Tag Archive for: Book of Acts

The Miracles in Acts, and Their Evidential Value

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The book of Acts recounts various miracles performed by Paul and the other apostles, as well as the deacons Stephen and Philip. If it can be shown that these miracle reports substantially represent the testimony of these individuals, then this is an important aspect of the testimony that must be accounted for. For reasons I have discussed at length previously, there is strong reason to believe that the apostles sincerely believed what they claimed. As William Paley puts it,

“there is satisfactory evidence that many professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.”[i]

Since these purported miracles are often not of a type about which one can plausibly be sincerely mistaken, a demonstration that these claimed miracles represent the testimony of those who allegedly performed or witnessed them is of significant evidential force in confirming the truth of Christianity.

The Miracles of Acts

What are the miracles of the apostles and deacons that are alleged by the book of Acts? Below is a comprehensive list:

  • The apostles perform “many wonders and signs” at Pentecost (Acts 2:43).
  • Peter heals a man lame from birth (Acts 3:2-10) — the Jewish authorities recognized that “a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it” (Acts 4:16).
  • Peter strikes Ananias and Sapphira dead on command — as God’s judgment for lying about the price obtained for their land (Acts 5:1-11).
  • The apostles perform various healings and exorcisms (Acts 5:12-16).
  • The apostles are broken out of prison by an angel (Acts 5:18-19).
  • Signs and wonders were performed by Stephen, one of the appointed deacons (Acts 6:8).
  • Various signs, healings and exorcisms were performed by Philip, one of the appointed deacons, in Samaria — including healings of the paralyzed or lame (Acts 8:6-7).
  • Philip is snatched by the Holy Spirit from the road to Gaza and placed in Azotus (Acts 8:39).
  • Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus (discussed in detail here), blindness, and healing after three days at the hands of Ananias — after Ananias has received a vision concerning Paul, and Paul a vision concerning Ananias (Acts 9:1-18; 22:6-13; 26:12-18).
  • Peter heals Aeneas, a paralytic for eight years, in Lydda, leading to the conversion of the residents of Lydda and Sharon (Acts 9:33-35).
  • Peter raises Tabitha/Dorcas from the dead, leading to many conversions (Acts 9:36-42).
  • An angel breaks Peter out of prison (Acts 12:6-11).
  • Paul strikes Bar-Jesus/Elymas (a Jewish false prophet who had opposed Paul and Barnabas and sought to turn the Proconsul, Sergius Paulus, away from the faith) blind on command, a feat so convincing that it results in the conversion of the Proconsul (Acts 13:9-12)
  • Paul and Barnabas perform miraculous signs in Phrygian Iconium (Acts 14:3)
  • Paul heals a man who has been lame from birth (Acts 14:8-10)
  • Paul and Barnabas speak at the Jerusalem council, about “what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles,” (Acts 15:12).
  • Paul exorcises a spirit of divination, meaning that a slave girl’s owners were no longer able to use her for fortune telling — leading to the imprisonment of Paul and Silas in Philippi (Acts 16:15-24).
  • Paul and Silas are freed from prison (where their feet had been fastened in stocks) by an earthquake (Acts 16:26).
  • God does “extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them,” (Acts 19:11-12).
  • Paul raises Eutychus from the dead, after he falls from a third-story window (Acts 20:9-10).
  • Paul survives being bitten by a viper (Acts 28:3-6).
  • Paul heals the father of Publius, who “lay sick with fever and dysentery,” as well as others, on the island of Malta (Acts 28:8-9).

These miracle reports are of varying evidential value. For example, no specific details are supplied regarding the miracles of Stephen. Moreover, there are, at least at the present time, no venomous snakes on the island of Malta, and it was a common ancient belief that all snakes were venomous — thus, I do not repose particularly much weight on Paul’s surviving a viper bite on Malta. Moreover, Paul’s healing of the father of Publius on Malta represents another case where one might postulate that those reporting the healing were sincerely mistaken. For example, It is possible that the father of Publius was already on the path to recovery when Paul prayed over him, leading to a mistaken belief that the healing was miraculous. Fever and dysentery can often resolve on their own. Nonetheless, the significant majority of the miracle reports listed above are extremely difficult to be sincerely mistaken about. I shall now turn to the task of arguing that these miracle reports, delivered to us by Acts, in fact represent the testimony of those who are alleged to have performed or witnessed these instances of special divine action.

The Miracles of Paul

Paul indicates in his letters that he performed miracles in attestation of his apostolic claims. For example, he wrote to the church in Corinth, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works,” (2 Cor 12:12). Note that this appeal is made to an audience who had in their midst individuals who doubted Paul’s apostolic credentials. It was risky to appeal to such miracles if there were no such convincing miracles to speak of that could be brought to the minds of his critics. There is a similar passage, indicating that Paul performed miracles, in his letter to the Romans:

“For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ,” (Rom 15:18-19; emphasis added).

Though Paul does not indicate what those signs purportedly involved, we read in Acts about the sort of miracles that Paul performed (see the list given above).

To what extent can we be confident that these miracle reports are representative of Paul’s own claims? Of course, there is the general case for the author of Acts being a travelling companion of Paul and someone who was in the habit of being scrupulous and one who received reliable information from Paul concerning his itinerary and activities (an argument which I and others have laid out extensively elsewhere). Luke appears to have been present with Paul, beginning in Acts 16:10, though the “we” passages trail off when Paul passes through Philippi (the last use of the “we” pronoun, ἡμῖν, being in Acts 16:16) and commence again when Paul passes back through Philippi some seven or eight years later (Acts 20:6), continuing through the remainder of the book. This suggests that the author remained behind at Philippi, and subsequently rejoined Paul later when Paul again passed through Philippi. Thus, we may infer that Luke’s primary source for the events for which he was not himself present was Paul himself. Moreover, I have argued previously, at some length, that there is more direct evidence that the report of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus (given in Acts 9, 22, and 26) represents Paul’s testimony, since various specific aspects of it are independently confirmed by Paul’s letters. This would presumably have included his three-day blindness and subsequent healing at the hands of Ananias, after Ananias and Paul both experienced a vision concerning each other (this event is mentioned in the account in Acts 9, as well as in Acts 22).

But what about other miracles are associated with Paul?

* Stay Tuned for Part 2 of “Miracles in Acts” by Jonathan McLatchie*

References: 

  1. William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity, Reissue Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
  2. Strabo, The Geography of Strabo. Literally Translated, with Notes, in Three Volumes., ed. H. C. Hamilton (Medford, MA: George Bell & Sons, 1903), 71–72.
  3. Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 399–400.
  4. Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, ed. Conrad H. Gempf (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 110.
  5. P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, ed. Arthur Golding (Medford, MA: W. Seres, 1567).

[i] William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity, Reissue Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), proposition 1 (preface).

Recommended Resources: 

Miracles: The Evidence by Frank Turek DVD and Mp4

Two Miracles You Take With You Everywhere You Go by Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3 and Mp4)

Can All Religions Be True? mp3 by Frank Turek

 

Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in forensic biology, a Masters’s (M.Res) degree in evolutionary biology, a second Master’s degree in medical and molecular bioscience, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. Currently, he is an assistant professor of biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie is a contributor to various apologetics websites and is the founder of the Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular online webinars, as well as assist Christians who are wrestling with doubts. Dr. McLatchie has participated in more than thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has spoken internationally in Europe, North America, and South Africa promoting an intelligent, reflective, and evidence-based Christian faith.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/443zf3W

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The Conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and its Evidential Value, Part 2

[Editor’s Note: In part 1 of this series on the evidential value of Paul’s conversion, Dr. Jonathan McLatchie established that (Proposition 1) The accounts in Acts substantially represent Paul’s own conversion testimony, and (Proposition 2) Paul was not plausibly sincerely mistaken. In this second installment, McLatchie tackles the remaining two propositions, showing that Saul’s conversion to Apostle Paul is a remarkably value line of evidence for historic Christianity]

 

Proposition 3: Paul was not plausibly intentionally deceptive.

Sufferings, Toils, and Hardships: There exists an abundance of evidence that Paul voluntarily endured significant hardships, dangers, persecutions, toils, labors, imprisonments and ultimately execution for the sake of the gospel. This goes a long way towards establishing his sincerity. For example, Clement of Rome, in his sole surviving letter, addressed to the Corinthian church, writes (1 Clement 5) [1],

But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation… Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience.

This epistle is generally dated to around the year 96 C.E., as the church emerged from the persecution under the emperor Domitian. Clement of Rome had been a companion of Paul, and is likely the individual referred to in Philippians 4:3: “Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life,” (emphasis added]. Paul’s letter to the Philippians was composed during Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome. The second century church father Irenaeus of Lyons writes the following concerning Clement (Adv. Haer. 3.3.3) [2]:

This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles.

Clement was thus someone in a position to know about Paul’s sufferings for the sake of the gospel.

Polycarp of Smyrna, in his epistle to the Philippians, also testifies to the persecutions endured by Paul (Poly 9) [3]:

I exhort you all, therefore, to yield obedience to the word of righteousness, and to exercise all patience, such as ye have seen [set] before your eyes, not only in the case of the blessed Ignatius, and Zosimus, and Rufus, but also in others among yourselves, and in Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles. [This do] in the assurance that all these have not run in vain, but in faith and righteousness, and that they are [now] in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with whom also they suffered. For they loved not this present world, but Him who died for us, and for our sakes was raised again by God from the dead.

Irenaeus informs us concerning Polycarp (Adv. Haer. 3.3.4) [4]:

But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true.

Thus, given Polycarp’s acquaintance with the apostles, he was also in a position to know about the sufferings endured by Paul and the other apostles.

In addition to the foregoing, there is a lot of attestation to Paul’s sufferings in Acts and the Pauline corpus. For example, consider Paul’s list of his experiences in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27:

24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

Paul also expresses in 1 Corinthians 4:9-13:

9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

Paul, moreover, writes to the Thessalonians, “But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict,” (1 Thess 2:2, emphasis added). This raises the question of how the Thessalonians knew about Paul’s shameful treatment in Philippi. When we compare Paul’s letter to the account in Acts, we learn that the shameful treatment to which he was referring is his imprisonment and public beating, uncondemned, despite being a Roman citizen (Acts 16:16-40). We read in Acts 16:35-40:

35 But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” 36 And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace.” 37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.” 38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. 39 So they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. 40 So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.

