PILATE'S PROBLEM AND OURS

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The most salient reasons for ascribing a post-Revolt date to Luke-Acts are that the author appears to have made use of both Mark and Josephus in his writings.  If he made use of Josephus that makes the earliest that Luke-Acts could have been written is 79 AD, when Bellum Judaicum was released, or 93-94AD when Antiquitates Judaicae was written.  Neither of these two dates preclude having Luke be the author of Luke-Acts, tho the latter date would be pushing it if Luke was the actual author. If Luke-Acts were written that late, I'd be inclined to believe that Luke-Acts was written shortly after Luke's death by an author who had access to Luke's personal diary.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

There are numerous places you can examine the consensus I mentioned. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/luke.html gives a fairly good summary of the viewpoints of various scholars concerning the date of composition of Luke-Acts, as well as an explanation of why the absence of Paul's martyrdom from Acts does not necessitate a pre-Revolt date of composition.

ok, I've read that page and it is, as I imagined, quite a joke and is clearly biased coming from the slant of a nonbeliever who is looking for any and every figment that his imagination can draw up to refute the authentic of Acts.

it is one thing to read these opinions in order to glean insight from the opinions of others, but why do you after reading such obvious trash present it as scholarly?

For example, the page is full of suggestions that the book of Acts and the letters of Paul display different doctrine and that the writer of Acts was unaware of Paul’s teachings.  This is a well known theory pushed by those who can’t interpret their way out of a paper bag, therefore, they are going to think there are contradictions between the two sets of writings.

If I have hand two groups of “scholars” two different summaries of Super Bowl X, one stating that Bradshaw threw 2 TD passes, and the other stating that Staubach threw 2 TD passes, they wouldn’t find any contradiction, because their lack of bias would naturally attempt to reconcile the two versions into complementary views of the same event.  But if I were to hand them two accounts of a first century incident with one having been written by Luke and the other having been written by Paul, their bias would immediately attempt to force contradictions.  It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.

Worse, these are peer-reviewed opinions, but reviewed by those who have the same bias and who themselves are attempting to force contradictions.  That is why their opinions are so easy to refute, because it can be easily shown that they are continuously attempting to jump through hoops in order to find contradictions instead of taking the obvious path of least resistance.

This simply reason why that cant accept the simplest date for the writing of Acts - that the reason Acts leaves off with Paul awaiting trial in Rome is because that is why Acts was written and thus there was no more of the story to tell at the time of writing – is that it would be game-set-match – because if Acts was written around 62AD…


…the simple fact is that they have reason not to accept the simplest dating of the book of Acts other than their inability to accept the Gospel as truth, so they have dance around to invent convoluted theories and pat themselves on the back and refer to each other as “experts” all the while promoting a philosophy that states if the easiest and most explainable and obvious answer doesn’t meet your bias, take the Rube Goldberg approach to finding the conclusion you wanted in the first place.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The most salient reasons for ascribing a post-Revolt date to Luke-Acts are that the author appears to have made use of both Mark and Josephus in his writings.  If he made use of Josephus that makes the earliest that Luke-Acts could have been written is 79 AD, when Bellum Judaicum was released, or 93-94AD when Antiquitates Judaicae was written.  Neither of these two dates preclude having Luke be the author of Luke-Acts, tho the latter date would be pushing it if Luke was the actual author. If Luke-Acts were written that late, I'd be inclined to believe that Luke-Acts was written shortly after Luke's death by an author who had access to Luke's personal diary.

we are going to get to the bottom of this right now - explain why you think Luke used Josephus as a source

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The most salient reasons for ascribing a post-Revolt date to Luke-Acts are that the author appears to have made use of both Mark and Josephus in his writings.  If he made use of Josephus that makes the earliest that Luke-Acts could have been written is 79 AD, when Bellum Judaicum was released, or 93-94AD when Antiquitates Judaicae was written.  Neither of these two dates preclude having Luke be the author of Luke-Acts, tho the latter date would be pushing it if Luke was the actual author. If Luke-Acts were written that late, I'd be inclined to believe that Luke-Acts was written shortly after Luke's death by an author who had access to Luke's personal diary.

we are going to get to the bottom of this right now - explain why you think Luke used Josephus as a source

here's what I want you to answer:

Basically, we have AuthorA and AuthorB, both from the 1st Century, and they were NOT colleges of each other.  Seeing that the BOTH wrote historical accounts of events within the 1st Century, with some accounts in agreement, some in divergence, and other accounts discussing totally different subject matters…why on earth would anyone conclude that one had to use the other as a source, instead of taking the most simplest explanation that they wrote independently of each other?

