DCHindley

Maybe you should not "assume" that, but you may certainly consider it.

If one looks at the transmission history, the Four Gospels were transmitted together in single codices. Acts, in spite of it's claim to be an appendix to Gospel of Luke, is transmitted along with the General Epistles (1-3 John, James, Jude, 1-2 Peter) in codices. The General Epistles are what Greek speakers call "paralipomenon" ("leftover things"). In other words, they don't smell quite right, but are still edible.

DCH

Duvduv

And of course if John Chrysostom said that Acts had been unknown when he wrote about it at the end of the 4th century, there Luke would have likewise been unknown if they have been a set of books, which no one suggests.

DCHindley

Well, you know I think John C did know Acts and probably preached sermons on it before he came to his new church, where the book had previously received scant attention. Hence, he announced to his new congregation that he is going to preach using Acts, so it will be something new to them.

The question than is why was Acts neglected by the previous bishop? If it is preserved in a collection of "leftover" books, the previous bishop may have considered them good for private edification but not public reading. Ol' "Golden Tongue" thought differently.

DCH

Duvduv

Now imagine a major text about the history of the church being unknown in a major center of the religion for a couple of hundred years. Hmmm......How about the reason being that Acts was a fairly recent composition added to the collection? Especially given the fact that John Chrysostom was the first to even write commentary on Acts?
Do we know of any other church apologist who mentioned that Acts was virtually unknown at that time?
On the other hand, no apologiust will want to address the glaring contradictions between Acts and the epistles......

aa5874

You are NOT looking at "transmission history". It is NOT historically accurate at all that the Four Gospels were transmitted together in single Codices.

You are NOT doing history--you are inventing "transmission by imagination".

Please, examine the List of New Testament Manuscripts.

There is ZERO-NIL-NONE evidence that the Four Gospels were transmitted in single codices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...stament_papyri

Now, I challenge you to show YOUR source that the four Gospels were transmited in single codices.

You are using your IMAGINATION as a Codex.

angelo

So I am correct when I state the author of Acts was Luke. A poster here claims it can't be proved it was Luke who authored it.


And the one scholar that immediately comes to mind is John Shelby Spong who says "After its dramatic opening chapters the book of Acts becomes something of a travelogue, the account of the journey of this Jesus movement. Designed by Luke to bring fulfilment to the words he puts into Jesus' mouth at the very beginning of the book. "You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

angelo

Hope this hasn't been posted before been late into this thread and all. But here's Wiki on the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_the_Apostles

Toto

How on earth did you get from anything above to the conclusion that the author of Acts was Luke?

The author was anonymous. The so-called Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles probably had the same final editor, but that's all you can say.

The consensus of scholarship is that Acts was not written by a companion of Paul, which would rule out the Luke referred to in Paul's letters.

aa5874

Why can't you let us know that the very same sources that claimed Paul died under NERO also claimed he was AWARE of gLuke???

Come on, Toto!!!! Let us do History.

gLuke was written BEFORE Paul was dead in the same sources that claimed he died under Nero.

"Church History" 3.1.2 "Church History 6.25.4-6 What is the point of posting if you are NOT interested in the History of Paul???

Paul was ALIVE AFTER gLuke was composed in Apologetic sources.

Now, tell us the first Apologetic source to mention a gospel NAMED according to Luke???

The supposed late 2nd century "Against Heresies".

There is NO credible evidence that Paul died or had lived in the 1st century.

andrewcriddle

This is true for the later transmission history but the early 3rd century P45 has (fragments of) all four Gospels and Acts.

Andrew Criddle