Showing posts with label Acts of the Apostles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Acts of the Apostles. Show all posts
Is the Resurrection the best-evidenced NT miracle? Maybe not!
Actually, I'm not sure that the Resurrection is the best-evidenced miracle in the New Testament. Of course, it's the most theologically significant. But Acts has a much shorter event-to-writing time gap than the Gospels on any account, and at least the latter part of it is heavily supported by archaeological evidence. I realize this is controversial, but I think that Luke was a companion of Paul, and witnessed many of the events in later Acts firsthand. Since miracle reports go all the way through the book of Acts, I think the case for some of those could be stronger than the case for the Resurrection.
Historical Intent and the Pervasiveness of the Miraculous
There are two sets of facts that, I think render a naturalistic account of Christian origins difficult. They are what you should expect if there were real miracles but not what you should expect if there were none. One is that it seems clear to me that the Gospels were written with the intent to be represent reality, and that they were written by people who, if not eyewitnesses themselves, were in a position to interview eyewitnesses. In the case of the later parts of Acts, I think it very clear that Luke WAS an eyewitness to at least some of the events he discusses. I think the archaeological evidence, along with other types of evidence, shows that the New Testament has at the very least a significant historical core. I realize that this doesn't buy you inerrancy, but it does undercut any theory that the whole thing was made up. People didn't write novels at that time, and a comparison between the Gospels and other literature at the time shows that, whatever else the Gospels and Acts were, they were attempts to represent reality. Call this the Attempt to Represent Reality Thesis.
Of course it is open to the skeptic to say, at this point that OK, there was a significant historical core, but all the miracle reports were legendary. However, these documents seem to be pervasively supernaturalist, so that it doesn't seem even possible to isolate that naturalistically explicable historical core from the elements which, in one way or another, imply a supernatural character to the founding of Christianity. The passages used to back up the "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" argument are cases in point. Not just the healings, the claim to forgive sins, but also the claim to supersede the Law with "I say unto you," and Jesus' more explicit assertions like Mark 14: 61-62 make it difficult to isolate a naturalistically acceptable element. This is the thesis of the Pervasiveness of the Miraculous.
But the pervasiveness isn't just in the Gospels. In one debate on Acts, I had been pointing to the archaeological confirmation of later Acts. The event-to-writing gap is less, and, as I indicated, we have good reason to suppose that some of it is eyewitness testimony. So, someone who believes in a naturalistic account would expect a downturn in the element of the miraculous. Skeptic GearHedEd indeed floated just such a hypothesis, which is perfectly reasonable on naturalistic assumptions:
Of course it is open to the skeptic to say, at this point that OK, there was a significant historical core, but all the miracle reports were legendary. However, these documents seem to be pervasively supernaturalist, so that it doesn't seem even possible to isolate that naturalistically explicable historical core from the elements which, in one way or another, imply a supernatural character to the founding of Christianity. The passages used to back up the "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" argument are cases in point. Not just the healings, the claim to forgive sins, but also the claim to supersede the Law with "I say unto you," and Jesus' more explicit assertions like Mark 14: 61-62 make it difficult to isolate a naturalistically acceptable element. This is the thesis of the Pervasiveness of the Miraculous.
But the pervasiveness isn't just in the Gospels. In one debate on Acts, I had been pointing to the archaeological confirmation of later Acts. The event-to-writing gap is less, and, as I indicated, we have good reason to suppose that some of it is eyewitness testimony. So, someone who believes in a naturalistic account would expect a downturn in the element of the miraculous. Skeptic GearHedEd indeed floated just such a hypothesis, which is perfectly reasonable on naturalistic assumptions:
I submit that everything before Acts 9 is stage-setting, and that everything after the infamous "Road to Damascus" incident is probably historical, at least as much as anything is considered "historical" in any other early "historical" writings.
Things that make you go, "Hmmmm..."
