Bernard Muller

More about the "we":
On this board, I already expressed that "Luke" probably thought of young Timothy as the first "we" in Ac16:1-17.
For the second "we", in Ac20:6-21:17, the "we" starts from Philippi, joins Paul & companions (all of them named) in Troas, and then goes to Jerusalem with them. There, the unnamed "we" is likely from Philippi (possibly Corinth).
Now, shock!
For the third "we", in Ac27:1-28:16, the "we" starts as apparently in jail with Paul in Cesarea, according to 27:1-2. But no other Christian is reported to be a prisoner then with Paul, according to Acts itself!
I'll try to figure that one out! Any help?
And yes, I have to apologize I insist in following the evidence rather than these long-winded wordy scholarly arguments, resting on stack of hypotheses and bound to generate all kind of polemics.

Best regards, Bernard

boneyard bill

gregor writes:

But Layman's point is not speculative. He is not arguing for a given date. It is possible, if not probable, that Josephus gave public recitations of his work. It is possible that Luke attended some of these recitations.

Therefore:

Even if a Josephan-Luke connection is positively established it does not prove that Acts had to have been written after 93A.D. It is still possible that Acts was written prior to that date. This is not speculation. This is a logical refutation of someone else's assertion. It is indeed possible that Luke could have had access to Josephus' material prior to 93A.D. It is not necessary in the context of this argument to prove that he did have such access or even that it is probable that he had such access.

Peter Kirby

Bernard,

I think you may be on to something in saying that the author of Luke-Acts depends on the Wars instead of the Antiquities. I have no immediate objection to such a hypothesis, and I will certainly take it into consideration when reviewing "Luke and Josephus," but that may have to wait for some time (especially since important publications on the subject are in German, knowledge of which is a long term goal of mine).

I wrote: "The 'most excellent Theophilus' mentioned in the preface of Luke is most likely his patron, as seen in the similar references to 'most excellent X' in the prefaces to the De libris propriis liber of Galenus, the De antiquis oratoribus of Dionysius Halicarnassensis, the Scriptor De Divinatione of Melampus, the Peri ton kata antipatheian kai sumpatheian of Nepualius, and both Josephi vita and Contra Apionem of Josephus."

Maybe not. We know that writers did not receive royalties for their work. Unless they were already wealthy men of status (such as Tacitus and Marcus Aurelius), they would depend on such a person to provide support so as to give them leisure to compose (such as Josephus), for which the patron would share in the honor for making fine literature--especially if he were mentioned in the preface. That is why we find the formula "most excellent Basses/Epaphroditus/Theophilus" in the beginning of these works.

I would not deny that there were false dedications in ancient literature--what comes to mind immediately is Justin's opening, "To the Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Caesar, and to his son Verissimus the Philosopher, and to Lucius the Philosopher, the natural son of Caesar, and the adopted son of Pius, a lover of learning, and to the sacred Senate, with the whole People of the Romans." However, if the author of Luke-Acts were trying to give his work some extra credibility and importance with the naming of a recipient, I suggest that he would have chosen a name of sufficient importance to be preserved in history; after all, Justin dares to say that the emperor himself heard his apology.

There is nothing strange about the dedication of the work to Theophilus as a patron, a common practice. And the work itself shows it to be addressed to two concerns that would be foremost in the mind of an interested Gentile nobleman: the legitimacy of the movement under Roman government and conversion to a Jewish cult by Gentiles, which Luke meets by showing that the Way has been directed by the Holy Spirit from roots in Judaism, thus both properly ancient yet inclusive of non-Jews.

Toto,

This is impossible, since the identification of the first two sentences as the manner of a preface was made by W. H. Schoff and Müller before Robbins published. Your language of "special apologetic pleading" is simply polemical. Moreover, historians of ancient geography are agreed on the literary function of the first person perspective in the body of the Voyage of Hanno: it was a Punic inscription made by those who took the voyage under the direction of Hanno (which was later translated into Greek). If this is the best example for a literary device of first person narration during sea voyage passages, then the conclusion properly is "avoided" because the conclusion is false.