According to Acts 17:1, Paul’s very next port of call, after passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, was Thessalonica. This was in fact on a major Roman highway (the Via Egnatia) and Amphipolis and Apollonia were overnight stops along that highway. One can envision Paul coming from Philippi to Thessalonica, still full of indignation, and reporting about his shameful treatment to the converts in Thessalonica. This undesigned coincidence between Acts and 1 Thessalonians is all the more striking given that the book of Acts does not appear to be dependent upon 1 Thessalonians, nor vice versa. For example, according to 1 Thessalonians 1:9, Paul writes, “For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God…” Notice the emphasis in this text on the conversion of pagans from idolatry. Acts, on the other hand, emphasizes the conversion of Jews and gentile God-fearers (Acts 17:4). If the author of Acts were using 1 Thessalonians as a source, we might expect emphasis to be placed on the conversion of pagans. The accounts are, of course, not mutually exclusive. In fact, there are allusions in the epistle to concepts that would not make much sense to gentiles who lacked acquaintance with Jewish eschatological thought (1 Thess 4:14-17). Paul also distinguishes believers from gentiles, whose ways they ought not copy (1 Thess 4:4-5). It makes sense, therefore, to understand the “you” that turned to God from idols to be an exaggerated statement — referring to one portion of his audience rather than another. Nonetheless, the surface discrepancy between Acts and 1 Thessalonians points to the independence of these sources.

We also read in Acts 17 about the persecution endured by Paul from a mob of Jews who stirred up trouble for him. According to Acts 17:5-9:

5 But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. 6 And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7 and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” 8 And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. 9 And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

Paul thus had to leave in haste to go to Berea (Acts 17:10). We read in Acts 17:13 that “when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds.” Paul thus, again, had to leave in haste to travel to Athens — “Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.” Acts leaves unexplained why Paul left behind Silas and Timothy. This unexplained allusion is itself a hallmark of verisimilitude in the text. It is the texture of testimony — one does not typically leave loose ends like this in a fictitious work. Moreover, Silas and Timothy are instructed to rejoin Paul “as soon as possible.” Presumably, then, they did rejoin Paul in Athens (though the text does not indicate explicitly). Nonetheless, they are next reported to rejoin Paul not in Athens but in Corinth — and they arrived not from Athens but from Macedonia, where the cities of Thessalonica and Berea are (Acts 18:5). What accounts for this gap in the text? An explanation is provided by 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5:

Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, 2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, 3 that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. 4 For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. 5 For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.

Thus, Paul indicates, under the circumstances, he had been concerned for the wellbeing of the Christians in Thessalonica, and so he commissioned Timothy to go back from Athens to Thessalonica to check on the believers there. This explains the gap in the account in Acts, and thereby corroborates the account in Acts. This undesigned coincidence is, again, all the more striking given the independence (as I have shown) between Acts and 1 Thessalonians. Connected to this, there is another undesigned coincidence relating to Paul’s time in Corinth (Acts 18:1-5):

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, 3 and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. 4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. 5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus.

Paul encounters Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth, who had been exiled from Rome at the instigation of the emperor Claudius. The Roman biographer Suetonius also mentions this episode: “He [Claudius] banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus,” (Life of Claudius 25). Our text in Acts indicates that Paul worked with them as a tentmaker to earn his keep during the week, and that he engaged in his evangelistic work on the Sabbath day, when he went into the synagogue and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ. However, in response to the arrival of Silas and Timothy from Macedonia, he changed his ministry model such that he devoted himself entirely to the work of the ministry. What prompted this change? Acts does not inform us. However, we read in 2 Corinthians 11:7-9:

7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God’s gospel to you free of charge? 8 I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. 9 And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way.

Apparently the brothers who came from Macedonia (whom we learn from Acts included Silas and Timothy) brought financial aid to Paul, which enabled him to devote himself entirely to the ministry. This detail, however, is not supplied by Acts. This is further corroborated by Philippians 4:14-16, in which we read (in a letter addressed to one of the churches in Macedonia),

14 Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. 15 And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. 16 Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again.

This, once again, serves to confirm the account in Acts — which reveals that Paul was willing to work for his keep as a tentmaker. In other words, he was evidently not in ministry for the purpose of extorting people for money. Moreover, the account in Acts continues with a note about another episode of opposition against Paul: “And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles,’” (Acts 18:6). This coincidence is all the more striking given the independence of Acts and 2 Corinthians, as demonstrated earlier in this article.

Another undesigned coincidence bearing on Paul’s sufferings relates to Paul’s statement in 2 Timothy 3:10-11:

10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.

The sufferings mentioned here are described in Acts 13:50-51 and 14:1-7, 19-21. Paul seems to imply, in his letter to Timothy, that Timothy had in fact witnessed the persecutions that he had endured in those cities. According to Acts, Paul embarked on a second missionary journey through the same country as the first journey. The purpose of his second missionary trip is given in Acts 15:36: “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” Thus, we learn, that the purpose of the journey was to check on those who had been converted during the first journey, to see how they were doing. In Acts 16:1-2, we further learn, “Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. 2 He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.” We are thereby informed that Timothy’s hometown was either Derbe or Lystra. And it is apparent from the text that Timothy had already been converted by this time. Paul himself refers to Timothy as “my true child in the faith” (1 Tim 1:2) and “my beloved child” (2 Tim 1:2). This implies that Timothy was probably Paul’s own convert. It then follows that Timothy was very likely converted during Paul’s preceding missionary journey through these cities, at the very time when Paul had undergone the persecutions referred to in the epistle. This supports both the historicity of Acts, as well as the genuineness of the pastoral epistles (which are among the disputed Pauline letters). For a more detailed discussion of the authenticity of the pastoral epistles, see my essay here.

There is also external evidence that corroborates the accounts in Acts concerning Paul’s suffering for the gospel. For example, Acts 22:25-29 describes Paul being before the Roman tribune:

25 But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?” 26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the tribune and said to him, “What are you about to do? For this man is a Roman citizen.” 27 So the tribune came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” And he said, “Yes.” 28 The tribune answered, “I bought this citizenship for a large sum.” Paul said, “But I am a citizen by birth.” 29 So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately, and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him. [emphasis added]

Note the tribune’s words to Paul, “I bought this citizenship for a large sum.” What is the historical background here? The second century Roman historian Cassius Dio informs us that, during the reign of Claudius it was introduced that one could purchase a Roman citizenship for a great sum. He writes (Historiae Romanae 60.17),

For inasmuch as Romans had the advantage over foreigners in practically all respects, many sought the franchise by personal application to the emperor, and many bought it from Messalina and the imperial freedmen. For this reason, though the privilege was at first sold only for large sums, it later became so cheapened by the facility with which it could be obtained that it came to be a common saying, that a man could become a citizen by giving the right person some bits of broken glass.

Thus, though the privilege of Roman citizenship sold at first for great sums of money, the price progressively came down, until it had become so cheapened that it came to be a common saying that one could become a Roman citizen by bringing the right person some pieces of broken glass. This adds color to the tribune’s words, “I bought this citizenship for a large sum,” insinuating that Paul was able to acquire his citizenship for much less. Paul, in turn, corrects the tribune that he was a citizen by birth. Acts does not explain, for the sake of his readers, this historical background. Cassius Dio, in providing this background, renders the narrative in Acts quite credible.

There is also a wealth of evidence for the authenticity of Paul’s voyage, as a prisoner bound for Rome, that ended in shipwreck (Acts 27). The report of that voyage notes, in verses 3-6, that,

3 The next day we put in at Sidon. And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his friends and be cared for. 4 And putting out to sea from there we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us. 5 And when we had sailed across the open sea along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia. 6 There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy and put us on board.

Colin Hemer comments, “Myra, like Patara again, was a principal port for the Alexandrian corn-ships, and precisely the place where Julius would expect to find a ship sailing to Italy in the imperial service. Its official standing here is further illustrated by the Hadrianic granary. Myra was also the first of these ports to be reached by a ship arriving from the east, as Patara had been previously from the reverse direction.”[5] [13]

Verses 13-14 indicate that they “…sailed along Crete, close to the shore. But soon a tempestuous wind, called the northeaster, struck down from the land.” In confirmation of Luke’s report, there is indeed a well confirmed wind that rides over Crete from the Northeast, and which is strongest at this exact time near the Day of Atonement in the Fall (Acts 27:9). Acts 27:16 describes how the ship was blown off course towards a small island called Cauda. What is impressive is that the island of Cauda is more than 20 miles west-southwest of where the storm likely struck the travelers in the Bay of Messara. This is precisely where the trajectory of a north-easterly wind should have carried them, and it is not the sort of information someone would have inferred without having been blown there. Ancients found it nearly impossible to properly locate islands this far out. Colin Hemer notes that[6],

As the implications of such details are further explored, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe that they could have been derived from any contemporary reference work. In the places where we can compare, Luke fares much better than the encyclopaedist Pliny, who might be regarded as the foremost first-century example of such a source. Pliny places Cauda (Gaudos) opposite Hierapytna, some ninety miles too far east (NH 4.12.61). Even Ptolemy, who offers a reckoning of latitude and longitude, makes a serious dislocation to the northwest, putting Cauda too near the western end of Crete, in a position which would not suit the unstudied narrative of our text (Ptol. Geog. 3.15.8).

There are many other points at which Paul’s voyage and shipwreck may be confirmed. For a much more detailed discussion, I refer readers to James Smith’s book, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul. [7]

Paul rejoiced in his own sufferings for the name of Christ. He wrote to the Philippians, “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me,” (Phil 2:17-18).

An additional point that bears mentioning is that Paul not only willingly endured hardships and persecutions himself, but he expected other believers to do the same. Consider the following texts:

  • Philippians 1:29-30: For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
  • 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5: For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering.
  • 2 Thessalonians 1:4: Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.
  • Romans 3:3-4: Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
  • Romans 8:35-36: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,  “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
  • 2 Corinthians 6:4-10: but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

Sir George Lyttelton notes [8],

But at that time when St. Paul undertook the preaching of the Gospel to persuade any man to be a Christian, was to persuade him to expose himself to all the calumnies human nature could suffer. This St Paul knew; this he not only expected, but warned those he taught to look for it too… How much reason he had to say this, the hatred, the contempt, the torments, the deaths endured by the Christians in that age, and long afterwards, abundantly prove. Whoever professed the Gospel under these circumstances, without an entire conviction of its being a Divine revelation, must have been mad; and if he made others profess it by fraud or deceit, he must have been worse than mad; he must have been the most hardened wretch that ever breathed. Could any man who had in his nature the least spark of humanity, subject his fellow-creatures to so many miseries; or could one that had in his mind the least ray of reason, expose himself to share them with those he deceived, in order to advance a religion which he knew to be false, merely for the sake of its moral doctrines? Such an extravagance is too absurd to be supposed; and I dwell too long on a notion that upon a little reflection confutes itself.

Short of being, as Lyttelton put it, the most hardened wretch that ever breathed, how could Paul expect his fellow believers to voluntarily undertake tremendous hardships and sufferings, even martyrdom, unless he had a sincere conviction of the gospel’s truth?

