Is Acts Historically Reliable? A Conversation with Craig Keener

I would like to welcome you and thank you for joining us I have a special privilege tonight of interviewing a friend of mine Craig keener who is hands down one of the leading New Testament scholars of our day we're going to talk about he's written a four-volume commentary on the book of Acts but even more recently it actually officially releases tomorrow has a one-volume commentary on Acts with Cambridge Press and I appreciate you sending me an early copy of this and I have read through almost all of it it's 600 pages so it's scholarly but it's actually very very readable you've done a wonderful job of summarizing things up for pastors and for students and for people who just want a little bit of depth in the book so we're gonna spend our time looking at the apologetic issues of this and unpack it and then at the end if we have time we're gonna take some questions dr. keener so write your questions down and then feel free to add them in the comments as we get to the end but first if you're new to the channel make sure you hit the subscribe button because we have some other interviews coming up like this relate to apologetics and theology you will not want to miss well one of the things I appreciate you about you so much dr. Keener's you have a brilliant mind God has just given you a razor-sharp intellect unparalleled work ethic I know how hard you work but also you just have a heart for the church and for the lost and I know a lot of that comes out of your experience being an atheist and then coming to faith so would you start by sharing your story before we jump into the book of Acts sure of course you have a lot of conversions in the book of Acts and some of them are pretty dramatic mine wasn't like the Apostle Paul were you know he he saw the Risen Jesus you know fully but you know I when I was Nathan I was at the beginning I was pretty smug about my atheism I was like well these Christians they're stupid I said awful thing I made fun of Christians to their face even but then not all of them I mean some of them were just so nice it was really hard to be mean to them but but then and then I started thinking about eternal questions reading Plato always started thinking about the immortality of the soul and I wasn't really satisfied with the way you argued for it but I started thinking about you know what's going to happen when I die and there was no meaning at all in my own worldview and so I began saying you know if there's something infinite out there it also happens to be caring enough please show me but I really didn't know if it could ever happen but anyway some people brought me the gospel I argued with him for 45 minutes they weren't really trained in apologetics so you know I argued with them I walked off but the Holy Spirit took it from there and I was so overwhelmed with conviction from the Holy Spirit over the next hour or so it finally I just collapsed my knees because the rod was in the room with me and there was no way I could I could deny his presence that wasn't the kind of evidence from which I've been asking but it was more real than and so finally I said okay God if I don't understand of Jesus dying and rising from the dead how that makes me right with you but if that's what you're saying I'll believe it but God I don't know how to be made right with you so if you want to do it you have to do it for me yourself and all of a sudden I felt something rushing through my body like I've never felt before it jumped up really fast and I was like wow you know I'd always said these Christians are foolish because they don't live like they believe there's a god if I ever believed there was a god or we give God everything Wow well I don't understand what just happened to me but I believe there's a god now and I'm gonna give God my life that is beautiful I love that you describe how these people weren't even always gracious to you in a way they should have been but God still used their efforts and that's an encouragement to all of us I love that story and in in fact in some ways it makes sense that you would love the book of Acts which is about the spirit given that the Spirit of God filled you up at that point of conversion so you've written commentaries on Romans on Galatians the historical Jesus your recent book you sent me Christ a biography but you spent a decade studying the book of Acts tell me why you spent so much time in that book in particular well I was hoping to finish the commentary in two years at the end of two years I felt like I needed just two more years and I kept going like ten years probably would not have some people criticized in my previous books they said well you know you you skip this issue you skip that issue so I decided okay I don't want to skip any issues okay but at the wrong and even then I mean I couldn't deal with everything four thousand five hundred pages like forty five thousand extra biblical ancient references but you know I think with the secondary sources I cited maybe ten thousand or so in a modern scholar he works but that would have been like half of what I could have unearthed if I'd I mean it just there's so much available and then and I loved acts one of the things was you know I do a lot with cultural background that's what I did the background commentary yeah and acts you know is just bursting with stuff where we're background is really important who who is Herod Agrippa who is who is you know this other person so there was a lot of that but also it was very meaningful to me mmm my earliest most of my earliest Christian life was spent in Pentecostal circles to where this is like so exciting yeah right right and there's so much about the Holy Spirit in acts and and just it's an exciting book you know mark is what I'm working on now landmark you know the theme is suffering it climaxes in the cross and that that's become very dear to me as well but Acts is like upbeat it even has not be tending you know but you know and it's about mission it's about going out and reaching the world for Jesus and how the Holy Spirit empowers us to do that it even kicks us off the seat of our pants sometimes