I think it is certain a priori that the author of Luke-Acts used earlier writings, but I would not classify the we-passages as constituting one such. You have stated that Luke-Acts was a well-crafted document, which didn't just cut and paste, and that the author could have changed the "we" of a source to third person. In this you (and I) have the support of a body of scholarship. W. Ward Gasque writes: "From this Harnack proceeds to a careful--and, on would think, exhaustive--study of the vocabulary, grammar, and style of the 'we'-sections and to a comparison of this to that of the rest of Acts. This leads him to the unquestionable verdict: 'The "we"-sections and Acts have one and the same author' (56). The constant 'undesigned coincidences' of language cannot be explained as due to accident; nor is the theory tenable that some source has been reworked by a later hand, for this would have involved a revision which was so thorough that only the 'we' was left to stand." (A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles, p. 149)

Bernard,

This is true, as this angle was hashed out to death on the XTalk list with no consensus--Robbins explained the phenomena as part of an extended maritime adventure motif. As I point out in my intro to Luke-Acts on ECW, the fatal, or at least unaddressed, objection is that a literary device would take the perspective of Paul, while the author of Acts distinguishes between himself (part of the "we" or "us") and the person of Paul. The reason that neither objection was included in the essay on DJE is that the paper is not on the authorship or meaning of Acts but rather on the documents used to derive a hypothesis about a sea voyage genre in ancient Greco-Roman literature.

Finally, I would like to get some feedback on this:

"Indeed, considering that the immediate recipient of Luke is mentioned in the preface, and given that the author of the third Gospel is aware that many other accounts have been drawn up before him, it is entirely probable that the author had indicated his name on the autograph."

Martin Hengel adds a further consideration: "Marcion as an independent thinker chose the Gospel of Luke from the Gospel writings known to him, since he knew that Luke had accompanied Paul on his travels, and he believed that by 'purging' it he could get at the true Pauline Gospel of Christ. He had to reject the Gospel according to Mark, the disciple of Peter, and that attributed to John, regardless of their content, because for him these names were associated with the Judaizing apostles in Jerusalem; this was even more the case with Matthew and his stronger Jewish-Christian and in some way seemingly anti-Pauline theology. He already had no other possible choice." (The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 56)

I find it hard to believe that the author of Luke-Acts would indicate the name of a recipient in the prefaces, and tell us that many similar documents were already circulating, without giving a name for his own work.

best,
Peter Kirby

Bernard Muller

Peter Kirby wrote:
However, if the author of Luke-Acts were trying to give his work some extra credibility and importance with the naming of a recipient, I suggest that he would have chosen a name of sufficient importance to be preserved in history; after all, Justin dares to say that the emperor himself heard his apology.

First, "Luke" did not know about future history, and which name would be preserved & remembered. Furthermore, "Luke", as any other early Christian writers, was interested only in the present and immediate future. The name needed only to invoke somebody of importance (an excellency) if his/her purpose was to give the work an air of dignity & truthfulness.
Later, Christian authors started to raise the stakes, like the first known apologists, Quadratus and Aristides, addressing their work to the emperor. Coming later, Justin felt he had to go further. But Luke was starting the practice in the Christian world and did not have to go to such extreme.

Peter Kirby wrote:
There is nothing strange about the dedication of the work to Theophilus as a patron, a common practice.

Ya, there is nothing unusual, that's why "Luke" could have used that as an artifice without raising any eyebrows.

Peter Kirby wrote:
And the work itself shows it to be addressed to two concerns that would be foremost in the mind of an interested Gentile nobleman: the legitimacy of the movement under Roman government and conversion to a Jewish cult by Gentiles, which Luke meets by showing that the Way has been directed by the Holy Spirit from roots in Judaism, thus both properly ancient yet inclusive of non-Jews.