Was Paul in it for the Money? In view of the voluntary sufferings of Paul, evinced above, it appears to be highly improbable that he was engaging in deliberate deception. And what motive could he have for had such a deception? Paul does not appear to have been in it for the money, as already seen from the reference to 1 Corinthians 4:11-13, and the foregoing discussion of Paul’s time in Corinth in Acts 18. We also read in 1 Corinthians 9:14-18:

14 In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. 15 But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. … 18 What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

Similarly, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:14: “Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.”

Paul also appeals to the Thessalonians’ memory of how Paul was among them: “For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you,” (2 Thess 3:7-8).

In Paul’s address before the Ephesian elders, Paul likewise states, “I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive,’” (Acts 20:33-35). The unity in style and mannerism between the account of Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:17-38 and Paul’s letters supports the substantial authenticity of this speech (particularly given the demonstrable independence between Acts and the Pauline corpus). Lydia McGrew comments [9].

The speech breathes the personality of the author of the epistles, including both his genuine love and warm-heartedness and what one might less charitably be inclined to call his emotional manipulativeness and self-dramatization. The same Paul who brings the elders of Miletus to tears with his references to his own trials and tears (Acts 20:19) and his prediction of never seeing them again (Acts 20:25, 36-38) is the Paul who attempts, probably successfully, to induce Philemon to free the slave Onesimus by telling him that he ‘owes him his own life’ (Philem vss 17-19). He is the same Paul who says so much about his own trials and distresses in 1 Corinthians and reminds his readers that he is their spiritual father (1 Cor 4:8-14). The same Paul who launches, at this intimate moment of farewell to his dear friends, into a spirited defense of his own blamelessness in financial matters (Acts 20:33-35) is the Paul who harps on this theme repeatedly in the epistles and who is almost painfully defensive about his apostleship in 2 Corinthians 11-12. The same Paul who urges the Corinthians to be imitators of himself (1 Cor 4:16), who says that the “care of all the churches comes upon him daily (2 Cor 11:28), and who earnestly uses his apostolic authority, his love, and the sheer force of his personality to dissuade the Galatians from yielding to the demand of circumcision (Gal 4:16-20) is the Apostle Paul who tells the elders in Acts 20:29-32 that after his departure they will be assailed by false teachers and should resist, remembering how he himself ‘admonished them with tears’ during his ministry.

We also see evidence of Paul’s integrity in regards to finances in Acts 20:1-4:

After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. 2 When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. 3 There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. 4 Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus.

This text provides the longest list in the book of Acts of companions of Paul all travelling somewhere at the same time. Moreover, their respective locations are very carefully noted together with their names. Timothy is related to Lystra and Derbe, even though this information was already supplied in Acts 16:1, and there is no apparent reason why this should be repeated here. It is, however, quite plausible that these various individuals are intended as representatives of the various gentile churches who were contributing to the collection that Paul was gathering at this time for the relief of the saints in Jerusalem. We see throughout Paul’s letters that he desires that everyone know that he is blameless about money and has no agenda of extorting people. This is a major theme in the Corinthian epistles in particular. In 1 Corinthians 16:3-4, Paul writes concerning the gathered collection, “And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.” In other words, Paul suggests that someone else, rather than himself, accompany the Corinthians’ contribution to Jerusalem — he will go only if it seems appropriate. It seems likely, therefore, that Paul was accompanied from Greece to Jerusalem by this large group to demonstrate that he had not absconded with any of the collection and to provide more security as he made the journey. Acts never mentions the collection at all, except in Paul’s cryptic allusion to bringing alms to his nation in his speech before Felix in Acts 24:17.

Was Paul in it for the Power? It does not appear that Paul was in pursuit of power either. In 1 Corinthians 15:9, he describes himself as “the least of the apostles.” There is no indication that he felt himself in competition for power with the other apostles. This is further expressed in 1 Corinthians 3:4-9:

4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

In fact, Paul went up to Jerusalem to those who had been apostles before him to confirm that the gospel he had been proclaiming to the gentiles was the same as theirs, “in order,” he writes, “to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain,” (Gal 2:2).

Even when Paul was in prison in Rome, and others were seeking to take advantage of Paul’s circumstances for their own gain, Paul wrote to the Philippians (1:15-18),

15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Paul cared more about the advance of the gospel than his own reputation or influence.

Paul wrote to the Thessalonian Christians and appealed to their own experience of his conduct among them (1 Thess 2:3-12):

3 For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. 9 For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. 11 For you know how, like a father with his children, 12 we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Another text that argues against Paul’s motivation being power is Acts 14:11-15, in which we read about an episode that transpired while Paul and Barnabas were at Lystra:

11 And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. 13 And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. 14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, 15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

This text is historically credible. First, note that the crowds are said to have spoken in Lycaonian. Jefferson White explains,

“Concerning the crowd’s Lycaonian dialect, historical evidence reveals that the lower classes of the interior of Asia Minor still spoke in their native tongues as late as the first century. This was in contrast to the more heavily populated areas along the Mediterranean coast, where native languages had largely disappeared in favor of Greek. Thus Luke’s reference to a native dialect in this inland city is accurate.” [10]

Archaeological evidence also indicates that Zeus and Hermes were the local cult deities of Lystra — various inscriptions reveal dedications to these two deities, which were linked in common worship. Evidence also indicates that it was commonly thought in the ancient world that, when there was a visitation of two deities, the lesser deity was the spokesman — this explains why Barnabas was called Zeus, even though Zeus was the more prominent of the two deities.

Take note of Paul’s and Barnabas’ reaction to their being hailed as deities — this is not the reaction of a narcissist who is hell-bent on his pursuit of power.

For the reasons surveyed above, I think it can be safely said that Paul was sincere in his belief that he had had an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus — he was not setting out to intentionally deceive people. As Sir George Lyttelton concludes [11],

St. Paul could have no rational motive to become a Disciple of Christ, unless he sincerely believed in him, this observation: that whereas it may be objected to the other Apostles, by those who are resolved not to credit their testimony, that having been deeply engaged with Jesus during his life, they were obliged to continue the same professions after his death, for the support of their own credit, and from having gone too far to go back, this can by no means be said of St Paul. On the contrary, whatever force there may be in that way of reasoning, it all tends to convince us that St Paul must naturally have continued a Jew, and an enemy of Christ Jesus: if they were engaged on one side, he was as strongly engaged on the other. If shame withheld them from changing sides, much more ought it to have stopped him, who, being of a higher education and rank in life a great deal than they, had more credit to lose, and must be supposed to have been vastly more sensible to that sort of shame. The only difference was, that they, by quitting their Master after his death, might have preserved themselves; whereas he, by quitting the Jews, and taking up the cross of Christ, certainly brought on his own destruction.

Conclusion

I began this essay by making the case that the accounts in Acts 9, 22, and 26 substantially represent the claimed testimony of the apostle Paul himself. I then proceeded to show that, given this premise, it is incredibly implausible either that Paul was sincerely mistaken in his belief that he had encountered the risen Christ or that he gave false testimony with an intent to deceive. The best explanation of the evidence, therefore, is that Paul did indeed encounter Christ on the Damascus road, and was appointed to the office of apostle by Christ himself. Since Jesus identified as the one whom Paul was persecuting (Acts 9:5, 22:8, 26:15), it stands as an endorsement of the core beliefs of the group that Paul was persecuting — chief among which was the belief that Jesus had been physically raised from the dead. The evidence surveyed in the foregoing, therefore, provides an independent line of confirmation of the resurrection of Jesus.

I will conclude this essay with a final quote from Sir George Lyttelton, who wrote the following at the conclusion of his book on Paul’s conversion [12]:

Some difficulties occur in that Revelation, which human reason can hardly clear; but as the truth of it stands upon evidence so strong and convincing, that it cannot be denied without much greater difficulties than those that attend the belief of it, as I have before endeavored to prove, we ought not to reject it upon such objections, however mortifying they may be to our pride. That indeed would have all things made plain to us; but God has thought proper to proportion our knowledge to our wants, not our pride. All that concerns our duty is clear; and as to other points either of natural or revealed religion, if he has left some obscurities in them, is that any reasonable cause of complaint? Not to rejoice in the benefit of what he has allowed us to know, from a presumptuous disgust at our incapacity of knowing more, is as absurd as it would be to refuse to walk, because we cannot fly.

References: 

[1] Clement of Rome, “The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 6.

[2] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 416.

[3] Polycarp of Smryna, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 35.

[4] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 416.

[5] Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, ed. Conrad H. Gempf (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 134.

[6] Ibid., 331.

[7] James Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul: With Dissertations on the Life and Writings of St. Luke, and the Ships and Navigation of the Ancients, ed. Walter E. Smith, Fourth Edition, Revised and Corrected. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1880).

[8] George Lyttelton, Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul (The Institute Trust, 1747), 36-39.

[9] Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (Tampa, FL: DeWard Publishing Company, 2017), 157.

[10] Jefferson White, Evidence and Paul’s Journeys: An Historical Investigation into the Travels of the Apostle Paul (Independently Published, 2001/2019), 14.

[11] Lyttelton 1747, 39-40.

[12] Ibid., 119-120.

Recommended Resources:

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

The Top Ten Reasons We Know the NT Writers Told the Truth mp3 by Frank Turek

The New Testament: Too Embarrassing to Be False by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Is the Bible Historically Reliable? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, Mp3 Download.

 

Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in forensic biology, a Masters’s (M.Res) degree in evolutionary biology, a second Master’s degree in medical and molecular bioscience, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. Currently, he is an assistant professor of biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie is a contributor to various apologetics websites and is the founder of the Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular online webinars, as well as assist Christians who are wrestling with doubts. Dr. McLatchie has participated in more than thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has spoken internationally in Europe, North America, and South Africa promoting an intelligent, reflective, and evidence-based Christian faith.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3DEJ7rr

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The Conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and its Evidential Value, Part 1

An argument for Christianity that seldom receives adequate attention is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (also known as Paul) on the road to Damascus. There exist three accounts of Paul’s conversion in the book of Acts — in chapters 9, 22, and 26. The argument from Paul’s conversion has been laid out in most detail by Sir George Lyttelton (1709-1773), in his book Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul. The book is now in the public domain, and a free PDF copy can be obtained at this link. So strong and convincing is the argument from Paul’s conversion that Lyttelton wrote at the beginning of his book, addressing his friend Gilbert West [1],

 

In a late conversation we had together upon the subject of the Christian religion, I told you, that besides all the proofs of it which may be drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament, from the necessary connection it has with the whole system of the Jewish religion, from the miracles of Christ, and from the evidence given of his resurrection by all the other Apostles; I thought the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered, was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a Divine Revelation.

In this essay, I shall lay out in detail why Paul’s Damascus road conversion constitutes powerful evidence of the truth of Christianity.

