(14 votes, average: 4.86 out of 5)
Loading...What follows is the “negative rebuttal” of the speech given by the “first affirmative” in its support of the resolution, “Resolved: The Book of Acts is Historically Reliable.” If you need to refresh yourself on what the affirmative team argued, you can find it on the March 16 post, here: The Book of Acts IS HISTORICAL! The Affirmative Argument.
In the first negative speech (yesterday’s post) the negative team argued its case, without direct reference to the affirmative side. This, now, is the negative response to what the affirmative said (the next post in the thread will be the affirmative rebuttal to the negative side) (recall: this was a debate I staged with myself in front of my New Testament class. I didn’t read this speech: I winged it. But this is the essence of what I argued, on the negative side against the affirmative)
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If you choose to go point by point through the affirmative team’s case that the book of Acts is historically reliable, you will find that they have advanced their views on very thin grounds. The affirmative team begins by arguing that
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Dear Bart, your analysis is well-argued as usual and makes interesting reading! However, in framing your title question, the phrase “historically reliable” is vague with no clear definiton in the way you use it, so I think you are, to a certain extent, going round in circles here. Does Acts contain some “historical information”?. Answer: almost certainly yes! Does it contain non-historical harmonisation and myth? Answer: yes, as you have clearly argued. So there is no clear winner in this debate as framed. This of course is one of the problems with debates.
If I say something is “historically reliable” I mean that it describes a past event that actually happened in the way described. “UNC lost to Michigan State on Saturday” is not historically accurate (they won). “UNC lost to Michigan State on Sunday” is inaccurate but less so, since the game was on Saturday. “UNC beat Michigan State on Saturday by a score of 89-43” is inaccurate because that wasn’t the score. “UNC beat Michigan State on Saturday by a score of 85-69” is historically accurate in every detail. Some inaccuracies are accurate in some of their details, some in none of them; fully accurate statements are accurate in all of them. Historians, of course, make much finer distinctions than these, but it’s almost never the black-and-white picture people might suppose. The point of the debate is to get students to see both that it’s not black-and-white (they don’t suspect htat) and to help them see the kinds of inaccuracies there are.
Shouldn’t the last paragraph second word be “I”?
Let’s consider it the “royal we”
The first “we passage” is 16:10-17 from Troas to Philippi, the next one is 20:5-15. In 20:5-6, we read “These men went on ahead and waited for us at Troas. But we sailed from Philippi…”
I think the author clearly writes as if he is somebody who joined Paul in Troas, then stayed in Philippi with the church founded there, and joined Paul again on his final trip to Jerusalem and then to Rome.
As for why the author never says “then I joined with them and we…”, well, maybe it is something the original readers of the work already knew.
Acts starts with “In my former book, Theophilus”, so Theophilus was well aware of who the author was, a former companion of Paul who joined him in Troas, stayed in Philippi, and so on…
Dr. Ehrman. Haa e you ever had anyone come to you claiming to be Dionysus. The know the joyful one. The Olympian that Zeus loved. Technically Hollywood and entrainment belongs to him right? Due to the ancient Greek Dionysus theater? Anyway if you have had someone claiming to be the God who comes, please let me know what there name is. I heard he was close to Apollo. Maybe him and Apollo entertained Zeus to make him happy. Singing and music. That would be old school God stuff. I’m just curious. Btw, we are just friendly blogging to help charity.
Nope!
I bet he is dancing up a mountain somewhere lol. JK. I looked up t temple of Zeus at Lystra. It looks beautiful, if I was there I would probably tear up. Zeus is my everything. Also, at Baalbek the temple of Bacchus next to his Fathers temple of Jupiter is a beautiful message by the builders. Dr. Ehrman, do we know who the builders were at Baalbek?
I myself don’t.
Hi Bart , In first Corinthians 15:5-7 Paul list three groups of people that Jesus appeared to, the twelve, more then five hundred at once then all the apostles.
I noticed that the five hundred was the only group where the appearance was at one time.
Would it follow that the appearance to the twelve and all the apostles were not at one time ?
I don’t think so. The problem with saying he appeared to 500 is people might think that happened at various times since there’s not “group” called the “500,” as opposed to “the twelve” and “the apostles” — so he needs to explain.
Acts and the Gospels appear to use earlier sources, possibly eyewitness accounts, but why weren’t those sources preserved? Perhaps the Gospels and Acts quickly came to be viewed as authoritative accounts so there was no need to preserve earlier accounts, even though they were closer to the events? Or perhaps they contained elements that did not line up with the developing orthodoxy?
I wish we knew. The bigger problem is the 99.9% of the things written in antiquity have not been preserved. Sigh….
