Did the Author of Acts Steal From Paul's Letters?

Did "Luke" steal from Paul's letters? Does that explain why there are so many undesigned coincidences between the letters of Paul and the Book of Acts? In this video I explore why deliberate design is very unlikely.
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[@sjappiyah4071]

Once again proving that the difference in NT narratives are not contradictions, but rather evidence that authors using independent sources all come to the same conclusions…. Great work again Erik.

[@clayton4349]

Such as the famous death of Judas Iscariot and the aftermath of his death. I questioned the honesty of some scholars for denying the connection that, after Judas hanged himself, his body rots while hanging before falling onto the ground, and the gore spills out.

[@Biblestudies658]

Different enough to be written by different authors, but the same enough to be true

[@sabhishek9289]

God bless you, Erik.

[@Gesu_Re_dei_re]

Keep up the good work brother ✝️

[@truthmatters7573]

Another succinct yet information dense explanation. Thank you :) (and I love the memes, btw)

[@TrivialCoincidence]

These shorter videos are great. Keep them coming!

[@uncensoredpilgrims]

I'd appreciate it if you were to upload a long version of all these little 3 or 4 minute videos put together!

[@TestifyApologetics]

I'm considering it.

[@macwade2755]

Great video Testify! God bless you!

[@Makaneek5060]

This is not IP but I'm sure he'd be flattered.

[@Wicked_Weavile0808]

I have a question, in Mathew 27 52 it states that many bodies of the saints were risen, i was wondering how many bodies you think he is referring too?

[@TestifyApologetics]

Probably just a handful. I have a video on the topic. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4XTm3qhqaeMms0

[@MrMortal_Ra]

Are you familiar with Michael Leconas take in this claim by Matthew? Michael take’s the viewpoint that this is most likely not to be taken literally, but as Jewish apocalyptic language to emphasise and make clear that the main event at hand (in this case the resurrection of Jesus) was the tip of the day. In other words, Matthew was simply just using apocalypse Jewish language to empathise the importance and amazement of the resurrection of Jesus to his audience. Other examples of apocalyptic Jewish language not meant to be taken literally, include the olivet discourse where Jesus says: “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.” (Matthew 24:29). The latter is also said in Isaiah, “"For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light." (Isaiah 13:10). Revelation 6:12-13: "When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and there came a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its winter fruit when shaken by a gale." However, I myself I am not that well read into Michaels argument I am only familiar with it enough to point out.

[@BKNeifert]

I wrote a midrash about St. Jude. Most of my knowledge of Rome came from listening to details from sermons, but the one thing, about the bright lit room with the oil paraffin I saw in something like a daydream. I constructed elements of Jesus' life from the Psalms, and didn't give Jesus any dialogue not found in scripture. Except the end where He warns of men pretending to be Him, because I fear people being led astray by a man claiming to be God who isn't.

[@addersrinseandclean]

Thank you, Keep up the good work

[@BKNeifert]

Well he knew Paul. He was with him on the journey.

[@jimjuri6490]

Luke accompanied Paul on some of his trip. Luke was a historian who wrote the Acts of the Apostles. What need was there for Luke to borrow from Paul's letters to the Congregations?

[@dave6548]

NT skeptics' lil Texas Two-Step between "hopelessly contradictory" and "cleverly contrived" is almost amusing to watch at this point-- just pick one lol

[@fakepolymathy]

1:51 Nusret 🤣 (Nusret sprinkles salt, btw not spice)

[@1001011011010]

Will your future video address why the author of Acts would NOT mention Paul's excursion to Arabia, if he were Paul's companion? The way I see it, likely either he didn't know enough about it (which on the companion hypothesis seems unlikely) to mention, or he felt it was not expedient or fitting to speak about.

[@TestifyApologetics]

It's hard to say for sure but Luke skips large gaps of time in other portions of his writing. There's so much positive evidence for him being with Paul that his silence on the Arabia trip is a weak objection

[@1001011011010]

@@TestifyApologetics I didn't mean for it to be an argument against his being a companion, but it's also true that this may not be a very strong argument against other authorship hypotheses. While your video argues against the author just making stuff up, I think a more realistic alternative possibility would be that the one writing a history (Acts) was working as a historian, using sources, potentially (some) sources we don't have access to anymore, like eye witnesses or else oral stories about ie Paul. In this case, maybe he just didn't have any Arabian sources to tell him about what happened, so the author didn't feel he had enough info to write about it. Or, of course, maybe he just didn't find it expedient or worth to write about. This would work for the companion hypothesis as well. Sorry if you find these sorts of comments annoying!

