Toto

But your one cite doesn't tell me where he does this.

Most would not agree with the claim of genuine autobiography, including many Christians.

Paul's letters indicate that he knew a physician named Luke. Irenaeus, in an attempt to harmonize the epistles and Acts, decided that Luke must have been the author of Acts, because of the use of the third person plural in certain passages, indicating that the author was traveling with Paul.

The consensus among non-evangelicals is that Acts was not written by a companion of Paul, for various reasons that you can find in older threads here or in any standard reference. Acts shows evidence of incorporating material from Josephus, so it was most likely written in the second century, past the life span of an adult who traveled with Paul (assuming a mid first century date for Paul and normal life spans.) In addition, one would expect that a companion of Paul would have stated his authority and his sources explicitly, and given his name, rather than coyly hiding a few clues in the use of the third person plural.

This reveals more about you, I'm afraid. There is nothing in Acts after the first chapter that creates any difficulty for non-Christians. But Acts just does not hold up as history, and most of this analysis that shows this has been done by Christians like Pervo and Robbins, not by atheists.

Richard Carrier said that Luke was not a critical historian. You may notice that he implicitly accepts the consensus view that Luke was not an eyewitness to any of the events. There is nothing in Carrier's essay that would support using Acts as a source of history.

By mainstream, I am referring to specialists who devote their academic careers to these issues.

I would argue that the claims of non-interpolation are motivated by Christian resistance to treating their sacred texts as products of human history.

Toto

The Jake Jones - aa exchange has been split off here, where it can spin its wheels in peace.

bacht

The monotheism of the Jews might have accommodated a spiritual Christ, evolved possibly from the earlier mythical figure of Wisdom. But a living human being claiming to be God incarnated seems absolutely un-Jewish. This may have been a later development, a "bringing down to earth" or historicizing of the original saviour figure, maybe when the movement became predominantly gentile.

The "shocking event" you propose could have been the bar-Kochba revolt in the 130s, the final and utter destruction of the Jewish state. At this point Christianity may have split into Jewish and non-Jewish groups, and the torah-free gospel of the earthly Jesus may have taken over from messianic or gnostic Jews.

aa5874

But, there is no records even among Church writers where Jews, outside of the Gospel characters, did believe in or worshipped some-one called Jesus as a God who could forgive sin.

Trypho, the Jew, in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho did not exhibit any belief or mentioned any Jewish teachers that believed in, worshiped or taught that Christ was God with the ability to forgive sin and that Christ was the Creator of heaven and earth.

show_no_mercy

Philo taught that the Logos (distinct from the Father) was the creator of the world and a paraclete on behalf of the human race, though.

aa5874

The LOGOS, not Jesus.

And please show me where Philo wrote that the Logos could have died, and where the Logos shed his blood, or was resurrected to save Jews from their sins while the Jews obeyed the Laws of the God of Moses?





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Julio

All that gnostic conjecture can be found detailed in the yellow book of G.R.S. Mead "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten".
Very interesting stuff, but also confusing.
http://www.gnosis.org/library/grs-me...tten/index.htm

Julio

I bought the book years ago, but now you can read it online.
http://books.google.co.za/books?id=O...age&q=&f=false

Jane H

Given that textual analysis is his thing, I think it likely that Bart Ehrman deals with issues of authorship/dating in much of his work, but a good introduction would be this (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica?

St Luke- main
“in Christian tradition, the author of the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, a companion of the Apostle Paul, and the most literary of the New Testament writers.”

St Luke, Life and times.
“If Luke was the author of the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, as is very probable, the course and nature of his ministry may be sketched in more detail. He excludes himself from those who were eyewitnesses of Christ’s ministry. His participation in the Pauline mission, however, is indicated by the use of the first person in the “we” sections of Acts. They reveal that Luke shared in instructing persons in the Christian message and possibly in performing miraculous healings.”

History & Society : :The Acts of the Apostles
“The missionary journeys of St. Paul are given a prominent place, because this close associate of Luke was the preeminent Apostle to the Gentiles. “

Again, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica

History & Society : :The Acts of the Apostles
“fifth book of the New Testament, a valuable history of the early Christian church.“

Jane H

Again, for comments on Acts, see my discussion with Toto. The Testimonium Flavianum gets enough debate to which I won't add, but hopefully we can agree that if I can't claim Josephus said, “He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles”, you can't claim he didn't. And there is always the James the Just reference, which is near universally considered authentic.

On Maranatha- NRSV “Our Lord, come!” {footnote or} “Our Lord has come” (and other translations similarly). The second option would rule out non-Christians, so I will assume the first.

Non- Christian Jews could have used it, and it could have entered the Greek synagogues before Christianity, and then transferred to the new churches. Could have, but it's not likely. Firstly, we have no indication from any sources that maranatha was used in this way in non-Christian Judaism. Secondly, it is a roundabout means of transmission where a much more obvious one (within the church) is available. Thirdly, I don't see the Greek Jews expressing the same enthusiasm about Messianism as the Israel based ones. Fourthly, we know that Paul taught the word “Abba” in a similar way. Fifthly if it was used in the synagogues, it would have been addressed to YHWH, whereas in its Christian context, it is being addressed to Jesus. First century Jews wouldn't have done that- they were more aware of the different roles of YHWH and Jesus than we are.

The Enoch reference is an interesting one, but ultimately fails because neither it nor Jude are using it as an invocation in a religious invocation setting. It's a different kind of phrase.