Forget the Myth of Jesus

[davidmartin]

To be fair, I created the title.

I suggest reading SA's posts to get a better sense of what he's saying. If it's not there, I guess ask questions.

The fourth post in this thread is the starting point, which links to the earlier conversation.

No need to hand hold all I saw was a bunch of posts by SA in a thread created by him, and I did respond to the general thrust of what he was saying, eg 'Surely Andrew doesn't believe that Paul and Peter "agreeing to disagree" with one another is authentic first century history.'. I saw what he said about Papias et al. What I wrote is really a question so in fact, I was doing already what you suggest I should do!

[spin]

I think Acts helps us to understand how Jews Greeks and Romans interacted in the mid 1st century. The 2nd century was different.

It is the right sort of interaction for the period. E.G Roman citizenship is rather rare in the Eastern mediterranean and it is binary one has it in an all or nothing way. This is true for the 1st century but not the 2nd.

EDITED TO ADD

It may be a (very early) 2nd century text but it is based on 1st century material.

Am I mistaken in thinking that this all is argument (proof) by assertion?

[Secret Alias]

Nope. I also thinks he assumes that the early Christians were incapable of manufacturing a text which deliberately imitated the "first century" characteristics he identified. Like God or the Holy Spirit would prevent such men from "making up things." That's what's really behind this silly notion. Bad people can forge documents. Good people, guided by truth, can only speak the truth. Luke seems to echo Papias's criticisms of Mark in his opening lines. But because "good people" say Luke was the ultimate authority on Paul, no point following up on the breadcrumbs that lead to a middle to late second century origin for the Lukan corpus. Trust the "good people" and you'll never go wrong. It's a first century document because "good people" tell us so.

[StephenGoranson]

Unfair, SA, presuming to speak for Andrew.

[Secret Alias]

How else is it justified? Let's be real here. Andrew knows that the Marcionites EXPLICITLY said Acts is a forgery. So it's not like we have to develop a comprehensive argument that the alleged "first century characteristics" MIGHT be false. Clearly Acts claims to be a "first century" document written from within the innermost circle of the apostle Paul. This is not inferred. The document's authenticity lives or dies by its claim to be written by someone in the first century. The Marcionites - On the True Faith, Adamantius - EXPLICITLY states in the third century that this claim is fake. So whatever arguments we cobble together in the modern era is necessarily bolstered by the witness of the followers of "Marcion." That's a compelling case against authenticity. How else is the witness of the Marcionites refuted when on top of the Marcionite witness Luke 1:2 is CLEARLY an echo of Papias? There is only answer. Andrew subscribes to the "only bad people forge texts" because he's hyper-suspicious of other alleged texts that look like they come from identifiable eras. If he was open to all texts being authentic, then he'd be consistent. He's not suspicious of Acts being a forgery because he believes that the author is a good person.

[Secret Alias]

And with respect to Acts being a forgery, we need look no further to Baur, who says rightly, that it was designed for the purpose of harmonizing the two factions, and so it represents Paul as friendly to the law and to normative Judaism. The Marcionites opposed Acts because the "history" of Acts is absurd. Acts was written at a time where the "normatives" of Judaism and Christianity were not opposed to one another. This can only be in the late second century. In every other era, Jews and Christians were at each other's throats. Justin Martyr is still portrayed as combatting Jewish authorities. Not so after Justin.

[Peter Kirby]

continued from:

This thread has been joined together, again. The original posts are now here to limit confusion and preserve the chronological order of those posts. For those who are willing and able to continue the discussion on Academic Discussion, according to those forum guidelines, that thread is here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11487

[Secret Alias]

Basically whatever I add to my own discussion is removed. IJBOL. I am getting the message. I will stay out of that discussion. Happy to help the forum in whatever way I can.

[rgprice]

FWIW, I actually think that there was a source used for the "we passages" in Acts, and that in fact this source was produced before any of the Gospels.

My thinking is that the first thing produced was a Seven Letter Pauline letter collection. This was then prefaced with an account of Paul's ministry beginning with his conversion. This is why the Pauline letters were originally in chronological order. If you put together the Marcionite introduction to the Pauline letters, you get a basic outline of Pauline Acts. I would assume that this account was called "Acts of the Apostle" (singular).

Whoever created the orthodox "Acts of the Apostles" built on top of the earlier "Acts of the Apostle". They added a lot of introductory material about the other apostles and then completely cut up and revised the original "Acts of the Apostle".

But there was a point in the development when the only thing that existed was the Pauline letters, prefaced by Acts of the Apostle, which was an introductory narrative for the letter collection. So in fact, "Acts of the Apostle" predates ANY account of the life of Jesus, it is actually the oldest narrative.

This is actually in line with how many ancient narratives were written. It is often the case with ancient narratives that the most recent time period covered is the oldest, with the narrative being extended back in time by later revisions. This is, for example, how much of Roman history was generally written.

The first Gospel was then based on Acts of the Apostle.

The point here, in terms of "forgery", is that like with so much Christian material, we are dealing with later forget built upon an earlier "authentic" work. Now, even the first version of Acts may have been unhistorical, but it was produced as an authentic narrative of the original Pauline letters, whereas the canonical version is a forged perversion of such.

But, if I'm right about this, then in fact Acts is one of the most important writings we have. It contains the seed of all the narratives that followed.

[Charles Wilson]

The question was "Why should anyone believe Acts?

As I used to say with some frequency, "From the Fact the 'Jesus Stories' were written from 'Source Stories', it does not follow that the 'Source Stories' were about 'Jesus'".

If you want to believe that "Jesus" took the Holy Elevator into Heaven in the opening scenes of Acts, go right ahead, feel free to do so.

Acts covers the 12th Legion and Mucianus - " 'N you can look it up."


CW