TILL
It is remarkable how would-be biblical apologists keep rehashing arguments
that have been discredited over and over. I have snipped the above from
Walid's latest and will respond to the rest of the posting as time permits.
It just so happens that a preacher on Jerry McDonald's list claimed
remarkable historical accuracy in Luke's writings. The following is what I
sent in response to it last night. Perhaps Walid would care to respond to
what I said about Sir William Ramsay.
>CARRELL
>> Luke, writer of Acts is recognized as a historian par excellent.
>
>TILL
>Oh, he is? By whom? I suppose now that we can expect to hear Carrell tell
us all about Sir William Ramsay, who was converted from a skeptical view of
the NT after extensive research into Near-Eastern history, which included
studies in the book of Acts. Ramsay said that the writer Luke demonstrated
"authority for topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor." In my
debate on the resurrection at Columbus College, Dr. Norman Geisler ascribed
this quotation to Ramsay: "It was gradually borne in upon me that in
various details the narrative showed marvelous truth." Geisler then claimed
that "(a)s a result, Ramsay discovered that Luke was a first-rate
historian," which, I suppose, would be equivalent to saying that Luke was a
"historian par excellent" [sic], as Carrell is now claiming. Geisler's own
conclusion from Ramsay's evaluation of Luke's writing was this: "In Luke's
references to 32 countries, to 44 cities, and 9 islands, there were no
errors. This being the case, Luke's prior narration of Christ's death and
resurrection (which are integral parts of his Gospel) should be accepted as
authentic as well. And since it is in accord with that of the other Gospels
on the basic facts about the death and resurrection of Christ we have here
an archaeological confirmation of the basic historicity of these documents
on these essential facts" (excerpted from Geisler's first speech, Columbus
College, Columbus, GA, March 1994, transcript by *Apologetics Press, Inc.).
>
>Of course, we can't hold Carrell responsible for what Geisler may think,
but I suspect that Carrell's reasons for thinking that Luke was a "historian
par excellent" [sic] are similar to Geisler's. So let's look at what we
have here. In the first place, Sir William Ramsay was a chemist and
evidently an exceptional one, because he discovered the line spectrum of
helium in uranium and was a co-discoverer of argon, neon, krypton and Xenon.
In 1904, he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. I bring this information into
the discussion to point out that Ramsay's real credentials were in chemistry
and not history. At any rate, if Geisler quoted Ramsay correctly, Ramsay
was impressed with the accuracy of Luke in "topography, antiquities, and the
sociology of Asia Minor." I have heard fundamentalists cite Sir William
Ramsay's opinion of Luke many times, but I have yet to hear any of them
refer to any supernatural event that Luke recorded in either Acts or his
gospel that has been confirmed by extrabiblical historians or documents
convincingly enough to give credibility to the many extraordinary,
supernatural claims that Luke recorded in either Acts or his gospel. To the
contrary, these praises about Luke's accuracy as a historian always concern
topograpy or his descriptions of social life or such like, ALL OF WHICH ARE
VERY ORDINARY MATTERS that in no way involve the extraordinary or
supernatural. So if Luke was such an amazingly accurate historian, I would
think that this opinion of him would also be based on convincing
confirmation of at least some of the supernatural claims that we find in his
works. Maybe Bill Carrell will tell us, then, which of the following
extraordinary claims in the book of Acts have been extrabiblically confirmed
convincingly enough to establish Luke's credentials as a "historian par
excellent" [sic]?
>
>1. Was it the ascension of Jesus recorded in Acts 1:6-11?
>
>2. Was it the baptism of the apostles in the Holy Spirit on the day of
Pentecost (2:1-4)?
>
>3. Was it the apostles' speaking in tongues on the day of Pentecost (2:4)?
>
>4. Was it Peter's healing of the lame man at a door of the temple (3:2-10)?
>
>5. Was it Peter's striking Ananias and Sapphira dead (5:1-11)?
>
>6. Was it the laying on of the apostles' hands that impressed Simon the
Sorcerer so much that he offered the apostles money for the same gift (8:14-18)?
>
>7. Was it Paul's vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9, 22, 26)?
>
>8. Was it Peter's raising Dorcas from the dead (9:39-41)?
>
>9. Was it the vision in which Cornelius saw an angel telling him to send
men to Joppa to bring Peter to him (10:1-8)?
>
>10. Was it the trance that Peter fell into on his housetop in which he saw
a vision of the great sheet containing animals of all kinds (10:9-16)?
>
>11. Was it the "Spirit" telling Peter that he should go with the men who
had been sent by Cornelius (10:19)?
>
>12. Was it the incident where the chains fell off Peter's hands while he
was in prison and an angel led him by all the guards without being seen and
finally to the gate that opened of its own accord (12:5-10)?
>
>13. Was it the incident where an angel of the Lord struck Herod, who was
then eaten of worms and "gave up the ghost" (12:22-23)?
>
>14. Was it the Holy Spirit speaking to the prophets and teachers at the
church in Antioch to tell them to separate Paul and Barnabas for the work
that the Holy Spirit had called them into (13:1-3)?
>
>15. Was it Paul's striking Elymas the sorcerer blind (13:4-12)?
>
>16. Was it Paul's healing the lame man at Lystra (14:8-10)?
>
>17. Was it the vision of the Macedonia call that Paul received (16:9-10)?
>
>18. Was it Paul's casting out the spirit of divination from the woman in
Philippi (16:16-18)?
>
>19. Was it the earthquake that shook all the doors of the prison open when
Paul and Silas were in jail at Philippi (16:25-26)?
>
>20. Was it the special miracles that God worked through Paul so that the
sick who carried away from his body handkerchiefs or aprons were cured of
their diseases and the evil spirits went out of them (19:11)?
>
>21. Was it the case of the man possessed of the evil spirit that leaped
upon the sons of Sceva and mastered them when they tried to cast the spirit
out of the man (19:13-15)?
>
>22. Was it Paul's raising from the dead the young man Eutychus, who went
to sleep while Paul was preaching and fell from an upper chamber window and
killed himself (20:7-11)?
>
>23. Was it the case of the disciples at Tyre who said to Paul "through the
Spirit that he should not set foot in Jerusalem" (21:4)?
>
>24. Was it the case of Philip the evangelist in Caesarea, who had the four
daughters who prophesied (21:9)? (By the way, did these daughters have to
keep silence if the urge to prophesy struck them while they were in church?)
>
>25. Was it the case of the angel who appeared to Paul during the storm at
sea and told him that there would be no loss of life but only the loss of
the ship (27:22-24)?
>
>26. Was it the case of the viper, which Paul shook off without harm when
he was shipwrecked (28:3-6)?
>
>Now these are all extraordinary claims that Luke made in just the book of
Acts. Let Carrell please tell us which one or ones of these have been
verified by corroborating evidence. If none have, then on what basis does
Carrell say that Luke was a historian "par excellent" [sic]? Is he taking
the same position that Geisler and apparently Sir William Ramsay did, that
Luke's accuracy in ordinary matters like typography, geography, and
contemporary social conditions is reason enough to believe that Luke's
narration of extraordinary, supernatural claims "should be accepted as
authentic as well"? If so, I would like to hear his rationale for such a
bizarre conclusion as this. What he is saying is that not a single
extrabiblical writer or document corroborates any of the many extraordinary
claims that Luke made, but we should believe them anyway, because Luke was
accurate in his geography.
>
>Now if Carrell wants to stick to his position about Luke's historical
accuracy, I will gladly identify some historical claims that Luke made that
weren't so accurate.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net