Tristan Scott

I'm sorry....how could I have known?

As to consensus, maybe we could agree on general agreement?

If we can, then I would say there is a consensus among conservative biblical scholars that Acts was written by the same author and after the 3rd gospel.

CX

Quite alright.

Though I'd question your definition of "conservative" (here we go again) since even maverick's like the Jesus Seminar seem to agree with that proposition. In fact I've never heard anyone say that Acts was written first before which is why I responded as I did. Ultimately historical studies are a game of probabilities. I suppose it is not inconcievable that Acts was written first. It just seems to raise more questions than it answers which is to be avoid in such endeavors in my personal opinion.

Clutch

Yo, about the trench prophecy. Roman legions built a trench around every damned thing.

The singular feature of the Roman army was that every single night they stopped marching early enough to dig a ditch around their entire encampment, heap the displaced earth into an embankment inside the ditch, and usually build a wooden palisade atop the embankment. That's how they kept their testicles attached at night as they marched through the hostile Gauls and Germans, and how they "projected power" so well. As with most things Roman, they engineered more than they fought their way to domination. And by the time of Augustus, everyone between Ireland and Afghanistan would have known this about the legions and Roman warmaking.

Saying that there would be a trench around Jerusalem thus amounts to saying that there would be trouble between the occupiers and the occupied. Someday. Which is not an especially impressive prophecy.

Tristan Scott

CX,

I agree that Luke and Acts are intended to be a 1-2 volume set. The problem I have is in which was actually written first.

In dating Acts, one has to assume that Luke didn't include the outcome of Paul's trial or the other explosive events because they had not happened by the time he wrote Acts. I have heard it speculated, among other things, that he didn't include them because he was writing about Jesus, not Paul, which makes no sense. Why would he have written about the trip to Rome in the first place. If this is true and Luke didn't yet know these things then Acts would have been written in the tight 61-62 timeframe. As far as Luke is concerned, if you are "conservative", and believe the Olivet Discourse (the prophesy of Jesus in Luke pertaining to the end time) to be a true prophesy, and even if you believe that like Matthew, Luke used Mark as a source for his Gospel, then you have no problem having Luke written before Acts. But if you believe the Olivet Discourse was a "prophesy after the fact" then Luke would have to have been written after 66.

Tristan Scott

Yo Clutch,

And I'm sure that Jesus or Luke was fully aware of these siege tactics and that they were every bit as aware of how they marched through the hostile Gauls and Germans.

CX

Why? What if he was not in fact a companion of Paul, but rather a 3rd generation Gentile Xian writing about Paul working from other sources and he simply didn't have the material available? Or perhaps the author of Luke/Acts intended to write a third volume and took a dirt nap before he got around to it. Or there was a third volume that got lost. Or a hundred other possibilities which are equally speculative and unproveable, but equally plausible? The point is we do have the texts themselves and they point to both books being written near the end of the first Xian century. Why should we ignore the actual evidence we have in favor of speculation and one peculiar fact of Acts?

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>

Clutch

Tristan,

Uh... yes? That was my point, after all. What's the point of your italicized quote? (Do you disapprove of metonymy?)

Tristan Scott

No, I don't disapprove (but I had to break out Merriam again ).

I'm sorry, but my point was that I doubt very much if a bumpkin Rabbi from the back woods of Galillee would have a clue as to military tactics of the Romans. I was being facetious.

Tristan Scott

You're quite right, I should have said In dating Acts, one could assume that Luke didn't include the outcome of Paul's trial or the other explosive events because they had not happened by the time he wrote Acts.

I read somewhere, maybe from A.N. Wilson's book on Paul(he likes to speculate), that Luke/Acts could have been intended as a trial brief for Paul's trial, and that Theophilus could be some trial official or council. Had you ever heard that one?

Clutch

Tristan, I dunno. Even today, I'm told, you can see places where legions stopped for the night. Wherever they went they left signs, and Judea *was* under Roman occupation, right? There were legions there who patrolled, I assume, and the people in the countryside would see where they stayed and would be darned gossipy about it, you'd think.

War affected the common folk as much as or more than anyone; I figure they'd take note of how it worked.

If anyone knows of reasons to think otherwise, that's fine by me. I know a bit about Roman military matters but not much about what backwater rabbis thought. For now it seems like common sense that JC would have known that trouble with Rome just *meant* a ditch/berm/palisade around Jerusalem.