sotto voce

The idea of democracy and assembly may have been borrowed from Israel.

That depends on whether Jesus was as advertised, doesn't it. If he was, ἐκκλησία spells the only collective noun that matters. A royal nation, of kings and rulers. Can't get grander, more glorious.

Duvduv

So who WERE actually persecuted according to the Paul story besides poor Stephen?? Speaking of Stephen, how is it that Paul who was a Benjamite etc. had two names, a Jewish name and a Roman name, but people like Stephen, and many others only had Roman names?
Shouldn't a nice Jewish boy like Stephen be known as Shlomo or Shmuel? What about James? He was certainly Yaakov, but no one gets those double names in Acts besides Paul himself. Bernice must have been Bracha, Aquila must have been something like Akiva, and Priscilla should have also been Perach.

outhouse

part of the name issue you speak of is from WHO was writing the name.

if a jewish person was writing it would have the fathers name attached


BUT since all we have is romans writing about these people you get what we have.




with paul possibly being jewish he has his jewish name Saul

but being known in the roman world as "Saul of Tarsus" as romans would use. he later changed his name to fit in with the movement and make himself more apostle like

Duvduv

The fictional speech of Stephen (Shlomy/Shmully) was probably taken from some sermon of a sympathizer of Judaism and combined with some Christian propaganda starting in verse 51, even with all the confusion and omissions, not unlike what we find in the sermonizing of the Quran that relied on old oral biblical stories that were confused.

Just imagine - the same author carries on about how Saul was persecuting the Christians like some bounty hunter from the Old West from whom all the Christians were shaking in their boots worldwide, as a one-man operation with no description of where or when or who. Then he interrupts with some meandering about Simon Magus and Philip,Then comes back to this Saul who then turns into Paul who is STILL a one-man operation to the gentiles!! Neat story, no?

sotto voce

The meandering of a true believer.

Duvduv

It's beyond me that this context question doesn't cause more investigation.
WIld claims of persecution all over the place by ONE MAN, but NO evidence of such persecution except in the case of ONE fellow, Stephen who was not directly persecuted by Paul/Saul anyway.

And the fact that his lonely ability to change the whole world by persecuting "the Church" as a one-man bounty hunter all the way to Damascus is ONLY MATCHED by his wild claim that all his colleagues will accept the idea that all gentiles will only be converted by HIM alone through some magical power, DESPITE the fact of the Great Commission linking the claimed author of Luke to Acts.

sotto voce

Never mind. You have your three Gods to work it all out.

thief of fire

If we look at the various books in the NT we find clues that their sources diverge from our sources. I think it is a big assumtion that they must be choosing between the same exact sources we do, in the way we do.

It's not necessarily two different speakers just, possibly, one who is familiar with different traditions or more than one.
Here today, right at this moment, we can look up may different sources, but for them they would have been more inclined to memorise and call to mind what they had heard earlier.

Duvduv

Well, so far we see in "Stephen's" speech that the author knows about a) the Masoretic text; b) the Septaguint in Greek; and c) rabbinic midrashim
plus the author intentionally or unintentionally omits information from the standard biblical stories.

Duvduv

Why is Stephen the lone wolf of a suffering Christian when ostensibly Saul and his gang persecuted many many more? There should be speeches of another 10 representative "Stephens" to show the martyrdom of the first "Christians"!