What did the New Testament say about giving tithes? Did the Historical Jesus say anything about it? If so, is still given in terms or produce or money/coins?
I think the only time the word occurse is in Matthew 23:43, where Jesus approves of the practice but says that focusing on tithing and ignoring the things that *really* matter is a big mistake before God, and Luke 18:12 which descrives a Pharisee who regularly tithes but is unrighteous before God. Together the passages suggest that tithing is right for Jews (it’s part of the Torah!), but that it’s not really what God principally wants (see Isaiah 55). Otherwise, there’s no reference to the practice.
Dr. Ehrman. In John 3 Jesus talk with Nicodemus about “born again”. In your book you said this conversation could not have happened because the Aramaic word does not mean “from above” and also “second time”. But how about reincarnation? Does Jesus mean reincarnation (i.e. born again)? if he mean reincarnation, then seems the conversation can make sense.
In JOhn’s Gospel, no, Jesus is not referring to reincarnation. If you’ll look at the passage, he is referring to a “birth from above,” a “spiritual birth” provided by the Holy Spirit to one who is alive at the time; one needs to have a heavenly birth in addition to (and after) their physical / earthly birth to inherit the kingdom of heaven. (I have a discussion of reincarnation in my book Heaven and Hell, in case you’re interested; and you can do a word search for it here on the blog to see some discusisons )disabledupes{c581a413df0cf5895eb42903d89ef4be}disabledupes
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.”( John 3:5-8)
Dr.Ehrman, in John 3, Jesus talk to Nicodemus this weird passage. What does this mean? (In my former understanding, “born of water and the spirit” mean born with a physical body and a soul; “flesh is flesh, spirit is spirit” mean each human has a physical body and a soul; “The wind” mean the soul of a dead person floating around in our world to visit his/her families.)
what do you think of my understanding? and what exactly does this passage mean?
Thank you very much!
It’s much debated. I used to think being born of “water” meant a regular human birth (water sack); more commonly it is taken to mean “born into God at baptism.” In either event, born of “the Spirit” means having a birth from “above” — being born not just as a human in this world but inheriting life from above provided by Jesus and the Spirit. SO, if birth by “water” means “human birth” then Jesus means you must be born *both* ways (human and heavenly); if it means “baptism” then it would be the same thing (baptism/spirit birth happens at Christian baptism)
Dr. Ehrman. when did the Gospel of Thomas originally written? Can it be traced back to 1st century like Mark ,Matthew, Luke and John? If Gospel of Thomas also written in 1st century, then maybe some Gnostic teachings of Jesus can be attributed to Jesus himself. (I guess?)
It is usually dated to the early second century; I usually place it as a guess around 120 CE. It almost certainly was not written in the first century. There are very big debates about whether it is appropriate to call its sayings “gnostic” or to consider it a “gnostic Gospel” or not. If you look up Thomas on the blog you’ll see some discussions about it.
The negative team is relying on logical fallacies that put Luke in no-win situations. If Acts is inconsistent with other historical data, it is deemed unreliable, but if it is consistent, this is dismissed as “smoke and mirrors”. It is suggested that Luke may not have been interested in being accurate, but evidence that he WAS trying to be accurate is not weighed in favour of his accuracy. If Luke disagrees with someone’s interpretation of Paul’s letters, it is assumed that it is Luke who is wrong. If Luke agrees with Paul’s letters, it is inferred that Luke is dependent on them. What WOULD constitute evidence for the accuracy of Acts?
‘But never does he say, “then I joined with them”‘. This is merely because Luke is reluctant to talk about himself in general. He believed in modelling humility (Luke 9:46-50; 14:7-11; 22:24-30). He used the first person sparingly at the narrater level, so it is not surprising that he uses it sparingly at the event level too. He uses the plural, “we”, because it is more humble than the singular. And he limits it mostly to sea voyages, where the group cannot take any credit for the progress made.
I don’t think we can say what was going on in an authors head. (He says this because of this.) That’s really just guess work. What’s not guess work is when he says one thing and then says another thing that is not consistent with the first thing and considering the two statements in relation to one another contradictory.
This is a weird mischaracterization of the “smoke and mirrors” point, which is that accuracy about background features of the world that would be widely-known to contemporaries is not particularly germane to the accuracy of a particular narrative. If someone suggested A Study in Scarlet is historically accurate because Baker Street is a real road in London, Poe a real author, and the Mormons a real religious group, you would worry they’d suffered a brain injury.
Hello, Bart!
1. When you were deconverting going through that difficult time, who and/or what helped you and comforted you emotionally and psychologically? And how? What/who comforts you today in tough times?
