Dating Acts (Excellent list of points relevant to the question)
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Do the Pastorals reflect Paul’s concerns near the end of his life to establish qualified leadership in his churches that would faithfully pass on received traditions, or do they reflect a secondary stage of development in proto-orthodox circles in the second century in the concern for a hierarchical church structure supported by apostolic succession as a way to safeguard ”orthodoxy” (cf. 1 Clement, Ignatius, etc.)? Does Luke-Acts reflect the views of a close companion of the apostle Paul (based on patristic tradition and the “we” speeches in Acts) and written as early as 60s CE, or could it be written as late as the early-to-mid Second Century in a proto-orthodox attempt to narrate church history as a story of pure apostolic origins and singular trajectory from Jerusalem to Rome. I would note a sample of excellent posts in the past by April DeConick, Mark Goodacre or James Crossley which lay out how they date the crucial texts and how it influences models of Christian origins.
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Interview with Richard I. Pervo re: Acts of the Apostles
Initial Reactions to Richard Pervo's Acts
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RECENT SCHOLARLY REVIEWS OF BOOKS ON ACTS PUBLISHED ONLINE BY THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
The Conclusion of Luke–Acts: The Significance of Acts 28:16–31 Puskas, Charles Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick Publications, 2009
The “We” Passages in the Acts of the Apostles: The Narrator as Narrative Character Campbell, William Sanger Society of Biblical Literature/Brill, 2007
The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts: A Reassessment of the Evidence Walters, Patricia Cambridge University Press, 2009
On the Road Encounters in Luke-Acts: Hellenistic Mimesis and Luke's Theology of the Way Baban, Octavian D. Paternoster, 2006
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MORE ON ACTS
The Gospel of Luke & Book of Acts
50% of the Gospel of Mark can be found in the Gospel of Luke. The latter includes a different genealogy than the book of Matthew and a virgin birth narrative with visiting shepherds; puts a large focus on women and feminine issues [possible female editorial influence, or influenced by wife or sisters of editor?]. Unlike the book of Mark, which says that Jesus proclaimed all foods to be clean within his lifetime, Luke-Acts portrays the question as not coming up until after Jesus' death in which a vision of Peter reveals that all food has become clean; in the book of Acts, Judas is portrayed as falling to his death rather than having hung himself as portrayed in the book of Matthew.
Compare the earliest Gospel (Mark) with the Gospel of Luke (a downloadable HTML comparison of the Synoptic Gospels in parallel columns is available at http://www.awitness.org/synoptic.zip ). In the latter Jesus does not attack the food laws. In fact any criticism of the law of Moses is purged and disappears. You will notice a large gap, the white space where the author of Luke has taken the knife and sliced away any criticism of the law of Moses.
QUESTIONS concerning The Historical Reliability of Acts
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Dating the crucial sources in early Christianity Mark Goodacre, Religion Department, Duke University Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Boston, November 21-24 2008 [Latest draft, 27 May 2009]
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SUGGESTED READING ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (FROM A READING LIST COMPILED BY DR. ROBERT M. PRICE)
*Edward Zeller, The Contents And Origin Of The Acts Of The Apostles - Vol I. A classic of Tübingen criticism! As good as F.C. Baur if not better!
*Ernst Haenchen, Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary. Worthy of Baur and Zeller—great stuff!
Hans Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia: a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible). Info-packed, comprehensive. Read it with Haenchen as I did in grad school.
Kirsopp and Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity: The Acts of the Apostles : Vol.1 (4 vols., though this link is for the first volume. All volumes are recommended.) A feast of informative articles.
*Henry Cadbury, The making of Luke-Acts. Wow! What didn’t this guy know about Luke-Acts and its intricacies!
Leander E. Keck and Louis Martyn, eds., Studies in Luke-Acts Many important articles, including Vielhauer’s “On the ‘Paulinism’ of Acts,” where he shows the author of Acts cannot have known Paul.
Gerhard Lohfink, The Conversion of St. Paul: Narrative and History in Acts Great study of one tradition complex.
J.C. O’Neill, The Theology of Acts in its Historical Setting, Virtually proves Acts was written in the 2nd century.
Martin Dibelius, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles Historic study made absolutely clear the literary (not historical) character of both narratives and speeches of Acts.
Jack T. Sanders, The Jews in Luke-Acts Shows Luke was pretty darn anti-Semitic.
Gerd Lüdemann, Early Christianity According to the Traditions in Acts: A Commentary Interesting treatment, examining each episode in Acts and trying to boil it down to a possible historical core.
