Loading...In my next post I will be staking out the “negative” side on the debate I had with myself in class, arguing against the resolution, Resolved: The Book of Acts is Historically Reliable. I have already made the affirmative case; in the negative I will argue that the book is not reliable (that first speech was a set speech, prepared without reference to anything the affirmative side said). I will then give a negative refutation of the affirmative’s first speech, and I will end with an affirmative rebuttal of the negative’s two speeches.
Before I do all that, however,
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Temple of Zeus in Lystra, so this is in Turkey? I might go there. The Statue of Zeus was destroyed sometime in the 5th or 6th century CE, either when Theodosius II ordered the temple destroyed, or by natural causes. I bet this was a sad moment in his heart. I have only been out of the, what I like to call the Holy Land (USA) because of war. My goal before I become alive (alive after this) is to visit the Temples. I might tear up when I touch temple of Zeus. Btw, this is Joseph, the one you told me I have a lot to offer this world. So why exactly was my faith faded away? Because one man, Constantine? Well, what about Apollo? What about Athena? am laser focused to keep hope (faith) alive in the Universe even with others have lost theirs. So, the Gods can say, Joseph kept hope when others lost theirs. So it still exist in the Universe. My heart belongs to Olympians. No one can take that from me. Earth and the distractions on it, does not bother me. My is not faith hidden or covered by others.
Yup, in what is now Turkey.
Dr. Ehrman. Why there is no record in the Gospel of Jesus Christ’s life between his age 12 and 30? ( the lost year of Jesus). And there is a tomb of Jesus in Japan, how do you think of that?
The Gospel writers simply weren’t interested in those years. I wish they had been! But there are plenty of modern forged Gospels (mainly from the 19th century) that claim to explain what he was doing (going to India to study with Brahmins, or Egypt, or Nepal!). Yes, a tomb in Japan is part of that same mix.
You wrote, “the author of the book of Acts was a well-traveled person from the first-century”. So, he is beginning to look like a travel companion of Paul, right?
Are there examples from the ancient world that we could use instead of your bomb story? In particular, could you find an apocryphal Acts that is comparable to Luke’s Acts in its verifiable historical detail?
My sense is that there were lots of well-travled persons in the first century who were not companions of Paul.
No, most of the Acts that were written a hundred years and more later do not have as much verifiable historical detail about, say, the cities of Asia Minor than someone who visited them in the first century.
So, since the apocryphal Acts do not include historical details like Luke’s Acts does, I have to ask whether there are any ancient fictional, or highly inaccurate, texts that have historical details like Acts. If we need to make up a story about a bomb in Chapel Hill, and are unable to find ancient parallels to illustrate the point, then the argument for the historicity of Acts is not “smoke and mirrors”, but needs to be weighed. Right?
Do you mean correct informatoin about places found in the stories, and such? Of course. I assume you’ve read the Greek novels?
And most biographies have tons of accurate informatoin and tons of inaccurate. Think Plutarch.
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Hello!
Can you explain Matthew 12:39-42?
[39] But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
[40] For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.
— Is this what Jesus said? Why would he not give them a sign? By *heart of the earth* he predicts his death?
[41] The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!
[42] The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here
Who are people of Nineveth and queen of the south? What do they have to do with the end of times?
The passage is referencint two Old Testament stories presumed to be familiar with its audience: The book of Jonah and the Queen of Sheba vistiting Solomon. Look them up. Both great stories! Jonah is being used as a prophecy of Jesus’ death and resurrection; the citizens of Nineveh accepted Jonah’s preaching after he appeared back “from the dead” (kinda) an dthe Queen of Sheba was a foreigner who accepted the teaching of Solomon. People hearoing Jesus’ preaching do NOT accept him, and so they will be condemned.
“ a well-traveled person from the first-century Roman empire.”
or a professional scholar from the early second-century Roman empire doing excellent research
I wish we could know how good of a researcher the writer of Luke was. He certainly collected many stories for multiple sources, but none of them seem to be any of the Twelve and we do not know who those disciples were or how many disciples he queried. Luke’s chronology is clearly off in some cases, but he was likely just repeating what he heard and took no care to validate events and dates of the Romans since that was not a part of his research task. So maybe he was simply an interested and well-educated scribe doing some respectable research in a semi-hostile environment for a fair price. We don’t know. By today’s standards, Luke would not have done ‘excellent’ research and did not equal the levels of Josephus and Strabo.
I believe it is unfair to evaluate Luke’s exceptional work ‘by today’s standards’ or to juxtapose him with Josephus and Strabo. Luke’s objectives are theological, so historical or geographical precision is evidently secondary. For example, I posit that Paul’s travels in Acts differ from what we gather from reading his authentic letters, but this discrepancy exists because Luke deliberately aims to ‘reinterpret’ Paul’s mission.In doing so, he even incorporates clearly ‘unhistorical’ accounts, such as the one found in Acts 23:23-24. Depicting four hundred and seventy Roman soldiers deployed to protect a tentmaker from forty hostile Jews appears incredulous.Even by inventing Roman citizenship for Paul in the narrative, the account remains absurd. However, this portrayal by Luke serves to illustrate the dramatic shift in Roman attitudes towards Christianity, transitioning from collaborating with Jews to execute Jesus to safeguarding Paul from them.
Hi, Bart,
What do you think of Richard Elliot Friedman and his book Who wrote the Bible?
I think it’s extremely useful for someone wanting to know why scholars think what they do about the Pentateuch. (It wasn’t written by Moses!)
Hi Bart
Some day ago you said 7-12 Daniel are almost certainly written 160s BC.
I have seen that some scholars put Daniel aramaic in the Hellenitic perriod and Hebrew in 400BC – 200AD.