When evaluating any set of testimonial claims, there exist three broad explanatory categories that might account for why the claim was made — that is, the claimant(s) was / were either lying, sincerely mistaken, or truthful in their testimony. These options are mutually exhaustive. In order, to evaluate those explanations, however, we must first establish what the original claimant(s) alleged. Thus, the argument of this essay will take the following structure:

  • Proposition 1: The accounts in Acts substantially represent Paul’s own conversion testimony.
  • Proposition 2: Paul was not plausibly sincerely mistaken.
  • Proposition 3: Paul was not plausibly intentionally deceptive.
  • Conclusion: Therefore, the best explanation of the evidence is that Paul did indeed encounter Christ on the Damascus road.

I shall now proceed to lay out the evidence for each of these propositions.

Proposition 1: The Accounts in Acts substantially represent Paul’s own conversion testimony.

For economy of space, the present article will take it for granted that Luke was a travelling companion of Paul. I and others have laid out this case in detail elsewhere. For those not familiar with the substantive evidence for this contention, I would suggest the following resources [see endnote 2].[2]

Given that Luke was a travelling companion of Paul — someone who spent a great deal of time with him — he would have been in a strong position to know what Paul’s testimony was. Paul also appears to have repeated his testimony on multiple occasions — it is given three times in the book of Acts, twice being attributed to Paul’s own words — before a Jewish crowd in Jerusalem, to whom he spoke from the steps of the barracks (Acts 22), and later to the governor Festus and King Agrippa (Acts 26). When we consider the evidence for Luke’s meticulousness as an historian and attention to detail (laid out in the aforementioned resources), together with the fact that he was laying his own neck on the line for the gospel (as evidenced by the fact that he was present with Paul during many of Paul’s own sufferings for the sake of the gospel — including his imprisonment in Caesarea Maritima (for at least two years according to Acts 24:27) and later in Rome, as well as Paul’s hearing before the Sanhedrin (Acts 23) and formal trials before governors Felix and Festus in Caesarea. Taken together, this provides a substantial reason to think that Luke very probably provided an accurate representation of Paul’s own testimony.

Paul also implies in his letters that his audiences were familiar with his background and conversion testimony — and, thus, that his testimony was widely known among the churches. Jason Engwer explains the implications of this:

[T]he account [Paul] gave of what he experienced with the risen Christ surely was widely disseminated and often reinforced by the time he died. It would be difficult to get even a large percentage of Christians to accept a change in Paul’s account. It would be even harder to do it with every or almost every Christian. And the larger the change involved, the more difficult it would be to successfully carry out the change.

For example, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:1, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” These are rhetorical questions. He does not take time to explain the circumstances under which he encountered Jesus — it is taken for granted that the Corinthians know the circumstances of which he writes. Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 15:8-9, he writes, “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he [Christ] appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” It again seems implicit that his readers know something of the background. He writes to the Philippians, “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless,” (Phil 3:4-6). Again, it seems implicit that Paul’s audience in Philippi were acquainted, at least to some extent, with the background to which he alludes — particularly in his relation to his having been a former persecutor and Pharisee.

The most striking example is in Galatians 1:11-17, in which Paul writes,

11 For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. 12 For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. 14 And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

Take note of Paul’s words in verse 13 — “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.” Paul’s readers had already heard about Paul’s background as a church persecutor and religious Jew. It is thus quite likely that they knew more about Paul’s conversion that transformed him into Christianity’s most ardent advocate. Observe too Paul’s words in verse 17 — “nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.” Paul does not take the time to explain to his readers why Damascus was the place to which he returned from Arabia. It is taken for granted that they already know the connection to Damascus — this is where he went immediately upon his conversion (Acts 9:8). William Paley remarks [3],

In this quotation from the epistle, I desire it to be remarked how incidentally it appears, that the affair passed at Damascus. In what may be called the direct part of the account, no mention is made of the place of his conversion at all: a casual expression at the end, and an expression brought in for a different purpose, alone fixes it to have been at Damascus; “I returned again to Damascus.” Nothing can be more like simplicity and undesignedness than this is. It also draws the agreement between the two quotations somewhat closer, to observe, that they both state St. Paul to have preached the gospel immediately upon his call: “And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.’ Acts, chap. 9:20. ‘When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” Gal. chap. 1:15.

This casual connection between Galatians and Acts is all the more striking when we consider that these two sources appear to be independent of one another — that is, the author of Acts did not use Galatians as a source, nor vice versa. As Paley observes [4],

Beside the difference observable in the terms and general complexion of these two accounts, “the journey into Arabia,” mentioned in the epistle, and omitted in the history, affords full proof that there existed no correspondence between these writers. If the narrative in the Acts had been made up from the Epistle, it is impossible that this journey should have been passed over in silence; if the Epistle had been composed out of what the author had read of St. Paul’s history in the Acts, it is unaccountable that it should have been inserted.

Indeed, the omission in Acts concerning the journey into Arabia for three years is quite surprising if the author of Acts was using Paul’s letter as a source. The accounts, though, are not mutually exclusive. The phrase “many days”, used by Luke in Acts 9:23 is most probably an idiomatic expression denoting an indefinite period of time. The equivalent phrase in Hebrew is used in 1 Kings 2:38, but the next verse indicates that those “many days” encompassed a three year period. It is also not particularly implausible that Luke simply was not aware of the journey into Arabia, or for some other reason chose not to write about it. Nonetheless, the apparent discrepancy between Acts and Galatians provides internal evidence of independence between the two sources. Paley offers another piece of evidence indicating independence [5]:

The journey to Jerusalem related in the second chapter of the Epistle (“then, fourteen years after, I went up again to Jerusalem”) supplies another example of the same kind. Either this was the journey described in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts, when Paul and Barnabas were sent from Antioch to Jerusalem, to consult the apostles and elders upon the question of the Gentile converts; or it was some journey of which the history does not take notice. If the first opinion be followed, the discrepancy in the two accounts is so considerable, that it is not without difficulty they can be adapted to the same transaction: so that, upon this supposition, there is no place for suspecting that the writers were guided or assisted by each other. If the latter opinion be preferred, we have then a journey to Jerusalem, and a conference with the principal members of the church there, circumstantially related in the Epistle, and entirely omitted in the Acts; and we are at liberty to repeat the observation, which we before made, that the omission of so material a fact in the history is inexplicable, if the historian had read the Epistle; and that the insertion of it in the Epistle, if the writer derived his information from the history, is not less so.

The internal evidence of independence between Acts and Galatians, together with the convergence of details relating to Paul’s conversion (particularly the reference to returning to Damascus) suggest that the accounts in Acts concerning Paul’s conversion are in alignment with Paul’s own testimony.

An additional reason for thinking that Acts and Galatians are independent is that Acts 9:27 indicates that, in Jerusalem, “Barnabas took him [Paul] and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.” Compare this to Galatians 1:18-19: “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother,” (emphasis added). On the surface, this appears to be a discrepancy. Of course, “the apostles” could be taken to refer to Peter and James (most scholars, including myself, are of the opinion that Galatians 1:19 identifies James the Lord’s brother as an apostle). We could also take it that Paul uses ‘saw’ to mean ‘conversed with’ or ‘met with,’ not that he did not even see any of the other apostles in a meeting, etc. We sometimes use ‘saw’ in this sense ourselves. One could imagine that perhaps Barnabas and Peter decided that they did not want to set Paul down in front of them like a tribunal and question him, so during that time he stayed, let us suppose, in someone’s home, met with James and Peter, and otherwise for those two weeks he was out rabble rousing, as it were, talking and debating with Jews in Jerusalem (Acts 9:28-29), and eventually was rushed away due to a plot to kill him. In any case, the surface tension between these texts adds additional support for the thesis of independence.

It is also of note that, in Galatians 1:18-19, Paul indicates that his visit to Jerusalem was quite brief. One wonders why Paul’s visit to Jerusalem was cut short such that he only remained there fifteen days and reportedly saw none of the other apostles besides Cephas (Simon Peter) and James the Lord’s brother. Acts 9:29 indicates that there was an assassination plot against Paul by the Hellenists such that he needed to leave Jerusalem in haste. This explains the account in Galatians in an undesigned way, such that it serves to corroborate the historicity of both accounts. This further supports that the testimony in Acts concerning Paul’s conversion and the events shortly thereafter reflect Paul’s own testimony. We also read in Acts 22:17 Paul’s statement that “When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’” Paley remarks, “Here we have the general terms of one text so explained by a distant text in the same book, as to bring an indeterminate expression into a close conformity with a specification delivered in another book: a species of consistency not, I think, usually found in fabulous relations.” [6]

A further point, relating to our text in Galatians 1:18-19, is that Paul some verses later indicates that “afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,” (Gal 1:21). The account in Acts 9 indicates that, when the brothers learned of the plot against Paul’s life, “they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus,” (v. 30). Paley observes that, “if he took his journey by land, it would carry him through Syria into Cilicia; and he would come, after his visit at Jerusalem, ‘into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,’ in the very order in which he mentions them in the epistle.” Caesarea, of course, was a major port city, and so it is plausible that he made at least part of the journey by sea, before perhaps continuing on land. It is also of note that Paul indicates immediately following this statement in Galatians that “I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, ‘He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy,” (Galatians 1:22-23). Paley  observes, “Upon which passage I observe, first, that what is here said of the churches of Judea, is spoken in connection with his journey into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. Secondly, that the passage itself has little significancy, and that the connection is inexplicable, unless St. Paul went through Judea (though probably by a hasty journey) at the time that he came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. Suppose him to have passed by land from Cæsarea to Tarsus, all this, as hath been observed, would be precisely true.” [7]

Finally, it may be noted that Paul’s own account of the plot against his life in Damascus, in 2 Corinthians 11:32-33, dovetails with the account in Acts 9:23-25. Paul writes, “At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.” Compare this with the account in Acts 9:23-25: “When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.” Notice that the account in Acts emphasizes the involvement of the Jews, whereas Paul, in 2 Corinthians, emphasizes the involvement of Aretas IV, the king of the Nabateans (who reigned from 9 B.C. to 40 C.E.). These are not mutually exclusive (presumably, there was a conspiracy involving both parties). Nonetheless, the discrepancy between Acts and 2 Corinthians points to independence, which renders the points of convergence of significant evidential value. Why might Aretas IV be involved in the conspiracy against Paul in Damascus? Aretas IV had significant political influence and authority in the region. Around the time of Paul’s conversion, Aretas IV was ruling Damascus, likely through a governor or ethnarch who was in charge of the Jewish community there. This authority over Damascus was granted to Aretas by the emperor Gaius Caligula. The event in Acts probably occurred around 37 C.E., based on evidence of Nabatean rule in Damascus commencing that year.

