Acts

Ghid

Ghid

Last September I began reading the Bible. I think I managed to read Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth before I became distracted by school, a boyfriend, family, line drives, ground balls, the Sadie Hawkins Dance, the Best Buddy’s Club, prom dresses, and other miscellaneous girly stuff.

So, I have read some of Acts.

I know that Acts is about God and redemption, but I don’t know that I would have discovered that by just reading.

The author is said to be Luke, but the author refers to himself as I, so the author, Luke, must be a tradition, not an historical fact. Luke does not mention the destruction of the Temple, so he must have written before 70 AD.

Acts 1:1-5

In Acts 1:3, .... (Jesus) gave many convincing proofs ...

Why does Luke need proof. The whole thing is supposed to be about belief, and I suppose more strictly it is belief in the absence of proof or in the presence of contradictory probabilities.

But here we are right at the get go, Jesus offers proof.

:):):)
 
If we read from the nlt.....it says that He (Jesus) showed Himself or apeared to the apostles after He was raised from the dead, for 40 days. Luke didn't need proof.....he was saying that Jesus proved to the apostles that He really was alive, and that God raised Him from the dead.

Good post!
Blessings
 
Ghid said:
Last September I began reading the Bible. I think I managed to read Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth before I became distracted by school, a boyfriend, family, line drives, ground balls, the Sadie Hawkins Dance, the Best Buddy’s Club, prom dresses, and other miscellaneous girly stuff.

So, I have read some of Acts.

I know that Acts is about God and redemption, but I don’t know that I would have discovered that by just reading.

The author is said to be Luke, but the author refers to himself as I, so the author, Luke, must be a tradition, not an historical fact. Luke does not mention the destruction of the Temple, so he must have written before 70 AD.

Acts 1:1-5

In Acts 1:3, .... (Jesus) gave many convincing proofs ...

Why does Luke need proof. The whole thing is supposed to be about belief, and I suppose more strictly it is belief in the absence of proof or in the presence of contradictory probabilities.

But here we are right at the get go, Jesus offers proof.

:):):)
Click to expand...

The Book of acts was written as a documentary and should be read as a documentary.
Luke was also a physician and used deep detail. Example....others say the man had leprosy but luke says he had great leprosy....
blessings
jim
 
Fish Catcher Jim said:
The Book of acts was written as a documentary and should be read as a documentary.
Luke was also a physician and used deep detail. Example....others say the man had leprosy but luke says he had great leprosy....
blessings
jim
Click to expand...

How is great leprosy different than leprosy?

:)
 
In Acts 1:6-11

Some of my Protestant friends have said that "... restore the kingdom of Israel" means, "... settle the score, ...reek revenge, ... judge who needs judging, ... or ... call down fire on the on those who rejected you?"

It has a dramatic ring, but it is apparently not a very common interpretation. I had wondered if it might be a source of antisemitism, but John Chrysostom did not use it in his list of Bible verses to support his sermons, which criticized Judaizing Christians. So far I have not found anyone else who uses Acts to condemn Jews.

I think that it should mean simply, ... kick out the Romans.

:)
 
Ghid said:
In Acts 1:6-11

Some of my Protestant friends have said that "... restore the kingdom of Israel" means, "... settle the score, ...reek revenge, ... judge who needs judging, ... or ... call down fire on the on those who rejected you?"

It has a dramatic ring, but it is apparently not a very common interpretation. I had wondered if it might be a source of antisemitism, but John Chrysostom did not use it in his list of Bible verses to support his sermons, which criticized Judaizing Christians. So far I have not found anyone else who uses Acts to condemn Jews.

I think that it should mean simply, ... kick out the Romans.

:)
Click to expand...
That just goes to show you that people can twist the scriptures to mean almost anything. It is quite sad actually.
 
I have returned from the Stone Age. When school ended, my family went to visit my oldest brother. Sometimes his living conditions lack plumbing and electricity, so I call it the Stone Age.

I should say that in my language, valley girl speak, "great" is a normally a better thing, but great leprosy must be worse than leprosy, so it is a bad thing.

