Toto

He's never going to say that. Postmodernism means that you can avoid the question of historical truth. Robbins undoubtedly has to teach classes of students, some of whom believe that the Bible must all be literally true. But at the same time, he lives in an academic environment where others think that the Bible is myth. He can deftly avoid that fruitless controversy by doing literary criticism.

But what other meaning would you put on the paragraph that I quoted?

Toto

Up until recently, I accepted the common view that there was probably some sort of historical substratum in Acts, if you disregarded the obviously mythological parts. Now I have convinced myself that Paul was never known as Saul and that the author of Luke invented most of his early history. When you get around to the "Confirmation" thread again you can see.

But take your time.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, you know what they say about throwing away that baby together with the dirty bath-water. Although, admittedly, the baby might be quite small in that big dirty pool...

Quote:

Acts' literary qualities may be incidental to its theological purpose, but they could be an important part of the success of Christianity, in the way they weave Hellenistic themes into the Jewish base of Christianity. I am well aware that conservatives can play the pomo game - Charlotte Allen in particular comes to mind.

At least we agree on this...

Cheers,

Yuri.

Tercel

Yeah the substance of Amos' posts is his wacko ideas of non-literal interpretation of things. Robbin's postmodernist crap reminded me of that.

You're welcome to your opinion.

Toto

I think anyone can browse Crosstalk on yahoogroups without joining the group. (I don't know if you have to register with yahoogroups or not.) You can see the archive here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/messages

Robbins issued a challenge to the group to find passages in Acts that show "we" being used outside of his definition of a "sea voyage narrative", and so far has demonstrated that his theory holds up.

(I would not be surprized if he published an updated and expanded version of his article.)

He replies to one challenger here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/12712

and to our old friend Nomad here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/12717

Bede

Toto said:

There are, IIRC, only three we passages in Acts. Robbins has massaged his ideas to get them to fit these three passages while admitting that it is possible in his theory for 'we' not to be used in similar situations. Anyone with a modicum of critical thinking ability would turn on his Sagan Baloney Detector(TM) and realise that Robbins idea is simply a load of ad hoc arm waving. The only reason you cannot see this, Toto, is that Robbins helps with an anti-Christian point. If he was defending a conservative position you would treat his ideas with the scorn they deserve. It will be interesting to see if you can bring yourself to admit this.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Toto

Bede - I am not defending Robbins' theory. He is perfectly capable of doing that for himself, and I don't need Robbins theory to hold to the view that Acts is not historically accurate. But it is obvious to me that the people attacking him are way off base, have some sort of emotional commitment, and have had to stoop to distorting his position and the evidence. Your own post males it sound like you are near hysterica.

I think that Robbins has proposed an idea that holds some interest as literary criticism, and that if you were not somehow ideologically committed to the opposing view you would not see it as a threat to your religion.

I have emailed Robbins about this issue, and he has said that he is mystified about the intensity of the opposition to his idea. He says that he admires Hemer's work in general.

BTW, I consider it disingenuous of you to say

Dear Bede: one massages data, not theories. you tweak a theory to get it to fit the data, or massage the data to get it to fit the theory. Let's get our jargon straight here.

Since Robbins is doing LitCrit and not science, he is free to do what he wants, but in fact all he had to do was to state his theory completely and show how it fit the data. A lot of Layman's attack on Robbins has come from refusing to read his article or understand exactly what his theory involves.

[Have you read the article? It is quite different from what you would expect if you had only read his opponents.)

I assume that the second sentence of yours that I quoted refers to his assertion that a convention does not always have to be followed. You are really misrepresenting him.

Layman

Here is the first response to Robbins I offered at Cross-Talk. It has not yet been accepted by the Moderators there, but I wanted to post it here nevertheless.

Because of time limitations, I did not change the format. I also did not make all the edits to this version that I did to the one at cross-talk.

My apologies.

>>>>> ROBBINS: I want to thank Jeffrey Gibson for inviting me to respond to the message sent by Chris Price, Esq. of Los Angeles. I have not responded systematically to the studies to which Chris Price refers, since I have wanted to see if the field of early Christian studies has substantive resources in its modes of interpretation to bring into prominence the remarkable socio-rhetorical dynamics of early Christian sea voyages (and other accounts) that make them powerful Christian texts. It has been informative to see the sustained exclusionary strategies that have been used to defend the perspective of the sea voyages in Acts as authentic eye-witness accounts. The result of these strategies has been to turn readers' attention away from the truly remarkable qualities of this early Christian discourse in the cause of what claims to be "the truth" about Luke and the "historical accuracy" of the Acts of the Apostles. This means, above all, that this early Christian discourse is doing its work in the manner of a most powerful ideology, namely the discourse hides its power from the people whom it entices into its worldview. This means that the Acts of the Apostles is good literature. I am pleased that it is good literature, and I would like all kinds of people to understand what good literature it really is.<<<<<

Thank you for your response to my comments. I did not intend for them to be a comprehensive statement on your views on the "We-Passages," but I hoped they could start an informed discussion. I am pleased that they have.

