Vinnie

Ouch!

It is not impossible that Luke, a companion of Paul actually authored Acts if we recognize several things about Acts

These 4 are commonly cited.

1) it was written decades after Paul's death, 2) we have to make the allowance that that there were details about Paul's early life the companion did not know, 3) this companion simplified and reordered information even as he did in the Gospel of Luke which drew from Mark 4) he rethought some of Paul's thoughts which were deemed as no longer apropos (a true theologian).

Though we have no way of being certain Luke, the companion of Paul did author it but its not impossible by any means.

Some argue that the author of Acts knew 1 Cor and 1 Thess but as Layman pinted out, the consensus on the issue is independence.

Pick up a good intro to the NT. All this is layed out.

Vorkosigan

Maybe you are convinced, but I have never seen a convincing case of this made. How can the differences show he was not a companion of Paul?

Hmm...well, the differences appear to be difficult to explain if Luke really was with Paul on his travels. According to what I have seen, they differ on key points like the number of trips to Jerusalem, the role of James, the decision of Apostolic Conference in Jerusalem (Acts 15:29), the invention of the martyrdom of Stephen to replace the acount of James' death (and the elimination of Paul's attack on James entirely), the speeches (which are constructions -- yes, I know that was the habit, but Luke was a witness, right?) and of course, the differing accounts of the mission to the Gentiles. The changes in Acts look like later theological legitimation additions. Additionally, there is the problem of the anachronisms in Luke, along with the use of Josephus. The last is pretty much the clincher.

Do know of a specific rebuttal to Mason's arguments? I plan to buy Mason next month -- you could save me some money!

If you believe that he had access to all the information that we do about Paul, how can any difference between those letters and his writings be attributable to ignorance or mistake? They cannot.

I agree. The differences are not due to error or ignorance, but are deliberate, and relate to the theological and political conflicts of Luke's time -- after 110, and probably even later. Luke's piece is a deliberately constructed work intertwining legend, fact, history and theology. It was in Acts that Luke's use of historical and literary sources really shines.

Perhaps they can be attributable to having a different agenda, theology, or purpose in writing, but there is no reason to assume that a companion of Paul writing 20 years later would have the same agenda, theology, or purpose in writing that Paul had.

Many of the arguments Toto has clung to are arguments that Luke got too many of the details of Paul's life wrong to have been a companion of Paul.

Not details, but major issues. And the differences indicate deliberate construction, rather than good-faith error.

It cannot both be true that the author knew everything we know about but that the we know facts about the life of Paul that the author was ignorant of.

Why not? All we need are different sources than the author.

Actually no, I have uncovered no literary dependence.

Looks to me like it!

Too many of the agreements are incidential or of no great significance to presume literary dependence. There are also too many ambugities or important points that are highlighted in Paul's letters but are missing in Acts.

Well of course they are missing in Acts. Acts is a much more polished document reflecting the construction of a triumphal history rather than an ongoing theopolitical instruction like Paul's letters. The incidental nature of the agreements do not tell against literary dependence. Consider how Luke broke up, trimmed, polished, and redistributed Mark's gospel. Many agreements are incidental, but still nobody disputes he used Mark as a source.

Moreover, there is lacking a significant indicator of such dependence: linguistic similarities tending to show copying or use as a source.

But linguistic similarities are not the only way to detect the presence of source. A number of scholars have made arguments for the source structure of Acts, Harnack's was one of the early and important ones. In any case, there are no reliable criteria for sorting out sources in Acts, as Schnelle points out. So we all may strike out here. Nevertheless, several of your points really screamed "literary dependence."

An additional point in favor of literary dependence is that, as you have outlined in several places, Acts has correspondence with the forged letters of Paul. Assuming for the moment that the 'authentic' letters really are Paul's without too much interpolation, then you have to confess that the Author of Acts used materials he knew were not Paul's in the construction of his story. But he was a companion of Paul, so how could he not know which ones were real?

Further, there's something very Lukan about his use of the letters. Glancing through, it seems that the majority of the references are to 1 Cor and Gal. That seems to reflect very much his contruction of the Gospel, where he relied on Mark and Q to a great extent, and less so on other sources (like John).

As far as I can tell, Toto has not really changed his mind. To the extent it appears so, he's simply straddling the fence until he can think of which theory most likely means that Acts has the least amount of historicity possible.

Well, we'll have to poll Toto on that...

Since you have already averred that the writer of Acts may have had differing agendas from Paul, and since we both agree there are some significant differences between the two, how is it you feel that the writer of Acts is a reliable historian as far as Paul is concerned, assuming he is Paul's companion? He might well have had his own ax to grind and simply made things up for whatever reason. Problem is, companionship does not guarantee reliability, and use of sources does not mean it is ahistorical.

