Ruy Lopez

from Tragic-Pizza:
Discounting the documentation out-of-hand is an interesting debate method. If I discount the only documentation of the event as incorrect "simply because it is," then anything is indeed possible
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Would you accept a trial witness who claims the evidence came from a flash of light and a mysterious voice? The documentation discounted itself.
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from T.P.
I'm a Fundamentalist Christian, and Pentecostal to boot. Guess which side I come down on .
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I implied earlier I did not want to disturb your devotional equanimity but I will fill my end of the bargain that ACTS is not a historical document.
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from T.P.
By the same token, no proof exists that it was 60 to 80 years, rather than 10 to 25.
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I'm happy with Reasonable Doubt's position on dating of Acts and Luke. You seem a bit careless with simple numbers. My 60 -80 years comes from 120CE minus 60 CE(approx. close of Paul's mission)= 60 years while the 80 years comes from 120CE minus 40CE(about the start of paul"s change of mind). Actually a more exact date is 36CE for Paul's revelation as this comes from his own pen. Remember Galatians' 14 years.

Your 10 to 25 years is an impossibility because the events that ACTS describes HAVE NOT HAPPENED YET in your time frame.
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from T.P.
quote:
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2.)Contents of genuine Pauline epistles conflict with Acts.
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In exactly what areas?
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In Gal. 2:1-10 Paul appears to paper over policy differences with Peter and James and claims they shook hands to go each other's way i.e. Paul to the uncircumcised and Peter with the Jews. However in Gal. 2:11-14 Paul could not restrain himself and vent his spleen on Peter and the other "pillars". Paul, the demonstrated passionate intolerant person he was, showed his natural self.

Compare the above to Acts 15: . The fiction created by the Acts author was intended to show apostolic solidarity at the expense of truth. Without even the mythical miracles, Acts has very low credibility.

You have not replied to my assertion that the numerous speeches in Acts were invented by the author 60-80 years after the reference event. If your read again the Acts accounts, you will notice that the author is presenting himself as a direct witness to Peter, Paul and Barnabas as they were speaking. It is a literary device to fool the gullible.

I am a very slow typist, like 10-15 wpm, and getting weary. I'd like to address the fictitious incident on the road to Damascus but maybe on my next post. Just remember that I initially ignored Tragic's argument because I do not believe in what religious people call miracles which teem in Acts. On this account alone, Acts is not a historical document.

Jayhawker Soule

I'm not aware of having stated a position. Certainly, I have not done the reading prerequisite to doing so with any certainty. Schnelle says "between 90 and 100 CE" while Mack says "early second century". If forced to pick, I'd probably choose Schnelle, but solely because I'm not a big Mack fan: I found his Who Wrote the New Testament to be heavy on story and light on substantiation.

Whatever the date, I think the "total fiction" argument is difficult to sustain.

Ruy Lopez

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Apologies for misreading your intentions. Schnelle says past 94CE, New Am. Bible commentators accept 90 CE, Burton Mack says 120 CE, Carsten Theide says between 48-60 CE and another Scholar I cannot recall says 125CE.

"Total fiction" is your phrase and I agree. When I claim that Acts is a fictional document, it means there is plenty of fiction in it. A work this long also has many historical elements but not in their pristine form. They have been embellished and romanticized to support its primary purpose--THEOLOGICAL MESSAGE.

Acts is a cleverly crafted propaganda material to sweep aside the numerous Christian sects and beliefs that would horrify Christian orthodoxy. It also fills in the blanks in Christian history from the ressurection to the end of Paul. It did not matter if the narrative were historical because the AUTHOR HIMSELF DID NOT KNOW THE FACTS. Most of the stuff he had in preparing his "college thesis" were also riddled with lore and self-serving theologies and cult beliefs like GMark, Q, Paul's letters(genuine and attributed) various popular hymns,legends and triple hearsay.

What is an intelligent superb writer going to do around 100 to 120 CE where all the disciples were long dead and people around him had their own separate versions of legends. He wrote the way Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar!!! Beautiful speeches of Brutus, Cassius, Marullus, Antony were all written by one man.

Jayhawker Soule

Which is, as I quoted, "between 90 and 100 CE". Specifically:
That insidious bastard! How do you come to know all this? ( I'll bet you read and liked Mack. )

[ June 02, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Toto

Nomad, a former poster here, started a thread last year to examine that issue. It eventually ran out of steam, perhaps because of Nomad's style and lack of substance.

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000812&p=" target="_blank">Looking at Luke and Josephus</a>

If Nomad's first two posts make your eyes glaze over, it might help you focus to read the reactions first, expecially Peter Kirby's contributions.

Ruy Lopez

from Reasonable Doubt:
That insidious bastard! How do you come to know all this? ( I'll bet you read and liked Mack. )
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Yes, I already mentioned B. Mack. Also read six other books with a general sweep of biblical material but of poor quality and some of the stuff posted here since April 2002. I've never seen Nomad and those hyperlinks before. Now you know. The books mentioned in the links are not available where I am. T he internet is now my best source.

As I said, I just intend to show Acts is not historical and that is fairly obvious by now. The word "presbyter" probably from the Greek appears a number of times in Acts. For me that is a dead giveaway that Acts was composed around the 2nd century. Those people were not called by that name in 36-60 CE.