[@seanhogan6893]

@@1001011011010 The author of Luke / Acts is fully capable of using days, weeks, years, so I think the straight-forward interpretation is that he didn't know about the three years in Arabia. But why should he, even if he was a travelling companion of Paul some 15 years later. I don't fully understand why we would expect Acts to line up neatly with Paul's letters anyway - do we presume Paul and his associates had infallible memories when they wrote things down? 1 Corinthians 1;16 is definitely an afterthought. Paraphrasing: I'm glad I didn't baptize any of you - wait, except Crispus and Gaius - so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. Oh yeah, and I did baptize the household of Stephanas. But just them. Anyway, I can't remember baptizing anyone else.

[@1001011011010]

@@seanhogan6893 Well yeah, exactly, the author doesn't really need to talk about it. I think I already agreed with this. The video brings it up as a proof against copying from Paul's letters, but I want to encourage thinking about what this really demonstrates for different authorship hypotheses. Perhaps I am being too strong about calling it unlikely if he is a traveling companion to not know about it, but then if he knew about all these events described surrounding the years in Arabia, and if he really knew him, you'd think he may hear some stories from these years of this guy's life. 3 years is, like, the entirety of Jesus' public ministry. You could expect a good amount of stories from 3 years abroad preaching. It would be at least a little weird to not know anything about it, unless you weren't THAT close of a companion. But then, why would he have such knowledge of the events surrounding the Arabian trip but not the Arabian trip itself, if that's the case? I'm not saying we cannot think of possibilities to explain this. We can. Perhaps something happened during the trip, and Paul did NOT like to talk about it at all. Etc. But it's also possible the author didn't want to talk about it. Perhaps he didn't know about it to talk about it, or perhaps he just didn't think it was important and it wasn't worth it to use up precious writing materials on it. IDK. But IF the author didn't know about it (which is an "if", to be sure!) then I would think it would make the personal companion hypothesis at least somewhat less likely. It wouldn't disprove it, of course, as I have already explained plausibly why he may not have known about it even if he were Paul's companion. But I do think it makes it less likley. Keep in mind this is IF he did not know, which isn't certain.

[@truthmatters7573]

I think you're forgetting that Luke *became* Paul's traveling companion. He was not Paul's travel companion from eternity past on into eternity future. So when did Luke become Paul's traveling companion? Luke probably met Paul some time after his conversion. Any history prior to that (which would likely include the trip to Arabia and to Damascus and the first post conversion trip to Jerusalem) would most likely not have been first hand knowledge from Luke. For these stories Luke would have relied on witnesses (such as Paul himself or the other apostles) the same way he did when writing the Gospel of Luke. So then why the silence about Arabia? It seems like either (1) Paul didn't think it was worth mentioning to Luke (making it so Luke didn't know about it) (2) or Luke didn't think it was worth including, because the trip simply wasn't that eventful or consequential. If the author of Acts was reliant on the letters of Paul and writing much later, however, then the fear that an omission of such details found in Paul's letters could be construed as a contradiction and thus undermine the credibility of his writing would drive the author to stick as closely as possible to the known facts from Paul's letters. This is especially the case given the enormous skepticism from early Christians towards unknown works that appeared late. Christians were aware of the possibility of forgeries and only trusted early works with known apostolic origins, rejecting anything that suddenly appeared but was previously unheard of in the churches.

[@Draezeth]

This is an argument people make? Man, how desperate can skeptics get to try to prove the Bible wrong?

[@DLAbaoaqu]

Dark, swirling tempests loom o’er the Faithful, Godless aggression stares us coldly in the face We fear neither death, nor incarceration We raise the flag of our fire-tested Faith! |: Lift up the banner every Christian, Shoulder to shoulder, my comrades, we march! The vic’try of science and our religion, Will echo like thunder from atop of the arch! :| Lies of a war betwixt Christians and science, Myths used to vilify the faithful whom they fear. They want your silence, so shout in defiance, Wake! Wake, my comrades for the triumph is near! |: Lift up the banner every Christian, Shoulder to shoulder, my comrades, we march! The vic’try of science and our religion, Will echo like thunder from atop of the arch! :|

[@seanhogan6893]

I don't think (m)any credible scholars claim Acts is completely made up - it seems it is relied on a lot to help with guessing when Paul's letters were written. This is a quote from Ehrman's blog from last year: "I think this is absolutely right, he almost certainly did have sources. It should be clear that he wasn’t simply creating complete fictions about Paul: that there are numerous close parallels in Acts to what Paul has to say about himself. So there is a historical gist to his accounts on some level. At the same time, almost all these parallels also contain striking discrepancies from Paul. So Luke had sources, but the sources were not completely reliable; and he apparently altered them as he saw fit (just as he altered Mark when he was using it)."

[@JM-jj3eg]

Except that Bart hasn't shown a single irreconcilable contradiction between Acts and Paul's letters, or between Luke and Mark.

[@seanhogan6893]

@@JM-jj3eg I think Ehrman's typical approach is to accept the rough consensus until he's investigated more thoroughly. I'm not sure that he has looked into Acts specifically - he might be mostly relying on those with more expertise. He's very open to changing his mind though, and has on several matters, e.g. was Constantine's conversion genuine.