Gooch's dad

I gather that there isn't a whole lot of controversy in biblical scholarship over the common authorship of Luke and Acts by the same writer. I guess this is based mostly on writing style.

But there are some really odd differences between the two, in some key areas.

For starters: Acts describes Jesus as being 'slain and hung on a tree' in three places; 5:30, 10:39, and 13:29. Some translations have 'cross' but I checked the Young's literal translation at unbound.biola.edu and it appears that 'tree' is the correct translation.

Luke, of course, describes a crucifixion on a cross. This isn't a minor difference--if Jesus were tried for blasphemy by the Jews, and found guitly, he would have been stoned and hung on a tree . Luke, on the other hand, describes a trial by Pilate and a crucifixion (all of Chapter 24). Sort of weird that Pilate hands Jesus over to the Jews to be crucified, though...

Secondly: Where was Jesus' ascension, Mount Olivet (Acts 1:9 and 12) or Bethany (Luke 24:50)? Seems like a rather important detail for one writer to randomly change.

Along those same lines, the account in Acts has Jesus hanging around for 40 days post-resurrection. The account in Luke appears to be maybe a day of post-resurrection stuff.

What's up with all this?

-Kelly

Bill

In James the Brother of Jesus, Robert Eisenman's strongest claim about the Book of Acts is that at least the first two-thirds (more or less) of the book must have been rewritten sometime long after the deaths of the principal players so as to eradicate all mention of James from that part of the Book of Acts. However, the job was apparently not completed, as the remainder of the Book of Acts has James in his rightful place as the head of the Christian community in Jerusalem (a fact attested to by no less than St. Paul himself in, for instance, Chapter 2 of the Book of Galatians).

Once you accept the fact that the Book of Acts was certainly the subject of a major redaction, then the whole puzzle of the New Testament comes loose and scatters, never to be properly assembled again as anything stronger than a mere guess. If the Book of Acts was substantially redacted, then it is probably true that the Book of Luke was also redacted (thus accounting for its status as a synoptic Gospel, by including favorite passages from the other two synoptic Gospels). And if that happened, then the other synoptic Gospels were almost certainly also redacted (and we have "earlier copies" of the Book of Mark without the crucial final chapter).

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Why was the Book of Acts only partially redacted? We don't know, but it is not outside of the realm of possibility that the redactor simply died in the middle of the process and that a "mere copyist" took over the remainder of the task of making a new copy of the Book of Acts. That is one possible explanation for this sort of a discontinuity.

Frankly, I would like to read what some of the apologists say about Eisenman's theory of the redaction of the Book of Acts, but so far, I haven't found any worth reading. But it would be nice to see them squirm.

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Anyway, once you get into later redactions by varying redactors, any inconsistency can be rationalized.

== Bill

Asha'man

A couple of years ago, I read The Making of the Messiah by Robert Sheaffer. In this book, Sheaffer attempts to sort through all the conflicting accounts and speculate on what may have originally happened. (Sheaffer is big in the UFO debunking world, and uses similar logic to find a likely cause of a UFO report.)

One of his conclusions was that Jesus was really found guilty of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin, stoned to death and hung on a tree. Over time, the early preachers discovered that stoning didn’t “sell” well, so it was edited. He uses this passage in Acts as part of his evidence. (Personally, I think he makes a very strong case.)

There are other aspects of the crucifixion that make much more sense if you assume that the story started off as a stoning. According to Jewish law, the body must be removed from the tree before nightfall. According to Roman law, the body was left on the cross to rot. Also, victims of crucifixion tend to survive on the cross for days, but Jesus seems to have died abnormally fast.

Kosh

How does this theory account for Pauls mentioning of crucifixion (although scant) as early as the 50s, if Mark was penned in the 70s?

Edited to remove my Freudian-slip spelling of "crucifiction".

happyboy

ah......bible errancy........

such a wonderful God. can't even keep his holy book straight.

happyboy

Asha'man

Bill’s answer agrees with Sheaffer completely:
As far as I know, the earliest mention of his death by Paul was in a letter directed to the Sanhedrin, talking about Jesus “whom ye slew and hung upon a tree.” This is not an idiom for crucifixion like many Christians would like to believe, but a literal reference to stoning and hanging the body on a tree. This is the earliest version of the story, and the one that Shaeffer gives the most weight to. (I need to dig up my copy of the book for the exact verse references, but I think these are the same passages in Acts that Gooch’s dad mentions.)

When Mark was written in the 70s, the story had been altered to sell better, and the Romans/Pilate became the villains. The stoning had been replaced with a crucifiction. Since the story was still new, and hadn’t been heard by many, it was easy to make such a significant change. Also, Mark was written as a replacement for other writings, it was meant to tell the definitive story. It was easy to make large changes in the story when the expectation was that other writings would become disused and ignored.

Sometime later, as Rome became friendlier to the early Christians, the story was edited, and the blame was taken away from Pilate and passed back to the Sanhedrin, now described as a Jewish mob. It was too late to change the crucifiction part of the story, since many people knew that part, but details could be edited without much notice. And, since the gospels were all in circulation, new books were harder to write, so careful editing of existing texts was needed.

I’m not sure how to blend in other edits regarding James the brother of Jesus, but I don’t see any conflict brewing. Changes were made for various reasons at various times, and we just have to look at what changed and when it changed to figure out the who and why.

Gooch's dad

huh? What letter did Paul write to the Sanhedrin? Are you referring to Galatians 3:13 "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree"?

There are at least 3 references to Jesus having been crucified in 1 Corinthians, which I gather is from roughly the same time as Galatians.

If it weren't for these earliest references by Paul to a crucifixion, I could accept the idea that Jesus was stoned for blasphemy, and the crucifixion stories were later accretions to the myth.

No takers on the differences in the place of ascension? That seems a very strange contradiction for books supposedly written by the same author.

-Kelly

Benjamin Franklin

Luke indicates that the ascenion is in the region of Bethany and Mount Olives is in the region of Bethany

As for the time difference of Jesus stay on earth i.e Luke 1 day Acts 40 day, the usual apologist answer is that nowhere in Luke's account is it indicated that everything happened in one day. There was a big debate along this lines between Nomad and the The Guy in 2001. I can dig up the thread for you if you are interested.

BF

Hawkingfan

BF,

Can you then explain this?--

MK 16:14-19 The Ascension took place (presumably from a room) while the disciples were together seated at a table, probably in or near Jerusalem.

MT 28:16-20 No mention is made of an ascension, but if it took place at all, it must have been from a mountain in Galilee since MT ends there.)

(paraphrased by Don Morgan at the Secular Web library)

Benjamin Franklin

Mk 16:14-19 Non canonical - These verses are not in the earliest manuscripts we have for Mark.

MT 28:16-20 Just because MT ends there does not mean the last meeting occured in Galilee. The Gospels writers are not obliged to include every detail.

BF