Acts 1:12-26

Acts 1:12 says that The Mount of Olives is a Sabbath Day’s walk from Jerusalem. I should wonder if that has become a tourist thing. Do people go to Jerusalem, so they can walk from Jerusalem to The Mount of Olives?

The first Christians must have organized themselves like a democracy. For example, they elected Matthias to replace Judas.

The text is not clear about who voted. Maybe only the apostles voted, and first Christians organized themselves as an oligarchy.

:) :cool:
 
Acts 2:1-13

Tongues of fire (Acts 2:3) reminds me of Moby Dick by Herman Melville. In Chapter 119, during a typhoon, sort of like in Acts 2:3, but with greater detail; the Pequod experiences Saint Elmo’s fire. Starbuck calls it corposants, which is said to be some kind of good omen for sailors. For the Christians, it must have been a shocking experience.

:):cool:
 
Acts 2, Peter's Sermon

How would historians know about ancient speeches such as Peter’s sermon in Acts 2?

For my World History class in school, I had to read parts of two ancient books, The History by Herodotus, and The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Herodotus preserves a debate between three Persian princes. They debate the merits of aristocracy, oligarchy, and democracy. Thucydides preserves a funeral speech by Pericles, the leader of Athens.

In Acts, Luke preserves the sermon by Peter.

I think that Herodotus, Thucydides, and Luke must have had written sources, but maybe some things might have been important enough to have been memorized and recited in performances.

:):cool:
 
Ghid said:
Acts 2, Peter's Sermon

How would historians know about ancient speeches such as Peter’s sermon in Acts 2?

For my World History class in school, I had to read parts of two ancient books, The History by Herodotus, and The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Herodotus preserves a debate between three Persian princes. They debate the merits of aristocracy, oligarchy, and democracy. Thucydides preserves a funeral speech by Pericles, the leader of Athens.

In Acts, Luke preserves the sermon by Peter.

I think that Herodotus, Thucydides, and Luke must have had written sources, but maybe some things might have been important enough to have been memorized and recited in performances.

:):cool:
Click to expand...

Luke says he talked with a lot of people.
 
Luke talked to lots of people. He doesn’t say how many had written information or how he dealt with conflicting information. For a modern example, we can look at the Lincoln-Douglass debates. Different newspapers printed different texts, so there are at least two versions of the speeches, depending on which party controlled the newspapers. CSpan has a video version of the speeches. Somehow they combined the two versions. I suppose Luke might have done the same thing.

:):cool:
 
Acts 2, 3000 Baptized

Acts 2 says that those, "who accepted [the] message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day."

It sort of implies that 3000 were baptized. Some of my friends think of this event as a miracle, a supernatural event directed by God. I suppose that is possible, but I know that mass events happen. They are not normally called supernatural.

For a bizarre example we can look at the Jonestown Massacre.

"Jonestown" was the informal name of a commune formed in Gyuana, by Jim Jones, an American charismatic religious leader. On November 18, 1978, a total of 909 Americans died, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, in an event termed "revolutionary suicide" by Jones and some members on an audio tape of the event and in prior discussions.

My mother relates an other example, When she was in first grade, all the children in her classroom became sick. At the hospital the doctors could find nothing wrong with the children. My mother jokes that maybe the teacher, who was pregnant, gave the students her morning sickness.

Some of my grandmother's hippy friends were among the 400,000, who attended "Woodstock," which they describe as Three Days of Peace & Music." Thirty two acts performed on a dairy farm in the Catskills near the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to 18, 1969. Rolling Stone has listed it as one of the Fifty Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll. Or as my grandmother's hippy friends would say, "Like wow, dude. It was so cool."

Anyway, people often do odd things in groups.

:):cool:
 
Acts 3:1-10

Peter and John went to the temple where they found a lame man. Peter told the the man, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

In the Twenty-First Century, this incantation sounds corny, a line maybe from Three Penny Opera or Elmer Gantry, (Burt Lancaster, dreamy eyes) but I can see how this incident must have gathered attention. When I read it, I wonder if Peter will be arrested and be put to death as a witch. We live now in a world where lame people walk, and we still condemn witches. No longer for incantations, but for selling various sorts of witches brew, for example Pablo Escobar, the hippopotamus drug lord.

:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top