[anvi]

I don't have any particular stake in all the dating debates.  But, just briefly:

A lot of the arguments for a Luke-Josephus connection can be found here.  Of course, these arguments are made by Canada's own Mr. Josephus; he probably hears echoes of Josephus in his sleep...

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html

Also, a lot of scholars nowadays speculate that, because Luke seems to have used large portions of Mark's narrative in composing his own Gospel, and because Luke seems to know a great deal more detail about the destruction of Jerusalem than Mark (compare Luke 21:5-30 to Mark's brief "fig tree" allusion to the fate of Jerusalem in 11:12-14), Luke's Gospel must have been written post-war while Mark's may have been written in the midst of it.  

But, as for myself, I don't know.  In my experience, trying to accurately date ancient texts is like geologists guessing how old strata in hillsides are; everybody stands around, points out a few things, argues a little, shrugs their shoulders and moves on to the next hill.  

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Also, a lot of scholars nowadays speculate that, because Luke seems to have used large portions of Mark's narrative in composing his own Gospel, and because Luke seems to know a great deal more detail about the destruction of Jerusalem than Mark (compare Luke 21:5-30 to Mark's brief "fig tree" allusion to the fate of Jerusalem in 11:12-14), Luke's Gospel must have been written post-war while Mark's may have been written in the midst of it.  

yo, Mark ch 13 is on the same granularity level in discussing the details of the Temple's destruction as Luke 21 is, so this little theory is missing a couple of legs...

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+13&version=NIV1984

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%2021&version=NIV1984

this "expert" must have had a bad burrito for lunch or something...also, can someone explain to me why Mark has to be the source for Luke, instead of Mark and Luke independently getting second hand info from the same first hand sources?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

For example, the page is full of suggestions that the book of Acts and the letters of Paul display different doctrine and that the writer of Acts was unaware of Paul’s teachings.

Are you certain that you read that link I gave?  While it does argue that the author of Luke-Acts did not draw on Paul's epistles in writing, (and uses that to conclude that an early 2nd century authorship for Luke-Acts is highly unlikely,) I don't see anything in it that concludes that the author was unaware of Paul's teachings.  Indeed quite the opposite, as he concludes that "The most probable conclusion is that Luke had travelled with Paul at times, a fact of which Luke's patron Theophilus was already aware."

This simply reason why that cant accept the simplest date for the writing of Acts - that the reason Acts leaves off with Paul awaiting trial in Rome is because that is why Acts was written and thus there was no more of the story to tell at the time of writing – is that it would be game-set-match – because if Acts was written around 62AD…

…the simple fact is that they have reason not to accept the simplest dating of the book of Acts other than their inability to accept the Gospel as truth, so they have dance around to invent convoluted theories and pat themselves on the back and refer to each other as “experts” all the while promoting a philosophy that states if the easiest and most explainable and obvious answer doesn’t meet your bias, take the Rube Goldberg approach to finding the conclusion you wanted in the first place.

And your own biases are in favor of finding that Acts was written around 62 AD.  It would be nice if one could find some theologians without axes to grind one way or another, but those seem to be about as scare as righteous people in Sodom.

we are going to get to the bottom of this right now - explain why you think Luke used Josephus as a source

There are some significant parallels between Luke and Josephus.  Like Josephus, Luke makes much importance of the census of Quirinius, an event no other writer, including the writers of the other Gospels thought significant or even mentioned.  There are three Jewish rebels against Rome that are identified in Acts, and the very same three identifications are used by Josephus, tho with differences in the details, enough to indicate that if Luke used Josephus he didn't own a copy of Bellum Judaicum to double check what he wrote.  Those who (such as the source anvikshiki mentions) try to prove a connection (a doubtful proposition at this remove in time) also list a number of other less significant parallels as well.

The parallels are enough to suggest a connection is plausible, and if there was a connection, then that Luke used Josephus as a source is by a wide margin the most likely connection.  I think that the census is the strongest reason for thinking Luke used Josephus, because of the more than a decade discrepancy with Matthew it causes in the date of the birth of Jesus and problems with the chronology of Jesus within Luke itself.  (Luke's chronology would cause Jesus to be crucified when he was at most 30 if the crucifixion happened in AD 36, the latest possible year and later than when the crucifixion is generally held to have happened.)  Hence the use of the census of Quirinius by Luke as a marker for when the birth of Jesus occurred appears to be an error that can most easily be explained by Luke having made reference to Josephus for dates and events that Luke did not personally experience.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

bud, i'm on a plane...will have to answer at a later time...til then

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

There are three Jewish rebels against Rome that are identified in Acts, and the very same three identifications are used by Josephus, tho with differences in the details, enough to indicate that if Luke used Josephus he didn't own a copy of Bellum Judaicum to double check what he wrote.

so, let me just type this out loud, 'cause I wanna get this straight:  You're saying that Luke, in mentioning different details involving the same three rebels (though, actually, Luke was quoting what Gamaliel said in front of the Sanhedrin about the rebels), means that Luke copied Josephus?!