Ya, but if the author was writing for the Gentile Christians of a Roman colony, that would explain it.

Peter Kirby wrote:
I find it hard to believe that the author of Luke-Acts would indicate the name of a recipient in the prefaces, and tell us that many similar documents were already circulating, without giving a name for his own work.

Ya, that confirms my point. The author does not give any ID about him/her/self but provides the name of the patron. How suspect!!!
As I recall, the three apologists I mentioned already, do indicate their name.

Best regards, Bernard

Peter Kirby

Bernard, I do not know what evidence you are basing your claims on. We can speak of appearance, and then speak of the actuality, but a hypothesis becomes unnecessarily complicated when proposing that what appears to be so actually is not, but only a deception, unless there is something that exposes the ruse. In this case, what the work of Luke-Acts gives the appearance of being is that it is a history in Hellenistic vein addressed to "most excellent Theophilus," a formula found elsewhere as an identification of the author's patron. This is the straightforward reading of the text. To say that the addressee was an abstract lover of God, or a dead Roman official to whom a woman is pretending to write to get people to respect her writing, requires evidence to overthrow the plain reading.

One such piece of evidence would be addressing the work to the emperor, who couldn't be bothered with reading apologetics. You say that "Luke" started a trend that culminated in Justin Martyr, but this phenomenon was not limited to Christians; for example, Flavius Arrianus addresses his Periplus ponti Euxini to emperor Trajan. Can you find an example of a false address to a minor official, whose importance at the time was so low as to escape mention in other literature or archaeological evidence?

That's not all! The author says that many other people have drawn up accounts of what Jesus said and did, but the author submits his work to be published without giving it a distinguishing title! How suspect!!! How suspect, that is, to think that the author did not indicate his name on the autograph. He was clearly well-read and would know that works were given titles, whether by the original author or not, and would probably want to make the decision himself for the magnum opus he had labored over. And, being that there were accounts from different people before him, of which he was aware, there must have been titles on those accounts to distinguish them. The author gave his work a title as would be expected and as would distinguish his work from these others, with the (pre-existing?) formula "the gospel according to Luke." There is no confusion of later writers or alternate manuscript tradition on this point. The idea that Luke-Acts was originally anonymous is implausible speculation.

best,
Peter Kirby

Bernard Muller

Peter wrote:
The author gave his work a title as would be expected and as would distinguish his work from these others, with the (pre-existing?) formula "the gospel according to Luke." There is no confusion of later writers or alternate manuscript tradition on this point. **The idea that Luke-Acts was originally anonymous is implausible speculation**.

Peter, are you the one who really wrote that? Aren't you agenda driven here? Where is the evidence?
I cannot believe it. You are assuming big time here.
And all that is because you cling to your Theophilus being a real patron!
Actually GLuke is the only canonical gospel were there is no claim whatsoever of authorship before Irenaeus.
If Luke-Acts were not anonymous, we would know about it, well before Irenaeus times.
Peter, I am afraid you are in the wrong tracks here, big time.
I'll try to answer other parts of your post later on.

Best regards, Bernard

Peter Kirby

Yes.

No, not more than anyone else.

To assume that the title is not authorial is speculation because there is no manuscript attestation or tradition about another superscription, but simply being speculative is not so bad. It is implausible because, as I said before, the author of Luke-Acts was clearly well-read and would know that works were given titles, whether by the original author or not, and would probably want to make the decision himself for the magnum opus he had labored over; and, being that there were accounts from different people before him, of which he was aware, the author must have given his work a title to distinguish it from the many others.

That remains to be seen.

Actually, that is clearly an incorrect statement. I stated my opinion in the original piece that the author most likely indicated his name on the autograph. This was not developed in response to your statements.

Clement of Alexandria, the Muratorian Canon, and the Anti-Marcionite Prologue are three other witnesses that belong to the latter part of the second century (though all probably dependent on the work's title).

