A Question regarding Acts

[Archaea]

Some of the research I've been studying makes Acts, which is not too bad to read in Greek, to be a later composition because it downplays the conflicts between Peter and Paul, but instead tries to paint a unified position of the apostles.

This aside got me thinking, that such a position is almost identical to the position which the LDS Church takes with regard to its internal dissent.

Some of the Pauline letters highlight the conflicts between Peter and Paul and they seem to support the more confrontational real world that existed during the first century.

Thoughts?

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Some of the research I've been studying makes Acts, which is not too bad to read in Greek, to be a later composition because it downplays the conflicts between Peter and Paul, but instead tries to paint a unified position of the apostles.

This aside got me thinking, that such a position is almost identical to the position which the LDS Church takes with regard to its internal dissent.

Some of the Pauline letters highlight the conflicts between Peter and Paul and they seem to support the more confrontational real world that existed during the first century.

Thoughts?

We know a fair amount about Luke and about how he (one commentator, Helms, builds a circumstantial case that Luke could have been a she) went about writing his books (Luke and Acts, that we know of). Luke 1:1-4 tells us that Luke investigated accounts of what happened and thought he had figured out the right of things. Luke's approach seems very scholarly to me--he doesn't claim to have had a vision or even inspiration--he's just figuring things out as best he can.

*mullahs may now go bezerk*

In that sense, Luke is a redactor, and one with some strong themes he wants to empasize:

1. History has profound theological moments

2. Christianity is legitimate, ethical, and international

3. The Acts of the Apostles are really the acts of Jesus and the Holy Spirit

In that sense, I think it's fair to suspect that Luke and Acts were "vetted" (to use the fashionable buzzword) in a way that, say, Paul's letter to the Galatians was not.

There are strong arguments that Galatians, for instance, is much older than Luke and Acts. I remember that there's a fairly wide range for dating Luke and Acts, anywhere from 70 (which seems too early to me) to as late as 100 or so.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

We know a fair amount about Luke and about how he (one commentator, Helms, builds a circumstantial case that Luke could have been a she) went about writing his books (Luke and Acts, that we know of). Luke 1:1-4 tells us that Luke investigated accounts of what happened and thought he had figured out the right of things. Luke's approach seems very scholarly to me--he doesn't claim to have had a vision or even inspiration--he's just figuring things out as best he can.

*mullahs may now go bezerk*

In that sense, Luke is a redactor, and one with some strong themes he wants to empasize:

1. History has profound theological moments

2. Christianity is legitimate, ethical, and international

3. The Acts of the Apostles are really the acts of Jesus and the Holy Spirit

In that sense, I think it's fair to suspect that Luke and Acts were "vetted" (to use the fashionable buzzword) in a way that, say, Paul's letter to the Galatians was not.

There are strong arguments that Galatians, for instance, is much older than Luke and Acts. I remember that there's a fairly wide range for dating Luke and Acts, anywhere from 70 (which seems too early to me) to as late as 100 or so.

Galatians is believed to be one of the older extant Christian documents.

Unlike our superstar AA, I'm just now close to finishing John for the first time. But I find Luke reasonably easy to read, Acts has a nice flow, and some of Paul's letters seem to have a weird flow. He has lots of redundancies when he wrote. John and Acts tend to have a nice flow.

Philemon, one of the shorter works is actually considered authentic. Hebrews has almost always been considered non-authentic, yet it made it into canon, why?

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Galatians is believed to be one of the older extant Christian documents.

Unlike our superstar AA, I'm just now close to finishing John for the first time. But I find Luke reasonably easy to read, Acts has a nice flow, and some of Paul's letters seem to have a weird flow. He has lots of redundancies when he wrote. John and Acts tend to have a nice flow.

Philemon, one of the shorter works is actually considered authentic. Hebrews has almost always been considered non-authentic, yet it made it into canon, why?

Because Priscilla wrote it?