I'm right about that, right? That's your story?

Sorry, I dont follow that logic.  That's like saying, "Ernest and jmfcst both wrote something about a similar subject, but jmfcst used different details than Ernest...therefore, it is obvious that jmfcst used Ernest as a source, but, of course, jmfcst couldn't remember what Ernest wrote and winged his own details."

So, we actually have a double theory:
1) both mention the same 3 rebels, therefore Luke used Josephus as a source, obviously
2) the details were different, therefore Luke, the single most accurate historian of the 1st Century Mediterranean world, couldn't remember what Josephus wrote, which led Luke to wing his own details, obviously

Yeah, that's pretty obvious alright...

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The parallels are enough to suggest a connection is plausible, and if there was a connection, then that Luke used Josephus as a source is by a wide margin the most likely connection.  I think that the census is the strongest reason for thinking Luke used Josephus, because of the more than a decade discrepancy with Matthew it causes in the date of the birth of Jesus and problems with the chronology of Jesus within Luke itself.  (Luke's chronology would cause Jesus to be crucified when he was at most 30 if the crucifixion happened in AD 36, the latest possible year and later than when the crucifixion is generally held to have happened.)  Hence the use of the census of Quirinius by Luke as a marker for when the birth of Jesus occurred appears to be an error that can most easily be explained by Luke having made reference to Josephus for dates and events that Luke did not personally experience.

Haven’t we gone over this before?  In any case…

Both Luke and Matthew have Jesus being born during the reign of Herod, who died around 4 BC.  So, a crucifixion date of AD36, as you claim, is impossible.

As far as Quirnius, he ruled over Syria on two different occasions, the first coinciding with the reign of Herod, just as Luke describes... proving that Luke wasn’t copying Josephus.

As far as the Census, you’re assuming both Josephus and Luke are referring to same registration– one taken early in the first century AD.  But, in reality, Luke is referring to a registration for a census at the end of the first century BC, a registration that occurred during Herod’s reign over Judea and coinciding with Quirinius first reign over Syria.

Also, if Luke copied Josephus, then how did Luke come up with the idea that Joseph had to return to Bethlehem to register for the census?  Considering that independent evidence has now been discovered showing that it wasn’t unprecedented to have to  travel back to one’s home town to register for a census, Luke demonstrates, once again, that he has advanced knowledge independent of and surpassing that of Josephus.

[The Mikado]

A crucifixion date of 36 is absurd for a number of reasons, notably because Pilate ruled in Judea from 23-33.  The traditional 30 date makes a lot of sense.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

This simply reason why that cant accept the simplest date for the writing of Acts - that the reason Acts leaves off with Paul awaiting trial in Rome is because that is why Acts was written and thus there was no more of the story to tell at the time of writing – is that it would be game-set-match – because if Acts was written around 62AD…

…the simple fact is that they have reason not to accept the simplest dating of the book of Acts other than their inability to accept the Gospel as truth, so they have dance around to invent convoluted theories and pat themselves on the back and refer to each other as “experts” all the while promoting a philosophy that states if the easiest and most explainable and obvious answer doesn’t meet your bias, take the Rube Goldberg approach to finding the conclusion you wanted in the first place.

And your own biases are in favor of finding that Acts was written around 62 AD.  It would be nice if one could find some theologians without axes to grind one way or another, but those seem to be about as scare as righteous people in Sodom.

As I have stated:  It is IRRELEVANT to me when Acts was written.  I don’t need Acts to be written prior to Temple’s destruction to believe Jesus prophesied its destruction anymore than I need Acts to be written prior to Jesus’ death to believe Jesus prophesied his death and resurrection.

Again, I still believe Jesus predicted his death and resurrection even though his prediction was not recorded until decades after what he predicted had occurred…so, hopefully, you can grasp that I do NOT need Acts written prior to the destruction of the Temple in order to believe Jesus predicted its destruction.

So, now that you have hopefully grasped that I have no axe to grind, I’m simply stating that Acts ending prior to Paul’s trial in Rome is the simplest marker to dating the writing of Acts.  It doesn’t require any inventing and convoluted and unsubstantiated theories or jumping through hoops.