to get us to do it yeah well I love it well I've got a ton of questions for you and maybe we'll kind of do these rapid-fire not like 10 seconds but there's a lot of apologetic and difficult questions that come up and one of the things that I read this and felt like I should have known this long before is that the story we often tell is that Saul changed his name to Paul at his conversion but the conversion is first told in chapter 9 he doesn't really start using Paul until chapter 13 for a different reason can you explain that to us because Paul was born as a Roman citizen he would have a Roman citizen named trio nomina it's really three names and one of them the kaga man that'd be the one he'd go by was Paulus or Paul we say and you know that's that's not really something you want to go by in Jerusalem but when he gets out and begins ministering among Gentiles and especially among Romans you know they'd be impressed hey this is a fellow Roman he's Jewish but you know he's okay because he's Roman and so they would you know even if they didn't you know they were a little bit anti-jewish they they could still listen to to Paul so it was it was the appropriate time for him to use it to begin reaching these Gentiles that is really really fascinating well let's jump into the dating of Acts now one of the common apologetic arguments that is made is that Acts ends essentially with Paul on trial before he dies and before the destruction of Jerusalem so just like if you had a history book written before that doesn't include 9/11 you'd assume it was written before this does include the destruction of the temple so acts motives must have been written before yet you don't accept that tell us why you don't find that compelling and when you date acts - okay sure FF Bruce was a major influence and a lot of people accepting that but in the third and final edition of his acts commentary he actually changed his view regarding that is an insufficient argument in dating acts after 70 so you know you can write a book where you're writing on a particular topic say if you're writing a biography of Martin Luther you can be writing well after 9/11 but you're not going to include 9/11 if you're writing a biography of Martin Luther King jr. you probably won't say anything about 9/11 either because you know your story is going to end before you get to that point if Luke is writing a history of Christian mission in terms of how the Apostolic mission gets to Rome he's got there in Acts chapter 28 he doesn't have to keep going and especially if he wants to have an upbeat ending you don't want to end on Paul's death which wouldn't actually be you know he parallels the Gospel of Luke in the book of Acts a lot but the book the Gospel of Luke has not been ending - I mean you know mark has this massive chapter on on Jesus crucifixion and and just like eight verses afterwards for the you know the risen Christ Luke has this massive chapter Luke chapter 24 is quite long about about Jesus resurrection appearances and so on very upbeat ending and acts also is going to have an upbeat ending after Paul's great danger at sea and so on the reason that I date it later you know mark 13 I mark before 70 okay well for 70 because you know mark 13 if somebody were writing after the events they would much more clearly differentiate between the destruction of the temple and the second coming and in in mark you can differentiate it but it's not clearly differentiated okay so unless you're after the fact you wouldn't but Matthew and Luke both make it very clear I mean in Luke you know see Jerusalem surrounded by armies I mean that's you know after seven it's a perspective that makes sense after 70 so it's true those things could be prophesied in advance I mean and Moses could have written Deuteronomy 34 by prophesying is death and the third person in advance sure sure God can make this thing sound yeah but it's not the it's not the simplest explanation for what we have there and a lot of Acts actually looks like it's looking back on not only do you have Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple more than once you know Luke 19 as well as Luke 21 and so forth but also in Acts chapter 21 Paul's final speech in the temple is almost a call to turn away from this strife with the Gentiles this conflict for the Gentiles because of where it's going and after 70 that would really be meaningful to the audience but that's not a sure reason to date it after 70 if you want to know why I don't date it later I can give you that also yeah tell me I'd be interested because I know the standard dating you say is kind of 70s and then a few in the 90s but probably most in the 80s most scholars but yeah is that right yeah that's that's true yeah and I and I would I place it like around the mid 70s okay that's never take a few years I mean it's it's it's an estimate but you know the main charge against Paul in acts chapter 24 verse 5 again responding to which he'd nice to do apologetic is that Paul has stirred up riots he stirred up sedition which was a capital charge mm-hmm and in Luke defense Paul against that charge has these extensive defense speeches Paul and Roman custody takes up the final quarter of the book of Acts which is very relevant I mean you're your leader Jesus of Nazareth was executed in the cross and now the leader of the Diaspora mission Paul has also been executed or if it's you know before Paul's death that is being written you say at least he's in Rome in custody so the final quarter of the book of Acts is dealing with that and also Luke reports all these riots surrounding Paul now you're writing an apologetic to show that Paul didn't cause the riots why even mention the riots I mean we know from lists of sufferings in 2nd Corinthians 11 Luke doesn't even mention a quarter of them hey it can only sample them why does he mention all these riots in these cities presumably because people remembered these riots this is still fairly soon after the events and and so Luke goes to show that no Paul didn't cause these riots but these are still these are still fairly recent memory and another reason I hate it fairly early is because of the we material