Paedagogus 2.1.15
Have you anything to eat here? said the Lord to the disciples after the resurrection; and they, as taught by Him to practise frugality, "gave Him a piece of broiled fish;" and having eaten before them, says Luke, He spoke to them what He spoke.

Stromata 5.12.82
It remains that we understand, then, the Unknown, by divine grace, and by the word alone that proceeds from Him; as Luke in the Acts of the Apostles relates that Paul said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For in walking about, and beholding the objects of your worship, I found an altar on which was inscribed, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you."

Muratorian Canon
"The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke. Luke, the well-known physician, after the ascension of Christ, whom Paul had taken with him as one zealous for the law, composed it in his own name, according to the general belief. Yet he himself had not seen the Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as he was able to ascertain events, so indeed he begins to tell the story from the birth of John. ... Moreover, the acts of all the apostles were written in one book. For 'Most excellent Theophilus' Luke compiled the individual events that took place in his presence, as he plainly shows by omitting the martyrdom of Peter as well as the departure of Paul from the city when he journeyed to Spain."

"Anti-Marcionite" Prologue
"Luke is a Syrian of Antioch, a Syrian by race, a physician by profession. He had become a disciple of the apostles and later followed Paul until his (Paul's) martyrdom, having served the Lord continuously, unmarried, without children, filled with the Holy Spirit he died at the age of eighty-four years in Boeotia."

And Martin Hengel argues that Marcion was aware of the Lucan origin of his Gospel: "Marcion as an independent thinker chose the Gospel of Luke from the Gospel writings known to him, since he knew that Luke had accompanied Paul on his travels, and he believed that by 'purging' it he could get at the true Pauline Gospel of Christ. He had to reject the Gospel according to Mark, the disciple of Peter, and that attributed to John, regardless of their content, because for him these names were associated with the Judaizing apostles in Jerusalem; this was even more the case with Matthew and his stronger Jewish-Christian and in some way seemingly anti-Pauline theology. He already had no other possible choice." (The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 56)

But, again, all of these later writers probably depend on just one source: the author who attached his name to the manuscript.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

From Carrier's the Formation of the NT Canon:

But I am not opposed to your idea that the name of the gospel was on the title page of the manuscript. I do think it is a big leap from that to saying that the Luke mentioned in Paul's letters was the author.

Theophilus seems like a made-up name ("lover of god"). Other elements seem fictional. Could attributing the gospel to Luke not also be part of the fiction? I suppose that Jay Raskin would assume that Tertullian is responsible for everything.

[edited to add: if gLuke is reworked from the original gospel that Marcion chopped up, the "later redactor" that Robert Price assumes delivered the final version could have well added the title "according to Luke." Perhaps he or she picked on the name Luke in order to trump Marcion's interpretation of Paul's message, as we see Irenaeus using Luke against the heretics in Adv Haer. Idle speculation on my part.]

I am impressed with the quote from Hengel The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, but have not read the book. How does he know that Marcion picked on Luke's gospel because of Luke's association with Paul? If that was the reason, why did Marcion not unclude Luke's name for the gospel - i.e. is Hengel just speculating or is there evidence? The Amazon review notes that Hengel thinks that all of the gospels came with titles, but that John and Matthew did not write the gospels with their names on them. Why would gLuke be different?

I hope to get back to the we issue later.

Bernard Muller

Peter Kirby wrote:
quote:
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Originally posted by Bernard Muller
Where is the evidence?
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To assume that the title is not authorial is speculation because there is no manuscript attestation or tradition about another superscription, but simply **being speculative is not so bad**.

At least you admit it.

Peter Kirby wrote:
It is implausible because, as I said before, the author of Luke-Acts was clearly well-read

So was GMatthew, but Justin did not identify that gospel either, nor any other ones.

