How can we know that God is?

[tabibito]

Three years?

And where does Arabia and the return to Damascus come into it?

Into Luke's account? It doesn't.　Assuming that it could be demonstrated that no contradiction exists, Luke's account would be picking up at the point where Paul returns from Arabia to Damascus. I'm not satisfied at this point about either the existence or non-existence of a contradiction.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Again: How is it that you know that none of the variations of the Hebrew scriptures that were in use in the early first century matched the material used by Paul? It does not pass without notice that his citations of Habakkuk 2:4 are not precisely the same as the LXX version.

His Greek is not overly different concerning faith and the righteous.

ἐὰν ὑποστείληται, οὐκ εὐδοκεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου ἐν αὐτῷ· ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου ζήσεται.

ὅτι δὲ ἐν νόμῳ οὐδεὶς δικαιοῦται παρὰ τῷ θεῷ δῆλον, ὅτι ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται·

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

That you resort to derogatory gifs leads me to conclude you cannot offer a cogent response.

[tabibito]

His Greek is not overly different concerning faith and the righteous.

ἐὰν ὑποστείληται, οὐκ εὐδοκεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου ἐν αὐτῷ· ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου ζήσεται.

ὅτι δὲ ἐν νόμῳ οὐδεὶς δικαιοῦται παρὰ τῷ θεῷ δῆλον, ὅτι ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται·

Really? μου in the LXX is "my" thus
in the LXX "the righteous will live by my (God's) faith" ... in the MT it is "the righteous will live by his (the righteous person's) faith" ... Paul states "the righteous will live by faith," with the Hebrew word for "faith" being "emunah," loyalty/commitment/trustworthiness.

[rogue06]

That you resort to derogatory gifs leads me to conclude you cannot offer a cogent response.

Effectively it was you just repeating what had been rebutted several times already.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Into Luke's account? It doesn't.

Precisely.

Assuming that it could be demonstrated that no contradiction exists,

Your attempts to clutch at any straw to prevent having to acknowledge that these texts are contradictory, is duly noted.

Luke's account would be picking up at the point where Paul returns from Arabia to Damascus.

On what textual evidence from Acts?

I'm not satisfied at this point about either the existence or non-existence of a contradiction.

Why does that not surprise me?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Really? μου in the LXX is "my" thus
in the LXX "the righteous will live by my (God's) faith" ... in the MT it is "the righteous will live by his (the righteous person's) faith" ... Paul states "the righteous will live by faith," with the Hebrew word for "faith" being "emunah," loyalty/commitment/trustworthiness.

I did write "not overly different concerning faith and the righteous". And the MT was not put together until centuries later, as differences attested to in some of the Dead Sea texts indicate. From which it would appear apparent that multiple versions of the Hebrew scriptures existed by the end of the first century CE.

[tabibito]

I did write "not overly different concerning faith and the righteous". And the MT was not put together until centuries later, as differences attested to in some of the Dead Sea texts indicate. From which it would appear apparent that multiple versions of the Hebrew scriptures existed by the end of the first century CE.

So what evidence do you have that Paul's use of quotes from the Old Testament did not match one of the early first century Hebrew versions of the Old Testament?

The "minor" differences in the renderings are hardly inconsequential.

[rogue06]

So what evidence do you have that Paul's use of quotes from the Old Testament did not match one of the early first century Hebrew versions of the Old Testament?

The "minor" differences in the renderings are hardly inconsequential.

The Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate that there were variant readings within the tradition.

[tabibito]

Precisely.

Your attempts to clutch at any straw to prevent having to acknowledge that these texts are contradictory, is duly noted.

Only your own prejudice could have produced that response on your part.

On what textual evidence from Acts?

On the basis of the text: Luke makes it clear that Paul had been active as an evangelist for some time before making the trip to Jerusalem during which he met Barnabas. Paul's account in Galatians shows that the journey to Jerusalem when he met only Peter and James occurred more than three years after his conversion. Luke's record could easily pick up after Paul had been in Syria and Cilicia for a time. There is after all, a certain confluence in the records when it comes to report of Paul's conversion among the churches, though not precise. People who want to declare the accounts to be in conflict don't have a whole lot of evidence supporting their contentions. I'm not sure that enough information is available to produce a reliable determination.

Why does that not surprise me?

It shouldn't, I'm not going to take any partisan's word anything regarding the Bible, whether pro or con, without investigating the matter. Certainly not the word of someone who places blind faith in the word of hostile commentators.