which maybe we'll talk about later oh yes I definitely want to get into some of the some of the we material in fact let's just jump in and and do it right now we might as well so that the we material is some of the passages where there's more historical detail and it's argued that Paul is a companion or Lucas a companion of Paul thus he has greater detail in those passages now you write in the commentary that most scholars accept that can you can you unpack that for us and why that's so significant most being being a majority not like a massive majority this one is kind of this one is pretty debated but the majority of scholars think that either Luke or his source in the way material was a traveling companion at Paul and even detractors of that view usually the ones who have researched it a lot acknowledge that that that's a majority of scholars to say that um I think there's really good reason for saying that you know Luke in these passages starting at chapter 16 and verse 10 says we and normally we back then meant what we means today means you know I plus somebody else and some people think it's a fictitious week if you're gonna make up a week why not make it up at the empty tomb why not make it up at Pentecost why wait and why just is a kind of a walk-on character you know he he's there as a traveling companion with Paul he's involved in the action occasionally like helps interpret Paul's a night vision in Acts chapter 16 verse verse 10 a thereabouts but and also the the we appears going going with Paul from Troilus to Philippi and then when Paul leaves Philippi the we ends in chapter 16 but when Paul comes back to Philippi in chapter 20 the we picks up again as follows him through the end of the book of Acts the the we is not trying to emphasize his presence but you know actually ancient historians could could use either first person or third person or both so you know Luke could have could have said I and the name the other people it was simply it was more simple it was greater economy of words to simply say we so he's not emphasizing his presence but he's including his presence and whenever historians did that they actually meant they were there people have tried to argue against that but I mean I've read ancient historians I mean I think I've read well I don't know if I dare say all Asian historians but all ancient historians from this period whose writings are extant in sufficient quantity that we can okay but when they said when they used the first person they meant they were there okay so so if I understand you correctly the we passages have more detail than some of the other passages which makes sense if there was an eyewitness it also doesn't seem forced like he's setting something up it's just for economy of words to start using we and other times I and when you look at other sources of the day that's how language was used when you had a companion that came with you yeah I mean he he uses first-person singular in his historical preface in Luke 1 1 2 4 but he uses the first-person plural when he actually becomes part of the story in acts 16 and then 20 through 28 okay let's take a step back here for a second because this is a piece of a larger question related to Acts namely its historicity tell me if you are going to assess this as a scholar compared to other ancient writings at the time how would you how much confidence would you say we can have in the book of Acts purely as a historical document oh by the standards of ancient historiography major confidence when I say ancient historiography they wrote in a different way the modern historians did but you take those things into account yeah major confidence okay that so if you look at history today would you lower that or is that just an unfair comparison to ask about Acts compared the way history is done today it's it's not fair comparison in the sense that you just have to take into account the differences of what to expect so in ancient us you could have speeches nobody expected them to be verbatim you did your best to reconstruct the substance of what the person would have said okay depending how much information you had about what they what they did say but you know those kind of things if you take those into account yeah it's it's you could have major confidence in it ancient historians talked about their trade that they were supposed to deal in facts and not make things up very different from another narrative genre namely epic poetry so like the Iliad or the Odyssey the other mates are works of antiquity and you know they made that distinction history and biography were on well we're supposed to be on that side of the continuum there was some who took a bit more liberties but in this period and especially with the the norms that were expected yeah you you would expect it to be it wasn't just historians I said this it was also auditors and others speaking about historians saying this is what they're supposed to do somebody veered from that too much their peers would rip them to shreds they would call him on it in ancient history I've seen you write that a number of times that there was a kind of peer review built-in for those who are just joining us we are talking about a dr. Craig Keener's latest commentary and acts with Cambridge it officially releases tomorrow and I've almost read all of it and it's very readable very well researched just an excellent tool for pastors for apologists for students that want to go a little bit deeper so you said we can have major competence and acts as a historical source tell me just kind of broadly speaking what are the big categories in areas that you would say gives you that kind of confidence compared to other sources of the day sure I mean one of them is it's writing fairly contemporary history for which the expectations for historical reliability were considered very fairly high another you've got the eyewitness material the we material and so you know he direct contact with this movement and the we material shows that he spent up to two years in Judea which would have given him plenty of access to material for his first volume in addition to be able to able to use mark and some of the other