There are also additional reasons to believe that Acts and 2 Corinthians are independent of one another. For example, Titus is mentioned throughout 2 Corinthians (2:13; 7:6, 13, 14; 8:6, 16, 23; 12:18), but is nowhere mentioned in Acts. Moreover, the list of Paul’s sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11:23-29 cannot be readily correlated with Acts (though it is by no means mutually exclusive). For example, 2 Corinthians 11:25 indicates that Paul endured three shipwrecks prior to the beginning of Acts 20 (when he wrote 2 Corinthians from Macedonia). Acts does not record any of those shipwrecks, but instead narrates an entirely different one in chapter 27. Furthermore, a major theme in the Corinthian letters, as well as Romans, is the collection being prepared for the relief of the saints in Jerusalem. Though Acts agrees with the implied order of travel, there is no explicit mention in Acts of fundraising as a purpose of Paul’s travels (though there is a cryptic allusion to it in Paul’s speech before Felix, in Acts 24:17: “Now after several years I came to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings”). Taken cumulatively, it seems near certain that Luke did not use 2 Corinthians as a source for the composition of Acts. As Paley notes, “Now if we be satisfied in general concerning these two ancient writings, that the one was not known to the writer of the other, or not consulted by him; then the accordances which may be pointed out between them will admit of no solution so probable, as the attributing of them to truth and reality, as to their common foundation.” [8]

As can be seen from the evidence provided above, several undesigned coincidences relate specifically to the account of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9. This further supports that the narrative concerning Paul’s Damascus road experience accurately represent Paul’s own testimony. When considered in conjunction with the other lines of evidence already considered (that Luke was a travelling companion of Paul and was thus in a position to know Paul’s testimony; Paul repeated his testimony multiple times and implies in his letters that his testimony was already widely known; Luke’s demonstrated meticulousness as an historian; and the fact that Luke was putting his own neck on the line), the evidence may be considered very convincing indeed.

Proposition 2: Paul was not plausibly sincerely mistaken.

Having established that the accounts in Acts concerning Paul’s conversion substantially represent what Paul himself testified to, we are now in a position to evaluate whether the specific set of claims recorded in Acts are the sort about which one might plausibly be sincerely mistaken.

Multisensory Experiences: Paul’s experience is alleged to have been multisensory — involving both a visual and auditory component (Acts 9:3-6, 22:6-10, 26:13-18; 1 Cor 9:1, 15:8). Moreover, it was intersubjective — affecting not only Paul, but also his travelling companions who were purportedly thrown to the ground, having heard the voice though seeing no one (Acts 9:7,  22:9; 26:14). Acts 22:9 indicates that Paul’s travelling companions nonetheless saw the light. Moreover, Paul was blinded by the experience for three days (Acts 9:8-9; 22:11) and later healed by Ananias who received a vision concerning Paul, and Paul a vision concerning Ananias (Acts 9:10-19; 22:12-16).

Miraculous Signs: Furthermore, Paul claims to have performed miracles. In 2 Corinthians 12:12, he writes, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.” Note that this appeal is made to an audience who had in their midst individuals who doubted Paul’s apostolic credentials. It was risky to appeal to such miracles if there were no such convincing miracles to speak of that could be brought to the minds of his critics. There is a similar passage, indicating that Paul performed miracles, in Romans 15:18-19: “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ,” (emphasis added). Though Paul does not indicate what those signs purportedly involved, we read in Acts about the sort of miracles that Paul performed. For example, describing a curse that Paul placed on the magician Elymas (who had opposed Paul and Barnabas, seeking to turn the Proconsul away from the faith), Luke writes in Acts 13:9-12,

9 But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

Among Paul’s other miraculous signs, he healed a man who had been crippled since birth (Acts 14:8-10), healed many sick (Acts 19:11-12), raised Eutychus from the dead after his fall from the third story of a building (Acts 20:9-12), and healed the father of Publius, who lay sick with fever and dysentery, on Malta (Acts 28:7-9). As I and others have demonstrated at length elsewhere (see the resource list at the beginning of this article), Luke was an incredibly scrupulous historian who had a high regard for historical accuracy. He also valued eyewitness testimony (e.g. Luke 1:2). The most probable source for the alleged miracles in Acts (besides those that he might have witnessed himself) is Paul.

When we consider the content of Paul’s testimony concerning his conversion experience on the Damascus road, together with his purported miracles, it seems to be difficult to account for on the supposition that he was sincerely mistaken — in particular given that he was not already predisposed to expect an appearance from the raised Christ. Paul was a persecutor of the church and a zealous Pharisee. What could have prompted him to so drastically change his mind, and reverse course 180 degrees? Sir George Lyttelton notes that “[Paul’s] mind, far from being disposed to a credulous faith, or a too easy reception of any miracle worked in proof of the Christian religion, appears to have been barred against it by the most obstinate prejudices, as much as any man’s could possibly be; and from hence we may fairly conclude, that nothing less than the irresistible evidence of his own senses, clear from all possibility of doubt, could have overcome his unbelief.” [9]

Though some have attempted to explain Paul’s experience by appeal to temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), such a hypothesis is hardly credible. For one thing, TLE blindness is incredibly short — typically thirty seconds to ten minutes. Paul’s blindness, by contrast, lasted for three days and was healed on command by Ananias. It is also typical to quickly forget what happened during the seizure. Moreover, the fact that Paul’s companions also purportedly heard a voice and perceived a light and were thrown to the ground is surprising on the TLE hypothesis. The fact that something like scales fell from Paul’s eyes (Acts 9:18) also does not comport well with this explanation.

Internal Discrepancies? Before moving on, a word must be said about a couple of alleged discrepancies between the accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts. It has been observed that, according to Acts 9:7, “The men who were travelling with him stood speechless, hearing [ἀκούοντες] the voice but seeing no one,” whereas Acts 22:9 indicates that the travelling companions “saw the light but did not hear [οὐκ ἤκουσαν] the voice of the one who was speaking to [Paul].” Though οὐκ ἤκουσαν can be rendered “did not hear,” another legitimate translation is “did not understand” (indeed, it is rendered this way by the ESV, NIV, NASB, and NET, though the KJV translates it “did not hear”). In Luke 6:27-28, Jesus says, “But I say to you who hear [ἀκούουσιν], Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Clearly, here, the meaning of Ἀλλὰ ὑμῖν λέγω τοῖς ἀκούουσιν  is “But I say to you who understand…” Likewise, in Mark 4:33, we read, “With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear [ἀκούειν] it.” Clearly, in context, the verb ακουω means to understand. Acts 26:14 indicates that the voice spoke in the Hebrew language. If Paul’s companions were Greek speakers, this could plausibly account for why they were unable to understand the voice.

Another alleged discrepancy is that, according to Acts 9:7, Paul’s companions “stood speechless,” whereas Acts 26:14 indicates that they were thrown to the ground. Most probably the phrase “stood speechless” is simply an idiomatic expression that means they were stopped dead, without insinuating that they were standing up the whole time.

Having established that Paul was not plausibly sincerely mistaken, only two options remain — either he was intentionally deceptive, or he really did have an encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus. It is to the hypothesis of deception that I now turn. . .

Stay tuned for Part 2. 

References: 

[1] George Lyttelton, Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul (The Institute Trust, 1747), 5.

[2] Three of the [following] books listed are in the public domain — namely, those by William Paley, James Smith, and William Ramsay. For those, I have linked to a free PDF copy. The PDF that I have linked to for Paley contains both his A View of the Evidences of Christianity, as well as his Horae Paulinae, or, the Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced. Both are very much worth reading, but the most relevant of those to our discussion here is the latter volume.

[3] William Paley, Horae Paulinae or, the Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced (In The Works of William Paley, Vol. II [London; Oxford; Cambridge; Liverpool: Longman and Co., 1838]), 382.

[4] Ibid., 380.

[5] Ibid., 380-381.

[6] Ibid., 293.

[7] Ibid., 383.

[8] Ibid., 359.

[9] George Lyttelton, Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul (The Institute Trust, 1747), 85-86.

Recommended Resources:

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

The Top Ten Reasons We Know the NT Writers Told the Truth mp3 by Frank Turek

The New Testament: Too Embarrassing to Be False by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Is the Bible Historically Reliable? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, Mp3 Download.

 

Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in forensic biology, a Masters’s (M.Res) degree in evolutionary biology, a second Master’s degree in medical and molecular bioscience, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. Currently, he is an assistant professor of biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie is a contributor to various apologetics websites and is the founder of the Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular online webinars, as well as assist Christians who are wrestling with doubts. Dr. McLatchie has participated in more than thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has spoken internationally in Europe, North America, and South Africa promoting an intelligent, reflective, and evidence-based Christian faith.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3DEJ7rr

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3 Apologetics Strategies from the Book of Acts

3 Apologetics Strategies from the Book of Acts

By Alisa Childers

​”Do you understand what you’re reading?“

This simple question is credited with carrying Christianity into Ethiopia. (1) Acts chapter 8 tells of Philip being led to the desert by an angel to meet an officer from the court of the Queen of Ethiopia. Philip finds him reading an Isaiah scroll containing prophecies about the Messiah. At this point, Philip could have walked up and boldly declared, “I have been sent to you today to proclaim the good news of Jesus the Messiah!” But he didn’t. He met this man right where he was at and asked a good question, which then led to an explanation of the gospel. This is apologetics at its best.

Apologetics is sometimes called “pre-evangelism” because it can help clear intellectual obstacles in the way of faith. The command to do apologetics is found in 1 Peter 3:15 which tells us to always be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” The Greek word translated as “defense” is apologia, which is where we get our English word, “apologetics.” In the book of Acts, when the apostles did evangelism, they did apologetics.

They were constantly defending their faith—to religious leaders, political officers, secular philosophers, and average citizens. Here are 3 ways they used apologetics to defend their faith:

1. They defended the gospel, not themselves.

The apostles were no strangers to trials, councils, and prisons. In Acts 4, Peter and John were brought before the Jerusalem high council and were challenged to defend their right to preach the resurrection of Jesus. Peter wasn’t even one sentence into his defense when he began to proclaim the gospel. He didn’t spend his energy trying to clear his name, or avoid prison time—he preached the resurrection of Jesus to the very council that was questioning him.

This example was also followed by the martyr Stephen in chapters 6-7. Stephen was a Jewish Christian who was brought before the council and accused of blasphemy against Moses and God. In his famous speech, he addressed the council by recounting the history of the Jews, pointing out that God’s true prophets have always been rejected. He also stressed that God’s presence isn’t confined to one specific geographical area or temple.  On one level, Stephen answered the charges of blasphemy. But even more, he opened the door theologically for the church’s worldwide mission. It was a brilliant defense of the gospel. New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce commented on Stephen’s famous “defense”:

It is obviously not a speech for the defense in the forensic sense of the term. [It is] by no means calculated to secure an acquittal before the Sanhedrin. It is rather a defense of pure Christianity as God’s appointed way of worship. (2)

The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said this of Stephen:

We see him defending the faith against a synagogue of subtle philosophical deniers of the truth. Stephen the deacon became Stephen the preacher….he had a higher promotion yet—when he had thus become Stephen the wise apologist. (3)

When our faith is under fire, it can be tempting to become defensive. But we would be wise to follow the example of the apostles and defend the gospel, not ourselves.

