Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Adam wrote: Josephus's reliance on Luke's documents or their mutual reliance on a common source or teacher could explain the literary similarities as well?
Yes, but that is only compounding the problem unnecessarily. What would Mr Occam think of that?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

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Adam wrote: school of skeptics was undone by the end of the century with Ramsey establishing the geographic reliability of Acts and Harnack even showing that Higher Criticism gave early dates for the Synoptics and Acts.
This nonsense is found nowhere but in looney-farm of biblical studies, surely.

Anyone can use the geographic reliability of Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid to demonstrate the historical reliability of those two epics. We can establish the geographic and political and cultural reliabilities of modern novels and ancient "novellas" to demonstrate they are all genuine historical documents.

As for the value of Higher Criticism -- yeh, it's bad when it comes to the conclusion that contradicts Christianity but is good if it can be turned around and used to support Christianity. What sort of tendentious mickey-mouse methodology is that?

And how on earth do we jump from chronology to historical source material?

There are a million gaps there but faith has the power to cover them all.
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Adam
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

Post by Adam »

Blood wrote:So once again we have a Semitic vorlage that a Greek writer used as his "source." Why didn't they simply preserve the Semitic text? Did they not think it was holy writ?
It's more complicated than even a Proto-Luke. What does seem certain whatever way I slice it is that Aramaic and Greek sections of text developed concurrently. I have a thread on that here in BC&H titled Horizontal Synoptic Solution, with further ambling into my recent proposal that John 21 was the original lost ending of the Gospel of Mark.

The point is that writers then as now work as is convenient, adding their own preferred language to excerpts from the original language. Don't we see even here in this forum Greek, Latin, German used freely, with even some quotes from outside the Indo-European family? Eventually we had a Gospel of Luke fully in Greek, but James R. Edwards has established that the uniquely Lucan passages are highly Semitic in origin. Luke 1 and 2 go back to Hebrew most likely, but of course Luke 1:1-4 is such perfect (if overdone) Greek that it bespeaks a separate redactional flourish. The sections shared with the other Synoptics are not so Semitic in characteristics, particularly the sections almost identical with them.
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

Post by Adam »

neilgodfrey wrote:
Adam wrote: Harnack even showing that Higher Criticism gave early dates for the Synoptics and Acts.
....As for the value of Higher Criticism -- yeh, it's bad when it comes to the conclusion that contradicts Christianity but is good if it can be turned around and used to support Christianity. What sort of tendentious mickey-mouse methodology is that?
So Higher Criticism is good when it undermines Christianity but is derelict when it supports it? That is what you think, isn't it? I'm willing to accept that it undermines much of the Gospel of Matthew; I am not a Fideist.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

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Adam wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote:
Adam wrote: Harnack even showing that Higher Criticism gave early dates for the Synoptics and Acts.
....As for the value of Higher Criticism -- yeh, it's bad when it comes to the conclusion that contradicts Christianity but is good if it can be turned around and used to support Christianity. What sort of tendentious mickey-mouse methodology is that?
So Higher Criticism is good when it undermines Christianity but is derelict when it supports it? That is what you think, isn't it? I'm willing to accept that it undermines much of the Gospel of Matthew; I am not a Fideist.
I see, so it's the You Too fallacy, is it? What sort of argument is that? So you are justified in mickey-mouse methodology if you think you can pin the same approach to those who reach the views you don't like? That's wackho! (But so many biblical scholars accept it their followers take it for granted as fine clothing for the emperor who really is standing their starkers to all others.)

What do you understand is meant by "Higher Criticism", exactly?

If you want to know my views then I can tell you I believe in applying exactly the same methods and approaches to the documents we have for early Christianity as we do for any other documents in any other historical inquiry. No difference.

So how do you justify the claim that a document is historically reliable if it contains geographical references that all recognize? In what other discipline does one ever find such a silly argument?
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The Crow
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

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The Gospel writers were mostly ignorant of the geography anyway. So this would be an historical flop. Take for example Mark 7:31 below:

31 Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.
(from the NKJV).

The passage suggest that Sidon is between the road from Tyre and the Sea of Galilee. Sea of Galilee is southeast of Tyre and Sidon is north of the city. According to David Barr, Professor of Religion at Wright State University "the itinerary sketched in 7:31 would be a little like going from New York to Washinton, D.C. by way of Boston"! The author of Mark goes on to make several other geographical errors that would not have been typical of some one living in the region at the time.