mentions a number of sources available to him and Luke chapter one ability to consult my witnesses and but especially dealing with that you know if he's a traveling companion appalled he's probably heard these stories more than once Paul tells some of the stories in his letters and we have overlap in fact we can make a lot of comparisons between Acts and Paul and also especially once it gets out into the Diaspora but even even in Jerusalem a lot of the material we have an axe can be tested archaeologically it can be tested you know the the temple the the steps in the outer court you have an axe 21 and so forth a lot of it can be tested with regard to what we know from external historical sources the Sir Guy Paul II I are attested in the the region of Asia Minor where Paul went next after meeting Sergius Paulus probably the win students even though Luke doesn't doesn't directly make that connection he he not only gets correct the local titles of leaders in various cities which you know somebody would have to travel to the cities to get that so hey maybe his source Paul did that uh but also he gets correct the names in the right period I mean Gallio was governor of Akaya for about one year didn't even serve out his full two-year term but at the time that an inscription shows that Gallio was in Corinth that's when acts 18 places Paul before Gallio same with Felix and Festus I mean so many of the details fit together Felix over the course of time was married to three different princesses but we notice from Josephus and maybe Tacitus mentions some of that but Tacitus definitely mentions Felix but Josephus mentions the three different wives at different times the one it precisely this time with Drusilla who's the one who's mentioned in this narrative Wow I mean so many things fit in the people their character fits what we know about them from other sources to obviously everybody writes from a different perspective and you know Paul in his letters is writing about his experiences from a different perspective than Lucas nobody says Paul wrote the book of Acts but but it's you know that where we can test it you know it's 2,000 years later so we can't expect every detail to be verifiable we can't expect every detail with our best reconstruction to match but given you know comparing without sources even comparing with Josephus I mean Josephus makes a number of mistakes contradicts even himself at times but we have in in what we have in Acts is even more I would say I would trust Luke up against any interest that's excellent to hear given how much time you've studied with this I want to give a shout out we have Tony all the way from Australia nice to have you Leslie good to see you from our program at Biola he does our college ethics program just doing great work and so many others we're gonna get to some of these questions as we get to the end but let's talk about Josephus for a moment couple weeks ago I had a debate on the Apostles with kind of a popular youtuber a really nice guy and he made the claim that Luke probably borrowed from Josephus and copied from him and two things hit my mind number one I said well if he did then it seems that that would be credit towards him because he says he uses many sources and Josephus is a good source but I'm pretty sure that's a really fringe position how many people accept scholarly do they have good reasons to think that of Acts was borrowed from Josephus in terms of how many it depends as of a few years ago when Richard pervo who holds a second century date for Acts when he wrote about summarizing the different positions between 60 well know between 70 and 90 was the majority position the 60s was the second leading position the 90s was the third leading in the second century was the smallest now since that time the second century has grown not sure if that's been more at the expense of the 90s or which but the majority of scholars still date acts too early to be dependent on Josephus now the places where he's most often alleged to be dependent on Josephus and I apologize because the Sun coming through my window it looks like I'm being transfigured just slowly before you but it's uh I don't know I don't know a way to fix that maybe you know what you're fine we're talking about Acts so I just assume the Holy Spirit was just descending on you doctor yes it is no problem the tongues of fire but anyway um but the the places where Luke is supposed to be most dependent on Josephus they actually don't agree with each other hmm and so and here's the other thing for even alleging dependence on Josephus I mean there's a ball park core agreement but that should be what you would expect unless Josephus is making stuff up if Josephus isn't making up these events that he's narrating then then the history of these events can also be available to other people who lived in that area Luke could have gotten it from other oral or written sources he doesn't have to depend on Josephus whose publication actually even even once he publishes his material in the 90s it takes time for it to get out it circulated first among the elite so yeah I would I think Luke is writing well before juiciness okay that that makes sense that's that's really helpful um how much confidence can we have that Luke is actually the author of acts what we have from the we material I mentioned earlier there's an eyewitness and and I'm pretty strong on that I think that most of the people who deny that I mean I know they're gay and some things I speak with scholarly consensus and this one I'm speaking just this is me okay but agree with Sir Arthur Darby nock Harvard classicist one of the leading classicists of the 20th century who who said he could think of most one source in historical work that that uses a first-person in an in a fictitious way I mean yeah fictitious works use first-person fictitiously but not not historical works and the strong majority I could say this is a pretty strong consensus it's it's not absolute but the strong majority of scholars take acts to be historical monograph so if if if you know he's using first-person so you've got my witness there the style is really no different some people have argued