Ted Hoffman

<beckons the mythicists and the mythicist sympathizers to gather around>
Now, I hope non-mythicists will stay out of this thread :Cheeky:

How do you think we should treat Acts? Do we regard it as 100% fiction, or do we argue that it has a historical kernel and that we should only argue literary creation on specific points? As far as miracles go, I believe I rebutted Carrier's examples - Carrier was arguing that the miracles in Acts can be given naturalistic explanations. So the events described may have taken place. I don't think the Author of AActs was Paul's companion because he never mentioned that Paul was a letter writer (the strength of this argument has been challenged), and because the "we" passages have been explained by Vernon Robbins - Robert M Grant and Dibelius agree(d) with Robbin's argument.
There are MacDonald's arguments (e.g. Luke's Eutychus and Homer's Elpenor) which argue that at least certain scenes were modeled or borrowed from Homeric literature. etc etc
Then there are Darrel Doughty's arguments which argue that Acts was basically aimed at establishing an orthodoxy.
Then there are Doherty's arguments about creating an apostolic chain of authority and coopting Paul into Petrine Christianity.
Then there is Gunther Borkamm...etc etc

What do you think?

Just give your random thoughts. Is there any particular part of Acts - an event or a historical datum, that you feel is historically true?

Vorkosigan

Acts is a second century Hellenistic novel, and I am going after it next if manage to get my Mark book published.

Peter Kirby

I think you guys should wait for the treatment of Acts by Chris Price that he mentioned before committing to a position here. (And please don't make a priori assumptions about the quality of Price's piece.)

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Julian

Right off the bat, I consider Acts to be a fictional political document serving to strengthen the orthodox/centrist position, part of this is getting the weight of the memory of Paul into the centrist camp. It also establishes 'historicity,' and thereby authenticity, for the church and its apostolic roots. I see no reason to give any credence to any factual historicity.

Julian

Peter Kirby

What is the maximum amount of historicity to Acts that a mythicist would be comfortable with?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Koyaanisqatsi

That's sort of like asking, "what is the maximum amount of historicity to WWII American Propaganda an historian would be comfortable with?"

Did someone--a long time ago--write some letters? Sure. Did someone travel to various places and speak to various people? No problem with that. Did any of the pertinent events in those letters actually happen the way they are described by the writer of the letters? Well, that's, IMO, the myth part; that's the cult propaganda, so the question (for me anyway; and is not directed at you, Peter) is more along the lines of motive and allegiance.

This is a cult we're talking about. Cults have leaders who know its all a sham and leaders who are "true believers" that the other leaders use.

I would argue (and have ) that whoever Paul was, he was a snake-oil salesman; a propagandist for the cult who I believe was either a Roman sympathizer, if not actually a Roman "spy" (whose job was to destabilize Judaism by spreading this Roman concocted cult).

I liken it to what we did to the Native American Indians and what we do in any invasion/occupation; destroy the local religion, first and foremost.

I don't know if this helps/hurts or is even relevant, but I felt the need to add my .02.

Ted Hoffman

Sorry guys. I didn't know that this thread had replies - I never got an alert.
Vork:You bet. I will be much more free next year and we can do this together


Kirby:
When will it be ready? No a priori assumptions but CP's scholarship is sneaky and underhanded. He always, I repeat, always slants the arguments to suit whatever apologetic goals he has in mind. He writes very well but is incapable of being objective. He quotes selectively and only presents arguments that favour his interests, or resorts to fallacious arguments and sham reasoning. His works are unfit for the uninformed reader because he can mislead a reader deep into a forest of deceptions and a reader may be incapable of crawling out of the thick depths of underbrush.
I write this after reading and criticizing his works on Doherty and Vernon Robbins and engaging him. Incidentally, since your work on Robbins is available, one can simply compare the two and see the slant of CP's arguments and how dangerously misleading and one-sided his paper is.

In any event, we will receive it enthusiastically and subject it to a rigorous analysis.

You mean the maximum amount of historicity that the mythicist hypothesis can co-exist with. I believe that there is a huge chunk of innocuous historical or pseudo-historical events and scenes and events in Acts that are inconsequential to the MJ hypothesis. It is those aspects that can pose a challenge to MJ hypothesis that need dealing with.
The following can be good for JM hypothesis:
Paul needs to be delinked from Petrine Christianity.
Punching hundreds of holes in Acts as history hypothesis and showing that Acts was fabricated to serve a specific "historical" and theological agenda.
AActs not a companion of Paul
Acts as a text of some Hellenistic genre
etc etc

Julian:
I lean towards this perspective, I intend to address arguments often advanced for the historicity of Acts.
I also would like to focus on Paul (the way Michael focused in Mark) and in the process take out some of the junk Dutch Radicals present. The left wing and the right wing shall both be dispensed with in the process, I think.

Chris Weimer

I'm not really a mythicist, can I still post?

Anyway, I feel that Acts, as the second volume in Luke's canon, was basically written to give a history to a Christian cult flourishing around the turn of the second century. If indeed the Pastorals were written by Luke, as I'm still waiting for Peter's program to give an analysis of the texts, then it would be reasonable to conclude that the author was trying to form his own cult, much like Marcion did for Luke + Paul - Pastorals / Judaism. I do doubt though that it was written for the Orthodox group, instead probably stolen from then and revised (quite possibly filled in with Matthew).