CADRE Comments

Jason dealt with Richard Pervo’s argument that Acts’ reference to Theudas in Gamaliel’s speech is evidence of dependence on Josephus. Because I think Pervo has been refuted on that point, I wanted to address another, related comment that he makes expressing skepticism at the possibility that Luke could have known about Gamaliel’s speech even if it had been given. Pervo raises two challenges to the authenticity of Gamaliel’s address in Acts: that it is to short to be authentic and that there was no possible source for Luke to draw on. Those who maintain that Luke here reproduces an actual speech have taken on a formidable challenge, not only because of its extreme brevity, but also because Acts represents the action as taking place behind close doors. Pervo, Dating Acts , page 152. In a footnote, Pervo claim that conservative scholar Ben Witherington “concedes that Luke may have concocted the speech, but allows for the possibility that Paul is the source.” That is quite a claim and...

Note: Part 6 of this series can be found here. It discusses how Dr. Richard Pervo, in his 2006 edition of Dating Acts , very briefly covers his main positive evidence in favor of his theory that the author of Acts used Josephus when referring to the rebellions of Theudas and Judas the Galilean--a very brief coverage that mainly involves mentioning the superficial similarity of topical order while repeatedly insisting that the author of Acts is in (even "embarrassing") error. After which, Dr. P suddenly switches to the position that the author did not make an error but intentionally took the information from Josephus in this topical order. As will be shown in the finale of this series, there are good reasons why he must have felt he had to try something other than error to explain the usage thereby! Since he doesn't spell out those reasons himself, however... Part 7 -- Thoroughly Sniffing The Thesis (Or Huffing It, Maybe) Let’s spell out the implications of Dr. Pervo’s ...

Note: Part 5 of this series can be found here. It discusses how Dr. Richard Pervo, in his 2006 edition of Dating Acts , and in regard to his theory of the author of Acts depending on reference to Josephus, ends up having to having to appeal to argument B not only to make argument A seem more plausible but to answer in a non sequitur fashion an oncoming critique of part of his argument for A--when the reason he explicitly started with A was to help make subsequent arguments for the dating of Acts post-Antiquities, including argument B, seem more plausible! So having spun the reader's head around a few times, he plows onward now to his strongest primary evidence. Part 6 -- Error, Error! (Or, wait, not...??) Having quickly leapt away from trying to explain how the 400 number can even plausibly fit into his theory (answering expected critiques of his argument there by spinning the reader around with circular plausibility appeals to a completely different dating argument which has noth...

Note: Part 4 of this series can be found here. It discusses how Dr. Richard Pervo, in his 2006 edition of Dating Acts , ends up having to imagine a reason for why the author of Acts would intentionally change a rhetorically impressive generalization from Josephus into a sober and realistic number--for a purpose that directly contravenes the author's own enumerations just previously in his own narrative. We'll be getting back to that problem again later... Part 5 -- Circling The Shell Game Around Rather than face this clear problem with his explanation, Dr. Pervo hops over to a completely different argument: Acts 5 shows Luke only knew about one census, namely the one at the time of Judas the Galilean, so Luke had to have been either mistaken or just making things up for the GosLuke prologue, so there, nyah! Or words to that effect; what Dr. Pervo is aiming at, is to strengthen the appearance of his thesis concerning Luke’s source for Acts 5 by appealing to a different argument...

Note: Part 3 of this series can be found here. It discusses how Dr. Richard Pervo, in his 2006 edition of Dating Acts , spends a surprising amount of time and effort trying to sheerly imagine connections between the Lukan and the Josephan references to a rebel Theudas. His attempt does not end well. {lopsided g} Part 4 -- Of Course, There Are Some Differences... “There are, of course, differences between the two accounts,” Dr. Pervo admits (p 157)--having already effectively admitted that one such huge and glaring difference is the terminology used to describe Theudas, despite his attempts to insist on a startling similarity between them. Another such difference is that one account talks about a Theudas rebelling before Judas the Galilean, and one talks about a Theudas rebelling afterward . This is not a small difference! But more on this and its implications for Dr. Pervo’s thesis later. Yet another important difference, one that Dr. Pervo tries to gloss over the implications of,...

Note: Part 2 of this series can be found here. It discusses how Dr. Richard Pervo, in his 2006 edition of Dating Acts , begins his argument for Lukan dependence on Josephus, in regard to the 'Theudas' reference in Acts 5, by hugely begging the question in favor of his own hypothesis. Part 3 -- A Magical Imagination Dr. Pervo retorts against Dr. Bruce’s second point, that Theudas is an unusual name. I consider this his strongest critique of Dr. B (so far as presented in DA on this topic); but Dr. P neglects to mention (as Dr. Bruce himself most likely remembered) that it is an unusual form of a more common set of names for which it might be substituted for purposes of better identification--one such name being Judas, not incidentally. Ironically, we do know of at least one Judas (son of Ezekias) leading a rebellion prior to Judas the Galilean--thanks to Josephus! This leads to Dr. Bruce’s third point, namely that even Jospehus doesn’t bother to name all the rebellions (the “t...

Note: Part 1 of this series can be found here. It introduces the data, the problem, and the solution proposed (among a few other people) by Dr. Richard Pervo, most notably in his 2006 edition of Dating Acts . Recapping the final paragraph from last time... Dr. Pervo’s thesis is that the order of mention by Gamaliel, first Theudas and then Judas the Galilean, suggests (or, for Dr. P, practically demands) that Luke borrowed this information from Josephus, specifically from Book 20 (written very late, indeed the last book of Antiquities completed before Josephus’ death). The main positive evidence in favor of this thesis (unless Dr. P brings out stronger positive evidence where I haven’t been able to read him yet), is that Josephus happens to mention Judas the Galilean after writing about Theudas the (messianic) “magician”; thus, in a trivially sequential way, first Theudas is mentioned, then Judas the Galilean. Whereas, if Luke was really writing with actual living knowledge of conditio...

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 ...