One Christian Thought

It was quite a few posts ago that I published part 1 of revisiting the authenticity of Acts. Here I defend it from a handful of skeptical arguments. More evidence is shown by the parallels between what Paul says and what his biographer agrees on. On the other hand, if they contradict each other, that is bad for Luke's report.  Ehrman questions the legitimacy between Paul speaking of himself going to the Gentiles and Peter to the Jews (Galatians 2:7-8), but in Acts it is a very big deal that Peter learned God wants everyone to believe in Him. He teaches the Gospel to a Roman centurion named Cornelius (Acts 10-11). "Paul's strong statement that Peter's work was restricted to the 'circumcised' may stand at some tension with an important narrative found in the book of Acts, a story that Paul never mentions and seems to not know." (1) I don't see where it says Peter's work was "restricted" to the Gentiles. However, even if it was, the burden o...

Arguing yes to the blog project title question "Are the Acts of the Apostles Accurate?" came in part 1 with two sources that give historical evidence outside of the Bible and part 2 with unlikely inventions and other significant material referenced in this post.  Inventions? Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene had some striking skeptical arguments. The next post will go into claims of contradictions between Luke and Paul (questioning Biblical inspiration), but right now I have a springboard to cement my previously written case more. In part 2 of the original argument, I argued for miraculous intervention in Acts from an unembellished account of someone being raised from the dead (Acts 20:7-12). "Yet how different is it from the account of the raising of Patroclus, a servant of the emperor Nero, who also is said to have been listening to Paul late at night, this time in a barn? He too drifts asleep, falls from the window, and dies. Word is sent off to Nero, who very much li...

Because of reading Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene by Bart Ehrman, and using other knowledge (theology theory and specific considerations for purported evidence), I have come to be able to create what is to me a thorough and powerful case against the internal evidence for the book of Mark being the true Gospel of Peter. But, as suggested in the title, and if you already know about me, it is safe to assume I haven't abandoned belief that there is strong evidence in the Gospel of Mark to prove it as eyewitness material.  If you have read my 6 part blog project titled "The True Lost Gospel of Peter," you've already come across why I believe the miracles in the book of Mark (the conclusion contains the five other links), although the material dealt with here was first recorded in what I call " my primitive post ." Don't bother looking at it now: everything is dealt with here, where we can be more confident of my conclusion because of the cross-examination....

Is the book ever wrong anywhere? Sir William Ramsay says that chapters 1-5 are prone to error because Luke was getting all his information from others, who are suspect as being liable to report embellished tales of the actual history in Jerusalem right after the ascension(1). This is in contrast with 13-28, where the historian got access to either events he saw himself or heard from Paul, his close traveling companion. It is demonstrable that when handling the fifth book of the New Testament, the conclusion that it cannot all be the historically true word of God is not proven whatsoever. He gives two examples, which I find easy to respond to.  One is the claim that the different accounts of Judas's death in Matthew 27:5-6 and Acts 1:18-19 shows that Luke's material contradicts that from the only record in the Gospels and was clearly formed later, by definition making it a legend. But Matthew never said Judas did not fall, and Luke never said he did not hang himself. Visit the t...

How I learned about the reliability of the book of Acts  (Or, the reliability of my sources) I don't really remember exactly when and in what order I came across the books that pointed me to my main sources for defending the fifth book of the New Testament, but of course purchased them after getting them from the library.  What first caught my eye the most was in I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Christian apologists Frank Turek and the late Norman L. Geisler(1). In it they documented 84 historically confirmed facts from Colin J. Hemer's The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History . Also, they cited William M. Ramsay's St. Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen . As probability would have it, what really inspired me to get Hemer's book was something Geisler said to Lee Strobel in The Case for Faith . "The noted Roman historian Colin J. Hemer, in  The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History , shows how archaeology has confirmed not...