[rogue06]

Sorry. But by your own criteria we don't know what Nepos wrote. Not only are his "popular works" lost to us (and only one volume of his "serious" work, De viris illustribus, still exists), all that does remain are snippets repeated by other authors and definitely no original MSS.


Are you trying for a repeat of your side-splitting musings about how Acts is like the Greek or Hellenistic romance stories?

Hellenistic romance, also called Greek romance, adventure tale, usually with a quasi-historical setting, in which a virtuous heroine and her valiant lover are separated by a series of misadventures (e.g., jealous quarrels, kidnapping, shipwrecks, or bandits) but are eventually reunited and live happily together.

Even though it is missing the key element, a love story -- a romance -- as well as hardly resulting in a happy ending (the chief protagonist is arrested and shipped off to Rome to stand trial).

What is interesting is that some scholars have compared the various apocryphal Acts that were written a good deal later to Hellenistic romance stories, but in your ignorance, you confused the Biblical Acts of the Apostles with these later works.

The Gospels and Acts actually belong in the category of Greco-Roman biographies with Plutarch's Lives often being used for comparison.


As made clear the original audience for Luke and Acts was an individual named Theophilus. While his identity remains unknown (his "name" might actually be an honorary title) although virtually everyone agrees he was someone who had some influence (how much and how widespread is a subject of debate).

Buffoonery.gif

Yup. Back to this idiocy based on your misunderstanding that it wasn't the Acts of the Apostle by Luke, but the later apocryphal "Acts" that have been compared to Hellenistic romances. And of course it isn't just missing robbers but the very key to a romance a story -- a romance.

Given her past history, I think it is safe to presume that H_A did the usual and scoured the interwebz looking for anything to challenge my statement regarding her confusing the later various apocryphal Acts, which have been compared to Greek or Hellenistic romances, with Luke's Scriptural Acts of the Apostles, and came up short.

Tony Burke, Professor of Early Christianity, York University, Toronto, in his study of the various apocryphal Acts in his work aptly enough called Apocryphal Acts notes in his introduction that while one should analyze them separately and not as a body and that caution should be exercised do to much later editing of them (something he calls "orthodox pruning"), states

Despite their essential independence from one another, the Apocryphal Acts share certain common literary and theological elements. In form, they resemble the ancient Hellenistic novel, particularly the subgenre of romance. In the romances, two young protagonists are separated and then later reunited after a series of adventures and journeys. Through it all they remain chaste and faithful to one another. In the Apocryphal Acts, however, the theme is inverted: the apostles interact with young women who deny their romantic partners and join the apostles in a life of chastity.

Another source perhaps worth pursuing is Implied reader response and the evolution of genres : transitional stages between the ancient novels and the apocryphal Acts, by Robert M. Price who "aims at elaborating on the commonly held judgment that the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles have somehow been influenced by the Hellenistic novels." It seems that he views it as true but an over-simplification of a complex subject.

And here's one available in PDF that I haven't read yet but seems pertinent (I'll give y'all first crack at it) called The Acts of John, the Acts of Andrew and the Greek Novel by Jan N. Bremmer, University of Groningen and published last year. You'll have to copy pasta the title to the search bar since the written out url to download keeps coming up 404 Not Found.

There are several earlier works that at the least touch upon the topic such as Albertus Frederik Johannes Klijn's The Acts of Thomas (1962)^[1],

"As soon as the deeds of the Apostles were emphasized Hellenistic miracle stories were bound to influence the Apocryphal Acts" ... In c. 114-166 of Hellenistic love-romances can be seen" --p.19

Even Women and the Early Church by Elizabeth Ann Clark (1990) has something at the opening of Chapter 2 (Women Endangered: The Apocryphal Acts and Martyrdom)

In the late second and third centuries, a new type of Christian literature, the Apocryphal Acts, was created. Although the very titles of these apocryphal books suggest that they were modelled on the Biblical Acts of the Apostles and although their authors claim that their heroes were the Biblical apostles, now wandering as far afield as India, scholars think that there is in reality no direct line of development from the apocryphal ones. Probably influenced by non-Christian literature, especially by the Hellenistic novels, or romances, the books seem to have been composed both to provide entertainment and to inculcate certain Christian ideals with an emphasis on asceticism and the miraculous. --p.77

The one thing conspicuously absent in these, or anything else, are comparisons of the Scriptural Acts of the Apostles by Luke being influenced by Greek romances.




