Toto

Your objection is unsubstantiated. Have you read the article at the link?

Carrier wrote this before he became a mythicist. The article contains the reasons, based on the work of Steve Mason, a noted specialist in Josephus, who is not a mythicist.

This conclusion is only controversial among scholars who want to date Acts to 60 CE, before Josephus wrote. (See, e.g. the somewhat biased Bible apologetics blog.) But these scholars use the fall back position that there were some common sources used by both Josephus and Luke.

The issue of the dating of Acts is a particularly contentious issue with evangelicals and apologists.

outhouse

Which if you read Steve Mason's work he places authorship later then 94 AD if it relied on Josephus.


Your view is a controversial one, and I don't have as much a problem with the unknown author using Josephus, as much as I do with your certainty of a biased consensus.


It still is quite divided and I'm not sure we will ever know.

outhouse

This was pretty in depth read on the topic.

http://www.libraryindex.com/encyclop...paul-luke.html

Toto

That's the point.

Really? As I said, it is controversial among apologists who think their world might collapse if Acts is dated to the second century. Otherwise?

What is your problem with this? Do you know of a non-Christian scholar who disagrees with Mason, and can you give the reasons?

Your link in the post after this is to the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, "published from January 1875 to 1889." Would you care to quote any part of that article that you think supports your case?

Roger Pearse

I think we have established that nobody here has any idea what the scholarly consensus is; and that some people have heard of Mason's statement, and (for some unstated reason) presume that all scholars think likewise.

In the circumstances, it would probably be best to assume that Mason did not change the world. I have had a look in JSTOR and can only find two reviews of Mason's book. The first doesn't mention the theory; the second mentions that Mason thinks that "probably" Luke-Acts uses Josephus, but disagrees.

For reference, what Mason states in the 1994 edition (there is a later one which I have not seen, but which should be examined) is the following (p.224-5):

I for one do not find lists of this kind at all persuasive; selected similarities show connection, and derivation, and in one particular direction? Much more precision is needed for that kind of argument. But Mason, at least, thinks someone else will have to study it.

Does anyone have any evidence that Mason has been accepted by anyone? I'm having difficulty finding any scholarly discussion of his proposal (it seems to be no more).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

UPDATE: I have found this, Helyer, "Exploring Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period", p.362, n.36: 'In "Josephus: Value for New Testament study" however he is content to note that, "most scholars think that he [Luke] did not [know Josephus]".

hjalti

Richard Pervo has a chapter on it in "Dating Acts", this is his conclusion:

Toto

If you read Mason's book, you will find that he is unwilling to take a firm stand on much of anything. There is always room for more study. He spends pages and pages on the issue of whether the TF is a complete or a partial interpolation, and ends up saying it doesn't matter because once you admit some interpolation, you can never be sure of how the original read.

I think the key term is

outhouse

There is no consensus.

Most of the quality reports ive read show the 3 main hypothesis as described in the last link I posted.

Toto

You mean your link to the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, "published from January 1875 to 1889" ? You don't think any progress has been made since then?

Roger Pearse

Thanks - that's something.