contrary to that but most of us think the style is the same as the style elsewhere and Luke acts and so that means you've got the same author of the we'd material is the same author of the book now if you go through Paul's lists of those who were with him at the times that are described it pretty much narrows it down to who it could be who's not already named in the book separately now if it you know sometimes they did use third person as well as first person so you could maybe say Timothy but apart from that maybe Titus who's not named but the the most likely one is Luke nobody in the second century when when the Gospels were under attack had reason to make up a non apostle as north of her Gospels so it just makes sense that the the church preserved and within living memory of Luke's writing preserved Luke as the author I think that makes sense what I mean we're I'm firm is it's an eyewitness but process of elimination it makes perfect sense that it's Luke okay that makes sense here's I'm gonna jump to a question because this relates what you shared this is from Jose and he says what does dr. keener think of the theory proposed by Dennis McDonald that mark and Luke and acts use Homer's Iliad to fabricate stories Dennis is my friend Dennis Dennis is brilliant very creative so please don't take this as denigrating Dennis but here I can speak for scholarly consensus I think the vast majority of scholars okay do not agree with him on this um I you know I worked through the different parallels for Acts and sometimes I mean like like where eutychus falls out the window III had already noted the the story in in the Odyssey where it was you preneur open or somebody somebody falls out breaks his neck as an example of people understood that if you fall back then far enough you break your neck but that's not the only case in ancient literature so most of the parallels he cites are instances where we could cite a whole lot of analogies from an agent literature historical as well as fictitious but where we can test Luke against historical beta it fits in almost every case and what that suggests to me is you know Luke didn't know what ancient documents were going to survive 2,000 years I don't think expected the world to be here in this case in this way in two thousand years or if you know if Luke is accurate where we can test him we ought to expect he's probably equally accurate in the cases where we can't mmm that that's really helpful I appreciate you bringing out in the commentary in multiple times is sometimes don't have a documentation sometimes I don't have the archaeology to check but when we do he consistently matches up with what we actually find by the way it looks like you have a beard right now because the Sun is coming through below your nose ghost that's okay we can still hear you what will work with you it is what it is we're all the destined with this oh there we go actually oh except I don't want you to have to hold your hand up the whole time that'll give you a workout so we'll just keep going as long as you can see in your fine what one of the questions I have I know you've done a ton of work on miracles obviously two-volume set that is brilliant recommend to my students at Biola all the time would you say specifically when there's let me take a step back one of the objections to the miracles is that people say well it's just like magic and we see in acts 19 this case where people are trying to use the name of Jesus as if it's a kind of magic what are the basic differences between the miracles and the signs we see in acts and Beyond and what magic would look like that was actually part of Luke's apologetic I think because you've got contrast with magic with Simon the sorcerer and Acts chapter eight verses 5 to 13 and the Magus Elemis bar Jesus in Acts chapter 13 verses 5 and following you've got and then of course acts 19 with the seven sons of sceva so in all those cases actually in antiquity when they were trying to decide well this is magic and this is a miracle often they started with the premise if it's on our side it's a miracle if it's on the other side it's magic but but they also had some more maybe objective criteria if it's if it's private and it's for the person's own benefit and aggrandize meant then it's magic if it's if it's public then it's then it's a miracle but in the case of of Acts and the the miracles that take place there oh boy there's like lots we could say most of the most of the miracles there they're not things that would be that would just they're not meant to give the person money they're not getting rich off it that's it's one of the contrasts and also their benevolent their helping people they're gay you know ancient magic curses were a big part of it and love magic getting somebody to you know exploit somebody healing was just a small part of that so what we have in in acts and in the Gospels is benevolent and we still have accounts of these things eyewitness accounts and medical documentation for many of these accounts happening today as well same same kinds of things that we have in Acts okay good that's that's helpful let me go there's a couple questions coming up here it says do you think the speech oh there we go that's good do your best work oh now you're completely that's worse completely faded out white like a ghost maybe if you rotate 45 degrees I'm being told here no if I see okay can you still hear me over here we can hear you fine I just want you to become of all it's fun but that's great if you don't mind um / this when it says you think that the speech given in acts 5 by Emilio was made up by Luke or did he get that wrong Thanks ok then and I said we can check things out remember I said almost everything I didn't say everything so by the criteria that we would normally use for evaluating historical sources this would be one of the one of the few exceptions and actually the most blatant exception in the book of Acts that you've got another one that's probably on this level in Luke chapter 2 it doesn't affect the substance of the story it doesn't even affect the point of the speech but it is interesting that this one well this is one of the contradictions