I think the points I made in the initial post fall into two criticisms of your conclusion about the "we-passages" in Acts. First, that no such convention existed to describe sea-voyages in ancient Greek literature. Second, that even if such a convention existed, there is insufficient indication in Acts that it is used therein.

In this post, I will focus on the first point. And will follow up with a second post regarding the second point. I hope this is satisfactory. Also, I have not quoted all of your comments here. I wanted to move to your response to my initial points. Please redirect my attention to previous points made if they are relevant to the ongoing discussion.

I'm afraid, however, that I do not understand what you mean by "exclusionary" strategies. Certainly a review of your theory and examination of its validity is not, by definition, exclusionary, is it?

>>>> Chris Price, and the people whom he cites, have used historical, literary, and theological strategies of interpretation in "exclusionary" ways. Exclusionary tactics are based on a philosophical presupposition that truth lies in discrete phenomena when they are separated from other things. My philosophical approach is "relational." I presuppose that a person draws nearest to "truths" when one sees phenomena "in relation to multiple other things." In other
words, a person begins to see the "truest" nature of something when one sees how that phenomenon looks in the context of many other kinds of things. Concerning the
issue here, one begins to understand the nature of sea voyage discourse in Acts when one sees it in the context of many other kinds of discourse in the Mediterranean world. It was for this reason that I began my journey through ancient Mediterranean literature about sea voyages. I was surprised to discover a significant number of sea voyages presented in first person
plural discourse. Then, to my greater surprise, I found (as some other people had found) that a number of narratives shifted either from third person narration or first person singular narration into first person plural narration when a sea voyage began. This suggested to me that the experience of becoming part of "a community of voyagers" while one was on the sea was "related to" the presentation of certain (but not all) sea voyage accounts in first person plural.<<<<

I'm afraid I'm still unclear on what "exclusionary" tactics are. The scholars I cited all examined your work substantively and reviewed the materials you relied on to come to your conclusions. Other than the fact that they came to a different conclusion as you, how are their studies exclusionary? Is this simply an accusation of bias?

>>>Now to specific statements by Chris Price:

Price: "First, some of the works pointed to as "examples" of this convention -- such as A. Tacitus' Clitophon and Leucippe -- fail because they are written from the first person perspective throughout."

VKR: Please notice that this should be Achilles Tatius, not A. Tacitus.
Also, the title is Leucippe and Clitophon (Leucippe first). To say my argument
"fails" is an exaggeration motivated by something other than careful observation. The point is that first person plural narration is "often a preferred style of discourse" for recounting a sea voyage, because the social experience of participating in a small community during the voyage is so close to hand. I wonder, in this regard, if Price wants to argue that the first person narrational style of Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon proves that Achilles Tatius actually was an eye witness participant in all the events in the story! This is the point he seems to want to argue. He is intentionally misreading my identification of sea voyage narrated in first person plural toward his own exclusionary goals (i.e., every possibility is to be excluded except the conclusion that Luke had these experiences as an eye-witness participant).<<<<

Perhaps now I have a better understanding of what you mean by exclusionary. It appears that you are accusing me and all of the scholars I refer to as ruling out every possibility but one? Other than the fact that I and these scholars disagree with you, how did you arrive at that conclusion? And surely it does not apply to Stanley Porter, who does not come to the conclusion that Luke had these experiences as an eye-witness participant, but still evaluates your theory and disagrees with it: "[Robbins] does not seem to have established the existence of an ancient literary form used to relate sea voyages, and certainly has not yet demonstrated that it is relevant for discussion of Acts." S. Porter, Paul in Acts, 24.

As for my initial First point, I am grateful for the correction as to the Tatius. My apologies.

However, my point was not that Tatius' work was real history, but that it did not support your contention that there existed a literary convention to portray sea-voyages in the first-person plural. As you noted, unlike Acts, Clitophon and Leucippe does not switch back and forth between the first and third person perspectives, it is in the first-person throughout the entire work.

And no, I do not imply that is because it is a true account. Not at all. As I understand it, Tatius' work is an ancient greek Romance Novel. The author uses the first person not because of any sea-voyages therein, but because most of the story is written from the perspective of one of the main characters, Clitophon; "whose autobiographical account of his amorous misfortunes constitutes the rest of the narrative." Steve Nimis, Memory and Description in the Ancient Novel, at 6. montgomery.cas.muohio.edu/nimissa/MemoDescr.pdf

>>>> Price: "Second, there are more examples of third-person sea voyage accounts -- such as Seneca's Agamemnon -- from that period than there are first-person accounts. And this includes those writings, discussed above, that are completely written in the first person or are of actual sea voyages. This indicates that no convention for the use of the first-person for sea voyages
existed."

VKR: What kind of exclusionary concept is "convention" in this last sentence? Does convention mean that "everyone has to do it this way"? Some people will write according to a "convention," while others will not. Again Price has used exaggeration motivated by something other than careful reading of my essays and the data to which they point.<<<<<<

At the very least, this indicates that any such "convention" was a minority approach to sea-voyages. I take the term "convention" to mean a prevailing practice. Perhaps I have taken the term too broadly. If so I apologize. But because that is how I viewed the term, I thought the fact that the majority of ancient sea-voyages accounts were not written according to the proposed "convention" indicated that if such a practice even existed, it was a minority practice. As such, it should not merely be assumed that references to "we" that coincide with sea-voyages in ancient literature are the product of this convention--as opposed to personal accounts.

