Toto

Layman - I think that this is the issue. I don't know if Robbins "refused" to reply or just dropped out of the discussion for other reasons - Olsen did not press him on it. Robbins' last post on the thread seemed to be trying to engage and mollify the historicist side, but they never answered. (Unless my search did not turn up the answer.)

I can think of 2 skeptics who have cited Robbins work as a counter to the idea that the use of "we" shows that Acts was written by a companion of Paul's. I would not have done that, since I think that "we" is no evidence at all for historicism. (As Robbins pointed out, no one reads "we" in the Odyssey and uses it to argue that Odysseus is a historical journal.)

I suspect that these skeptics have overstated the case, which is easy to do because Robbins writes in an extended. lyrical, post-modernist, literary flow that refuses to take a stance on the issue you care about, which is the historical value of Acts. That is why I think that actually posting Robbins article would clarify and eliminate at least some of this debate.

The anti-Robbins faction has made a great deal of the idea that all of the second person plural narratives can be explained as implying the participation of the narrator. I think that this is irrelevant to what Robbins is saying, although he would probably take 6 paragraphs to express the idea.

I think that Olsen's citation to Josephus illustrates the distinction. Josephus uses "we" when he talks of himself and his sea companions, but not when he talks of himself and his soldiers in the Jewish Wars (he might very well want to distance himself from them, of course.)

After all, a person on a ship can say "we left port", or "the captain left port." He could say "we sailed on" or "I and the rest of the crew sailed on." I think that this is probably the distinction that Robbins sensed, that gave him this insight into the "we" passages.

I hope this discussion is helpful to Peter in framing the issue, whether it is a challenge to Robbins or to the skeptics who have cited his work.

Toto

That's fair to say that there is no exact literary precedent that we know about that changes from third person to first person plural and back several times in the narrative.

Edited to add: but if this is typical of Praeder's article, I can see why Robbins accuses his critics of being rhetorically and socially "tone deaf" .

Bede

I think we should be able to agree that the author of Acts used 'we' because he wanted his readers to think he was there. Whether he was or not is quite another question. Robbins posited an alternative explanation as to why 'we' was used but this has been found to be unsupported by the evidence.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Toto

I don't think we can agree on that. If the author of Acts wanted people to think that s/he was there, why does the preface state that the narrative was compiled from many sources, without mentioning an eyewitness account of the writer? Why is there no 'I' identified? Why does the narrative jump back and forth between 3rd person and 1st person plural?

You can speculate that the "we" passages were ripped out of a separate first person account and imperfectly integrated into the rest of Acts, but that is pure speculation with less evidence than there is for Robbins' theory.

Robbins' alternative explanation is presented as something to think about, not as a definitive explanation of everything.

Geoff Hudson

Is there a possibility that the author only became involved with the events part way through the account given in Acts? "They" then becomes "we" at an intermediate stage. Or, is that the Robbin's theory?

Geoff

Peter Kirby

I am saying that there are no known examples in ancient literature of first person narration simply because of the demands of a sea voyage genre. This was demonstrated in the original post (now on the previous page).

best,
Peter Kirby

Geoff Hudson

I note that the WE passges in Acts start BEFORE any sea voyage.

Geoff

Peter Kirby

This thread fell to the second page, but Toto expressed an interest in making further comments, so I am bumping it back up to the first page.

best,
Peter Kirby

Haran

I'm afraid I'm behind the curve on this particular topic, but I was curious about how much influence Fitzmyer's assessment of Robbin's work has had on the critiques of both Peter and Layman... Have you expanded on Fitzmyer's critique or are many of the arguments against Robbins' views new? Just curious. I noted Fitzmyer's assessment was mentioned in a seemingly favorable light in Brown's Intro to the NT.

Peter Kirby

My critique is based on the primary sources that I picked up while at the university library (I still have all the books right by my computer for reference). I have used the secondary sources only as a convenient way to obtain and/or express some arguments.

best,
Peter Kirby