Origen thought Luke might have written it, but his famous statement that "God knows" is probably accurate.

Paul definitely didn't write it.

If you want to tie an ill-informed Mormon in knots with the NT, Hebrews is one of the best places to go. It's a commentary on why we don't need prophets anymore, has a teaching on angels that doesn't square with Mormonism (at least not in my understanding), tells its readers (and listeners, of course--this one feels like a sermon, and not a letter) why the Levitical priesthood has been replaced by Christ, why Jesus is our High Priest so we don't need an earthly High Priest any more, it just keeps going and going...

I believe Hebrews was valuable because it helped make sense of priesthood, the Jewish temple, and Christ. It quotes the LXX at length, and that probably didn't hurt it's cannonization either.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Because Priscilla wrote it?

Origen thought Luke might have written it, but his famous statement that "God knows" is probably accurate.

Paul definitely didn't write it.

If you want to tie an ill-informed Mormon in knots with the NT, Hebrews is one of the best places to go. It's a commentary on why we don't need prophets anymore, has a teaching on angels that doesn't square with Mormonism (at least not in my understanding), tells its readers (maybe listeners--this one feels like a speech, and not a letter) why the Levitical priesthood has been replaced by Christ, why Jesus is our High Priest so we don't need earthly priests any more, it just keeps going and going...

We should have Pelagius lead the discussion on Hebrews, because from early on, the Church Fathers rejected it as being non-authentic. To compound matters, Joseph Smith in an off-the-cuff remark, noted "Paul" being the author. I submit Joseph Smith did NOT inquire as to authorship and was focusing more upon a concept than authorship at the time.

I finished John 17 a few days ago, and after reading that, I find it difficult for any person to accept the modern constellation of the Trinity, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.

Pelagius on Hebrews.

http://ss.diether.org/?p=41#more-41

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

There are strong arguments that Galatians, for instance, is much older than Luke and Acts. I remember that there's a fairly wide range for dating Luke and Acts, anywhere from 70 (which seems too early to me) to as late as 100 or so.

I'm just an amateur here but I had it in my head that the Pauline letters were all older than than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Where did I get that idea?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

I'm just an amateur here but I had it in my head that the Pauline letters were all older than than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Where did I get that idea?

Dating these documents is really fancy guesswork.

Mark is considered the oldest of the Gospels, dating in the early fifties, and Galatians is considered during the same time frame, maybe as early as 48 C.E. or later depending upon other scholarship. Romans, Phillipians, Philemon, Colossians, the letters to the Corinthians, and 1 Thess, were considered to have been written later, and the others are disputed to not even be Pauline.

During the late eighteenth century, a couple of Germans, F.C. Baur and Walter Bauer as well as some French and I believe even Dutch starting dating the documents. They usually "date" something based on an internal reference to some other ruler or concept which they believe they can identify with some degree of certainty. However, the Gospel of John is tied to some of the "Temple" language which recent research shows may have been much earlier than earlier surmised.

None of this can be exclusively confirmed because our earliest copies are third or fourth century IIRC.

[ute4ever]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Origen thought Luke might have written it, but his famous statement that "God knows" is probably accurate.

FWIW, Elder McConkie also said that Luke was the author. I'll try and dig up the reference.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by ute4ever

FWIW, Elder McConkie also said that Luke was the author. I'll try and dig up the reference.

We all know what a diligent, biblical studies man, BRM was. Tradition has held that Acts was a vetting by Luke, but scholarship accepts it to some degree because we just don't know.

[ute4ever]

Originally Posted by Archaea

We all know what a diligent, biblical studies man, BRM was. Tradition has held that Acts was a vetting by Luke, but scholarship accepts it to some degree because we just don't know.

Luke 1:3:
It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus.

Acts 1:1:
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,

Joseph Smith:
The book called the Acts of the Apostles was written by Luke, and may be considered as a continuation of his Gospel.
(Scrapbook of Mormon Literature, 1:375).