Miracles
Before Acts: 9? Many
After Acts 9:? Almost nothing, save vague statements of the "Holy Spirit descending on them" in Acts 11, and Peter's "miraculous" escape from prison in Acts 12 (who was there to record the circumstances of Peter's escape? And didn't he at first think he was "seeing a vision (Acts 12:9)? He should have trusted his first impression).
Things that make you go, "Hmmmm..."
Miracles
Before Acts: 9? Many
After Acts 9:? Almost nothing, save vague statements of the "Holy Spirit descending on them" in Acts 11, and Peter's "miraculous" escape from prison in Acts 12 (who was there to record the circumstances of Peter's escape? And didn't he at first think he was "seeing a vision (Acts 12:9)? He should have trusted his first impression).
Only, as Tim McGrew pointed out subsequently, miracles don't drop off at this point.
It is completely unclear to me why GearHedEd thinks it would be a point in his favor if the latter part of Acts contained no reported miracles. The suggestion that the gospels and the earlier parts of Acts are entirely fabricated does not warrant serious discussion.
But for the record, here is a partial list of miracles recounted in Acts from chapter 10 onward:
* Peter is liberated from prison by an angel (Acts 12:5-11)
* Paul temporarily blinds the sorcerer Elymas (Acts 13:9-12)
* Paul and Barnabas work miracles on their missionary journey (Acts 14:3)
* Paul cures the lame man of Lystra (Acts 14:7-9)
* Paul exorcises girl possessed of a divining spirit (Acts 16:16-18)
* Chains fall from Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16:25-30)
* Paul raises Eutychus from the dead (Acts 20:9-12)
* Paul shakes off a viper from his arm and suffers no hurt (Acts 28:3-6)
* Paul heals Publius’s father of dysentery (Acts 28:7-8)
* Paul heals all the sick brought to him on Malta (Acts 28:9)
But for the record, here is a partial list of miracles recounted in Acts from chapter 10 onward:
* Peter is liberated from prison by an angel (Acts 12:5-11)
* Paul temporarily blinds the sorcerer Elymas (Acts 13:9-12)
* Paul and Barnabas work miracles on their missionary journey (Acts 14:3)
* Paul cures the lame man of Lystra (Acts 14:7-9)
* Paul exorcises girl possessed of a divining spirit (Acts 16:16-18)
* Chains fall from Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16:25-30)
* Paul raises Eutychus from the dead (Acts 20:9-12)
* Paul shakes off a viper from his arm and suffers no hurt (Acts 28:3-6)
* Paul heals Publius’s father of dysentery (Acts 28:7-8)
* Paul heals all the sick brought to him on Malta (Acts 28:9)
In addition, Tim could have also pointed out that the presence of signs and wonders was used as one of the major reasons which justified the Gentile ministry of Paul and Barnabas to the Council of Jerusalem.
In other words, you should expect it to be the case that the more you find support for historicity, the less likely you are to find miracle claims, if naturalism is true. But this is not the case, so that disconfirms the naturalistic hypothesis.
Pratt on Pervo on Theudas
Following up on a dialogue that began here at DI, Jason Pratt has now finished his seven-part critique of Pervo's claim that Luke's way of using Theudas's name, as it appears in Gamaliel's speech, shows Luke's dependence on Josephus (and hence the late date of the work).
My central interest in the controversy surrounding late-dating Acts was the question that, given their apparent recognition of how so much accurate information about places and times and governmental systems that seems to be recorded in Acts, it is odd that they do not even ask the question of how that information could have been preserved into the early second century. Having looked at this essay by Richard Carrier, it looks as if he recognizes the amount of accurate content in Acts. He then points out that this was just means he was good with public information, as opposed to having a good idea of, say, whether the apostles might have hallucinated the risen Jesus. But he makes no attempt to explain how Acts came to have so much accurate detail, and given the fact that he holds a position like Pervo's on the dating of Acts, this is a dismaying omission. In other words, it looks as if Carrier doesn't even ask the question that I asked about Luke's knowledge.Does he really think this information would have been easy for someone in the second century to get?
