Scoobes said:
They were in the link I gave you: Acts 5:33-39 gives an account of speech by the 1st century Pharisee Gamaliel, in which he refers to two first century movements. One of these was led by Theudas (v 36) and after him another was led by Judas the Galilean (v 37). Josephus placed Judas at the Census of Quirinius of the year 6 and Theudas under the procurator Fadus[26] in 44-46. Assuming Acts refers to the same Theudas as Josephus, two problems emerge. First, the order of Judas and Theudas is reversed in Acts 5. Second, Theudas's movement comes after the time when Gamaliel is speaking. In Bible scholarship, the sole reference to Theudas presents a problem of chronology. In Acts of the Apostles, Gamaliel, a member of the sanhedrin, defends the apostles by referring to Theudas:
The difficulty is that the rising of Theudas is here given as before that of Judas of Galilee, which is itself dated to the time of the taxation (c. 6-7 AD). Josephus, on the other hand, says that Theudas was 45 or 46, which is after Gamaliel is speaking, and long after Judas the Galilean. There are several arguments put forward to solve this problem. The 18th century theologian John Gill wrote "Some think Josephus is mistaken in his chronology, and then all is right."[5] Another argument is that the author of the Book of Acts used Josephus as a source and made a mistake in a reading the text, taking a later reference to the execution of the "sons of Judas the Galilean" after the rebellion of Theudas as saying that the rebellion of Judas was later; however there is disagreement as to whether the author(s) of Luke used Josephus.[6] Other explanations are that he was referring to a different revolt by another Theudas, or that he mistakenly transposed the two names.[7] Acts 2:41 and 4:4 - Peter's addressesActs 4:4 speaks of Peter addressing an audience, resulting in the number of Christian converts rising by 5,000 people. Professor of New Testament Robert M. Grant says "Luke evidently regarded himself as a historian, but many questions can be raised in regard to the reliability of his history […] His ‘statistics’ are impossible; Peter could not have addressed three thousand hearers [e.g. in Acts 2:41 without a microphone, and since the population of Jerusalem was about 25-30,000, Christians cannot have numbered five thousand [e.g. Acts 4:4]."[27] Grant's estimate of the population of Jerusalem relied on an influential study by Jeremias in 1943.[28][29] However, Grant does not mention that Jeremias calculated a far higher population figure for festival seasons such as passover, at which he calculated Jerusalem would contain up to 125,000 pilgrims.[30] Furthermore, the lower estimate of Jeremias is significantly lower than the lowest of the moderate to high estimates made by Wilkinson in 1974 (70,398 under Herod the Great),[31] Broshi in 1976 (60,000),[32] Maier in 1976 (50,000, with three times that many during festival seasons),[33] and Levine in 2002 (60,000-70,000).[34] Accordingly, Cousland notes that "recent estimates of the population of Jerusalem suggest something in the neighbourhood of a hundred thousand".[35] Estimates for the number of Christians in the Roman empire by the end of the 1st century range widely from 7,500,[36] to more than 50,000.[37][38] Acts 6:9: The province of CiliciaActs 6:9 mentions the Province of Cilicia during a scene allegedly taking place in mid-30s AD. The Roman province by that name had been on hiatus from 27 BC and was re-established by Emperor Vespasian only in 72 AD.[39] Acts 21:38: The sicarii and the EgyptianIn Acts 21:38, a Roman asks Paul if he was 'the Egyptian' who led a band of 'sicarii' (literally: 'dagger-men') into the desert. In both The Jewish Wars[40] and Antiquities of the Jews,[41] Josephus talks about Jewish nationalist rebels called sicarii directly prior to talking about The Egyptian leading some followers to the Mount of Olives. Richard Pervo believes that this demonstrates that Luke used Josephus as a source and mistakenly thought that the sicarii were followers of The Egyptian.[42][43] The hypothesis that Luke-Acts used Josephus as a source is rare.[citation needed] Acts 10:1: Roman troops in CaesareaActs 10:1 speaks of a Roman Centurion called Cornelius belonging to the "Italian regiment" and stationed in Caesarea. Robert Grant claims that during the reign of Herod Agrippa, 41-44, no Roman troops were stationed in his territory.