>>>>> Price: "Third, Robbins simply misreads, misunderstands, or mischaracterizes those texts were there appears to be a shift form the third-person on land to the first-person at sea. See Praeder, "The Problem," at 211-12; Hemer, Acts of the Apostles, at 317-318."

VKR: There is a lot of negative energy latent in these words. In the essays, my primary activity is a description of the data, style, and remarkable description of adventure in the sea voyages. A person who uses the words "misreads, misunderstands, or mischaracterizes those texts" has either not read the essays I have written or is trying to argue "one point at the
exclusion of all others."<<<<<<

I apologize for the negative energy. I do not question your motives or your abilities, only your conclusions.

But it appears that your response is merely to cast doubt on my motives (and that of not a few other respected scholars). You do not address my discussion, for example, of the Voyage of Hanno. Either the literature you cite supports your conclusion or it does not. Surely there must be some level of supporting examples of the "convention" if one existed?

That is why I brought up one of your most important examples--The Voyage of Hanno.

I will recap from my initial post and then expound: "Most notably, one of his prime examples, The Voyage of Hanno, shifts from the third person to the first person at the very beginning of the story because it was shifting from the introduction to the actual story of the voyage. But even more important is the fact that the Voyage of Hanno IS an eyewitness account of an actual, historical voyage."

How can Hanno be an example of a literary convention depicting sea-voyages in the first-person plural when it is in the first-person plural because it is written from the vantage point of an actual participant (or participants) of the voyage?

To rely on what I hope can be accepted as a "non-exclusionary" source, Stanley Porter makes the same point: "Hanno ... is more straightforward than their presentation of it might lead one to believe. The use of third person at the beginning of the document ... is reflective of the conventions of the scientific preface that Alexander has studied in detail (Cite: L. Alexander, Preface to Luke's Gospel, esp. 101).... The preface, which consists of the declaration by the Carthaginians regarding the sailing task of Hanno, is followed by a description of the voyage that the author undertook, conveyed throughout the rest of the work, as one might expect, in the first person plural." Id. at 21. As Porter asks, "If this were a valid parallel, just as this account in Hanno purports to be the record of an actual voyage by the narrator, are we to take the 'we' passages in Acts as the same kind of record?" Id. at 22.

I could have raised similar objections to the other examples cited to support your conclusions and would be happy to do so. Here, I will add two others:

The Third Syrian War. Although you rely on this fragmentary report about the Third Syrian War as an example of a shift between the first and third persons, it appears that the shift here is an actual one not dictated by literary conventions. The "we" passages refer to the Ptolemies, who were attacking by sea, as opposed to "they" who were their enemies, the Seleucids. As Ben Witherington states in The Acts of the Apostles, "In the Syrian War text the shift from third to first person is a sign of authorial participation after the recording of events in which the author didn't participate." Witherington, at 483.

Porter agrees, while also noting that the account is mutilated: "the four column text is so fragmentary that one must work from at text missing the first half of every line of the first and third columns (the third is worse than the first), and thus without a continuous sense. It appears that 'we' is used for the Ptolemies, whose spokesman is narrating the account, and 'they' is used for the Seleucids." Porter, at 23.

The use of "we" has to do with the identity of the actors, not their location. Therefore, it does not appear offer support for the existence of a literary convention that sea-voyages be portrayed in the third-person.

Dio Chrysostom. As with the Voyage of Hanno, it appears that what we have here is the recounting of a personal account. The author does not shift from the third-person to the first person because the story focuses on a sea-voyage, but because the author is recounting accounts he claimed to have participated in. The very beginning of the discourse begins, "I Shall now relate a personal experience of mine, not merely something I have heard from others (7.1)." Indeed, it appears that the passage referred to by Robbins as being in the first-person plural is in fact referring to a land journey.

It does not appear that these examples offer support for the existence of a literary convention for the portrayal of sea-voyages in the first-person plural.

Tercel

Layman, as far as I can gather, what Robbin's means by "exclusionary" is that these scholars have judged his theory as incorrect. To a post-modern relativist such as Robbins there is no such thing as correct or incorrect and everything should be accepted as equally right. That not everyone shares his philosophical position and dares to say that his opinions can actually be wrong, he sees as "exclusionary" as opposed to "inclusionary" which he as a relativist would favour. In other words he's not actually interested in the truth because he doesn't believe in it.

I may well be wrong, but that's the impression I get.

Layman

Thanks, that's what I thought at first. But then he goes on at one point and seems to equate "exclusionary" with believing Acts was written by Luke and willing to consider no other option. Which is why I included the criticisms of Professor Porter, because he does not affirm that Luke wrote Acts but is highly critical of Robbin's theory.

But if you are right that he is saying that his theory is correct because it cannot be wrong, then I'm not sure a substantive discussion will ensue. But I am sure that Toto will continue to agree with him.