Anyway, Pervo's book, along with Colin Hemer's, await me at the Glendale Community College library. I will see if he addresses the problem I posed.
My central interest in the controversy surrounding late-dating Acts was the question that, given their apparent recognition of how so much accurate information about places and times and governmental systems that seems to be recorded in Acts, it is odd that they do not even ask the question of how that information could have been preserved into the early second century. Having looked at this essay by Richard Carrier, it looks as if he recognizes the amount of accurate content in Acts. He then points out that this was just means he was good with public information, as opposed to having a good idea of, say, whether the apostles might have hallucinated the risen Jesus. But he makes no attempt to explain how Acts came to have so much accurate detail, and given the fact that he holds a position like Pervo's on the dating of Acts, this is a dismaying omission. In other words, it looks as if Carrier doesn't even ask the question that I asked about Luke's knowledge.Does he really think this information would have been easy for someone in the second century to get?
Anyway, Pervo's book, along with Colin Hemer's, await me at the Glendale Community College library. I will see if he addresses the problem I posed.
Jason Pratt begins a series at Cadre on the Problem of Luke and Josephus
This is just the first post, but it promises to be interesting.
William Ramsay's book on Acts
A lot of the archaeological confirmations of Acts come from archaeologist Sir William Ramsay. Here is a link to his book, St. Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen.
Sometimes I think there should be an outsider test for Bible scholars. Would anyone consider for two seconds a next-generation date for a book that has been this heavily supported by archaeological evidence, if that book didn't have to be in the Bible? It is as if the claim that Luke was a companion of Paul is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
Sometimes I think there should be an outsider test for Bible scholars. Would anyone consider for two seconds a next-generation date for a book that has been this heavily supported by archaeological evidence, if that book didn't have to be in the Bible? It is as if the claim that Luke was a companion of Paul is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
Tim McGrew on Carrier's treatment of Luke and Josephus
Tim's comments are italicized. The Carrier essay is linked.
The list of “generic parallels” between Luke and Josephus is so generic that I was surprised he left out “Both Luke and Josephus mention the existence of Rome.” The list of “story parallels” is even worse, since in many cases it involves torturing the notion of a parallel. Just run through the list and note some of the (non)parallels that he either vastly overrates or twists ’round:
* In Josephus, the census under Quirinius is the beginning of something bad. In Luke, it isn’t. Therefore, this is a parallel where Luke “transvalues” the message of the census, changing “bad” into “good.”
(Um, ... standards ...?)
* Josephus says that there were many men who led revolts, and he names three prominent ones. Luke has passing references to three persons with the same names, though it is not clear that Luke’s “Theudas” is the same as Josephus’s. One of the men is called “the Egyptian” by both Josephus and Luke; Luke links him with the sicarii, whereas Josephus does not. Therefore, Luke was copying from Josephus.
(The argument that this must be copying because there were thousands of Egyptians in Palestine at the time is beyond ridiculous. It would work equally well against two independent references to Jimmy the Greek. (“How many millions of Greeks,” etc.))
* Luke and Josephus both recount the death of Agrippa I in some detail, speaking of his brilliant robe, his acceptance of adulation as a God, and his immediate demise. There are also some details that differ in the two stories. Therefore, Luke must have borrowed it from Josephus.
(It couldn’t just be a notorious fact? Why not?)
* Josephus mentions a rumor that there was an incestuous relationship between Agrippa II and Bernice; Luke does not. Therefore, Luke is inspired by Josephus and intends the entire scene in Acts 25 as comic sarcasm.
(Does it seem like sarcasm? Can it by any legitimate stretch of the imagination be read that way?)
* Josephus reports that Drusilla abandoned her husband for Felix. Luke (Acts 24) portrays Paul as speaking to Felix about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix becomes uncomfortable. Therefore, Luke must be using Josephus.