[44] Wedderburn likewise finds the narrative "historically suspect",[45] and in view of the lack of inscriptional and literary evidence corroborating Acts, historian de Blois suggests that the unit either did not exist or was a later unit which the author of Acts projected to an earlier time.[46] Noting that the 'Italian regiment' is generally identified as cohors II Italica civium Romanorum, a unit whose presence in Judea is attested no earlier than 69 CE,[47] historian E Mary Smallwood observes that the events described from Acts 9:32 to chapter 11 may not be in chronological order with the rest of the chapter but actually take place after Agrippa's death in chapter 12, and that the "Italian regiment" may have been introduced to Caesarea as early as 44 CE.[48] Wedderburn notes this suggestion of chronological re-arrangement, along with the suggestion that Cornelius lived in Caesarea away from his unit.[49] Historians such as Bond,[50] Speidel,[51] and Saddington,[52] see no difficulty in the record of Acts 10:1. Acts 15: The Council of JerusalemMain article: Council of Jerusalem#Historicity
The description of the 'Apostolic Council' in Acts 15, generally considered the same event described in Galatians 2,[53] is considered by some scholars to be contradictory to the Galatians account.[54] The historicity of Luke's account has been challenged,[55][56][57] and was rejected completely by some scholars in the mid to late 20th century.[58] However, more recent scholarship inclines towards treating the Jerusalem Council and its rulings as a historical event,[59] though this is sometimes expressed with caution.[60] Acts 24: Paul's trialSee also: Paul of Tarsus#Arrest and death
Paul's trial in Acts 24 has been described as 'incoherently presented'.[61][page needed] Acts 15:16-18: James' speechIn Acts 15:16-18, James, the leader of the Christian Jews in Jerusalem, gives a speech where he quotes scriptures from the Greek Septuagint (Amos 9:11-12(Amos. Some[citation needed] believe this is incongruous with the portrait of James as a Jewish leader who would presumably speak Aramaic, not Greek. A possible explanation is that the Septuagint translation better made James's point about the inclusion of Gentiles as the people of God.[62] Dr. John Barnett stated that "Many of the Jews in Jesus' day used the Septuagint as their Bible".[63] Although Aramaic was a major language of the Ancient Near East, by Jesus's day Greek had been the lingua franca of the area for 300 years. It is also possible that James quoted Amos in Aramaic at the Jerusalem Council, but when Luke wrote it down he used the Septuagint translation since nearly all Christians outside Palestine used it as their bible.[citation needed]
Just from this small selection of examples we can see that even with a low context culture where oral information and communication should be highly detailed, inaccuracies (resulting from the writers experiences/bias or just gradual modification of second hand material/info with time) made it through. Your assumption that lower context cultures must accrue and remember more information is just false. In the modern era the US is considered one of the lowest context cultures whilst Japan one of the highest. When it comes to recalling information accurately I'd give the nod to the Japanese. There are many other factors, education being one of them. Do you really think the people of that day were particularly well educated? |
"Acts 5:33-39: Theudas"
Before I respond to some or all let me explain why didn't respond to wiki link. Wiki is unreliable and can be edit by anyone. You don't to know what your talking about to post on wiki and when I clicked it had almost no sources or links. Just passage and how they feel it's a contradiction.
"This claim has been circulated on several Web sites. The people who make this claim, whether they realize it or not, are assuming that there can only be one person named Theudas, when in fact there might have been more than one person with that name. In other words, Luke, the author of the book of Acts, and Josephus, a first century historian, could simply be talking about two different people named Theudas.
Luke's Theudas sounds like a religious leader who had a following of about 400 people. Josephus' Theudas sounds like a different person, a magician who claimed to be a prophet and who had a large following, one that was large enough to provoke a deadly confrontation from the government. For these and other reasons, many scholars and writers believe that Luke and Josephus are talking about two different people with the same name."
