I really can't agree... and ultimately, IMV, it just depends on who you subscribe to.
If you are going to disagree you need to contradict and debunk the points. The field agrees with him. I can present some of the arguments.
Overall,
Acts just shares far too many features with popular adventure novels that were written during the same period, in order to lend it any trust as history. Here’s an overview of those features:
1) They all promote a particular god or religion.
2) They are all travel narratives.
3) They all involve miraculous or amazing events.
4) They all include encounters with fabulous or exotic people.
5) They often incorporate a theme of chaste couples that are separated and then reunited.
6) They all feature exciting narratives of captivities and escapes.
7) They often include themes of persecution.
8) They often include episodes involving excited crowds.
9) They often involve divine rescues from danger.
10) They often have divine revelations which are integral to the plot
If Richard Pervo, sentenced for child possession and distribution of child porn is considered a reliable source, one would need their head examined.
So the Preists who were molesting children, they couldn't teach Christianity at Mass? I think they did. Information is not distributing child porn? He has a scholarly monograph complete with sources. He just has the skills to do the research. Although looking to ad-hom the author is a common apologetics tactic. Why would his illegal activity prevent him from doing history?
Again, ultimately it will be on just who you subscribe to as reliable.
Yes PhD historians. Thomas Brodie writes on Acts, several scholars work is summed up in a post that gives many examples -
Dennis MacDonald has shown that Luke also reworked fictional tales written by Homer, replacing the characters and some of the outcomes as needed to suit his literary purposes. MacDonald informs us in his
The Shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul (New Testament Studies, 45, pp. 88-107) that:
“The shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul share nautical images and vocabulary, the appearance of a goddess or angel assuring safety, the riding of planks, the arrival of the hero on an island among hospitable strangers, the mistaking of the hero as a god, and the sending of him on his way [in a new ship].“
Paul actually tells us himself that he was shipwrecked three times, and that at least one time he spent a day and night adrift (
2 Cor. 11.25). It’s possible that Luke was inspired by this detail given by Paul and used it to invent a story that expanded on it, while borrowing other ideas and details from famous shipwreck narratives including those found in
Jonah, the
Odyssey, and the
Aeneid. In fact,
Acts rewrites Homer a number of other times. Paul’s resurrection of the fallen Eutychus was based on the fallen Elpenor. The visions of Cornelius and Peter were constructed from a similar narrative that was written about Agamemnon. Paul’s farewell at Miletus was made from Hector’s farewell to Andromache. The lottery of Matthias we hear about was built off of the lottery of Ajax. Even Peter’s escape from prison was lifted from Priam’s escape from Achilles. There are other literary sources besides Homer that the author of
Acts used as well. For example, the prison breaks in
Acts share several themes with the famously miraculous prison breaks found in the
Bacchae of Euripedes such as the miraculous unlocking of chains and being able to escape due to an earthquake (compare
Acts 12.6-7 and 16.26 to
Bacchae pp. 440-49, 585-94).
However, the source that
Acts seems to employ more than any other is the Septuagint. While MacDonald has shown that the overall structure of the Peter and Cornelius story is based on writings from Homer, the scholar Randel Helms has shown that other elements were in fact borrowed from the book of
Ezekiel in the OT, thus merging both story models into a single one. For example, both Peter and Ezekiel see the heavens open up (
Acts 10.11;
Ezek. 1.1), both of them are commanded to eat something in their vision (
Acts 10.13;
Ezek. 2.9), both respond to God twice by saying “By no means, Lord!” using the exact same Greek phrase (
Acts 10.14, 11.8;
Ezek. 4.14, 20.49), both are asked to eat unclean food, and finally both protest saying that they have never eaten anything unclean before (
Acts 10.14;
Ezek. 4.14). Clearly, the author of
Acts isn’t recording anything from historical memory, but rather is assembling a fictional story using literary structures and motifs that don’t have much if anything to do with what happened to Peter or Paul. The author appears to be inventing this “history” in order to convince his readers of how the previously-required Torah-observance was abandoned in early Christianity, and to convince his readers that this abandonment of Torah-observance was even approved by Peter all along, and confirmed to be approved of through divine revelation. Yet, we know this to be a lie because Paul even tells us himself (in
Gal. 2) that he was for a long time the only advocate for a Torah-free version of Christianity, and it was merely tolerated by Torah observers like Peter (and often contentiously so). Similarly, in
Acts 15.7-11, we can see that it is basically just Paul’s speech from
Gal. 2.14-21 put into Peter’s mouth, which is the exact opposite of what Paul told us actually happened.
I subscribe to this position as historically correct:
On the Historical Accuracy of the Book of Acts.
https://crossexamined.org/historical-accuracy-book-acts/
An article by an apologist? So truth isn't a priority for you? All he pretty much does is verify that some authentic terms are used. But it's beyond certain that the author of Acts used many other sources to write this. And used the terms in the fiction?
Obviously if one subscribed to Erhman, you would have a different position.
https://crossexamined.org/historical-accuracy-book-acts/
https://crossexamined.org/historical-accuracy-book-acts/
Yes the same position all historians have. All the work is peer-reviewed for historical errors. There are many papers demonstrating Acts is sourcing other fiction.
I have no problem with the synopsis of Mark, Matthew and Luke. There are very marked differences.
So I have no problem with it.
I also love how people use numbers to benefit their position such as "Matthew has 97% of the original Greek verbatim from Mark."
you would almost think that there is only 3% difference between the two. But Matthew has 26 chapter while Mark only has 16.
Maybe you should check out an opposing view?
Yes the fundamentalists views are literally crank and I have checked them out. Christian scholarship holds the view that Mark was the source? You don't seem to understand the depth of the knowledge?
The arguments are given here (not Mark Goodacres) but this alone is beyond solid. I would think you would want to know about your own religion and understand these reasons and you yourself put them to fundamentalist arguments. I have which is how I know apologetics is psuedo-science.
Matthew was a good writer and clearly attended the Greek school. The fact that it's 26 chapters and Mark is 16 means Matthew added a lot after copying Mark verbatim. The Sermon was taken from the Greek OT. So clearly that kept him busy and added chapters.
The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org
Dr Carrier talks about Matthew and how it was created in his book OHJ:
"The Sermon is a well crafted literary work that cannot have come from some illiterate Galilean. Scholars know it originated in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic because it relies on the Septuagint text of the Bible for all it's features and allusions. It relies extensively on the Greek text of Deuteronomy and Leviticus and in key places other text. For example, the section on turning the other cheek and other aspects of legal pacifism has been redacted to the Greek text of Isa, 50.6-9. These are not the words of Jesus. This famous sermon as a whole also has a complex literary structure that can only have come from a writer, not an everyday speaker. And again, it reflects the needs and interests that would have arisen after the apostles began preaching the faith and organizing communities and struggling to keep them in the fold. SO it's unlikely to come from Jesus. In a paper by Dale Allison - Studies in Matthew he details the extensive use of triadic structure.
It's far to intricately organized and too literary to be a casual speech"
There are long examples of triadic structure and chiastic structure in the book as well. The themes form a chiasmus. Only found in carefully planned literary works
It also fits nicely with known rabbinical debates over how Jesus could fulfill the Torah after the destruction of the Temple Cult.
Ken...