2. If we don’t have the originals of the NT books how can we date when the first books were written?
1. Friends mainly. Today, family and friends. It was the same when I was a believer as well, I suppose. 2. It’s the problem we have with every book from the ancient world. If you look up “how do we date the Gospels” on the blog you’ll see some posts on it. Short answer, for all books from antiquity, we look for events/people/etc mentioned, alluded to, or assumed in the text. The text had to be written AFTER that. (If a text mentions Julius Caesar it wasn’t writtenb before he lived…) If another datable source mentoins something found in the text (e.g., by quoting it) then the text has to be written BEFORE that. You start from there and start narrowing it down as much as you can.
If Daniel 7- 12 was written 160bc how it possible that the latest manuscripts waere written down about 100 years after in dead sea scrolls?
I”m not sure what you’re asking. Darwin’s Origins of Species was written in 1859 but copies of it are being produced today. In 3000 years the oldest copies of it that still survive may be ones that were made this year.
The book of daniel is deffenetly historically 164bc but can it be lingisticly dated there?
Yes, the Hebrew and the Aramaic are from that period (parts are in Hebrew, parts in ARamaic). Linguists have firmly established that.
I guess one counterargument to the point that Acts and Paul sometimes disagree is: how do we know that Paul is the more accurate source? Obviously, he’s talking about himself, so one would think he would know the facts as well as anyone, but lots of authors are misleading or self-serving in their autobiographies. Could it be that Acts disagrees with Paul but the author of Acts is the one recording history more accurately?
That’s right. Paul may have gotten things wrong as well. Or lied about it. Or whatever. In Galatians, when he says that after his converstoin he did NOT go straight to Jerusalem to confer wiht the apostles before him, and swears an oath to God that he’s not lying, he may be lying; or when he tells the Thessalonians that he recently sent Timothy to them from Athens he may have forgotten that Timothy actually hadn’t come with him from Athens. It’s completely possible! So one has to ask if either of those is more or less likely than the contradicxtory accounts an different author who wasn’t there (for either event) and who didn’t know Paul and was writing about it 30 years later from stories he had himself heard. It’s possible, and needs to be taken seriously as a possibility. But at the end of the day, there are so many things like that, that it seems unlikely.
You have commented that your audience, in the main, favoured the affirmative resolution. This could, I suggest, be a function of the structuring of the debate. Research in memory has shown that there is both a primacy and a recency effect. Since the affirmative side is the first and the last to state its position it is possible that it benefits from these two effects and has the edge.
Possibly. But I don’t think that is borne out in high school and college debate, where the sequence is always Affirmative-Negative-negative-affirmative. (Otherwise Affirmatives would generally win, but there’s actually no pattern)
Professor, if I’m not mistaken, in your book Heaven & Hell, you said that Jesus didn’t teach eternal punishment in Hell. I think you said that Jesus taught that the unrighteous will just die and cease to exist.
Why doesn’t Matthew 25:46, which comes at the end of the Sheep/Goats parable prove you wrong? “And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.” It sure sounds like he’s talking about “eternal” punishment.
I discuss that in the book at some length. Short story: The punishment is indeed eternal. The punishment is death, and it is never reversed. They are eternally dead. It does not say they are eternally tormented as conscious being. They are sent into the fire and annihilated. Eternal life is the opposite, a reward of life that is eternal, never to be reversed.
Dr. Ehrman,
You and most non-fundamentalist scholars have stated how Jesus and the disciples were peasantry who would not have been literate. However, would they have perhaps verbally known any foreign languages, and what language did Jesus and Pontius Pilate communicate in? Would Jesus have known Greek or Latin? And also, after Jesus death when the church became widespread, especially when Peter began interacting with Paul and some of the gentiles, would he have learned Greek? And furthermore, could these peasants have become literate later on, when they became so “cosmopolitanally” involved?
It depends where a person was raised. People who lived in a major city (say Tiberius or Sepphoris or Jerusalem) in Jesus’ day, even if completely uneducated, would probalby have heard Greek spoken and may have picked up some conversatoinal Greek. Those raised in the country / rural areas/ small hamlets or villages (80-90% of the population) would have spoken just the local languages. Jesus as an inhabitant of Nazareth was in the latter group. We don’t know how Pilate may have interrogated Jesus. If he really did (I’m not sure he would have), presuma ly there would have been a translator. Same with Peter if he went abroad, unless he was away for so long that he picked up a bit of Greek.
Hello, again,
I have a lot of questions and I get very excited and curious because I have this opportunity to address them to you. I’m very thankful for your energy dedicated to the blog.
My next question is: What are the origins of the saying of Jesus about self love ? (“Love your neighbour *as yourself*”). Sounds like ancient chinese and greek philosophy. But what is the hebrew history of this idea?
Thank you very much!