In science, you’re supposed to give preference to the simplest theory that explains the observations.  But here, we have clear evidence that these “scholars” are not acting scientifically, rather they are desperate to reject the simplest theory and have invented unnecessarily convoluted theories without the evidence to justify such complication.   

I could understand adopting a more convoluted theory if there was some contradiction the “experts” were trying to solve, but there is no evidence of a contradiction, so the introduction of unnecessary complication is only the result of a predetermined bias.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

A crucifixion date of 36 is absurd for a number of reasons, notably because Pilate ruled in Judea from 23-33.  The traditional 30 date makes a lot of sense.

agreed, though I thought Pilate ruled until 36?!  But, you have to make a lot of blind assumptions and create a lot of contradiction in order to interpret a date of 36AD from the gospel of Luke.

[The Mikado]

A crucifixion date of 36 is absurd for a number of reasons, notably because Pilate ruled in Judea from 23-33.  The traditional 30 date makes a lot of sense.

agreed, though I thought Pilate ruled until 36?!

I guess my edition of Josephus had its dates wrong.  You're right, I was wrong, 26-36.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

there is just too many unknown pieces for me to date his death.  we don't know exactly how old Jesus was when he began his ministry or how long his ministry lasted.  

we also don’t know exactly what day of the week Jesus died.  we know it was on the evening of the Passover sacrifice, so the next day was Passover, a high Sabbath.  

But we do know that Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, which means Jesus had to die prior to sunset on Thursday night:

Thursday afternoon = Passover eve, day of death
Friday = Passover, a high Sabbath
Saturday = regular Sabbath
Sunday = first day of week, day of resurrection

Or, possible Jesus died on Friday afternoon:
Friday afternoon = Passover eve, day of death
Saturday = Passover, a high Sabbath, falling on same day as regular Sabbath
Sunday = first day of week, day of resurrection

But, I think the Thursday afternoon death fits the “3 days and 3 nights”  much better (a Friday afternoon death only allows for 2 nights in the grave).  Also, the gospels seem to allude to a back to back Sabbath (high Sabbath of Passover, followed by the regular Sabbath) which would again point to Thursday afternoon as day of death.

If our calendars are correct, I've heard 29AD and 32AD are out of the question since Passover fell early in the week in those years.

Another thing adding complication is that the moon would have to be visible for the Jews to calculate the correct day of Passover, so there could be one day slack in any assumption.

Then we have the death of John the Baptist as a marker, but we have to assume the independent accounts of his death are chronologically accurate.

Just too many unknowns for me to hazard a guess of the year, but I do lean towards his death occurring on a Thursday afternoon.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

if we assume less than 4 years for Jesus' ministry, then I wouldn't be willing to wager a year later than 34AD for his death, since 36AD is the absolute outer limit, and even 35AD seems uncomfortably late....so, I would think 30-34AD (excluding 32AD) makes sense

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Luke, the single most accurate historian of the 1st Century Mediterranean world

Repeating this statement does not make it true.

Both Luke and Matthew have Jesus being born during the reign of Herod, who died around 4 BC.  So, a crucifixion date of AD36, as you claim, is impossible.

As far as Quirnius, he ruled over Syria on two different occasions, the first coinciding with the reign of Herod, just as Luke describes... proving that Luke wasn’t copying Josephus.

Where do you get Quirinus ruling Syria twice?  No other Roman legate is known to ever have ruled a province on two separate occasions, and we have several historical sources on Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, not just Luke and Josephus, tho those are the only two to mention a census, and none mention the remarkable event of his having ruled a province twice.

Plus, the idea that a census was undertaken in Iudaea under Herod Archelaus or Herod the Great is ludicrous.  Iudaea was still a client kingdom then, not Roman province.  The Romans generally tried to avoid going out of their way to inflame their subject peoples unless deemed necessary or the people had proven themselves utterly incapable of not being inflamed as the Jews of Judea proved to be. Jewish law considers censuses to be sinful.  That Quirinius conducted one in 6/7 AD led to a revolt, but when Iudaea became a province instead of a client kingdom, the Romans did one for tax purposes.

The only reason to assume that Quirinius ruled Syria twice is to support the biased assumption that Luke-Acts is infallible history.

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The evidence I think you are referring to is that nomadic people such as herdsmen were required to remain in one fixed spot during the census so as to ensure that they did not escape being counted for tax purposes. I am aware of zero evidence outside of the mention in Luke of anyone who had a settled residence was ever forced to go someplace else during a Roman tax census.  Plus, what about those people whose ancestral home was outside the Roman empire? For the purposes that Rome conducted censuses, there is no practical reason for the requirement given in Luke.