I am not that sure that aramaic in daniel 7 does date to 160 BC , mayby it does. The lingistic and historical evidence supports 160bc i am not wrong,Very Probleply does. Daniel also doesnt seem to be a prophecy because it gets wrong the history in 600 bce and predictis that after greece will rule before the kingdom of god will come. Some person said on google that it couldt be 160BC because the dead sea scrolls (4QDan a,b,c,d) have gone to cave, and i guess he or she is saing that it couldent be written in 160s and written down in the caves 130bc-30bc if i am not wrong. But i think Esther is aslo late so what do you think?
Daniel is almost always dated to the mid 160s in part because it refers clearly to the reign of the Syrian king Antioches Epiphanes.
Hi bart
Is the finding of the dead sea scrolls a miracle?
Has there been simaler finding on religion or on some other subject?
No more than any other archaeological finding. They’ve uncovered a Bronze age village (3000 year old!) in England recently that’s *amazing*. But no one thinks it appeared because of an act of God.
Dr Ehrman. Is old Testamant historically reliable? I mean,there were so many massacres directed by God, for example, The Battle of Jericho. Did these things really happened in history?
Almost certainly not, for most of the narratives from Genesis through Judges. Once you get to the books of Samuel and Kings you start finding some historical information, but still LOTS of legends, especially about Saul, David, and Solomon.
Looking forward to the next post on this. In the meantime, would you be able to recommend a good collection of the Christian/Gnostic etc Apocrypha for studying purposes? Thank you.
For the Gnostic writings you might check out the Nag hammadi Scriptures by Marvin Meyer, and the excellent introductoin to Gnosticism by Nicole Denzey Lewis. For a broad range of Christian apocrypha, you might look at my book Lost Scriptures. For a full set of Apocryphal Gospels, the collectoin I did with Zlatko Plese, The Other Gospels.
I think you can press the point even more succinctly: Walk into the fiction section of any bookstore and you’ll find innumerable books that are “historically accurate” as to widely-known background features of the world in which they’re set. Even as fantastical a character as Spider-Man lives in the really existing borough of Queens, and had a guest appearance of real historical president Barack Obama in one issue. You’ll find obvious fantasy set in the wastes of Mordor or on planet Tralfamadore, but any work of realistic fiction contains countless mundane details corresponding to real places, historical figures, or social customs. Nobody thinks this is evidence that the core narrative is true; it’s just what any author who aspires to tell a realistic story does.
I should add: That goes for stories circulating and evolving by word of mouth as much as consciously constructed fiction. If I am passing along a fuzzily remembered anecdote that happened to a friend’s-cousin’s-roommate in New York, and I end up embellishing some details to flesh it out (whether deliberately or from faulty memory), I’m unlikely to say it happened at a lightsaber fight in the Central Gladiatorial Arena during the Festival of Baal. I’ll say they were meeting for coffee in the West Village after NYU finals, because those are real places and customs I’m familiar with as a normal person living on the East Coast in the 21st century, which are plausible for the anecdote. There’s no significance to those details being accurate to the context: It would be absurd for a person living in that time and place to get them wrong.
Any chance for a few rebuttal points on this one that has been circulated in my church?
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection
I’m afraid I won’t be able to read it, but if you want to summarize one of the arugments that strike you as most important or interesting, I can comment on it. Have you seen my debates on the historicity of the resurrection? You can find them you Youtube or a long one on my website, bartehrman.com disabledupes{2c3b5eebe2e81a96c22c180df3a9c4c3}disabledupes
He presents three “truths” to which he says virtually all scholars consent:
*Jesus was buried and the empty tomb was discovered by a group of women.
*Jesus’ disciples had real experiences with the risen Christ.
*The existence of the Christian church is strong proof for the resurrection.
…..and that these three independent facts are evidence of the resurrection.
Each of these “truths” is supported by a number of facts, many of which I can refute. One in particular that I’d like your insight on: the empty tomb account in Mark is based upon a source that originated within seven years of the event it narrates…too early to be legendary. He doesn’t cite the source, but quotes a commentary by Rudolf Pesch claiming that this pre-Markan source never mentions the high priest by name, therefore Caiaphas, who we know was high priest at that time, was still high priest when the story began circulating. If it had been written after Caiaphas’ term of office, his name would have had to have been used to distinguish him from the next high priest. Since Caiaphas was high priest from A.D. 18 to 37, the story began circulating no later than A.D. 37.
Well, I don’t think it’s true that Jesus was buried on the day of his death and that the tomb was discovered empty by a group of women. I don’t know if the disciples had “real” experiences of the risen Christ –= but if they did, this isn’t a “truth” that proves the resurrection, it is a claim that hte resurrection is true (not the same thing!). And the existence of the church is proof of the resurrection? OK, is the existence of Islam proof of the ascent of Muhammad? Sometimes I think people just don’t think.
Seems to be true of all the Christian apologetics I’ve read. Still trying to figure out how to carry a conversation with these folks without insulting them.
Same as everyone we disagree with. (Think: modern politics). Listen to them. Be nice to the. Use some humor. And keep any thoughts about how stupid you think they are inside your head instead of letting them slip through your mouth.
(btw, you were cited on Easter Sunday by the pastor at the baptist church I attend….”Agnostic Bart Ehrman says “it’s hard today to realize how offensive the idea of a crucified messiah would have been to a first century Jew and, since no one would have made up the idea of such a thing, Jesus must have really existed, and raised the messianic expectation, and he must have really been crucified.” I’ll have to ask him if he truly reads anything of yours himself or whether this was a quote lifted from one of his more conventional sources.)
Well, it’s certainly something I may have said — and probably did! But saying there was a Jesus who was thought by some to be the messiah and who was crucified certainly doesn’t get you very far in trying to demonstrate a resurrection. Those are just historical realities. Yup, Jesus was executed!