(It isn’t enough of an explanation that Drusilla’s obvious abandonment of her husband for Felix was notorious?)
* Josephus portrays Felix as sending priests, “excellent men,” to Rome for trial on petty charges. Luke portrays Paul as demanding to be sent to Rome. So perhaps Luke was using Josephus as a model.
(Huh?)
* Luke and Josephus both mention Lysanius, tetrarch of Abilene.
* Luke records a parable about a hated king who is really a good guy; Josephus talks about Herod, an actual hated king who was really a bad guy.
* Luke contains a prophecy involving the slaughter of children in a siege of Jerusalem; Josephus talks about a mother who cannibalizes her own infant during the actual siege of Jerusalem.
* Both Luke and Josephus mention a famine in the reign of Claudius.
* Luke reports an attack by Pilate on some Gailieans; Josephus reports an attack by Pilate on some Samaritans.
Forgive me, but as I read through this I am irresistibly reminded of an exchange from Sleeper:
Luna: “Do you know that ‘god’ spelled backwards is ‘dog’?”
Miles: “So?”
Luna: “Makes you think!”The obvious point, which I made in a previous thread, is that Josephus's area of concern seems to have been Judeo-Roman relations. So he's not going to explain the kind of rich, detailed knowledge of Asia Minor, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta that Luke demonstrates, information that would have been difficult to come by in the second century. See Tim's discussion here.
It is completely unclear to me why it should be assumed that some similarity between Luke and Josephus has to be explained in terms of Luke using Josephus.
The most detailed defense in recent times of Luke's accuracy is, to my knowledge, Colin Hemer's The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, reviewed here. That would be the book to set up against Pervo. Price, not surprisingly, declares Pervo to be the winner.
It is refreshing to see Pervo spill the insides of apologists Ben Witherington III and Colin Hemer, who otherwise manage to receive way too much serious regard. When Pervo is done with them, they sag like empty piñatas, only his blows reveal that neither donkey ever possessed any candy inside. Just one example: Pervo shows the gross inconsistency between believing on the one hand that Acts’ author knew Paul personally and on the other that he was not familiar with Paul’s letters.
I'd like to see that argued. No one that I know, even in my immediate family, is familiar with all my letters, except, of course, for those addressed to them. Why should Paul be any different?
The Shipwreck and the Amityville Horror
One element of the biblical record that I have paid some attention to is the accuracy of, in particular, the Book of Acts. Let me review the claim I want to defend on behalf of the Gospels, which I would certainly also want to defend on behalf of Acts of the Apostles:
Well, I would argue that in the Gospels we have four books written by people who at worst were in a position to talk to those who had seen and known Jesus, and who claimed to have seen him resurrected. They may have had theological aims, but they did their work with a concern to correctly preserve the facts concerning the life, death and resurrection of Christ. There are, of course, four such records, and as such if they agree with one another that something happened, that is at least some evidence that it indeed did happen. Evidence, mind you, that we might end up having to reject, but evidence nonetheless. Of course, the idea that the Gospels represented an attempt to get things right, as opposed to being a record of some out-of-control legends, will have to be argued for, but it is a conclusion I think is supported by the evidence.
In short, I am interested in what I would call general reliability, as opposed to inerrancy. Let's look at the evidence first, and let those who are concerned about inerrancy sort it out later.
Now, what relevance is it that aspects of Bible can be shown to be factual. That which can be shown to be reliable in the New Testament is not typically the supernatural element. Luke, for instance, seems to know the titles of various officials in the cities where Paul is supposed to have gone on his missionary journeys. In this book, which was featured in the Library of Historical Apologetics site, James Smith shows that, indeed, the Maltese Shipwreck story in Acts had to have been factual, based on real a real experience of sailing and being shipwrecked.
But should these facts impress us? Chris Hallquist thinks not.