It doesn’t appear that Jesus means what we mean when we say “love yourself.” He is talking about how you treat others, not how your emotions run toward them. You should treat them the way you treat yourself (that’s the common meaning of the word “love” in the NT — an active engagement to help others, not an emotion). You feed yourself; feed your neighbor; you clothe yourself; clothe one who needs clothing; you provide shelter for yourself; help the homeless to find shelter; etc….
Bart, you suggested that the author pretended to be an eye-witness to add authority to his account. Why, then, does he not claim to have been present at important events? Why does he not say that he was present at the ascension, for example, or the Jerusalem council, or the arrest of Paul? Why does he instead attest to the fact that Paul went places by boat? Clearly the first person plural was not added to add authority. The use of the first person plural in Acts is very different from the NT cases that you cited.
Yes, peole often say that if he really wanted to establish his identity successfully, he would have gone much more out of his way to do so thanhe does. I’ve never understood that argument. How can we second-guess him to tell him a more effective way to have made readers think he was a companion of Paul? For 1800 years, virtually every reader thought he was a companion of Paul based on these passages? How much more successful could he *possibly* have been? (If you’re read my book Forgery and Counterforgery, btw, you know that this use of first-person narrative to establish identity was massively common in antiquity)
Also, it is worth pointing out that the abruptness of the start of the “we-passages” is not explained by the theory that the author was not present. While it may seem abrupt to us, it would not have been for the original audience. It was common for NT writers to switch between different ways of referring to the same person in the third person, and the same is true for self-reference. Also, a good parallel can be found in Polybius, Histories 36.11.1 “When instructions arrived in the Peloponnese from Manilius for the Achaeans that they would do well to send Polybius the Megalopolitan with Haste to Lilybaeum, as there was need of him for affairs of state, the Achaeans resolved to send him in accordance with the petition of the consul. 36.11.2 We, thinking it our duty for many reasons to obey the Romans, putting aside all other matters, set sail when summer began.” Polybius refers to himself as “Polybius”, and then (abruptly for us) switches to “we” when setting sail. Luke does the same, except that he prefers to be anonymous for the preceding events on land.
The We Passages to me just sounds like Author Dude (or his editors) are splicing from non-personal experience to personal experience. The Puteoli passage seems to match the historicity of a Dusares temple being converted to the first Christian church.
I thought it was Paul that was generally viewed as the tiny bit suss guy? He says he’s an enemy of early Christianity. Eisenman correlates him with Saulus the Herodian.
Paul says he is first pursued by the (softie, justice-oriented) Nabataeans. Paul says his words are not accepted by several Christian communities. Paul seems to think he has learned Jesus’ teachings by putting his arms up antenna style.
But I think Paul is useful
, because I don’t believe Jesus’ brother James has the whole picture either. I think it’s likely that Paul was educated 12-up in the Herodian household, given his rare Western travel ability. (Just like I think Jesus was likely educated 12-up in the Nabataean royal household.) (Agrippa was raised in Rome.)
James is like Obama’s brother in Kenya — they even spent time as children together, but one has elite citizenship and a Harvard scholarship, and the other brother’s family has a leaking tin roof shack.
Interesting. What makes you think Jesus grew up in a wealthy Nabatean household, and is there a connection to David’s dynasty?
It might lend support to the argument that the Talpiot tomb is his; the one that was discovered in Jerusalem and is known to have been occupied by a Jesus whose brother was also James, who had another named Yose, whose father was Joseph, whose (most likely) wife was “Mariam Mara” (Mara is the female form of Mar, or Master – so something like Mistress Mary) with whom he even seems to have shared a son named Judah (Yehuda in Hebrew/Aramaic).
…and it would also mean that Paul is being quite literal when he said Jesus “made himself poor” in the famous poem in one of his letters (Galatians I think, but I need to check on that).
On the other hand, if “the Nazarene/Nazorean” just means he was from the village of Nazareth, it’s unlikely he’d have had a nice tomb, much less have enjoyed a privileged childhood, being a simple tekton and all.
It sounds wildly speculative, but sometimes, ironically, that is the best & simplest (Occam’s razor) way to connect all the dots.
Hi Bart, I realize my question may be off-topic, but I would appreciate your perspective nonetheless. What is the earliest known manuscript of 1 Corinthians in which Paul instructs women not to teach or speak in church services? Thanks
All the manuscripts have it.
Concerning the “we-passages”, is it not possible that this is merely a literary device, perhaps intended to make the narrative more lively? Similar devices are certainly used in literature.
Interesting idea. I don’t know of any usages like that, especially when the “we” shows up out of nowhere and then suddenly disappears. THe passages themselves are not any livelier than others told in the third person, so far as I can tell.