Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

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rgprice
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by rgprice »

@John2
"thousands of Jews have believed."
There is no question about "belief in Jesus". That is very different from "knowing Jesus".

Millions of Jews also believed in angels and demons. Millions of Jews believed that they were descendants of Abraham. Thousands or perhaps millions of Jews believed that Enoch had traveled to heaven and had conversations with God that he wrote down and passed on.

That there was a belief in some kind of miraculous Joshua is not disputed. What we're talking about here are indications of familiarity with a human being.

And of course Acts itself was written some time in the late first to mid-second century, at a time when people absolutely did believe that Jesus was a real person. The writer of Acts espoused that Jesus was a real person.

However, it appears that the writer of Acts was basing part of his narrative very closely on a source. It appears that that source contained no references at all to a human Jesus, even in places where one would expect such references. It doesn't appear that the second part of Acts was made up by the writer because it doesn't read at all like something someone would make up from scratch as the ending of a narrative about how the Jesus movement spread after the death of Jesus.

What the ending of Acts reads like, is mostly an actual account of the BEGINNING of the Jesus movement, from a time before it was believed that Jesus was a real person. It looks like the writer of Acts perhaps added in a few references to Jesus to tie him into the story, but mostly stuck to his source. That source, contained no mention at all of a human Jesus, only mentions of a spiritual Jesus/Joshua.
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arnoldo
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by arnoldo »

rgprice wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 3:13 am It looks like the writer of Acts perhaps added in a few references to Jesus to tie him into the story, but mostly stuck to his source. That source, contained no mention at all of a human Jesus, only mentions of a spiritual Jesus/Joshua.
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach. . .
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by GakuseiDon »

rgprice wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 3:13 amIt appears that that source contained no references at all to a human Jesus, even in places where one would expect such references. It doesn't appear that the second part of Acts was made up by the writer because it doesn't read at all like something someone would make up from scratch as the ending of a narrative about how the Jesus movement spread after the death of Jesus... It looks like the writer of Acts perhaps added in a few references to Jesus to tie him into the story, but mostly stuck to his source. That source, contained no mention at all of a human Jesus, only mentions of a spiritual Jesus/Joshua.
There is a problem with using the logic of "where one would expect such references [to a human Jesus]". Who sets those expectations, and how are they determined? For example: if you expect such references in Acts, a text which no-one doubts is 'historicist', and those expectations are not met, then it may be your expectations are the issue. What are your expectations based on in the first place such that they are justified? In fact, unless shown otherwise, Acts is actually evidence against such expectations.

This failure to ground those expectations is a point I've long argued against both Doherty's and Dr Carrier's theories. I created a thread a couple of years ago where I analysed all the NT texts to compare how their proposed 'mythicist' texts differed from their proposed 'historicist' ones, here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4753
Analysis:

Of the 27 texts in the NT:
  1. 23 texts could have been written by Mythicists. These include texts that seem to support mythicism strongly according to Carrier, to texts that don't offer any details about a historical Jesus, or any Gospel details.
  2. 4 epistles were probably written by 'historicists', though 3 of the Gospels could have been written by 'historicists' as well.
Of the 4 texts considered not written by Mythicists:
  1. Acts of the Apostles seems to have included Mythicist material, to the extent that Carrier considers that Acts supports mythicism rather than historicity. Best/worst case according to Carrier: 18/25 to 1/5 (e.g. Acts is 5 times more likely to support mythicism than historicity). It contains few statements supporting an 'earthly' Jesus.
  2. The single 'earthly' statement in 1 Tim may be an interpolation. If that is the case, then 1 Tim would fall into the pattern of 'mythicism' (e.g. no historical details about Jesus, no Gospel details, vague statements not supporting time and place such).
  3. 2 Peter contains a single 'earthly' statement about being 'eye witnesses' to the glory of Jesus. If that is an interpolation, then 2 Peter would fall into the pattern of 'mythicism' (e.g. no historical details about Jesus, no Gospel details, vague statements not supporting time and place such).
  4. 1 John contains a single 'earthly' statement 'we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life'. Otherwise, it seems to fall into the pattern of 'mythicism', as above.
Of the 4 Gospel texts:

Even in the Gospels, there are surprisingly few details about Jesus. Was Jesus married or single? Tall or short? How long was his ministry? Carrier uses the contents of the Gospels based on Rank/Raglan scale for his prior probability, and gives the Best case/worst case as follows: 2 to 15 times more likely to support mythicism rather than historicism. However, only Mark may be by a 'mythicist'. The other Gospel writers may have been 'historicists' who used Mark and other sources in order to 'flesh' out their Jesus stories. (Updated thanks to Giuseppe's criticisms below)

Of the 23 non-Gospel texts:

There is very little difference in style or content between the 19 possible mythicist texts and the 4 'historicist' texts. The historicist texts are also vague about details around the historical Jesus and lack Gospel details and an earthly setting for Jesus. Removing one 'earthly' statement -- usually nothing more than 'we were eye-witnesses!' would move the text over into a 'mythicist' written one.