1. I should note that Klijn appears to hold that these Hellenistic influences aren't as prevalent in the Acts of Thomas as it is in other apocryphal Acts.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Only your own prejudice could have produced that response on your part.

It is patently obvious that there are manifest contradictions between Acts and what Paul writes but you won't accept them because it would challenge your preconception that Acts is a veracious account.

On the basis of the text: Luke makes it clear that Paul had been active as an evangelist for some time before making the trip to Jerusalem during which he met Barnabas.

How are you going to attempt to square that with what Paul tells us concerning visiting Arabia and then returning to Damascus but not visiting Jerusalem for three years; where when he finally did so meeting only with Cephas and James and emphatically stating that he does not lie about that?

Luke's record could easily pick up after Paul had been in Syria and Cilicia for a time.

The texts do not support your theories. You are engaging in pure speculation.

It shouldn't, I'm not going to take any partisan's word anything regarding the Bible, whether pro or con, without investigating the matter.

The texts speak for themselves to anyone who reads them dispassionately and critically. The account written by the author of Acts in chapter 9 does not match with what Paul tells his converts in Galatians 1. You can pad out Paul's life with as much speculation as you like. It does alter the fact that the texts contradict one another.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Given her past history, I think it is safe to presume that H_A did the usual and scoured the interwebz looking for anything to challenge my statement regarding her confusing the later various apocryphal Acts, which have been compared to Greek or Hellenistic romances, with Luke's Scriptural Acts of the Apostles, and came up short.

Tony Burke, Professor of Early Christianity, York University, Toronto, in his study of the various apocryphal Acts in his work aptly enough called Apocryphal Acts notes in his introduction that while one should analyze them separately and not as a body and that caution should be exercised do to much later editing of them (something he calls "orthodox pruning"), states

Despite their essential independence from one another, the Apocryphal Acts share certain common literary and theological elements. In form, they resemble the ancient Hellenistic novel, particularly the subgenre of romance. In the romances, two young protagonists are separated and then later reunited after a series of adventures and journeys. Through it all they remain chaste and faithful to one another. In the Apocryphal Acts, however, the theme is inverted: the apostles interact with young women who deny their romantic partners and join the apostles in a life of chastity.

Another source perhaps worth pursuing is Implied reader response and the evolution of genres : transitional stages between the ancient novels and the apocryphal Acts, by Robert M. Price who "aims at elaborating on the commonly held judgment that the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles have somehow been influenced by the Hellenistic novels." It seems that he views it as true but an over-simplification of a complex subject.

And here's one available in PDF that I haven't read yet but seems pertinent (I'll give y'all first crack at it) called The Acts of John, the Acts of Andrew and the Greek Novel by Jan N. Bremmer, University of Groningen and published last year. You'll have to copy pasta the title to the search bar since the written out url to download keeps coming up 404 Not Found.

There are several earlier works that at the least touch upon the topic such as Albertus Frederik Johannes Klijn's The Acts of Thomas (1962)^[1],

"As soon as the deeds of the Apostles were emphasized Hellenistic miracle stories were bound to influence the Apocryphal Acts" ... In c. 114-166 of Hellenistic love-romances can be seen" --p.19

Even Women and the Early Church by Elizabeth Ann Clark (1990) has something at the opening of Chapter 2 (Women Endangered: The Apocryphal Acts and Martyrdom)

In the late second and third centuries, a new type of Christian literature, the Apocryphal Acts, was created. Although the very titles of these apocryphal books suggest that they were modelled on the Biblical Acts of the Apostles and although their authors claim that their heroes were the Biblical apostles, now wandering as far afield as India, scholars think that there is in reality no direct line of development from the apocryphal ones. Probably influenced by non-Christian literature, especially by the Hellenistic novels, or romances, the books seem to have been composed both to provide entertainment and to inculcate certain Christian ideals with an emphasis on asceticism and the miraculous. --p.77

The one thing conspicuously absent in these, or anything else, are comparisons of the Scriptural Acts of the Apostles by Luke being influenced by Greek romances.




1. I should note that Klijn appears to hold that these Hellenistic influences aren't as prevalent in the Acts of Thomas as it is in other apocryphal Acts.

Look who has been busy Googling!

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Given her past history, I think it is safe to presume that H_A did the usual and scoured the interwebz looking for anything to challenge my statement regarding her confusing the later various apocryphal Acts, which have been compared to Greek or Hellenistic romances, with Luke's Scriptural Acts of the Apostles, and came up short.