Vorkosigan

Gaack! Can't find the thread. Steven Carr had a page on it, but it is down...

http://essenes.crosswinds.net/thomascom2.html

"Indeed furthermore, he never even once alludes to the panorama of the Savior's biography, from the Nativity up to the Passion, which fills the pages of the first four books of the New Testament. This is, on the face of it, a most puzzling omission. (¹although, astonishingly, at Ac 13:24-25 he does quote John the Baptist!; Ac 20:35, on the other hand, is actually a citation from Thucidides' Peloponnesian War, while Ac 26:14 is in fact a line from Euripides' Bacchae!)"

Toto

Hi Vork - definitely buy Mason on Josephus. His demonstration that Luke relied on Josephus is a small part of the book, but the entire book is very worthwhile.

On Euripides: I take this from Helms, Who Wrote the Gospels, p.90:

{any typing errors are mine}

Layman: are you aware of any scholarly poll on whether Luke used Josephus? Mason makes a good case, and I am not aware of any scholarly quarrel with it.

And do you have any analysis that shows that Luke did not rely on Paul's letters?

I am not going to be able to devote a lot of time to this for the next few weeks, but I will get back to it.

Bede

Hi all,

May I ask a question?

What exactly is the positive case that 'Luke' was not a companion of Paul? That 'Luke' used phrases from Greek classics (much as we all use Shakespeare) shows us only he was classically educated and the Josephus does not convince as it depends not only on 'Luke' using Josephus but misreading him too. That 'Luke' and Jo disagree is actually prima facie evidence of independence.

I can see the positive case that he was a companion as:

- the agreement with the letters of Paul;
- but the disagreement on some specific points in them that show he did not use them as a source;
- the 'we' passages that we now know are not a literary device for sea journies (Toto's heroics notwithstanding);
- the large amount of historical accuracy on the situation in the 50s and 60s coupled with mistakes (like the census and the various rebels) on events a couple of generations earlier;
- no martyrdom account which we would expect to see in a second century document.

So what are the positive arguments against Luke being who he says he is?

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Geoff Hudson

I say that this is exactly what I would expect of a later editor working with an original text. The question remains; what was the original? I don't believe for one minute that the person who was using the Bacchae was the author of the whole.

Interestingly, the line "it is hard etc" is not in the parallel verse of Acts 22:8.

Geoff

Geoff Hudson

It is not reliable to attribute a whole "scene" to one line of text from the Bacchae.

In fact, I think that the whole "conversion scene" has nothing whatsoever to do with Paul's conversion.

Geoff

Layman

Could you please give me any pinpoint cites Brodie provides to the Bauckham book. Or at least which article in Bauckham's book he is discussing. I had not remembered anyone arguing that Luke had Paul's letters when he wrote Acts, and a limited review last night did not turn up any likely prospects.

Bauckham's book does not spend much time at all discussing the distribution of Paul's letters or the writing of Acts. The focus is on the Gospels, and how they were meant for a wider readership than many scholars believe:

Richard Bauckham, The Gospels for All Christians, at 1.

It could be, I suppose, that Brodie is simply taking this energetic challenge to the current majority opinion as indicating that the Epistles themselves would be covered by the same reasoning. If that is his basis, then I am skeptical. Bauckuam points out that his theory does not apply to Paul's epistles. Indeed, the very reason that Bauckham advances his theory is that there is a big difference in how the Gospels were written and circulated and how the Epistles were written and circulated.

Bauckham, at 27.

Of course, like I said. I have not read the book in a while and have had a chance only to give it a cursory review. So any direction as to where in the book Brodie finds his support would be appreciated. There are 8 different articles by 7 different authors.

Layman

The argument is not a new one. Various scholars have tried to advance the argument for a hundred years now, kinda like the few outliers on the existence of Q and Markan priority. But rest assured that Mason is in a distinct minority on the issue. Indeed, F.B. Kummel says that "the dependence of Acts upon Josephus has rightly been given up." Introduction to the New Testament, at 132.

Sure, but it was not on the front burner. I was actually expecting more resistence to the idea there were substantial similarities. We can get to this one time permitting.

It's an interesting issue. Take all the time you want. The board will go nowhere.

Toto

I do not have the book in front of me, but I think that was the basis of his argument. He referred to an article describing the "holy internet" as I recall.

---

When did Kummel write, and what was the basis of his opinion? Did he in particular consider Mason's arguments and reject them, or refer to critics who did? A brief internet search shows a date of 1975 for one translation and 1996 for another; I think that both of these predate Mason, who seems to be in the forefront of modern scholarship on Josephus.