Now that I have explained at some length how the debates work in my Introduction to the New Testament class, I can talk a bit about the debate that I staged in front of the class.   The class debates that the students themselves will participate in start next week – one a week for three weeks.   I’ve always thought that for students to see how a debate is supposed to work, they need to observe one in action.  So I like to have a debate in front of the entire class to give them an idea.  The problem is that most years (well, virtually every year) it is hard to find someone who is willing to debate me.  And so, I debate myself. The topic that I usually debate has to do with the NT book of Acts and whether it can be trusted to give a historically reliable account of the work of Paul and the other apostles after the death of Jesus.  The specific resolution is this:  “Resolved: The Book of Acts is [...]