2. They shared eyewitness evidence of Jesus’ resurrection, not their personal testimonies.

The personal testimonies of the apostles certainly intersected the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection because they were the eyewitnesses. But their message was focused on Jesus, not themselves. In other words, when they shared the gospel, they didn’t talk about what Jesus did for them personally and then simply invite others to have a personal relationship with Him. They testified to the fact that He was crucified, buried, and resurrected, offering salvation to all who would repent and put their faith in Jesus the Messiah. This theme is consistent throughout the book of Acts.

Personal testimony can be a great way to build a relationship, but our testimonies should always point to something greater—the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

3. They knew Scripture but sometimes didn’t use it right away.

The first Christians were Jews who were steeped in the Old Testament Scriptures. When Paul was converted in chapter 9, he immediately began preaching to the Jews in Damascus, “proving that Jesus was the Christ.” In chapter 13, he spoke in the synagogue in Antioch, referring to the Old Testament Scriptures to show the Jews that Jesus was the expected Messiah. In chapter 17, he went into the synagogue in Thessalonica and “reasoned with them from the Scriptures.”

Later in the same chapter, Paul was in Athens conversing with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. These philosophers wouldn’t have accepted the Jewish Old Testament as authoritative, so Paul used a different tactic to get to the gospel. Rather than appeal to the Scriptures, he mentioned their own religious altar with the inscription, “To the unknown god.” He then proceeded to introduce them to the God they didn’t yet know, even quoting their own respected philosophical thinkers.  He used this as a tactic to testify to the resurrection of Jesus.

This does not mean that the Scriptures were unimportant or ignored. It just means that sometimes we need to meet people where they are at and start from there.

Conclusion:

The apostles used apologetics creatively, adapting their method to the situation they were in. The common theme among these three methods is that the gospel was always the main point.  The apostles kept the focus of their evangelism on the resurrection of Jesus and the hope of saving faith in Him—and we should too!

Recommended resources related to the topic:

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback), and (Sermon) by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek 

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl (Book)

Defending the Faith on Campus by Frank Turek (DVD Set, mp4 Download set, and Complete Package)

So the Next Generation will Know by J. Warner Wallace (Book and Participant’s Guide)

Fearless Faith by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace (Complete DVD Series)

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Alisa Childers is an American singer and songwriter, best known for being in the all-female Christian music group ZOEgirl. She has had a string of top ten radio singles, four studio releases, and received the Dove Award during her time with ZOEgirl. In later years, Alisa found her life-long faith deeply challenged when she started attending what would later identify as a Progressive Christian church. This challenge pushed Alisa toward Christian Apologetics. Today you can read, listen and watch Alisa’s work online as well as purchase her recently published book on Progressive Christianity titled Another Gospel.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/fmwkNU8

 

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Hard Evidence the Book of Acts Was Written by an Eyewitness? A Reply to Bart Ehrman

By Jonathan Mclatchie

Last week, New Testament scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman published an article at his blog, in which he responded to a reader who had asked him his opinion on a popular approach to arguing for the reliability of the book of Acts. The questioner specifically cites popular apologist Dr. Frank Turek and Acts scholar Dr. Colin Hemer, who have pointed to specific and detailed knowledge demonstrated in the book of Acts that reveal its author to be close up to the facts, well informed and habitually reliable. The questioner noted that “Many of these are insignificant, but others seem to be things ‘only an eyewitness could know,’ like the location of a sailor’s landmark or sea approach to a city.”

Readers who are interested in a presentation of examples of this sort of detailed and specific knowledge shown by Acts may wish to check out this webinar I did with philosopher Dr. Timothy McGrew (which also contains a solid discussion of some of Ehrman’s objections to Acts). This webinar I did with Acts scholar Dr. Craig Keener is also worth checking out. For those more inclined to read written material, I highly recommend Colin Hemer’s book The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, which covers many examples of this. I will also provide a few examples here to give a flavor of the sort of evidence we are talking about. I will list a handful of instances of the titles of local officials that Luke so effortlessly gets right.

Luke gets right the precise designation for the magistrates of the colony at Philippi as στρατηγοὶ (Acts 16:22), following the general term ἄρχοντας in verse 19. Luke also uses the correct term πολιτάρχας of the magistrates in Thessalonica (17:6). He also gets right the term Ἀρεοπαγίτης as the appropriate title for the member of the court in Areopagus (Acts 17:34). He also correctly identifies Gallio as proconsul, resident in Corinth (18:12), an allusion that allows us to date the events to the period of summer of 51 A.D. to the spring of 52 A.D., since that is when Gallio served as proconsul of Achaia. Luke also uses the correct title, γραμματεὺς, for the chief executive magistrate in Ephesus (19:35), found in inscriptions there. Furthermore, when Luke tells us of the riot in Ephesus, he indicates that the city clerk told the crowd that “There are proconsuls” (Acts 19:38). A proconsul is a Roman authority to whom one might take a complaint. Normally, there was only one. So, why does Luke so casually use the plural term (ἀνθύπατοί) here? It turns out that, just at that particular time, there was in fact two as a result of the assassination by poisoning, in the fall of 54 A.D., of the previous proconsul, Silanus (see Tacitus’ Annals 13.1). This, again, is something that would be rather difficult to get right by fluke.

Luke even uses the correct Athenian slang word that the Athenians use of Paul in 17:18, σπερμολόγος (literally, “seed picker”), as well as the term used of the court in 17:19 — Ἄρειον Πάγον, meaning “the hill of Ares”.

Luke also gets right numerous points of geography, sea routes and landmarks. For example, he gets right a natural crossing between correctly named ports (Acts 13:4-5). He names the proper port, Perga, for a ship crossing from Cyprus (13:13). He names the proper port, Attalia, that returning travelers would use (14:25). Luke also correctly names the place of a sailor’s landmark, Samothrace (16:11). He also correctly implies that sea travel was the most convenient means of travelling from Berea to Athens (17:14-15). As I documented in a previous article, Luke even gets the implied location of the island of Cauda correct in Acts 27, despite Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder getting it wrong. And so it goes on and on. 

How does Ehrman reply to this argument? He writes,

…I do NOT appreciate Frank Turkey [sic] or Colin Hemer for making the argument, since surely they know better.  If they do know better, shame on them for trying to dupe others.  If they don’t know better, would someone please tell them to start thinking more clearly?

Unfortunately, in this case as we shall see, it is Bart Ehrman, not Turek or Hemer, who needs to start thinking more clearly. Ehrman asks how we know Acts to be historical reportage rather than legend. He writes,

The traditional answer is that Acts was written by an eyewitness, a person who accompanied Paul on his missionary journeys.  The presumption is that if it was written by an eyewitness, then the accounts almost certainly must be historically accurate.  I won’t be going into that issue here (of whether eyewitness = accurate), but if you have ever known an eyewitness to an event who got it completely wrong (and if you’re a sentient human being, I bet you have known at least one!) you can immediately see at least one aspect of the problem.

The argument here is actually not that Luke is reliable because he was an eyewitness. Rather, we infer him to be an eyewitness because of, among other things, his demonstrated reliability on so many matters. Luke’s demonstrated meticulousness and detailed accuracy as an historian reveals him to be someone who is close up to the facts, well informed, and habitually reliable. This is best explained by his being an eyewitness. And Luke’s track record of accurate reportage gives us some reason to trust him on matters on which he cannot be directly cross-checked. I discuss some of the reasons why we think Luke was an eyewitness in a previous article, so I will not repeat myself here.

Ehrman notes that,

The reason for thinking Acts was written by an eyewitness is that in four passages in these chapters, the author moves from talking about what “they” (Paul and his companions) were doing to about what “we” were doing.  It sounds like he’s including himself in a number of the events as one who was there.  The natural conclusion: he was an eyewitness.

This is a simplistic representation of the argument, since there is a lot more to it than that. For a scholarly discussion of why the use of the plural pronoun indicates that the author was an eyewitness, readers may refer to Craig Keener’s commentary on Acts, which covers this in detail. I mentioned in my previous article, for instance, that the “we” pronouns trail off when Paul travels through Philippi, only to reappear in Acts 20 when Paul passes once again through Philippi.  This is suggestive that the author had remained behind in Philippi and subsequently re-joined Paul when Paul returned through Philippi.

Returning to the detailed knowledge shown by Acts, Ehrman thinks he has found a flaw in this argument. He writes,

If you can show that the account knows where certain places actually were, and knows details about what were in those places, and landmarks, and so on: doesn’t that show the author must have been with Paul on his journeys? Uh, why would it show *that*??  Wouldn’t it just show that he knew about these locations and what was in them?  Wouldn’t you get precisely the same kind of narrative if this was someone who had traveled a good bit himself, or knew others who had, and pieced it all together?

To illustrate this point, Ehrman offers an analogy. He writes,

Suppose in 2000 years someone uncovers a story that describes an event that happened to Professor Bart Ehrman in March 2016.  Professor Ehrman taught at the University of North Carolina which was located in a college town named Chapel Hill.  That semester he was teaching his course on the New Testament in a large lecture classroom in a building called Hamilton Hall.   On the afternoon of March 14, Professor was just leaving his office in Carolina Hall to take the three-minute walk to his classroom, when he heard a massive explosion, and going out of his building he saw that Hamilton Hall had been destroyed in an explosion, killing 172 people.  Later investigators discovered that it had been caused by a gas leak. 

Now, this future researcher who has uncovered the story decides to look into the archaeological record to see if the account is accurate.  He learns that way back then there really was a state called North Carolina, and sees that archaeologists had indeed uncovered a town called Chapel Hill, where there really was a university.  More than that, they had excavated the university and had found Carolina Hall and – mirabile dictu – there was an actual map of the campus in the ruins.  It turns out one of the major lecture rooms for large classes was a short distance away, within eyesight, in Hamilton Hall.  Just as in the story!!  Moreover, the records of all the professors from the early 21st century were discovered, and there was a fellow named Bart Ehrman who did indeed teach courses on something called the New Testament, and was teaching one such course in Spring semester, 2016. 

BINGO!  This story MUST have been written by someone who was a companion of Bart Ehrman who was there to see all these things!  How else would he have had all this information about NC, Chapel Hill, the university, Hamilton Hall, Carolina Hall, Bart Ehrman, and a class on the NT that particular semester?  And that means Hamilton Hall really was destroyed by an explosion caused by a gas leak, right?

Uh, well, no.  Millions of people know about NC, and the existence of Chapel Hill, and that there is a university there.  Hundreds of thousands know about both Carolina Hall and Hamilton Hall, and have a general sense of their proximity, and that some fellow named Bart Ehrman teaches NT there.  Why would the account of the gas leak-explosion have to be written by someone who was there at the time?  Or even someone who knew me?  Or someone who observed the event?