Looking at later literature, we see the same vagueness: Carrier writes (in OHJ page 315) the following about the Epistle to Barnabas, which was considered scriptural at an early state (my bolding):

The Epistle of Barnabas (which assumes the historicity of Jesus) could conceivably date around this same time, but it has not been any more precisely dated than 70-130 CE, and in my opinion it surely dates to the period 130-132 CE... What few things Barnabas says about Jesus are rarely specific and never sourced anyway-its content thus can't be ascertained as having any source independent of the Gospels or Christian tradition influenced by the Gospels. It could reflect an early example of historicist theology, but as such it is no less expected on myth as on historicity and thus makes no difference to their consequents.

Going onto the Second Century apologists, Earl Doherty writes in his "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man" when he compares the Second Century Christian apologists writing to pagans with the First Century epistle writers:

Another aspect is the fact that in almost all the apologists we find a total lack of a sense of history. They do not talk of their religion as an ongoing movement with a specific century of development behind it, through a beginning in time, place and circumstances, and a spread in similar specifics. Some of them pronounce it to be very "old" and they look back to roots in the Jewish prophets rather than to the life of a recent historical Jesus. In this, of course, they are much like the 1st century epistle writers. (Page 477)

And I agree! There is a pattern there. I am an amateur with no knowledge of the ancient languages involved, just someone who has read a lot of early literature in its English translation. But it does seem to suggest to me that a common writing style that is vague on historical details is at play here, and that should be taken into consideration when evaluating whether a text is 'mythicist' or 'historicist'.
So I would say that your expectations of references to a human Jesus in Acts are not justified. Not that I can explain why the early writers, which includes nearly all extant Christian apologists in the Second Century CE, were apparently not interested in promoting the human Jesus. Perhaps it may indeed be evidence of Carrier-style mythicism. But it is clear that, for whatever reason, 'historicist' writers were vague about the human Jesus, and that should help in determining where we set our expectations about what is and isn't in Acts.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by GakuseiDon »

arnoldo wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 12:00 pm
rgprice wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 3:13 am It looks like the writer of Acts perhaps added in a few references to Jesus to tie him into the story, but mostly stuck to his source. That source, contained no mention at all of a human Jesus, only mentions of a spiritual Jesus/Joshua.
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach. . .
Yes: "In my first book, O Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach, 2until the day He was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen."

That kind of puts a stake through the heart of rgprice's logic. If the Acts author had access to human-Jesus details and decided not to use them, how can rgprice argue that Acts' source on Paul's trial was not 'historicist'? Perhaps that source also had access to human Jesus details and also decided not to use them. Acts itself becomes an example of this.
Secret Alias
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by Secret Alias »

But GD you're sidestepping my interest in the OP. There is something strange going on. Is it outright 'mythicism'? Probably not. But you're only looking at things through a limited perspective. Paul seems to be the one introducing the idea of 'Jesus' to his contemporaries. It's unusual.
John2
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by John2 »

rgprice wrote:

However, it appears that the writer of Acts was basing part of his narrative very closely on a source. It appears that that source contained no references at all to a human Jesus, even in places where one would expect such references. It doesn't appear that the second part of Acts was made up by the writer because it doesn't read at all like something someone would make up from scratch as the ending of a narrative about how the Jesus movement spread after the death of Jesus.

While i do think the second half of Acts is more interesting than the first, I think it's because that is the point in time when the author entered the picture (exemplified by the "we" passages). In fact, I'm fairly convinced (for reasons I've given elsewhere and won't go into here) that the author of Acts was the Epaphroditus mentioned by Paul in Philippians and that he wrote it (and Luke) by c. 95 CE and that thus he was in a position to know some things about early Christianity.

I used to despise every word of Acts as nonsense (twenty years or so ago) but have gradually come to appreciate it for what I think it is, a writing by someone who knew Paul and other early Christians and had access to early Christian writings (letters, Mark, perhaps more than one version of Matthew, the "we" passages, etc.), so perhaps we could put the account of Paul's trial in the same boat.

But even if we did that, I'm not getting the impression that Paul's trial was Jesus-free (or earthly Jesus-free). The key for me is Festus' summary of the trial in 25:17-19, which appears to describe (from Festus' point of view) a human Jesus and says that this was a reason why Paul was tried.