However, in order to have Jesus fulfill certain prophecies concerning the Messiah, it is essential that he be born in Bethlehem.  Luke uses the census as a device to get a Nazarene family in Bethlehem at the crucial time.  Matthew has a Bethlehem family relocate to Nazareth after a sojourn in Egypt during the Massacre of the Infants and unwilling to risk a return to Bethlehem.

I could understand adopting a more convoluted theory if there was some contradiction the “experts” were trying to solve, but there is no evidence of a contradiction, so the introduction of unnecessary complication is only the result of a predetermined bias.

Which in my view is exactly what assuming Quirinius ruled in Syria twice, conducting a census both times, and one of those covering a Jewish client state that paid tribute instead of tax and had religious reasons for not conducting censuses.  It's not just one contradiction, but a whole raft of contradictions being introduced to support the predetermined biases that the complete text of Luke-Acts is inerrant and is not dependent upon Josephus.

BTW, I think 36 AD is probably too late for the crucifixion, but it is about the only date which allows for internal consistency within Luke as to the chronology of Jesus.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

what?

Quirinius was de facto military ruler of Cilicia in the last decade of BC, and was the official governor of Syria in the first decade AD.  And Cilicia and Syria were lumped together, Cilicia being annexed to Syria.  So, being the ruler of Cilicia, annexed by Syria, with the imcompetent Quintilius not being trusted by Augusta, instead Augusta let Quininius rule over Palestine.  So, this is splitting hairs.

Also, there is an alternative translation of Luke 1:2 that states the census took place PRIOR to Quininius being named ruler of Syria.

As for the census in question, Caesar Augustus himself wrote on Feb 5th, 2BC in Res Gestae 35: "While I was administering my thirteenth consulship [2 B.C.] the senate and the equestrian order and the entire Roman people gave me the title Father of my Country"

...so, a registration did take place PRIOR to 2BC.  Josephus confirms took place before the Death of Heod  in Antiquities I7:4I-45...it is also confirmed by Moses of Khoren...and also by the Paphlagonian inscription. This is simply the event detailing setting up the image of Augustus Caesar in every temple throughout the Roman world.

The Census of 6AD was NOT a empire wide census, but rather it was a local census.  But the one Luke mentions is a empire wide census:

Luke 2:1 "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world."

It's not really wise to argue with someone who was 1950 years closer to the actual events than yourself.  Compared to the other hundreds of minute details of 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 islands of which the author of Luke and Acts which have been proven correct, getting the setting of this registration correct is pretty trivial.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

However, in order to have Jesus fulfill certain prophecies concerning the Messiah, it is essential that he be born in Bethlehem.  Luke uses the census as a device to get a Nazarene family in Bethlehem at the crucial time.  Matthew has a Bethlehem family relocate to Nazareth after a sojourn in Egypt during the Massacre of the Infants and unwilling to risk a return to Bethlehem.

here we get back to the multiple accounts of same football game analogy - these two accounts aren't contradictory, they complementary.

they lived in Nazareth, went to Bethlehem for the census during which time Jesus was born, stayed on in Bethlehem for up to two years, fled to Egypt during the Massacre, then left Egypt and went back to live in Nazareth....it ain't rocket science

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

they lived in Nazareth, went to Bethlehem for the census during which time Jesus was born, stayed on in Bethlehem for up to two years, fled to Egypt during the Massacre, then left Egypt and went back to live in Nazareth

You seriously want to argue that a family with extensive Nazarene connections (which is what Luke presents) stayed in Bethlehem for two years because of a Roman census?

I realize that an apparent need to worship the Bible as inerrant text takes some people to ludicrous lengths to support that idea.  In comparison, I take the Bible as a collection of writings assembled by fallible humans which give insight into history and what God intends for us.  Since they were written by fallible humans, I treat them to the same standard as I do other writings of their eras.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

they lived in Nazareth, went to Bethlehem for the census during which time Jesus was born, stayed on in Bethlehem for up to two years, fled to Egypt during the Massacre, then left Egypt and went back to live in Nazareth

You seriously want to argue that a family with extensive Nazarene connections (which is what Luke presents) stayed in Bethlehem for two years because of a Roman census?

I never said that they stayed there two years due to the census.  But since they had Jesus in Bethlehem shortly after arriving, they simply stayed on there and moved into a house, the same house where the wise men visited Jesus.  Joseph was a carpenter, his trade was just as applicable in Bethlehem as it was in Nazareth.