FunkyRes

And perhaps some of the writings that got burned in Alexandria identify who Darius the Mede was.

Since there is no evidence that there was a third book, all a third book is is a conjecture.

I can't prove there wasn't a third book written or planned, but the burden of proof is on those who wish to use the existance of such a book as an explanation.

CX

This is exactly my point. I'm not advocating that there is a third voume which is now lost. I'm saying the original speculation that Acts was written first and the parts that refer back to GLk are late additions is just as speculative and uncorroborable as the hypotheses I offer above. Leading me to conclude that we are better off sticking with what we do ahve and know and going from there

Steven Carr

There is a 'Western', revised version of Acts which some people (eg Robin Lane Fox) think is by the same author.

Whether it is or not, it was clearly written later than Paul's death, and it does not include the outcome of Paul's trial.

So if the only reason Acts does not include details of Paul's death was because it was written before his death, why does the revised, later version by an unknown author not correct this detail?


Perhaps Acts was never intended to document Paul's death, or the circumstances of his death were felt to be irrelevant.

Benjamin Franklin

Hi CX,

I would like your opinion on why Acts contradicts Luke

Tjun Kiat

CX

Which contradictions are you referring to or are you just asking for speculation about contradictions in general?

Benjamin Franklin

The contradictions in the resurrection accounts that I posted right at the start of this thread

Tjun Kiat

CX

Who knows? We can only speculate. Perhaps he didn't have the 40 day sojourn material when he wrote GLk. Perhaps he was fuzzy on the details of what he originally wrote because he gave his only copy to Theophilus a few years earlier. Perhaps he was just sloppy. Perhaps a sloppy editor added the 40 days bit later on because people were saying that the disciples hallucinated the first vision depicted in GLk. It is a puzzling question indeed, and one that doesn't avail itself to a concrete solution. The difficulty with all historical studies is that unlike physical sciences we deal mostly in probabilities without recourse to experimentation. The question becomes which solution answers the most questions and raises the fewest. There are a few facts that militate against GLk and Acts being composed by the same author, but none that are especially extraordinary and far fewer than those that suggest a common authorship. No single solution will answer every question. If it did there would be no controversy whatsoever. Since our evidence is fragmentary our solution is only an approximation. This is as true in the 'hard' sciences as it is here. The goal is to arrive at the best approximation based on the available evidence.

Tristan Scott

I don't know, I haven't heard of this revised version.

Maybe not, but it seems strange then that it would chronicle the trip to Rome for his trial and then not include the trial itself, or the events that the trial produced.

Vorkosigan

Not really. Not if the author died before she could finish, or Paul's end was actually embarrassing or useless (died run down by a horse, or of typhus) or killed by Nero and Luke, pro-roman, did not want to advertize that fact, or Paul really was a roman agent, as several writers have surmised.....lots of possibilities, and no information.

Tristan Scott

Yes. That is plausible. There was an air of optimism about the Nero regime when he first came to power. There was even optomism among many of the more cosmopolitan Jews. Judaism was even somewhat of a fad among Roman society in the fifties. I believe Nero's wife even dabbled a bit in it. That optomism seems to come through in Luke's writing of Acts, so you are right; when things didn't go so well during Paul's trial, he could have just decided to omit it, or it could have been redacted out later for similar reasons.