The next day I sat on the judgment seat and ordered that the man be brought in. But when his accusers rose to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. They only had some contentions with him regarding their own religion and a certain Jesus who had died, but whom Paul affirmed to be alive. Since I was at a loss as to how to investigate these matters, I asked if he was willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried there on these charges.

Okay, it's not very detailed, but that's because it's from Festus' point of view, and as he says, "I was at a loss as to how to investigate these matters." And it gives me the impression that Jesus was thought of (by Festus and Paul's accusers) as a human who had lived and died on earth, and I get the same impression from what Paul says in Acts 26:22-23:

I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen: that the Christ would suffer, and as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to our people and to the Gentiles.
Last edited by John2 on Fri Dec 18, 2020 3:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by GakuseiDon »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Dec 18, 2020 1:46 pm But GD you're sidestepping my interest in the OP. There is something strange going on. Is it outright 'mythicism'? Probably not. But you're only looking at things through a limited perspective. Paul seems to be the one introducing the idea of 'Jesus' to his contemporaries. It's unusual.
Actually my comments were about looking at things more broadly: that is, the implications about things NOT talked about.

More narrowly then about the OP: I don't think something strange is going on. In the OP, rgprice writes:
Paul comes into Jerusalem. He's preaching about Jesus. He gets apprehended, but not because he's preaching about Jesus per se, but about resurrection. He's taken to the Sanhedrin, where he talks about resurrection. The Sadducees attack him on the point of promoting belief in resurrection, and the Pharisees come to his defense. At no point is Jesus even brought up!
But he seems to be operating under the view that early Christians should have been trying to promote the later Gospel Jesus. It's clear throughout Acts what the point of contention is, and it is about the idea that the prophets wrote that the coming Christ had to suffer:

Acts 1
[1] The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
[2] Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
[3] To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs

Acts 3:
[17] And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.
[18] But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.

Acts.17
[1] Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
[2] And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
[3] Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.
[4] And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.
[5] But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy

Acts 26
[22] Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come:
[23] That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
[24] And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
[25] But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.
[26] For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.
[27] King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.
[28] Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

The point of the trial was to show that the prophets wrote that Christ should suffer and be raised from the dead. It wasn't to show that Jesus was a nice guy with good sayings, or that he could perform miracles, or anything like that. Perhaps you might argue that that is what they should have talked about during the trial, but it's clear what the author of Acts thought was important: Paul was claiming that the scriptures said that the Christ must suffer (Paul "reasoned with them out of scriptures" for "three sabbath days" that "Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead") and resurrect.

So it's not that Paul is introducing them to the idea of Jesus, it's that Paul is reasoning from scriptures the idea that the prophets said the coming Christ had to suffer and die.
Last edited by GakuseiDon on Fri Dec 18, 2020 3:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by Secret Alias »

I don't think something strange is going on.
Well then you are a dishonest person. Most of us (me) would have just assumed that Acts was a romantic history developed from the orthodox POV. I've heard it argued that the author wasn't familiar with the contents of the Pauline letters. But this new angle I think argues against that or perhaps reinforces that the author had some notion of Paul as a visionary 'learning' about Jesus from 'visions' (as in the Clementine literature). At the very least there seems to be a caricature of Paul which is known to the author.

It would have been very easy to write a history where ALL know Jesus and Paul converts to Christianity and becomes a player in a fight which is already ongoing between Jews and Christians. Acts isn't written that way and it's noteworthy.
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

Post by Secret Alias »

It would be interesting to revisit the Clementine literature and see to what degree Jesus is known to everyone AT THE DEEPEST LAYER of the surviving material. Admittedly that's going to involve a lot of subjectivity. But from what I remember:

1. Clement hears Barnabas preach in Rome
2. Clement follows him to Judea via Alexandria
3. He encounters Peter who is locked in a struggle with Simon (aka Paul)
4. There does seem to be a referendum of the value of Simon's 'knowledge' of Jesus from visions there too.
5. Yes Peter admonishes Simon for teachings that are incompatible with what he knew to be the true teachings of Jesus 'the true prophet'

Nevertheless it would be interesting to see a follow up.
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Re: Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

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GD, you seem to make everything about 'what Carrier says' or 'what Price says.' I don't care about that. The idea that Paul didn't know Jesus but saw him 'only through visions' BUT NEVERTHELESS BECAME THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY is a problematic construct. It doesn't matter whether or not it confirms 'full blown mysticism.' It is interesting. One can at least imagine a world where 'Peter' the opponent of Paul might have been invented by the later orthodoxy. I don't see Peter leading to any historical foundations - nor any of the apostolic figures. The way Marcionism can brush off a lack of association with 'the followers of Jesus' (not called 'apostles') and deny the historical connection between the followers of Jesus and the four gospels is noteworthy.
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