Source:http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/luke-gamaliel-theudas-judas-galilean.htm
Was going to link to rationalchristianity but this seem to fit the bill.
"Acts 2:41 and 4:4"
" However, many of those [who heard] the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand ."
The passage refers to the amount it became. Not saying he is addressing 5,000 people.
What got me about one of the objections were that it said....."Peter couldn't address them by himself...." umm he didn't. Acts 4:1 makes a point that Peter was not the only speaker.
Acts 3: Peter performs a miracle healing someone who never could walk. Then after that a crowd gathered before Peter and John and the two Apostles began preaching. So... wait they couldn't even get the number of people speaking? During this time there is no mentioning of crowd size. After that Acts 4:1-3, Peter and John are arrested after preaching about the resurrection of Jesus. Then Acts 4:4 then says: "However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand" (Acts 4:4, NIV). There were previous miracles so it would make sense if it were refering to ALL of the past events like what it is telling us. But again I showed how wiki couldn't even get the basic facts right. Who heard is means in total not at one event.
"Acts 6:9: The province of Cilicia"
That area, which was a south coastal region of Asia Minor, had been called Cilicia for many centuries, even before the existence of the Roman Empire. And the area continued to be called Cilicia long after the collapse of the Roman Empire.
When Luke refers to the area in Acts 6:9, he is not making a claim as to the provincial status of the area in regards to the Roman Empire, he is merely directly his reader to the geographical area that was commonly called Cilicia.
Some of these are outright laughable.
Acts 24: Paul's trial
Paul's trial in Acts 24 has been described as 'incoherently presented'.[61][page needed]
^ Are you serious? One sentence and no source at all or even PAGE? WHAT? We just suppose to take his work for it with no reasoning?
Who wrote this articles a 15 year old ? Some of these articles only like 2-3 sentences with no real detail. Some of them just flat out ignore what is said in THE PASSAGES they mention!
Relationship to the Gospel of Luke
Since Acts is generally regarded as a continuation of the Gospel of Luke, problems with the historical reliability of the Gospel are also used to question the historical reliability of Acts.
No.....link....just refering to problem without addressing the problem.......this article can't be serious. This is like me saying x is wrong because something is wrong with y. WHAT is wrong with y? How do you even argue against this?
Clearly this person should show that how unreliable WIKI is lol. This guy looks like he put no effort in this.
There is like two things I didn't address but at this point they don't even look I need to.
"Just from this small selection of examples we can see that even with a low context culture where oral information and communication should be highly detailed, inaccuracies (resulting from the writers experiences/bias or just gradual modification of second hand material/info with time) made it through."
Horrible small selection...just horrible. No we didn't... see the any problems with low context we see a problem of BAD reserach. One guy said there wasn't anyone speaking beside Peter YET in the same passage they talk about John preaching BY NAME. "They were greatly disturbed because the [apostle(s) were teaching the people], proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead"
They say 4:2 that there were apostles that were teaching the people. THIS WAS ONLY TWO SENTENCES FROM 4.4 it was in 4.2. How do you miss that? I don't even know what did they even got right in one part.
This is not worst then the other guy on here with the killzone avater but this made me question why I was bothering with this wiki?
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Btw I made typo in my last response to you the Old testiment is a HIGH context society not low. That was mistake on my part.
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/high-low-context-cultures-catching-up-with-the-fundamentals/
Most of the modern world is low-context and Old testiment is high I made a mistake and switched the too.
"Your assumption that lower context cultures must accrue and remember more information is just false. In the modern era the US is considered one of the lowest context cultures whilst Japan one of the highest."
Will ignore because I switched the two by accident from all of responding. Since this doesn't relate to what I said because of this I will move on from point.
"There are many other factors, education being one of them. Do you really think the people of that day were particularly well educated?"
Don't need to know how to read or write to be good at HIGH context society. Actual most HIGH context societies aren't educated that well. Most are unable to write so there forced to act like a high context society.
The wordpress link is a good link on the society with High Context during Jesus time.
"Excuse me sir, I see you have a weapon. Why don't you put it down and let's settle this like gentlemen" ~ max
