed in a 72 hour resurrection.

The story in Acts appears to be fiction.

Originally Posted by Chili

He was buried in the netherworld that equal his own subconscious mind where he set the captive free and so found liberation from his own inter-generational or nocturnal past.

Originally Posted by neilgodfrey

To reach this conclusion one has to call on a lot of other stuff from outside the text of Acts. If not, can you show the evidence for this conclusion within Acts itself?

But if we read Acts with a view to discerning its plot and story development, we find the author does tell us exactly why he has Paul make this claim at this point.

To hit on just the highlights here, Paul has to witness first at Jerusalem and then at Rome (that's his destiny, of which the reader is reminded several times up to this point). Much of the author's intent throughout this narrative has been to show up the Jews as a bit of an unreasonable rabble. At the same time, he has been regularly portraying the Christians as the true inheritors of the old religion -- its holy books, its prophetic messages, its true teachings. It is Peter, then Paul, who are the true heirs of the prophets and all the good things about the Jews (as Stephen so dramatically proclaimed in his last moments.)

So with these three major legs of the narrative in mind, note that Paul's witness at Jerusalem is climaxed when his Roman guardian brings him before the religious authorities to explain himself. The author, once he has Paul deliver his final witness to these Jerusalem authorities, has to then arrange for him to leave and begin his journey to Rome. If he is true to form and writes a consistent narrative, he will simultaneously show up the Jews as hopeless and Paul as the true pillar of the antique Jewish religion.

The author has the Pharisees and Sadducees altogether for this moment. Paul sees this, and makes his declaration that he sides with those of their number who at least believe in the basics of true doctrine, thereby declaring the other half as ignorant. But then both sides degenerate into wrangling and chaos, proving once again the point the author has been making all along about the Jews. At the same time Paul has been shown to be not a radical innovator, but once again the true inheritor of true religious doctrine. This is all on a par with the author's earlier notices that there were many Pharisees among the earliest Christians.

(Note also that the author at no time hinted that Paul was a Pharisee when he was sent out to persecute the church -- the narrator wants Pharisees to have a positive image throughout.)

The author could have used his usual trick of having Paul preach Christ from Isaiah or one of the other prophets. That worked well enough whenever he was in new and uncharted territory. But it would not have been overly persuasive to readers to who had been reading how the other apostles had already done that one to death in Jerusalem.

So the Pharisee touch is also a strong indicator (along with the others I cited at the beginning) of the antique natural order of Christianity, with its roots in the law and Jerusalem, the prophets, etc. -- all of which gave it its credibility. Many Pharisees belonged to the Church.

Read as part of the narrative plot of the whole, there was nothing subtly diplomatic about Paul's declaration of being a Pharisee. And there was nothing "past tense" about it, either. Both would have defeated the plot function of the claim.

N

Originally Posted by Chili

. . . and I should have added "by which he was determined," which then is the basis for predestination and it is about this time that Freeman is spelled with a capital F.