He writes:
The "amazing accuracy"line of apologetics involves compiliing long lists of details of the gospels confirmed in outside sources: John the Baptist existed, the book of Acts uses terminology correctly, et cetera, finding as many examples as they can (a recent Norman Geisler book boasts 140 allegedly confirmed details). Now, there's an obvious (well, not to the apologists) point that needs to be made here: just because some details of an account are correct does not mean that the entire thing is correct. Case in point: when I read The Amityville Horror I had not trouble identifying some somewhat obscure factual points: there really was a parapsychologist named J. B. Rhine, there really are a pair of ghost hunters named Ed and Lorraine Warren. Further reading revealed that the hoax was built around a real murder case in a real house which a family named the Lutzes really moved into, only to leave a month later. The Warrens really participated in a seance at the house, and the character of Father Mancuso was based on a real priest in the Rockville Center Diocese (the name was not real, though he was one of those people whose name was "changed to protect their privacy) as per a statement in the original book). The fact that some of the details in The Amityville Horror are true did not keep its fantastic supernatural claims from being false.
Chris Hallquist, UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God, (Reasonable Press, 2008). p. 34,
But there are some problems with using this parallel. First, this is was a hoax, as Hallquist indicates on p. 28 of his book. His theory of how Christianity arose doesn't involve a hoax, it involves hallucinations and legend. So while the creators of the hoax could have put the fact and the fiction together, it has to happen rather differently through hallucination and legend.
Second, it is easy to understand how the people who wrote The Amityville Horror came by their information. Someone familiar with the world of the paranormal would know the factual information necessary to put the hoax together. And if not, a trip to the library would have given the hoaxters all the information they needed. On the other hand, I see no way that Luke could possibly have known what he knew without actually having been a companion of Paul. When we take a close look at what Luke had to know to write his book, I don't see how he could have gotten that knowledge third hand. It's not as if he could have found all the information he needed to know by going to the local library and reading the Encyclopedia Romanica. It seems evident to me that he had access to people involved in the founding of Christianity, that he was there for the missionary journeys, (and by the way those stories do include miracles). It simply boggles my mind that people like Richard Carrier and Robert Price keep putting the date of Acts into the second century. And, if you can't date Acts late, you can't date the Synoptics late, either.
Well, I would argue that in the Gospels we have four books written by people who at worst were in a position to talk to those who had seen and known Jesus, and who claimed to have seen him resurrected. They may have had theological aims, but they did their work with a concern to correctly preserve the facts concerning the life, death and resurrection of Christ. There are, of course, four such records, and as such if they agree with one another that something happened, that is at least some evidence that it indeed did happen. Evidence, mind you, that we might end up having to reject, but evidence nonetheless. Of course, the idea that the Gospels represented an attempt to get things right, as opposed to being a record of some out-of-control legends, will have to be argued for, but it is a conclusion I think is supported by the evidence.
In short, I am interested in what I would call general reliability, as opposed to inerrancy. Let's look at the evidence first, and let those who are concerned about inerrancy sort it out later.
Now, what relevance is it that aspects of Bible can be shown to be factual. That which can be shown to be reliable in the New Testament is not typically the supernatural element. Luke, for instance, seems to know the titles of various officials in the cities where Paul is supposed to have gone on his missionary journeys. In this book, which was featured in the Library of Historical Apologetics site, James Smith shows that, indeed, the Maltese Shipwreck story in Acts had to have been factual, based on real a real experience of sailing and being shipwrecked.
But should these facts impress us? Chris Hallquist thinks not.
