Is Theophilus Your Sugar-Daddy?

This is my 1 minute interview with Dr. Luke at the More Than Cake Cafe. Luke is the author of a two volume history of Jesus and the early Christian Church. Some people doubt Luke’s credibility so I didn’t pull any punches and I ask Luke the tough questions.

The video is inspired by Ben Witherington’s book, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. He emphasizes the reliability of Luke as Historian as follows:

The prologue in Acts follows various historiographical and rhetorical conventions of the day. It is in some ways closest to the one we find in Philo, Quod Omnis 1 (ο μεν προτερος λογος ην ω Θεοδοτε. περι του …), and is resumptive in character. It is a “secondary” prologue typically used to introduce new volumes of a multivolume work (cf., e.g., some of the disputed prologues to Xenophon’s Anabasis and Herodian’s History of the Empire). As such, it looks backward before the text moves on to new material, mentioning the scope of the previous volume. This in itself is not unusual in a multivolume historical work and strongly suggests the connection between Luke and Acts in the author’s mind.

He concludes,

In general we may look for Luke to be the same sort of careful editor of his source material in the second volume as he was in his Gospel. He is limited by the sources he has, and he continues to edit them according to various formal and material agendas he has; for example: (1) rhetorical concerns about variation when using the same phrase or material more than once; (2) concerns to make the narrative more “Hellenized” so that a Gentile could grasp it, which affects the editing in regard to both form and content; (3) concerns about salvation history and the present, which lead him to deemphasize, though not dismiss, future eschatological material in favor of focusing on the present work of the Spirit, the present task of witnessing, and the like; (4) concerns about the more universal and inclusive potential of the gospel which comports with his emphasis on Gentile inclusion among the people of God, and his rejection of too-sectarian an approach to Christianity.

And yes, Luke is a great historian.

If Luke was, as I think, a careful historian in the mold of Thucydides and Polybius, we may expect from him adequate and accurate (so far as his sources allowed) summaries of what was said on one or another occasion, especially because he had opportunity to consult with various of the ear-witnesses who heard these speeches, or in some cases with early Christians and ministers of the word to whom the first listeners had conveyed a brief summary of what was said. In all probability, with the possible exception of some of the longer speeches (Peter in Acts 2? Stephen?) and some of the court proceedings (Acts 24–26), we must not assume that we have more than just summaries of speeches. This is especially the case because some of these summaries take only a minute or two to recite out loud, which surely cannot be the entirety of what was said.GET

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