Layman

Nope. I'm not the one who asked a question and then attacked the other guy for trying to answer it.

Okay. But you devoted a rather lengthy post to "proving" that Acts relied on Paul's letters and I responded to it quite substantively.

Did you forget already?

This is untrue. I responded at length to your lengthy post attempting to establish this very point.

I provided you with a nutshell above. I responded at length to your post on this subject. You have your articulation.

Actually, it answers the one question you have bothered to ask outright:

in the meantime, Layman, can you prove your assertion that there is a scholarly consensus that Luke did not have access to the Epistles?

If you want to prove that Acts copied Paul's letters go ahead and try. I have not had the time nor inclination to lay out the comprehensive case to prove a negative.

Toto

On page 5 of the last thread, you said:

But then you didn't elaborate as to what this "plenty of evidence" was. Or perhaps you did, and it was so underwhelming I missed it. Those few references to how Luke copied big blocks of Markan text, but didn't do the same with Paul - that was supposed to be the "plenty of evidence".

Perhaps this is pointless.

Layman

Actually, that was only one post. I said much else, including here, where I mentioned the basics:

I believe, as R. Brown attests, that it is "widely held" among scholars that Acts did not rely on Paul's letters as sources. I did note several reasons I've seen mentioned as a basis for this, including the differences in language, events, and theology. Indeed, the very lack of any reference to Paul doing what he was most famous for after the first century--writing
letters--indicates a stage of Christian history where Paul was remembered most for his actions, not his letters.

Actually, thank you for reminding me. The radical disjunction you propose is further evidence that the author of Acts did not use Paul's letters as sources. We have a track record of how he uses sources and your proposal is completely out of his style.

And it was not just Markan material. It was Q (or Matthean if you are so inclined), as well as "L."

Well, I'm not to eager to enage you on your terms when you bailed on a thread where we had already discussed this issue at length and with the relevant "correlations" (I forget, do you agree that they are correlations or not?) laid out for us.

And I'm still waiting for you to show me where you listed all those scholars in this thread that disagree with the "consensus."

Vorkosigan

We have a track record of how he uses sources and your proposal is completely out of his style.

Can't agree. First, in Mark, we know that Luke's and Mark's theology don't agree. Second, we know that Luke padded out Mark's ideas with a whole bunch of stuff. Third, we know that Luke left stuff out and re-arranged the story. Finally, we know that Luke harmonized conflicting sources, and used fictions as models for events, and borrowed things from other sources and reworked them for his own needs.

You yourself provided the connection with your excellent post that answered the question of how they are related. Luke did use both the "authentic" and forged letters of Paul to write his magnum opus on Christian origins. Like all his other sources, he used them creatively and in his own way.

I think the usual argument, cited in several books I have is that the differences between Acts and the Letters are so great as to prevent a connection. But I do not agree, and that judgement is largely subjective. Plus, no difference matters if a connection can be demonstrated. Just as, for example, even though Mark and John are very different, nevertheless, they are not independent, as various scholars argue despite the evident differences.

Vorkosigan

Layman

As usual, conclusory statements backed up by squat. In Luke, the author copied huge chunks of material from his sources that are readily identifiable. There is no such pattern in Acts for Paul's letters. Nothing about this requires that every jot and tittle be used, or that the theologies agree. Indeed, Luke's use of Mark and Q shows that he was willing to borrow heavily and obviously from sources that did not share his theological emphasis.

HomoSapien

It is not a new idea, but some scholars believe that Acts was a legal brief to be prepared before Paul's appearence in front of Nero.

The charges of starting a new religion and starting riots are both refuted in Acts. Acts goes to great lengths to prove that Christianity is an extension of Judaism. Peter speech and Stephen's as well make this connection.

As for the riots, again Acts point out that 2 or 3 mentioned riots are really instigated by others, not Paul.

The Gospel of Luke would have been a kind of mini biography of Jesus for the unitiated Roman. The writer makes it clear he is not an eyewitness in the opening paragraphs. That he is on a purely fact finding mission into the life of Jesus, and then addresses the whole thing to Theophilus...someone high up in the court system, Paul's legal advocate? Who knows.

However, this would answer the question did the writers of Acts have access to the epistles of Paul. No. He had Paul and various secondary sources.

Toto

HS - you claim that the author of Acts had access to Paul. Then how do you explain that he never mentions that Paul wrote letters? And why are there so many discrepancies between Paul's letters and Acts?

Peter Kirby

Where can I find the most complete collection of discrepancies between Paul's letters and Acts? (Or maybe you want to do a thread on that?)

best,
Peter Kirby

MortalWombat

I don't know how complete it is, but an article on this page references the following essay as a source of discrepancies between the two:

W. Baird, "The Acts of the Apostles", essay in C.M. Laymon: "The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible," Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN (1991).

...if that is any help.

Toto

I would not want to do (another) thread on that, but thanks for asking.

The Paul Paradox would be a place to start.

The Trouble with Acts is a non-scholarly site with some interesting information, but the author does not always give citations to his sources. (For instance, he claims that Paul's being let down through a hole in the wall at Damascus was a figurative reference to a "legal loophole", which sounds like it might be right, but I've never seen that anywhere else.)