He writes:
The "amazing accuracy"line of apologetics involves compiliing long lists of details of the gospels confirmed in outside sources: John the Baptist existed, the book of Acts uses terminology correctly, et cetera, finding as many examples as they can (a recent Norman Geisler book boasts 140 allegedly confirmed details). Now, there's an obvious (well, not to the apologists) point that needs to be made here: just because some details of an account are correct does not mean that the entire thing is correct. Case in point: when I read The Amityville Horror I had not trouble identifying some somewhat obscure factual points: there really was a parapsychologist named J. B. Rhine, there really are a pair of ghost hunters named Ed and Lorraine Warren. Further reading revealed that the hoax was built around a real murder case in a real house which a family named the Lutzes really moved into, only to leave a month later. The Warrens really participated in a seance at the house, and the character of Father Mancuso was based on a real priest in the Rockville Center Diocese (the name was not real, though he was one of those people whose name was "changed to protect their privacy) as per a statement in the original book). The fact that some of the details in The Amityville Horror are true did not keep its fantastic supernatural claims from being false.
Chris Hallquist, UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God, (Reasonable Press, 2008). p. 34,
But there are some problems with using this parallel. First, this is was a hoax, as Hallquist indicates on p. 28 of his book. His theory of how Christianity arose doesn't involve a hoax, it involves hallucinations and legend. So while the creators of the hoax could have put the fact and the fiction together, it has to happen rather differently through hallucination and legend.
Second, it is easy to understand how the people who wrote The Amityville Horror came by their information. Someone familiar with the world of the paranormal would know the factual information necessary to put the hoax together. And if not, a trip to the library would have given the hoaxters all the information they needed. On the other hand, I see no way that Luke could possibly have known what he knew without actually having been a companion of Paul. When we take a close look at what Luke had to know to write his book, I don't see how he could have gotten that knowledge third hand. It's not as if he could have found all the information he needed to know by going to the local library and reading the Encyclopedia Romanica. It seems evident to me that he had access to people involved in the founding of Christianity, that he was there for the missionary journeys, (and by the way those stories do include miracles). It simply boggles my mind that people like Richard Carrier and Robert Price keep putting the date of Acts into the second century. And, if you can't date Acts late, you can't date the Synoptics late, either.
What Luke got right, and why it matters
Walter: Sounds like you answered your own question. Acts of the Apostles is more than likely a second century document of dubious historical value.
VR: This flies in the face of some hard evidence. Acts contains to much detailed first-century information that has been confirmed by archaeology to be accurate. Luke gets the titles right for the leaders for various cities before whom Paul appeared. This is especially interesting since in some cases the governmental forms changed in the middle of the first century. That was the whole point of my rhetorical "How did Luke research his novel" question I posed to Steven. This information is detailed in F. F. Bruce's "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable. You would have to go around the Mediterranean world getting arrested on a regular basis in order to know that much about the political and judicial systems of the time. And since those changed, nobody in the second century would have had that information available to them.
You can bring up problems with Luke's account that have to be dealt with if you are an inerrantist, but this is not about inerrancy, or calling Luke the greatest historian of the ancient world, or anything like that. All I am doing here is putting a cap on the idea that Acts is a late, legendary product. Luke had to be in a position to know exactly who you deal with in Cyprus, Achaia, Asia, in Ephesus, in Thessalonica, in Philippi, in Athens, and in Malta.
Now, whenever I bring this stuff up, I get told that, of course, Luke could get this stuff right, but the supernatural stuff wrong. Yes, he could. But the evidence takes the "late and legendary" option away from the critic.
A lot of these archaeological discoveries were made by Sir William Ramsay, who had originally subscribed to the late-dating theories of the Tubingen school. He abandoned that position when he found extensive archaeological evidence that confirmed the reliabilty of Luke's account, over and over again.
I'm not saying a supernatural explanation is proved by all of this, but the options for developing a skeptical counter-story are reduced considerably by this kind of evidence.
I am linking to the relevant chapter of Bruce's book.
VR: This flies in the face of some hard evidence. Acts contains to much detailed first-century information that has been confirmed by archaeology to be accurate. Luke gets the titles right for the leaders for various cities before whom Paul appeared. This is especially interesting since in some cases the governmental forms changed in the middle of the first century. That was the whole point of my rhetorical "How did Luke research his novel" question I posed to Steven. This information is detailed in F. F. Bruce's "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable. You would have to go around the Mediterranean world getting arrested on a regular basis in order to know that much about the political and judicial systems of the time. And since those changed, nobody in the second century would have had that information available to them.