Ehrman speaks here as if, in the first century world, the geographical, political, terminological, and other subtle facts that the book of Acts gets right would have been widely and easily known or accessible. However, this is absolutely absurd. The argument for Acts being based on eyewitness testimony is that the book of Acts gets hard things right. Ehrman’s illustration about the University of North Carolina implies a situation where one can easily look up these facts, using modern resources like Google or Wikipedia, and include them in a fictional story. However, in the case of the book of Acts, which was written in a world without the ease of access to information that we enjoy today, Ehrman’s proposed scenario would imply that the author would have had to travel around all of those same places (or at the very least interview people who had been there) and include those very specific facts in an account of historical fiction, a genre that did not even exist at the time. Ehrman’s scenario here is very ad hoc and anachronistic.

A further issue with Ehrman’s statement is his use of the word “must.” None of us are arguing that the evidence proves that Luke was an eyewitness and traveling companion of Paul. We are talking about probabilities, and what best explains the relevant data. It is also not the case that Julius Caesar must have crossed the Rubicon, or that Abraham Lincoln must have emancipated the slaves, though the evidence for those things is very strong.

In Ehrman’s final paragraph, he writes,

I’m not saying that because of this Acts is unreliable historically.  I’m saying that if someone wants to argue it is, they need to come up with good arguments instead of completely irrelevant ones.  I do understand that if the author had gotten all the geographical information wrong it could be relevant to whether the account was accurate or not; my argument is that getting that kind of information right is not.  If Christian apologists don’t see the difference – then I’m afraid I can’t help them. 

Now, if all Ehrman meant here is that the correctness of the specific details in Acts doesn’t logically entail the historical truth of the narrative, then I would have to agree (though I do not know anyone who has ever argued that it does). However, Ehrman is here saying something that is much stronger. Here, he is asserting that the arguments in question are “completely irrelevant.” This statement is totally indefensible and is logically impossible, since it cannot simultaneously be relevant if the information is incorrect but completely irrelevant if the information is in fact correct.

We can be charitable here, however, and take him to be speaking colloquially, to mean that the relevance of accurate details in Acts is negligible or not worth speaking of. However, this too is problematic. What is the argument for this? One might conjecture that Ehrman takes it to be part of the background information that Acts is highly realistic fiction, a conclusion he has come to on independent grounds. But how does he arrive independently at this conclusion? In fact, the sort of arguments that Ehrman wields against Acts (such as alleged discrepancies with Paul’s letters) would suggest that it isn’t highly realistic fiction, since on Ehrman’s view Acts is contradicting primary sources for the life of Paul. If the author of Acts went to the trouble of visiting all of the places that he claims Paul travelled to, gathering highly specific information in order to incorporate them into his realistic fictional account of Paul’s travels, why would he also contradict the Pauline epistles, which would have been in wide circulation and therefore much more easily accessible? Ehrman’s standards in regards to those alleged discrepancies are entirely wrong. All of the contradictions Ehrman alleges between Acts and Paul’s letters, as I have documented elsewhere (e.g. see my ongoing series of reviews on this site of Ehrman’s book Jesus, Interrupted) are the result of over-readings, tendentious interpretations, and arguments from silence. The forcefulness that Ehrman ascribes to those, combined with his dismissal of the difficult details Luke gets right concerning geography and other matters as “completely irrelevant” is astounding, and really reveals his unscholarly bias against the New Testament.

To conclude, I do NOT appreciate Bart Ehrman for making the argument, since surely he knows better. If he does know better, shame on him for trying to dupe others.  If he doesn’t know better, would someone please tell him to start thinking more clearly? This post by Ehrman represents yet another example of why Ehrman should no longer be taken seriously as a scholarly critic of Christianity, despite his popularity in atheistic and Muslim circles. It is time that Ehrman is called out for his poor scholarship, bad standards, and faulty epistemology. For more on that, I refer you to my ongoing series of reviews at this site of Jesus, Interrupted (part 1, part 2, part 3)

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels by J. Warner Wallace (Book)

The New Testament: Too Embarrassing to Be False by Frank Turek (MP3) and (DVD)

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

The Top Ten Reasons We Know the NT Writers Told the Truth mp3 by Frank Turek

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (DVD)

Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in forensic biology, a Master’s (M.Res) degree in evolutionary biology, a second Master’s degree in medical and molecular bioscience, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. Currently, he is an assistant professor of biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie is a contributor to various apologetics websites and is the founder of the Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular online webinars, as well as assist Christians who are wrestling with doubts. Dr. McLatchie has participated in more than thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has spoken internationally in Europe, North America, and South Africa promoting an intelligent, reflective, and evidence-based Christian faith.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/Sgp9ucH

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Gospel Luke Authorship

Who Wrote the Gospel of Luke and Acts?

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By Brian Chilton

We have been engaged in a series of articles discussing the authorship of the books of the New Testament. In this article, we consider the Third Gospel, the Gospel of Luke. Who wrote the Gospel? What clues do we have from the internal and external evidence, the date, and the location and audience?

Proposed Author by Tradition:       Traditionally, Luke is proposed as the author of the Third Gospel. Luke was a physician and an associate of Paul the apostle (Col. 4:14; Philemon 24).

Internal Evidence:    Internally, a few distinctive markers are found. First and most noticeably, the author of the Third Gospel writes to one “Theophilus” (Acts 1:3)[1] and seeks to provide an “orderly sequence” (Acts 1:3) of the life of Jesus, after having had “carefully investigated everything from the very first” (1:3) according to what the “original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed down” (Acts 1:2). From this information, one can gather that the author was not an eyewitness of the events of Jesus’s life. But, the author had access to those who had.

Second, the author of the Third Gospel also authored the book of Acts. The level of detail and precision, writing style, the similar address to Theophilus, as well as the connective clause in the first of Acts connects the two works to the same author.[2]

Third, the level of Greek used in both the Third Gospel and the book of Acts is highly advanced. Having taken biblical Greek courses, I have found that a person learns first from the Gospel of Mark and John before tackling the Gospel of Luke. Due to the high degree of Greek employed in the Third Gospel and the book of Acts, one can deduce that the author is quite advanced in his education.

Fourth, the author focuses on Jesus’s ministry to the Gentiles and to the outcasts of society. The Sermon on the Plain is preserved in the Third Gospel. There the author notes that people came to hear Jesus from all around. The author notes that many of the people who heard Jesus were Gentiles from the region of Tyre and Sidon (Luke 6:17).

Fifth, the author describes medical matters far more and to a greater degree than the other Gospels. In Luke 4:38, Luke is sure to note that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law suffered from a high fever. In Luke 14:2, the author describes a man’s body that had “swollen with fluid.” Such details indicate a man who has an eye for medical matters.

Sixth, because of the author’s involvement with the book of Acts, one can deduct from the “we passages” that the author was a close associate of the apostle Paul. For instance, the author of Acts writes that “When it was decided that we were to sail to Italy, they handed over Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Imperial Regiment” (Acts 27:1).

Finally, the author had access to a great wealth of Jesus’s teachings that are not found in the other Gospels. For instance, it is only in the Gospel of Luke that one reads the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the Parable of the Lost Son. The author would have needed to have access to multiple eyewitnesses to be able to possess such knowledge and to be able to construct the orderly account that he did.

All in all, the internal evidence strongly points to someone of the caliber of Luke, the physician. Luke would hold the educational background, the eyewitness access, the resources, and the training needed to construct both the Third Gospel and the book of Acts. So far as I am concerned, I do not believe there are any other contenders. Why choose a non-eyewitness who was a Gentile[3] for the author if it had not been so?

External Evidence:   Externally, the early church is unanimous that Dr. Luke wrote the Third Gospel and the book of Acts. Irenaeus (c. 130-202) writes, “Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.”[4] Often, Irenaeus will add “Luke also, the follower and disciple of the apostles”[5] before quoting Luke’s Gospel. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165), before quoting from the Gospel of Luke and the other Gospels, notes that “the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them.”[6] Since the Gospel of Luke was written by a Gentile, Marcion, the ancient heretic, only allowed an abbreviated form of Luke’s Gospel in his canon. Irenaus notes that “Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God, from those [passages] which he still retains.”[7] From the evidence by the early church, Dr. Luke is the only valid candidate for authorship of the Third Gospel.

Date:               Seeing that Acts ends with the imprisonment of Paul (c. 64 AD), the Gospel of Luke must have been written at some time in the early 60s AD.

Location and Audience:       Luke-Acts comprises about 60% of the New Testament’s content. Luke writes to the influential Theophilus, a man of great standing and prominent status. Theophilus may have supplied the resources for Luke and Acts to have been written. The cost to produce a book the size of Luke would have been around $6,000 according to modern U.S. currency. Acts would have cost nearly the same. The entire product of Luke-Acts would have cost somewhere in the ballpark of $12,000. Thus, a man with the means of Theophilus was used by God to fund the ancient two-volume work we find in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles which was written and compiled by a man with Dr. Luke’s resources and educational background.

Luke had a Gentile audience in mind. But the location of Luke’s composition is a bit of a mystery. The best and most probable locations of Luke’s composition include Caesarea, Achaia, Decapolis, Asia Minor, and Rome. My guess is that Luke was finalized in Rome.

Conclusion:    From the internal evidence, one discovers that the author of the Third Gospel must have been quite educated and knowledgeable concerning medicinal matters. The style of writing was quite exquisite, noting that a man of profound knowledge compiled the Gospel. The association that the Third Gospel holds with the book of Acts illustrates the association that the author had with the apostle Paul due to the “we passages” in Acts.

The external evidence unanimously holds Dr. Luke as the author of Luke-Acts. No other contenders exist. Luke’s involvement with the Gospel of Luke-Acts is documented by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Papias, and others.

The date of the Gospel must be in the early 60s due to the necessity of Acts being completed by AD 64. Thus, Luke-Acts is certainly early enough to have contained eyewitness testimony.

Luke-Acts is written for an influential man named Theophilus from whom Luke may have received funding for this writing endeavor. Theophilus may have been a new convert and was financially able to affront the funds and materials necessary to Luke. Luke, himself, would have been a man of great means, as well.

Compiling all the information we have before us, Dr. Luke—the physician and co-worker with the apostle Paul—is the only viable candidate for the authorship of the two-volume work known as Luke-Acts.

Notes

[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman, 2017).

[2] Acts begins with the words, “I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1).

[3] Luke is named among those who were uncircumcised in Colossians 4:11. Only Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus were the circumcised co-workers of Paul. Dr. Luke is listed in verse 14.

[4] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies” 3.1.1., in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 414.

[5] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” 3.10.1., 423.

[6] Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin” 66, in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 185.