with Josephus and I mentioned earlier Josephus is sometimes wrong so you know if we're coming at it from the standpoint and if we believe this is divinely inspired we may say Josephus was wrong however if we're coming at it just from a standpoint of purely historical secular evidence most of the time we'd say Luca gets it right this is one of the few times where you know we we can't say that based on secular historical principles because we would tend it except Josephus on this since it's his special interest but it's one verse or two verses it's thirty-eight and thirty-nine of Acts chapter five and its resting Lee it's in the speech that's behind closed-doors thought the Apostles weren't there to hear no it was given by the teacher of Paul so Paul presumably would have known of this later on and so Luke could have known this had to do with you know revolutionaries comparing Jesus to revolutionaries but the sequence is different from what you have in Josephus it's been addressed a couple ways some people say well it was a different foodists Judas was a common name unfortunately through this was not a common name so I don't think that that personally I'm not persuaded by that I am open to Josephus being wrong but on you know just started just coming at it from secular historiographical grounds this is not one of the places where we can verify Luke okay on this deal but it's again it's a speech and it's behind closed doors which is the least place you would expect an ancient historian to get it exactly right they had more flexibility there than anywhere else he could just be saying okay here here are some examples that you may have heard of so in sum as a whole and we can confirm acts you find that he can Paul Luke consistently gets it right but there's a handful examples that the questioner asked where we can't confirm and historically speaking we just don't know that seems to be a very that seems to be a very fair honest response with a book this long ago I think that that's totally fair one question I got a few other ones for you and then we'll come back to last ten minutes I see some good questions coming through and we'll address these but one question on ask you know I did my my doctoral dissertation on the death of the Apostles and your book on James was very helpful or your book on Acts where you mentioned the death of James how much confidence would you give in his death cited in acts 12 to historically speaking and why I think I think we have good evidence for that I mean you have Peter and John and James the brother of Jesus mentioned in Paul's letters but you you don't have this James and of course James in the New Testament it's really Yong chol boss which is Yoko which is Jacob but I don't know King James wanted his name in the Bible or how we ended up with James would but James Jesus talked about James and John dying that's in the gospel tradition you might expect they would die together but but John apparently lived a long time afterwards but James even though other leading figures among the apostles appear in Paul's letters this one doesn't he he was already dead and you wouldn't expect them to make something like that up when I mean this is one of their major leaders you know kill off one of the minor characters not one of the share of the maintenance okay that makes sense I thought it's interesting when you compare to contrast Stephens death which you think is historical but is very much patterned after the death of Jesus for theological reasons but then the death of James is just reads like a straight and execution account not flowery at all reads historical that was that was my my assessment of it give me a sense of how the book of Acts describes where doesn't describe the deity of Christ so I know you make references to acts 1:8 227 2028 you can take one or all of those but do you think acts teaches a divine Jesus yeah now 2028 the the speaking of the blood of God that there are textual variants there that throw that into some question but okay you know in acts 1:8 you shall be my witnesses in the context that's based on Isaiah so is echoing Isaiah where the Lord God says you shall be my witnesses and then in acts 2 17 and 18 quoting Jul God says I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and then it goes on to say and so Jesus has poured out the Spirit okay of course in the Old Testament it oftens the prophets often spoke of God pouring out the spirit but you don't have God anybody else besides God who could pour out the Spirit of God only God can do that and so it also you have in acts 2:21 or so he's he's he's been he's quoting from Joel he breaks off the quote from Joel at this point whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved and the name of the Lord there is why HWH in Hebrew so it's the tetragram attendance the divine name Peter quotes that and then goes on to argue that the name of the Lord in which were to call and and 2:38 he he climaxes that by saying repent and be baptized in the name of this one is Jesus and and you have you have other other things through there what were Paul experiences of the often II of Jesus in Acts chapter chapter 9 and Jesus Jesus says you know you're persecuting me which fits what he said earlier in the gospel whatever they do to you they've done to me and they've done that the father has sent me but it's also language that was used in the Old Testament where they anyway I'm talking to ya this is fantastic so like John for example the I am statements it's clearly about the identity of Jesus as the Son of God you could argue mark is as well and this is about the advance of the church but it indirectly points out that Jesus is God because things done in the name of God in the Old Testament are now done in the name of Jesus because he is the same God is that fair did I capture how acts portrays Jesus yes yeah okay again taking it as a whole in light of the clearer statements that sheds a light on the on the rest of it as well okay that that's great let me ask you a couple more theological kind of cultural questions you talked about a few times in your commentary again those who are just joining us we're talking about Craig