You can bring up problems with Luke's account that have to be dealt with if you are an inerrantist, but this is not about inerrancy, or calling Luke the greatest historian of the ancient world, or anything like that. All I am doing here is putting a cap on the idea that Acts is a late, legendary product. Luke had to be in a position to know exactly who you deal with in Cyprus, Achaia, Asia, in Ephesus, in Thessalonica, in Philippi, in Athens, and in Malta.
Now, whenever I bring this stuff up, I get told that, of course, Luke could get this stuff right, but the supernatural stuff wrong. Yes, he could. But the evidence takes the "late and legendary" option away from the critic.
A lot of these archaeological discoveries were made by Sir William Ramsay, who had originally subscribed to the late-dating theories of the Tubingen school. He abandoned that position when he found extensive archaeological evidence that confirmed the reliabilty of Luke's account, over and over again.
I'm not saying a supernatural explanation is proved by all of this, but the options for developing a skeptical counter-story are reduced considerably by this kind of evidence.
I am linking to the relevant chapter of Bruce's book.
Were the Gospels Novels? Were the Writers Guilty of Plagiarism?
Steven, you never seem to have answered Bob Prokop's comment, which he has made over and over, that the novel genre didn't exist in the first century.
Second, your use of the word plagiarism is highly anachronistic. At the present time, we are concerned about intellectual property rights, and so we have copyright laws and plagiarism regulations. But in that time, there was no such thing. If I have to grade someone's paper, then I need to know what in the paper is the writer's own idea, and what came from sources. But Luke, for example, isn't writing his gospel for a grade, and he's not trying to take royalties away from Mark. And although some people have made claims on his behalf as a historian, he's not trying to compete with Thucydides. He's trying to get the story out that he believes to be true.
In our century, we are accustomed to reading books in which the writer learns a lot of factual details so as to provide a realistic setting for the work, but the work itself is a work of fiction. So, if you were going to write a novel about someone who was going around, say, the Far East committing crimes, getting arrested, and escaping, then you might, to make the story realistic, go to the various places in the Far East, and visit the police headquarters and court buildings to find out what their police and court procedures might have been, to put in your story. You would find out how they do things in Bangkok, in Rangoon, in Hanoi, and in Ho Chi Minh City, in New Delhi, in Mumbai, in Singapore, and in Lhasa. Of course, if you were doing this today, you'd have the benefits of planes, trains, and automobiles, none of which existed for poor old Luke.
So, if the Gospel of Luke and Acts were both novels, how did he research his novel? In the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.
Second, your use of the word plagiarism is highly anachronistic. At the present time, we are concerned about intellectual property rights, and so we have copyright laws and plagiarism regulations. But in that time, there was no such thing. If I have to grade someone's paper, then I need to know what in the paper is the writer's own idea, and what came from sources. But Luke, for example, isn't writing his gospel for a grade, and he's not trying to take royalties away from Mark. And although some people have made claims on his behalf as a historian, he's not trying to compete with Thucydides. He's trying to get the story out that he believes to be true.
In our century, we are accustomed to reading books in which the writer learns a lot of factual details so as to provide a realistic setting for the work, but the work itself is a work of fiction. So, if you were going to write a novel about someone who was going around, say, the Far East committing crimes, getting arrested, and escaping, then you might, to make the story realistic, go to the various places in the Far East, and visit the police headquarters and court buildings to find out what their police and court procedures might have been, to put in your story. You would find out how they do things in Bangkok, in Rangoon, in Hanoi, and in Ho Chi Minh City, in New Delhi, in Mumbai, in Singapore, and in Lhasa. Of course, if you were doing this today, you'd have the benefits of planes, trains, and automobiles, none of which existed for poor old Luke.
So, if the Gospel of Luke and Acts were both novels, how did he research his novel? In the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.
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