[7] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” 3.11.7, 428.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2swXAjm

 

 

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Historical Accuracy of the Book of Acts

On the Historical Accuracy of the Book of Acts

By Tim McGrew

Here are some of the details that Luke gets right in Acts that cannot be derived from Josephus. Most of these can be found in Colin Hemer’s magisterial work, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History.

1. A natural crossing between correctly named ports. (Acts 13:4-5) Mt. Casius, which is south of Seleucia, is within sight of Cyprus.

2. The proper port (Perga) along the direct destination of a ship crossing from Cyprus (13:13)

3. The proper location of Iconium in Phrygia rather than in Lycaonia. (14:6) This identification was doubted because it challenges some sources reflecting boundary changes from a different date, but the ethnic inclusion of Iconium in Phrygia is confirmed by the geographical distribution of Neo-Phrygian texts and onomastic study.

4. The highly unusual but correct heteroclitic declension of the name Lystra. (14:6) This is paralleled in Latin documents.

5. The Lycaonian language spoken in Lystra. (14:11) This was unusual in the cosmopolitan, Hellenized society in which Paul moved. But the preservation of the local language is attested by a gloss in Stephanus of Byzantium, who explains that “Derbe” is a local word for “juniper.” Hemer lists many other native names in the Lystra district.

6. Two gods known to be so associated—Zeus and Hermes. (14:12) These are paralleled epigraphically from Lystra itself, and the grouping of the names of Greek divinities is peculiarly characteristic of the Lystra district.

7. The proper port, Attalia, which returning travelers would use. (14:25) This was a coasting port, where they would go to intercept a coasting vessel, by contrast with Perga (13:13), a river port.

8. The correct order of approach (Derbe and then Lystra) from the Cilician Gates. (16:1; cf. 15:41)

9. The form of the name “Troas,” which was current in the first century. (16:8)

10. The place of a conspicuous sailors’ landmark, Samothrace, dominated by a 5000 foot mountain. (16:11)

11. The proper description of Philippi as a Roman colony, and the correct identification of its seaport as Nea Polis, which is attested both in manuscripts and in numismatic evidence. (16:12)

12. The right location of the Gangites, a small river near Philippi. (16:13)

13. The identification of Thyatira as a center of dyeing. (16:14) This is attested by at least seven inscriptions of the city.

14. The proper designation for the magistrates of the colony as strategoi (16:22), following the general term archontes in v. 19.

15. The proper locations (Amphipolis and Apollonia, cities about 30 miles apart) where travelers would spend successive nights on this journey to Thessalonica. (17:1)

16. The presence of a synagogue in Thessalonica. (17:1) This is attested by a late 2nd AD inscription. (CIJ 693)

17. The proper term (“politarchs”) used of the magistrates in Thessalonica. (17:6) See Horsley’s article in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, in loc.

18. The correct implication that sea travel is the most convenient way of reaching Athens, with the favoring “Etesian” winds of the summer sailing season. (17:14-15)

19. The abundant presence of images in Athens. (17:16)

20. The reference to a synagogue in Athens. (17:17) See CIJ 712-15.

21. The depiction of philosophical debate in the Agora, which was characteristic of Athenian life. (17:17)

22. The use of the correct Athenian slang word for Paul (spermologos, “seed picker,” 17:18) as well as for the court (Areios pagos, “the hill of Ares,” 17:19)

23. The proper characterization of the Athenian character. (17:21) This, however, might be attributed to common knowledge.

24. An altar to an “unknown god.” (17:23) Such altars are mentioned by Pausanias and Diogenes Laertius. Note also the aptness of Paul’s reference to “temples made with hands,” (17:24), considering that Paul was speaking in a location dominated by the Parthenon and surrounded by other shrines of the finest classical art.

25. The proper reaction of Greek philosophers, who denied the bodily resurrection. (17:32) See the words of Apollo in Aeschylus, Eumenides 647-48.

26. The term “Areopagites,” derived from areios pagos, as the correct title for a member of the court. (17:34)

27. The presence of a synagogue at Corinth. (18:4) See CIJ 718.

28. The correct designation of Gallio as proconsul, resident in Corinth. (18:12) This reference nails down the time of the events to the period from the summer of 51 to the spring of 52.

29. The bema (judgment seat), which overlooks Corinth’s forum. (18:16ff.)

30. The name “Tyrannus,” which is attested from Ephesus in first-century inscriptions. (19:9)

31. The shrines and images of Artemis. (19:24) Terracotta images of Artemis (=Diana) abound in the archaeological evidence.

32. The expression “the great goddess Artemis,” a formulation attested by inscriptions at Ephesus. (19:27)

33. The fact that the Ephesian theater was the meeting place of the city. (19:29) This is confirmed by inscriptional evidence dating from AD. 104. (See OGIS 480.8-9.)

34. The correct title “grammateus” for the chief executive magistrate in Ephesus. (19:35) This is amply attested in inscriptional evidence.

35. The proper title of honor “neokoros,” commonly authorized by the Romans for major cities that possessed an official temple of the imperial cult. (19:35) See Wankel, Die Inschriften von Ephesus, 300.

36. The term “he theos,” the formal designation of the goddess. (19:37) See the Salutaris document, passim.

37. The proper term (“agoraioi hemerai”) for the assizes, those holding court under the proconsul. (19:38)

38. The use of the plural “anthupatoi,” (19:38), which is either a remarkable coincidence of expression or else a deliberate reference to the fact that at that precise time, the fall of AD 54, two men were conjointly exercising the functions of proconsul because their predecessor, Silanus, had been murdered. See Tacitus, Annals 13.1; Dio Cassius 61.6.4-5. This is one point where Ramsay’s work has been superseded in a way that reflects great credit on Luke’s accuracy.

39. The “regular” assembly, as the precise phrase is attested elsewhere. (19:39) The concept is mentioned repeatedly in the Salutaris inscription, IBM 481.339-40 = Wankel 27, lines 468-69.

40. The use of a precise ethnic designation, “Beroiaios.” (20:4) This is attested in the local inscriptions.

41. The employment of the characteristic ethnic term “Asianos,” meaning “Greeks in Asia.” (20:4) Cf. IGRR 4.1756, where the Greeks honor a Sardian citizen with this designation (lines 113, 116).

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The Speeches in Acts: Are They Authentic?

The Speeches in Acts: Are They Authentic?

Much of the book of Acts — about 50% — is comprised of speeches, discourses and letters. Among them, a total of eight speeches are given by Peter; a total of nine speeches delivered by Paul; there is Stephen’s famous address before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7:2-53); a brief address at the Jerusalem Council by James (Acts 15:13-21); the advice given to Paul by James and the Jerusalem elders (Acts 21:20-25); in addition to the letter to the Gentile churches from the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:23-29) and the letter to Governor Felix from Claudius Lysias (Acts 23:27-30).

An interesting question that we can investigate pertains to whether these speeches and other addresses are historically authentic, or whether they instead represent the invention of Luke, the author of Acts. It is this question with which this essay is concerned.

We have an indication that Luke himself accompanied Paul for a significant portion of his trip. This is implied by Luke’s use of the pronoun “we”, beginning in Acts 16. This means that Luke was present during Paul’s speech in Athens (Acts 17), his address to the elders of Ephesus (Acts 20), his speech in Jerusalem (Acts 22), and his defense before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa (Acts 24-25). Since Luke was a close companion of Paul, it is entirely plausible that Paul gave Luke the wording of his other sermons. He may have even given Luke information pertaining to Stephen’s address to the Sanhedrin, at which Paul was present (Acts 7:58). Luke likely received material from Peter regarding his speeches. James may also have provided material regarding the Jerusalem Council.

Now, it is clear that these speeches are presented by Luke only in summary form (see Acts 2:40). But the question that concerns us here is whether these speeches are truthfully represented by Luke or whether he falsely attributes those words to the speakers. For the sake of brevity, this article will focus on the speeches of Stephen, Peter, and Paul.

Stephen’s speech, given in Acts 7:2-53, makes extensive allusion to the Old Testament Scriptures, drawing out the history of the Jews from Abrahamic times to the time of Solomon’s temple. In all, the book of Acts quotes the Old Testament a total of 40 times. 15 of those quotations appear in Stephen’s speech. This repeated quotation of the Old Testament does not resemble Luke’s literary style but instead suggests that its origin lies with a theologian of Stephen’s caliber. Moreover, there are at least 23 words that are never to be found in the book of Acts (or for that matter throughout the rest of the New Testament) apart from Stephen’s speech. Stephen’s particular way of talking about the temple and Moses is also not found anywhere except in this speech of Stephen. Further, the words affliction and promise take on a special significance in this particular discourse that does not reflect the way in which these words are used throughout the rest of Acts.

Peter’s speeches in Acts utilize similar word choice and ideas to his epistles. For example, consider the following striking parallels (in terms of both word choice and concepts) between the speeches of Peter in Acts and Peter’s first epistle:

“…by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge…” (Acts 2:23) //  “…chosen according to the foreknowledge of God…” (1 Peter 1:2)

  • “Silver or gold I do not have…” (Acts 3:6) // “…it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed…” (1 Peter 1:18)
  • “…the faith that comes through him…” (Acts 3:16) // “Through him you believe in God…” (1 Peter 1:21)
  • “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.” (Acts 3:19-21) // “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” (1 Peter 3:11-12)
  • “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism…” (Acts 10:34) // “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially…” (1 Peter 1:17)
  • “…whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead…” (Acts 10:42) // “But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” (1 Peter 4:5)

When taken as a cumulative case, the evidence points uniformly to the Petrian origin of the sermons attributed to him in Acts.

As for the sermons of Paul, there is also a clear connection between the speeches and epistles of Paul. For example, in Acts 13:39, when preaching in the synagogue in Antioch, Paul states, “Through him, everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.” This doctrine of justification is a common and characteristic theme throughout Paul’s epistles. In Paul’s sermon in Athens, he declares, “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,” (Acts 17:30). This sentence bears resemblance to the statement in Romans 3:5: “He did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.” Also in common with Paul’s Acts 17 sermon in Athens, Paul’s letter to the Romans indicates that God has revealed Himself through creation (Romans 1:19-21) and that there will come a “day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ,” (Acts 2:16).

Furthermore, consider the following parallels between Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders  and his epistles:

  • “I served the Lord with great humility…”  (Acts 20:19) // “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” (Romans 12:11) // “…with great humility…” (Ephesians 4:2)
  • “I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race…” (Acts 20:24a) // “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)
  • …and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me…” (Acts 20:24b) // “See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.” (Colossians 4:17)

In conclusion, although the speeches in Acts are presented in summary form, there is a good reason to think that the sermons recorded by Luke do not, in fact, originate with the pen of Luke but are indeed authentic sermons presented by the individuals to whom they are attributed. If this is so, then we have source material underlying the Acts of the Apostles that dates back exceedingly early and provides us with a unique insight into the primitive beliefs of the early Christian movement.

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