Corpus-Paul

[Steve Black <sblack AT axionet.com>]

There are obviously two basic camps when it comes to the issue of the 
reliability of the Book of Acts historically. I tend to not see it as 
a good source of history, as Luke, in my assessment seems more 
interested in presenting things in such a way as to make an 
ideological point then merely capturing "what actually happened". 
Paul, for example, is "softened", as is the conflict with Jerusalem - 
one almost gets the picture that it was one big happy family, a 
picture which I think is harshly contradicted in Paul.

This is all old stuff. The best card to play, it has seemed to me, 
for those who want to see Acts as a relatively reliable source for 
history has been the "we" sections. Here it *seems* that we have a 
first hand account. [An aside: I wonder how reliable even these 
really might be (assuming for a moment that they do reflect a first 
hand account), given the passage of time and, once again, the 
ideological nature of Luke's work. It is easy for me to believe that 
people remember their own histories through their ideological lens, 
filtering out those things that might threaten their "construct"] 
However, this morning I read in Alter & Kermode's "The Literary Guide 
to the Bible" that the use of this kind of "we" narrative was 
actually a literary convention of the time. My question is (this 
point was not footnoted in Alter/Kermode) where might I look to find 
(if anyone knows) this research and discussion, and even better, what 
are some extrabiblical examples from antiquity of this type of usage 
of "we".
--
Steve Black
Vancouver School of Theology
Vancouver, BC
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Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right...

-Robert Hunter From SCARLET BEGONIAS