Richard I. Pervo, Profit With Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles. Shows the kinship of Acts with both the ancient novels and the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles.
*Richard I. Pervo, Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists. Acts was written in the 2nd century—case closed. Pervo is like Michael Cisco’s The Divinity Student—with texts for innards!
Charles H. Talbert, ed., Perspectives on Luke-Acts (Perspectives in Religious Studies : Special Studies Series, No. 5) A number of illuminating studies. Did Luke write the Pastorals? Do the “we” passages of Acts imitate ancient sea-voyage narratives?
*Joseph B. Tyson, Marcion and Luke-acts: A Defining Struggle. Acts as a response to Marcion. (Peter represents not “Jewish Christianity” which wanted to keep the Torah, as Baur supposed, but Catholicism which didn’t want to follow Marcion in cutting loose the OT!)
*Ferdinand Christian Baur, Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works. His famous treatment of Epistles versus Acts, Peter (Torah-Christianity) vs. Paul (Gentile Christianity), Paul’s authorship only of the Hauptbriefe (Romans, Galatians, Corinthians), etc. Not based on Hegelianism, despite what ad hominem apologists always bark.
Dennis R. MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?: Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles. A big yes.
Eric Franklin, Christ the Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke-Acts. Argues that Luke wrote, accentuating the Ascension as the dawn of a special intermediate period of hidden glory to encourage suffering Christians in the wake of the delay of the Parousia.
Charles H. Talbert, Luke and the Gnostics;: An Examination of Lucan Purpose. Shows how Luke-Acts has an agenda precisely like that of the 2nd-century apologists: anti-Gnostic, anti-docetic. Pagels and James M. Robinson will have more to say.
David L. Tiede, Prophecy and History in Luke-Acts
[The construction of the above list of resources was inspired by questions raised by my friend, Christian philosopher Victor Reppert at his blog Dangerous Idea, who seems to be arguing that William Ramsay's study of the world of the author of the Book of Acts constitutes a form of positive evidence concerning the supernatural truth of the story of Christian origins, when at most it's evidence of historical matters that could have been less correctly related, and not proof of positive evidence. To say a work meets historical requirements is not to say such a work constitutes proof of the supernatural stories it contains, nor of the truth of the theology and creeds that developed out of it.]
3 comments:
I think there is some confusion about what my claims are. What I am claiming is that evidence that Luke, whoever he might have been accurately records a lot of information about the first-century Mediterranean world, provides some inductive evidence for what it says generally.
Example: someone you have known for a long time, someone who, you know, is pretty observant and careful about what he says, makes a claim that he was abducted by aliens. That's going to be better evidence of alien abduction than a claim by someone who makes up phony stories all the time. However, you may end up concluding that he's just got it wrong, that this couldn't possibly have happened. OK, but his testimony is still better evidence for alien abduction than a known liar.
If I conclude that Acts is pretty accurate about a whole lot of things, then we need to figure out how Luke got his supernatural claims so wrong. It puts a greater strain on explanation. Doesn't mean you have to buy his supernatural (or alien abduction claims) just that his testimony is evidence for his claims, and better evidence than the testimony of a known liar or a poor observer.
You have to be a bit careful to be sure that you don't exaggerate the apologetic significance of what I am asserting.
"If I conclude that Acts is pretty accurate about a whole lot of things, then we need to figure out how Luke got his supernatural claims so wrong."
That doesn't follow at all. People today making bogus supernatural claims will obviously get information about politics right since they live in this world but will still be wrong about the supernatural claims since they are making them up. There is no mystery here.
But as to Acts being accurate, it isn't. It is a piece of propaganda trying to turn Paul into Peter and Peter into Paul, as has been proven time and time again.
Vic,
"Pretty accurate" is a vague term. And miracle stories, even included in historical works, are not exactly renowned for their "accuracy."
Compare the Gospels with say, the works of an ancient historian like Herodotus, please note:
1) Herodotus challenges conventional legend; the gospels make no challenges.
2) Herodotus names sources; the gospels do not.
3) Herodotus weighs evidence; gospels do not.
4) Event in Herodotus’ city; Gospel accounts not in author’s city. (The works I cited in my blog piece mention the fact that we don't know the sources of Luke or Acts. The author doesn't mention them except in the vaguest sense of having picked up tales from others, neither does Acts match what we read in Paul's letters. And the "we" passages don't fill the whole story, which is more along the lines of third person storytelling.)
5) Herodotus consciously wrote history; Mark’s Gospel is more akin to didactic hagiography. Same with Acts.
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