Steven Carr

Well, obviously he was.

But was he still a child when he came to share a ship with Paul?

Is there anything which precludes that?

Luke/Acts seem to be late, if they are dependent upon Josephus for information.

And yet if the author uses 'we' to describe a passage which includes Paul, then he might well be there at that time.

The obvious conclusion from these 2 'facts' is that the author was young at the time.

So does anything stand in the way of that being true?

mountainman

Your "obvious conclusion" is but an inference read into the
presentation of the detail of the source material, and is in
turn based upon an inference that your source material has
integrity of an historical nature.

There is no archeological or otherwise accepted scientific
evidence to support either inference *, but dont let that
that stand in the way of the possibility that the inference
may be true.


Pete Brown


* You may treat paleographic assessment as scientific
in this instance, but I do not, in this instance only.

Toto

That forces the "we passages" to fit with the usual dating of Acts, but precludes "Luke" from being the usual Luke, who Paul refers to at one point in his letters as a physician. It seems highly unlikely that a person who was a child near the end of Paul's life would also be a physician during his lifetime.

If Luke need not be that Luke, I think it would be unlikely that a child would be separated from his mother at that age, except for slaves. Would Luke have been a child slave? How would he have then become so literate, if he were traveling around the Mediterranean with Paul instead of sitting in a class room?

darstec

Well the question does presuppose that the conventional dating of Paul's letters and Luke's gospel and acts are accurate. However if both authors' works were products of the second century CE, that solves the Josephus problem easily, and both NT authors (or their schools) could be adults.

darstec

I thought that the Roman slaves were sometimes the more literate of their society.

Chris Weimer

Depends on the slave, and certainly not a child. Paedogogues, tutors, and scribes were all old trained Greek rhetoricians and mathematicians.

Steven Carr

Many children are separated from their mothers, especially in an age when childbirth was so risky.

Is there any biographical information in the 'we' sections which precludes the author of Luke/Acts being very young at that time?

Toto

There is no biographical information in the "we" sections.

Alf

That would be greek slaves in roman captivity.

But then Paul was a hellenized jew so he probably count as greek in this context and possiblty also Luke.

Alf

andrewcriddle

The first 'we' section dates from c 49 CE Luke-Acts was probably written before the end of the 1st century CE (a date of say 98 CE would make it possible for the author to have used the 'Antiquities') Luke could be over 20 when he first went with Paul and around 70 when he wrote Luke-Acts.

Andrew Criddle