Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The Book of Acts is historical.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: The affirmative argument, written by Bart Ehrman, read by Ken Toutch.
I am ready now to explain how I did the debate with myself in front of my undergraduate class on the resolution resolved.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: The Book of Acts is historically reliable.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: As always happens in a debate. Side goes first and gives a prepared speech. In arguing for the affirmative, I made the following points. Note, I'm not saying I personally agree with these points, just as I'm not going to be saying that I agreed with the negative points. I'm simply making the best case I can for both positions.
One, the Book of Acts is historically reliable, as can be seen by considering three major points.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: A first, the author of the Book of Acts explicitly tells us that he.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Was concerned and committed to present a historically accurate account of the history of the early church.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: The author of Acts, of course, was the author of the Gospel of Luke.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: And the preface to Luke served as the preface to the entire two volume work. In that preface, Luke one, one through.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Four, the author tells us that he.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Had followed all things closely and that he based his account on reports from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, that is, from those who were personally involved in the events he narrates and those to whom they told their accounts. Moreover, he stresses that his ultimate concern is to provide an orderly account of all the things that had happened, and so it was clearly his intention to write a historically accurate account. That in itself does not prove that.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: He did so, but it does prove that this was his goal.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: He was not writing fiction, but what he understood to be historical fact.
B second, the author was well positioned.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: To do what he set out to.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Do because he himself was an eyewitness to the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul, the main character of the Book of Acts. There are four passages in acts in which the author shifts from speaking in the third person about what they were doing to the first person where he talks about what we were doing. These are the famous we passages of acts starting in chapter 16, where the author describes events that he participated in along with Paul and others. That is to say, not only did the author interview eyewitnesses, he was himself one. He knew Paul. He traveled with Paul, he talked with Paul. Who better to know about the activities and teachings of Paul than someone who actually was with him at the time?
See, third, not only did the author want to provide an accurate account, and not only was he in the position to do so, his account can be shown to be accurate at every point that it can be tested. There are two kinds of collaboration for his narrative, collaboration from the writings of Paul himself and collaboration from external, especially archaeological, evidence.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Two, with respect to Paul.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Sometimes the narrative of acts will describe an event from Paul's life that Paul himself describes in one of his letters that he wrote. Whenever that happens, there is a remarkable consistency. For example, in Acts 15 we read that after Paul had been engaging in missionary activities, converting Gentiles, there was a big debate about whether these converts had to submit to circumcision and adopt jewish customs. A conference was called in Jerusalem that Paul attended with other apostles, where it was decided that the answer was no. Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to be christian. Paul, too, talks about the Jerusalem conference in Galatians one and two and says very much the same thing. It was a consultation with the apostles in Jerusalem after his missionary activities, and the decision was reached that Gentiles could convert as gentiles, not as Jews. They did not have to follow the requirements of the jewish law. The two accounts stand together in harmony.
Three or a second example. In Acts 17, we read about Paul's missionary journey that took him from the city of Thessalonica to Athens, where he preached on the Ariopagus, to stoic and epicurean philosophers. In one Thessalonians three, Paul refers to the same journey where he indicates that after leaving Thessalonica, he went to Athens. The same information, acts, appears to be reliable whenever it can be tested against the major primary source, the writings of Paul.
Four, the second kind of collaboration is between acts and external sources, such as archaeology.
Archaeological discoveries have verified the accounts of acts up and down the line. This author can be shown to be intimately familiar with the geography, customs, and laws that he describes in his account.
Five, for example, we now know the site of the famous Ariopagus speech, and you can visit it today. It sits on a rocky outcrop just below the Acropolis in Athens, and we now know that it was indeed a place where philosophers would gather to talk and debate, just as Luke describes it in acts 17 six.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Or take Thessalonica in the account of.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Acts, Paul is said to have encountered a group of local leaders that Luke calls politarchs, which literally would mean something like rulers of the city. For decades, liberal scholars claimed that Luke was making that up. We had no knowledge of such a thing as a politark. The word never occurs in greek literature. But then archaeologists dug up the city of Thessalonica and discovered a large number of bricks on which were described the names of numerous different politarchs. These bricks used the same word to describe the same people. Archaeology has confirmed Luke's account.
Seven.
Or consider a third instance in Acts 14. On his first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas are in the town of Lystra, where Paul heals a man who is lame. The pagan crowd sees this happen and assume that Paul and Barnabas must be two gods who have come down to work among them. They assume they are Hermes and Zeus. The pagan priest of Zeus fetches a bull and takes it outside the city walls to sacrifice it on the altar there to Paul Slash Zeus, who fervently urges him not to do so, since he is a mere mortal.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: For decades, liberal scholars argued that this.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Could not have happened because there would not have been an altar to Zeus outside the walls of the town. Altars were located within city walls. But then archaeologists dug up Lystra, and what did they find? They found a temple of Zeus outside the walls. Once again, the archaeological record has verified the narrative of acts. This kind of verification happens time and time again.
Eight in sum, the author of Luke wanted to produce a historically accurate account. He tells us so. Moreover, he was well situated to write just such an account as he was personally involved in the events that he narrates. And most important, whenever his account can be checked against a primary source, the writings of Paul himself, and against archaeological discoveries, his narrative is verified repeatedly up and down the line.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: The book of Acts is historically reliable.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: That, in a nutshell, is the affirmative case that I make. In another post, I will map out my negative case that acts is not reliable. Bull. Bye.