Keener's new commentary that releases tomorrow on Acts it's the new Cambridge Bible commentary so it's his four-volume commentary put into one very readable very understandable I'm almost through it and have enjoyed it immensely but one of the things that you point out here and in the other commentaries is that Luke has a concern for diversity now clearly he wrote this long before the present concern and talked about diversity could you tell us why that's such an important project that just appears so many times in the book of Acts sure I mean in a sense it's what acts is about acts is about mission cross-cultural mission the spirit empowers us for that Jesus is commissioning that at the end of Luke's Gospel and you have hints of it throughout Luke I mean when Simeon speaks of the light to the nation's using the language of Isaiah 42 or in 49 but acts really focuses on that and you find out that even the leading characters some of them are reluctant I mean Peter has to be kind of pushed across those barriers and then has to lead the Jerusalem church across those barriers and the dimension of the Spirit it is strategic in that the Spirit is poured out on all flesh and the implication is that all flesh are fleshed out as that is the book that goes on and then 239 to you to your children to all who are afar off you also have the spirit in 829 telling Philip go up to that chariot and you have the the African court official from the kingdom of meroe and he's actually the first Gentile Christian you you have a proselyte from Antioch in Acts chapter 6 run there's five then you have that then you have this this guy who can't be a full proselyte because he's a eunuch and then in chapter 10 you have a full Gentile and they're the spirit speaks again us in the ten nineteen I believe the spirit says to Peter yeah go down meet these people have sent them to you 15:28 where the spirit says or they they say at the Jerusalem Council that the it seemed good to the Holy Spirit into us we're not going to our circumcision for for Gentiles so God is the one who's pushing this Gentile mission and you know it goes from Jerusalem Judea Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth acts 1:8 and you know even an even in acts 8 when you have the Samaritans who respond to Philips message and it says the Apostles came and laid hands on them that they might receive the Holy Spirit well the significance of that is that in Luke's pneumatology in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8 when the Spirit comes on you you'll be witnesses so in other words they were receiving power not to be okay you are a permission churches we are supervising you know they're receiving power to become partners in the mission partners and ministry so what we have throughout the book of Acts is this cross-cultural direction of the Holy Spirit not requiring circumcision no we're not we're not subjecting you to our culture we're saying whatever culture we go into we're brothers and sisters in Christ we need to be united and Paul took this really strong stand for that that's beautiful it's remarkable to see 2,000 years ago that when the church expands there's a heart and a vision for diversity and seen it as good so I love that you brought that out multiple times in the commentary here's a question from one of our students at Biola that was actually on my list how do you make sense of the three different conversion accounts I believe it's acts 9 22 and 26 about Paul in acts and some say he saw something he didn't say heard didn't hear is this a contradiction how do you reconcile these apparent discrepancies no these are the these are the kind of minut details that ancient historians didn't worry about you know you compare ancient historians you can you can see this the same astoria knighting about the same event multiple times I mean Luke doesn't do it nearly as much as Josephus Josephus okay report in in two different books where he's recounting the same event he'll make up two different speeches for the same the same person so steam yeah so these are these are minor things now there are ways people have found to harmonize them to reconcile them they're possible but again they're not things that I think Luke would have worried about or his audience would have worried about you can see that even between Luke chapter 24 and Acts chapter one where you know he's he's giving the promise of the Spirit is giving the commission now this could be two different occasions but it's also true that often you would end a book and and and begin the sequel to the book with the same scene picking up reading so but the wording is different but I mean that the issue in ancient historiography was getting the core so that's the standard that we look for there they didn't have tape recorders even in societies where we talked about you know somebody to recite these long poems you know four hours in length and they say they do it verbatim once you introduce tape recorders or videos and you you tape them it's not what we call verbatim but you know until it's in print or until it's recorded the standard of verbatim is different from what we mean by verbatim what it simply was not expected in ancient sources so you would take the position I realize this is a theological question but you you would take the position that we should judge these speeches by the goal and purpose and intent for which they were written given the audience the length and the genre so if their surface differences this doesn't take away from an Aaron C because their point is not to describe it in the kind of precision wooden way that some and Aaron says take it is that is that fair to your clinician yeah but but but also keep in mind I'm speaking of minor difference in the same like you know some heard and the others didn't that's that's a minor thing and again there are answers for that taking a position on that or just saying by normal historiographic standards that's that's a might thing I'm not saying you know the core event is not is not solid you know it chorus father and Paul speaks about his own conversion to and from what we see in Galatians you know the areas near Damascus and I mean