Steven Avery wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 6:19 am
ABuddhist wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 3:03 pm
If that be so, then why does mainstream biblical scholarship date GLuke to decades later than 41-43 CE?
They get trapped in a paradigmic box involving late dating and supposed forgeries. They learn to disregard how the internal connections and archaeology and Lukan historicity all call for an early date. They also get stuck in the "Luke is a Gentile" error, despite all the Hebraic and Temple connections. Also they can get blind-sided with the physician reference, which is almost surely a different Luke, and being a physician helped in identifying him as not the Luke of Paul's travels. The Gospel-Acts Luke was likely a priest in the Temple, there is a book called Luke the Priest that touches that angle. When he referred to the great company of priests who came to faith in Jesus (Acts 6:7), there was an ironic tone for Theophilus, since Luke was one of that company.
And I have not seen any arguments of substance against the Theophilus proposal.
1. What is wrong with a paradigm of late dating and forgeries? After all, at least 6 of the 13 letters attributed to Paul are recognized by mainstream Biblical scholarship as forgeries (half from the 2nd century CE), and writing from memory alone, mainstream biblical Scholarship has concluded that at least one of the letters attributed to Peter is in fact a 2nd century CE forgery (and perhaps one of the last books in the Bible to be written).
2. Who wrote the book "Luke in the Temple", when was it written, which scholars (of what time period and religious affiliation) did the author(s) cite, what was the author's religious affiliation, who published the book, and what religious affiliation (if any) was the publisher ? I have found that knowing such things is useful for assessing how credible a book about the Christians' scriptures is. Too often, I have found that scholarship advocating for early dating, known authors, and general textual integrity of the Christians' scriptures is associated with Christian-based apologetics - and therefore dismissible as faith-based biased arguing rather than sound argument.
3. Why should I trust what Acts says about events in such blatantly pro-Christian context rather than dismissing such claims as pro-Christian propaganda? This can be done, I note, even without accepting, as I do, that the Acts Seminar correctly dated Acts to the 2nd century CE and dismissed it as having little use in reconstructing early Christian history.
4. What would you define as an argument of substance against the proposal about Theophilus? I would count dating Acts to at least later in the 1st century CE (80-90) as a substantial argument, and others may regard my point about how the name Theophilus, meaning "Lover of God", should be understood as referring to an idealized inquiring reader rather than to a specific person, as at least an argument to which you should reply.