Toto

Bonz is Marianne Palmer Bonz, author of The Past As Legacy: Luke-Acts and Ancient Epic (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Ben C Smith

This is simply false. There is no other way to characterize this statement. The first official we passage (in Acts 16) is associated with a trip to Samothrace, Neapolis, and Philippi on the Aegean.

A Rome substitute? Rome had too many calories, so somebody devised a sort of Nutrasweet for it?

Ben.

Gamera

Paul tells us that his preaching style is self-consciously different from his writing style. So this actually supports Luke as an eyewitness of Paul's speeches. Somebody who didn't know any better would try to make Paul speak like he wrote.

2 Corinthians 10:10 - For they say, "His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account."


1 Corinthians 2:1 - When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom.

1 Corinthians 2:4 - and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

In short, Paul's speaking style was totally different from the style of his letters. How did Luke know that if he didn't know Paul personally?

Toto

Either Luke read Paul's letters, and knew it the same way you do, Gamera, or he just made it up.

Gamera

Or Luke knew Paul and accurately rendered his speaking style.

Come on, Toto. If you're saying that Luke read Corinthians, processed the claim made by Paul that he spoke differently than he wrote, and thus made up a speaking style that differed from the letters, then the fact that Paul's speaking style in Luke differs from his epistolary style has no probative value either way. The point is, at best, you can't claim that the difference is evidence of Luke not knowing Paul, which is what you did. I'm not saying there isn't evidence against Luke knowing Paul (there's plenty). I am saying the different styles isn't one such item of evidence.

Toto

I don't find any evidentiary value in Paul's speeches. The OP wanted to know if the style of Paul's speeches in Acts matched his letters, as some sort of indication of the historical validity of Acts.

I think that there are much stronger reasons for thinking that the author of Luke did not know Paul.

Ben C Smith

I wonder what those reasons might be.

Ben.

neilgodfrey

You've lost me here. "Therefore sailing from Troas we ran a straight course to Samothrace .... etc etc to Philippi...." -- just as ordained by the vision.

What is false?

Toto

I think Ben refers to

although you then said

neilgodfrey

fair enough. never read what i say. only what i mean to say.