Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Craig Keener and Colin Hemer on the Historical Accuracy of the Acts of the Apostles



When Herod had searched for him and could not find him, he examined the guards and ordered them to be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. So they came to him in a body; and after winning over Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for a reconciliation, because their country depended on the king's country for food. On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public address to them. The people kept shouting, "The voice of a god, and not of a mortal!" And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Acts 12:19-23 NRSV)

Commenting on the historical accuracy of this event in the Acts of the Apostles, Craig Keener wrote:

Often in Acts, and especially once in the narrative stretches beyond Judea, we have sources available that can confirm Luke’s reports about persons or events. Luke does not frame these events precisely the way that other sources do—independent writers rarely do—but we can attest many of the persons and sorts of events to which he refers.

For example, the depictions of Herod Agrippa I, Agrippa II, Felix, and Festus (Acts 12:1-23; 23:24-26:32) resemble what we know of these figures from Josephus, even though Josephus personally favors Herod Agrippa I more than does Luke. More directly, both Josephus and Luke report the occasion of Agrippa’s death; that both report incidental details omitted by the other source suggests independent accounts about the same events, confirming the overlapping features.

Josephus Ant. 19.343-50
Acts 12:19-23
Agrippa was in Caesarea at this time (19.343)
Agrippa was in Caesarea at this time (12:19)
Public setting (19.343-44)
Public setting (12:21)
Agrippa’s glorious robe (19.344)
Agrippa’s royal apparel (12:21)
Flatterers hail Agrippa as divine (19.344-45)
Flatterers hail Agrippa as divine (12:22)
Agrippa suffers divine judgment immediately afterward (19.346-48)
Agrippa suffers divine judgment immediately afterward (12:23)
Because of the flatterers’ blasphemy (19.346-47)
Because he did not defer the praise to God (12:23)
He suffered for five days from stomach pains (19.348-50)
He was eaten by worms (12:23)
He died (19:350)
He died (12:23)
(Craig S. Keener, “Acts: History or Fiction?” in Darrell L. Bock and J. Ed Komoszewski, eds. Jesus, Skepticism and the Problem of History: Criteria and Context in the Study of Christian Origins [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2019], 320-338, here, pp. 330-31)

In his study of the historical setting of Acts and the accuracy thereof, Colin Hemer presented a list of many of “the specific local knowledge” the author had. The following is the listing for ch. 17 alone:

17:1 The mention of Amphipolis and of Apollonia should probably be taken to imply that these were the places where the travellers spent successive nights, dividing the journey to Thessalonica into three stages of about 30, 27 and 35 miles.
17:1 A synagogue at Thessalonica is attested by the Jewish inscription CIJ 693 (late 2nd ad or later).
17:5 In the free city of Thessalonica Paul is brought before the δῆμος.
17:6 The title of the board of magistrates in Thessalonica was ‘politarchs’, a term now abundantly attested from this and other Macedonian cities.
17:10 Beroea is a suitable immediate refuge as a place off the major westward route, the Via Egnatia. Paul’s movements, at least thus far, are consistent with the formation in his mind of a conscious strategy leading towards Rome, but this move and the further journey to Athens (v. 15) are attributed to the agency of others.
17:14 The implication of sea-travel is at once the most convenient way of reaching Athens with the favouring ‘Etesian’ winds of the summer sailing-season and also removes Paul to a different jurisdiction remote from nearer land-routes where opponents might be expecting him. Luke does not here name a port of embarkation.
17:16 The abundance of images at Athens is abundantly attested in literature and in the remains. This may have been a matter of such general knowledge as scarcely to warrant special mention. Cf. δεισιδαιμονεστέρους in v. 22 and other touches throughout the scene.
17:17 Reference to the synagogue at Athens is illustrated by the occurrence of Jewish inscriptions there (CIJ 712–15). The point is slight, the texts look relatively late, and the fact not unexpected. A similar illustration may be offered for other Pauline cities such as Thessalonica (CIJ 693).
17:17 Philosophical debate in the Agora is again characteristic of Athenian life.
17:18 The mention of Stoic philosophers is particularly interesting, as the ‘Stoa’ (portico) from which they took their name was in the Athenian Agora, the Stoa Poikile, and this traditional meeting place is close to the Stoa Basileios, where the court of Areopagus transacted routine business. This northwest corner of the Agora was also close to a notable collocation of Hermae, apt to the adjective κατείδωλος.
17:18 The Athenians call Paul a σπερμολόγος, which is a ‘word of characteristically Athenian slang’.
17:19 Ἄρειος πάγος: the two-word form, applied to the court, is regularly used in many inscriptions of the period. This hearing probably took place before the court in its meeting-place in the Agora, not on the actual hill so called. 17:21 The comment on the Athenian character is again true to the literature, but is more likely to have been common knowledge.
17:23 Paul would have seen the Athenians’ ‘objects of worship’ in profusion at the main approach to the Agora from the northwest.
17:23 Altars to ‘unknown gods’ are mentioned by Pausanias (1.1.4), and the background story is told by Diogenes Laertius (Vita Philos. 1.110; cf. Philostratus Vita Ap. Ty. 6.3.5, etc.). Much is sometimes made of the objection that the passages which speak explicitly of ‘unknown’ gods always do so in the plural, but these plurals, with the plural βωμοί, may be generalizing plurals, or Paul may have chosen to refer to a dedication to a particular god. Diogenes’ phrase τῷ προσήκοντι θεῷ is singular, in any case.
17:24 The reference to temples made with hands (cf. 7:48, in Jerusalem) is here represented as uttered in a place dominated by the Parthenon and surrounded by other shrines of the finest classical art.
17:4ff. The content of this passage suits the view that we have a compressed summary of a dialogue with Stoic and Epicurean terms and ideas, so belonging naturally to the ostensible Pauline context (τὸ θεῖον, v. 29; οὐ … προσδεόμενός τινος, v. 25, etc.).
17:28 ‘In him we live …’ These words are attributed to Epimenides the Cretan, who figures in Diogenes’ story of the origin of the altars discussed above on 17:23. This also suggests a Pauline context, where Paul is interacting with the specific traditions of Athenian religion (cf. F, pp. 186f., P, pp. 215f.).
17:28 The second citation is from the Stoic poet Aratus, of Soli in Cilicia, close to Paul’s home in Tarsus. Again, we may see a Pauline context in Athens, and compare Paul’s own citation of Greek literature in 1 Cor. 15:33 (cf. F, pp. 186–87).
17:31 Judgment is entrusted to an appointed ‘man’ (ἀνδρί), used of Jesus to a pagan audience for whom Christological refinements would have been meaningless at this stage. This again is suitable to Paul at Athens rather than a deliberate Lukan theological construct.
17:32 The declaration of resurrection (ἀνάστασις) takes issue directly with the specific denial of ἀνάστασις in this sense in the religious classic of the archetypal trial of Orestes before this court of Areopagus, the words of Apollo as spokesman of divine wisdom (Aeschylus, Eumen. 647–48). The idea was alien also to both groups of philosophers, and the reaction to it is understandable in the Athenian context.
17:34 Ἀρεοπαγίτης is the correct title for a member of the court (cf. Ἄρειος πάγος above). (Colin J. Hamer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990], 115-19. The full listing is to be found on pp. 108-220).

There is much to argue in favour of the historicity of the Acts of the Apostles, contrary to the claims of some (e.g., Richard Pervo).