5 Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.[a]
(from the NKJV)

In the Book of Mark he has Jesus cross the Sea of Galilee to reach Gerasa making the geographical error of the city being close to the lake. Bible scholars of the Jesus Seminar makes this statement:
Gerasa is located approximately thirty miles to the southeast of the Sea of Galilee, not exactly a convenient location for the drowning of the pigs. Matthew relocates the demoniac to Gadara, which is only six miles from the lakeshore. Later scribes tried other remedies to accomodate the pigs.
So in my opinion making the claim that the Gospels are historical is lame when even the writers i.e. Mark knew little about the very country he supposedly lived in. Historical fiction can contain actual historical places and people but its obvious from Marks writing he knew nothing of how to write it. Another error is the way the Gospel writers explain events. Compare their writings to an actual historical document. They go into no detail about major events of the era often leaving the reader wondering "what!"

The Biblical narrative is no more than historical prose written badly. In the book "What Is Narrative Criticism? (Guides to Biblical Scholarship New Testament Series)" by Mark Allan Powell on page 8 in the Chapter entitled "What is Narrative Criticism" he explains that literary criticism deals with the poetic function of the text while historical criticism deals with its referential function. I would think that the Gospels most likely pass the poetic test and fail miserably in the historical test.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Nor are geographic errors in a work of an ancient historian indicators that the historian cannot be otherwise trusted. Even the great and authoritative Polybius made mistakes: in the regions of Asia and the topography of Carthage.
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The Crow
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

Post by The Crow »

neilgodfrey wrote:Nor are geographic errors in a work of an ancient historian indicators that the historian cannot be otherwise trusted. Even the great and authoritative Polybius made mistakes: in the regions of Asia and the topography of Carthage.

Agreed. Especially since the ancient historians did not have the technology we do today and most were going on stories handed down from past generations or writers.
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

Post by Adam »

I am surprised, Crow, that you accept NeilGodfrey's defense of poor geography by ancient writers. That was your case against the Gospel of Mark, just as it was the Tubingen case against Acts of the Apostles.
Your argument is irrelevant to my Thesis, as I am not a Fideist, but myself a higher critic who does not necessarily accept all of any gospel and certainly not the geography of Mark. My Thesis is that there are seven written eyewitness records to Jesus in the SOURCES of the canonical gospels. There are two underlying eyewitness sources to the Synoptics, one additional source to Luke, three eyewitness sources to John, and one source (the Passion Diary) underlying all four gospels.

The Thesis is neatly presented at http://www.christianforums.com/t7594923/ (where I am Korah)
that Peter kindly copied over to our forum here on Oct. 10, 2013
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... c+solution
The Crow
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Re: Acts Historical through Herod Agrippa II?

Post by The Crow »

Adam wrote:I am surprised, Crow, that you accept NeilGodfrey's defense of poor geography by ancient writers. That was your case against the Gospel of Mark, just as it was the Tubingen case against Acts of the Apostles.
Your argument is irrelevant to my Thesis, as I am not a Fideist, but myself a higher critic who does not necessarily accept all of any gospel and certainly not the geography of Mark. My Thesis is that there are seven written eyewitness records to Jesus in the SOURCES of the canonical gospels. There are two underlying eyewitness sources to the Synoptics, one additional source to Luke, three eyewitness sources to John, and one source (the Passion Diary) underlying all four gospels.

The Thesis is neatly presented at http://www.christianforums.com/t7594923/ (where I am Korah)
that Peter kindly copied over to our forum here on Oct. 10, 2013
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... c+solution
I am surprised, Crow, that you accept NeilGodfrey's defense of poor geography by ancient writers. That was your case against the Gospel of Mark, just as it was the Tubingen case against Acts of the Apostles.
Me too since I got no idea what your talking about.
My Thesis is that there are seven written eyewitness records to Jesus in the SOURCES of the canonical gospels.
And I am just suppose to take your word right?
There are two underlying eyewitness sources to the Synoptics, one additional source to Luke, three eyewitness sources to John, and one source (the Passion Diary) underlying all four gospels.
Good. Where are they? Let me judge for myself. And as far that Christian forum, why the hell would I want to walk into a cage with Godzilla? Sorry I had rather join a forum for Monks.
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