Tony Burke, Professor of Early Christianity, York University, Toronto, in his study of the various apocryphal Acts in his work aptly enough called Apocryphal Acts notes in his introduction that while one should analyze them separately and not as a body and that caution should be exercised do to much later editing of them (something he calls "orthodox pruning"), states

Despite their essential independence from one another, the Apocryphal Acts share certain common literary and theological elements. In form, they resemble the ancient Hellenistic novel, particularly the subgenre of romance. In the romances, two young protagonists are separated and then later reunited after a series of adventures and journeys. Through it all they remain chaste and faithful to one another. In the Apocryphal Acts, however, the theme is inverted: the apostles interact with young women who deny their romantic partners and join the apostles in a life of chastity.

Another source perhaps worth pursuing is Implied reader response and the evolution of genres : transitional stages between the ancient novels and the apocryphal Acts, by Robert M. Price who "aims at elaborating on the commonly held judgment that the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles have somehow been influenced by the Hellenistic novels." It seems that he views it as true but an over-simplification of a complex subject.

And here's one available in PDF that I haven't read yet but seems pertinent (I'll give y'all first crack at it) called The Acts of John, the Acts of Andrew and the Greek Novel by Jan N. Bremmer, University of Groningen and published last year. You'll have to copy pasta the title to the search bar since the written out url to download keeps coming up 404 Not Found.

There are several earlier works that at the least touch upon the topic such as Albertus Frederik Johannes Klijn's The Acts of Thomas (1962)^[1],

"As soon as the deeds of the Apostles were emphasized Hellenistic miracle stories were bound to influence the Apocryphal Acts" ... In c. 114-166 of Hellenistic love-romances can be seen" --p.19

Even Women and the Early Church by Elizabeth Ann Clark (1990) has something at the opening of Chapter 2 (Women Endangered: The Apocryphal Acts and Martyrdom)

In the late second and third centuries, a new type of Christian literature, the Apocryphal Acts, was created. Although the very titles of these apocryphal books suggest that they were modelled on the Biblical Acts of the Apostles and although their authors claim that their heroes were the Biblical apostles, now wandering as far afield as India, scholars think that there is in reality no direct line of development from the apocryphal ones. Probably influenced by non-Christian literature, especially by the Hellenistic novels, or romances, the books seem to have been composed both to provide entertainment and to inculcate certain Christian ideals with an emphasis on asceticism and the miraculous. --p.77

The one thing conspicuously absent in these, or anything else, are comparisons of the Scriptural Acts of the Apostles by Luke being influenced by Greek romances.




1. I should note that Klijn appears to hold that these Hellenistic influences aren't as prevalent in the Acts of Thomas as it is in other apocryphal Acts.

Why are you writing posts to yourself?

[tabibito]

It is patently obvious that there are manifest contradictions between Acts and what Paul writes but you won't accept them because it would challenge your preconception that Acts is a veracious account.

By no means obvious, and contrary to your opinion, I don't care whether any part of the Bible is accurate or not. If an author got something wrong, it is no more than evidence that he was not infallible. I don't consider a scant few errors to impact particularly on a writer's overall veracity, nor that a scant few verified claims show a writer to be reliable.

How are you going to attempt to square that with what Paul tells us concerning visiting Arabia and then returning to Damascus but not visiting Jerusalem for three years; where when he finally did so meeting only with Cephas and James and emphatically stating that he does not lie about that?

As I said, it may be that Luke picks up after Paul's return to Damascus from Arabia. I won't know until I have examined the texts fully.

The texts do not support your theories. You are engaging in pure speculation.

You haven't examined the text, nor paid attention to my comments. I have formed a hypothesis based on a brief overview that I have not tested - a hypothesis is not a theory.

The texts speak for themselves to anyone who reads them dispassionately and critically. The account written by the author of Acts in chapter 9 does not match with what Paul tells his converts in Galatians 1. You can pad out Paul's life with as much speculation as you like. It does alter the fact that the texts contradict one another.

I have not said that the texts don't contradict each other. I have said that on the basis of a brief overview, there is a possibility that they could be reconciled.

What seems possible on a brief overview may prove to be not so with closer examination.

Claims of contradictions are not often borne out by examination, but it does happen from time to time.

Whether the texts contradict each other will not be established on the basis of partisan commentators' claims. It will require a careful side by side examination of the Koine Greek texts.

The outcome of such an examination might show contradiction, harmony, or that a firm determination is not possible.