Peter Kirby wrote:
and would know that works were given titles, whether by the original author or not, and would probably want to make the decision himself for the magnum opus he had labored over; and, being that there were accounts from different people before him, of which he was aware, the author must have given his work a title to distinguish it from the many others.

Speculative blablablah. Where is the beef?

Peter Kirby wrote:
quote:
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And all that is because you cling to your Theophilus being a real patron!
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Actually, that is clearly an incorrect statement. I stated my opinion in the original piece that the author most likely indicated his name on the autograph. This was not developed in response to your statements.

Agreed, "cling" was not warranted. What I try to mean is your stand on "Luke" being identified as the author early on, as putting his/her name on the gospel, is a result (or a consequence) of you believing "Luke" having Theophilus as a true patron.

Peter Kirby wrote:
quote:
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Actually GLuke is the only canonical gospel were there is no claim whatsoever of authorship before Irenaeus.
If Luke-Acts were not anonymous, we would know about it, well before Irenaeus times.
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Clement of Alexandria, the Muratorian Canon, and the Anti-Marcionite Prologue are three other witnesses that belong to the latter part of the second century (though all probably dependent on the work's title).

"probably"? Is that evidence?
According to your own dating, we have:
Irenaeus: 175-185, average 180
Clement of Alexandria: 182-202, average 192
Muratorian Canon: 170-200, average 185
Anti-Marcionite Prologue: 150-400, average 275
Do you mean this is evidence for a pre-Irenaeus identification of the third gospel?

Furthermore, the 3 first authors gave many ID and names of canonical works (sometimes uncanonical). So the acknowledgment of Luke came when other alleged authors were also widely accepted.

"Anti-Marcionite" Prologue
"Luke is a Syrian of Antioch, a Syrian by race, a physician by profession. He had become a disciple of the apostles and later followed Paul until his (Paul's) martyrdom, having served the Lord continuously, unmarried, without children, filled with the Holy Spirit he died at the age of eighty-four years in Boeotia."

Do you really think that can predate 200CE? And really is not just fictional gibberish?

Peter Kirby wrote:
And Martin Hengel argues that Marcion was aware of the Lucan origin of his Gospel: "Marcion as an independent thinker chose the Gospel of Luke from the Gospel writings known to him, since he knew that Luke had accompanied Paul on his travels, and he believed that by 'purging' it he could get at the true Pauline Gospel of Christ. He had to reject the Gospel according to Mark, the disciple of Peter, and that attributed to John, regardless of their content, because for him these names were associated with the Judaizing apostles in Jerusalem; this was even more the case with Matthew and his stronger Jewish-Christian and in some way seemingly anti-Pauline theology. He already had no other possible choice." (The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 56)

That's no evidence. Who knows why got into Marcion when he chose GLuke and then cut & paste through it. He even did the same on Paul's letters, that is mutilating, more so on OT references, even if he knew Paul was a Jew.
Since Marcion was against Judaism, GLuke was a good choice. GJohn is less Judaic than GLuke, but so much off centre, it may have been discarded by Marcion or others in his entourage.
Or maybe GLuke was the Gospel in Synope (the other ones being dicredited) and Marcion first love.
I do not see why Marcion had to know about the alleged authors (whom Justin, even later, did not tell, even if he quoted extensively GLuke & GMatthew).

Best regards, Bernard

Layman

I think Hengel's point is a good one.

Is the Gospel of Luke "less judaic" than the Gospel of Mark? Not really. And there would have been much less to excise if he'd used Mark. Mark has no birth narrative--something that Marcion's theory demanded had to be excised from the Gospel of Luke. Marcion had to cut away the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke in their entirety. He also cut away several other passages in Luke that are overtly Jewish. So it seems he made his excising task more difficult, not less, by choosing Luke over Mark. (And, perhaps, John--which also lacks a birth narrative).

The best explanation for his preference of Luke over Mark is that Luke was associated with Paul and Mark was associated with Peter.