Benjamin Franklin

I have read that Luke and Acts were written by the same author but when I was discussing contradictions in the resurrection accounts, it appears that Luke's account of the resurrection contradicts Acts account of the resurrection. So why would the author contradict himself. Any thoughts or comments on this matter.


Tjun Kiat

Darkside_Spirit

Could you post the precise contradiction? Acts begins with a reference to Luke, so it's pretty certain that the two books--at least the major part of both books--were written by the same author. And both show signs of having been authored by a Gentile woman.

Benjamin Franklin

From an article by GA Wells


"Miethe also claims that the appearances of the risen Jesus 'went on for forty days'. This feature is unique to Acts and contradicts even Luke (by the same author),which ends with Jesus leading his disciples on Easter day, after numerous appearances to them, from Jerusalem to the neighbouring locality of Bethany, where he
solemnly blesses them with uplifted hands before 'he parted from them and was carried up into heaven'--on that same day. Some manuscripts have only 'he parted
from them', but Fuller concedes, after discussing the manuscript evidence, that the words reporting the ascension are 'textually Lucan and integral to the narrative' (p.122). Evidently some copyists deleted them in order to represent the parting as only temporary and thus avoid contradicting Acts where the author seems to be drawing on a tradition not available when he wrote his gospel, and one on which he gladly seized because, while occasional appearances of the risen one might be
dismissed by sceptics as hallucinations, a sojourn of forty days, during which he presented I many proofs' (Acts 1:3), was more substantial."

The URL for the article is given below

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/resurrection.html#section5" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/resurrection.html#section5</a>

Tjun Kiat Teo

[ July 23, 2002: Message edited by: Benjamin Franklin ]</p>

Vorkosigan

In Luke, he ascends from Bethany:

Luke 24:50 NIV
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them.

In Acts he ascends from the Mount of Olives
Acts 1:9-12 NIV
9After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11"Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." 12Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk[2] from the city.

I have no doubt a creative fundie has already found an explanation for this one.

Acts 4:10 blames the Jews for Jesus' crucifixion, but the Romans kill him in Luke:

• ...then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.

In any case, he elsewhere implies the "correct" story, so we'll have to take this for speaker's hyperbole.

Acts 4:27 claims Herod and Pilate go together on the Jesus thing, although Luke says they hated each other until after Jesus' execution.

• Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people[ 4:27 The Greek is plural.] of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

Acts 5:30
The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead–whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.

Was Jesus killed by hanging from a tree? No doubt this is just euphemism.

This was all I could find in a quickie search. Anyway, it's not that important. Any two novels by the same author about the same topic will have internal contradictions. You should read Marilyn Zimmer Bradley's comments in the back of Hawkmistress! where, after her own experiences with Darkover, she says she understands why Sax Rohmer attempted to stab, burn, eviscerate and destroy Fu Manchu at the end of every novel!

Vorkosigan

CX

Nah. You seem to confuse hanging on a tree with hanging from a tree. They needn't be the same. In fact crucifixion often involved nailing a simple cross beam to a tree.

Benjamin Franklin

I am debating a fundie on the contradictions between Luke and Acts and she is claiming that any contractictions cannot be contradictions because if the author was fabricating the whole story, he would take painstaking care to ensure that there are no contradictions

Tjun Kiat

[ July 23, 2002: Message edited by: Benjamin Franklin ]</p>

Michael Ledo

The are many reasons for contradictions by the same author. One is a later redactor changed the script. "40 days" is a time period of uncertain but definite time. It is not to be taken literal anywhere in the Bible. While Luke was the best at being a historian in his narrative, history was the not the primary reason for writing the tale. He may have simply gone with what worked best for him at the time, making small changes as he saw fit.

Asha'man

Haven't you ever noticed how a lie grows with the telling? Seems pretty obvious to me, the author was "improving" the story so that it would sell better.

Asha'man

Actually, this is a sign of a sloppy editing job.

The Jewish punishment for blasphemy was to be stoned to death, and then the corpse would be hung from a tree until nightfall. (All nicely spelled out in the OT law.) Jesus was found guilty of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin, so this is exactly the punishment that they should have inflicted.

In a later re-write, someone decided it would make a better story if Jesus were crucified, which meant the Romans must have done it. The story was therefore probably changed to blame Pilate. In a third re-write, it probably was becoming bad form to blame the Romans, so the blame was passed back to the Jews, but the crucifixion stayed in the story.

The net result of all this rewriting is an absurd trial scene, where Pilate clearly declares Jesus innocent and then kills him due to public pressure.

Remember: To us, all these writings look equally old, so we start to forget how much time is passing between each one. However, if you start to look at a calendar, these stories have plenty of time to evolve and change. Each writer has a better way to tell the story, and each copyist thinks he is a master editor. We must assume that the story we have today bears little resemblance to how it looked originally.

FunkyRes

While there certainly is evidence that stuff was added (as in DIRECT evidence- older manuscripts that don't contain stuff in later manuscripts) I'm not sure there is ANY evidence of radical change.

It should be noted that no one thinks the gospels were written right after the incident, but the earliest date the Mark as being 62 AD, some 30+ years after the crucifiction. Others were later.

So that's plenty of time for the accounts not to be "fresh"

We are sure that Luke was not written by an Eye Witness.

I believe Mark was written by John Mark who could have been young at the time these things occurred, but at any rate- the events are not captured precisely as they happened, so this does leave some room for some error or Microsoft style memory leaks