JRP vs Pervo vs Luke vs Josephus vs Theudas and Judas the Galilean (1 of 7)
Part 1 -- The Data, The Problem, and The Thesis My friend Victor Reppert, over at Dangerous Idea , has been recently engaged in a series of posts on historical analysis of the accuracy of the New Testament; and the thorny topic of Theudas came up again a week or two ago, this time in context of Richard I. Pervo’s thesis that the author of Acts of the Apostles knew about Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews and so must have composed Acts sometime substantially after Ant.’s publication. I am a bit handicapped here in analyzing Dr. Pervo’s thesis, since I don’t have access to a university library; I have only found access to (a very large) part of the relevant chapter in Dating Acts (thanks to Amazon’s Search Inside feature), and no access at all yet to his later Acts: A Commentary (part of Hermeneia’s Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible )--nor do I much fancy buying one or both books merely to assess this one thesis. Hopefully some of our readers will have one or both books