so much of it we actually can corroborate from from the other sources so yeah yeah you know it also like I mean some of the things people call conflicts or not really conflicts they're just differences differences okay so so one talks more about Ananias than the mother does that's not a conflict that's just a difference gotcha that's great response Pedro says does Professor Keenan work on other books the Bible or only in acts and he does he has a commentary in Galatians that came out recently working on a commentary on mark and I just discovered you have a commentary on Romans from 2009 I'm gonna have to get that so he is pumping out material faster than anybody I know and a lot of that is his work ethic and just love for the scriptures um one more that I want to ask you is how does Acts portray women is it positively is it patriarchal at times how does it portray women this is something that's debated I don't know exactly why it's debated because it seems to me thoroughly obvious I mean mark already gives a higher place to women then you would expect from average in average ancient historians Luke takes it even further in his gospel as well as in the book of Acts if he has a story about a man who often have a story about a woman you know will parallel them you know women do bad things in acts too I mean you've got Ananias and Sapphira and so on but also like Acts chapter 2 verses 17 and 18 your sons and daughters will prophesy is quoting the book of Joel but then you see it fleshed out in Luke acts so for example Simeon and Anna in Luke chapter 2 and then you have Philips Ford waters who prophesy in Acts chapter 21 along with agamous the prophet in that chapter so so women Luke Luke often mentions women he's he's positive but women often speaks of women Congress like Lydia and the women who were with them in ways that weren't considered is worthy of attention in in many ancient historians unless they were high-class women of course people of the high class were always considered important by their peers most historians were sure I my friend here Samuel is in Barcelona or I think it's the middle of the night you joined us I saw your comment on Twitter so we're thrilled you're with us thank you for for taking time what one final question you mentioned that you don't hold the view that your friend McDonald does that the writer of Acts has borrowed from these kind of greco-roman sources but how does ax use the Old Testament do they feel free to restate things take it out of context do they search for stories to fit this narrative they believe about Jesus this will be our final question but I'd love to know how you think he used the book of Acts uses the Old Testament as a source sure I mean of course if they believe Jesus is the fulfillment of the Scriptures they're going to be as they're reading the scriptures they're going to be looking back and saying okay this fits Jesus this fits Jesus but I think Luke really has much more of a sense of context than we often credit him for and and not everything that Luke does is talking about a one-to-one correspondence sometimes he's looking at the principles of the way God acts in history you look at Stevens speech you have Joseph was rejected by his brothers and yet he's raised up to be their deliverer you have Moses who's rejected by his by his people and yet he's raised up to be a deliverer so you have this pattern of rejected deliverers already throughout Israel's history and some of those patterns mean like the pattern you know comparing Joseph and Moses that's already in the penitent that's just good narrative criticism so and and you know the fulfillment of Joel and so on I mean those those are pretty obvious I think Isaiah 53 is fairly obvious it's it's cited in Acts chapter 8 to the African court official so Luke I think handles Scripture pretty well you do have cases in some parts of the New Testament where you know they're dealing a political context somebody's quoting the scripture out of context and they'll quote one back you know that way like you know your mother know your mother proverbs says answer a fool according to their folly but but usually if you look at the context there's a reason for it sometimes it's just an analogy but sometimes it's actually a messianic prophecy or something else I think what James does people often criticize what James the brother of Jesus does in acts 15 where he quotes from amis and it's quoted Mistah to urgent but of course Luke is writing in Greek so you're going to expect me to quote the Septuagint in any case it's a matter of hospitality they've got visitors who are Greek speaking they're the Jerusalem church hosted people who were exclusively Greek speakers and those who spoke Greek and Aramaic so it would be natural for the musically translation but even if they didn't listen Cody but in in acts 15 where he quotes the Septuagint Satou gent translates not Edom but Adam so for all of humanity but even if you even if you say no you can't do that the parallelism shows that he's you know Edom is just an example it's for all the nations so James's application of that fits perfectly restoring the Fallen tent of David if that's referring to the dynasty the Davidic dynasty well I mean if if that prophecy would ever be fulfilled it can't be fulfilled now nobody knows who's descended from David now sure in the first century yes Jesus Jesus fulfilled that so I mean there's so much we could do but yeah and I'm sorry about the light no it's okay are you kidding me we are all adjusting through this whole Cova thing figuring stuff out it's been nice to see the Transfiguration somebody caught me literally got to see Craig keen or transfigured before our eyes so lit up with excitement hey I personally want to thank you for coming on your work is just it's so encouraging to me it's so helpful I look to it regularly in my writing and my speaking in my research and I definitely want to encourage viewers to see this live or later if you want to study the acts in depth pick up a copy of his recent commentary with the Cambridge Bible commentary and just go chapter by chapter in a month you could basically get through it probably 2030 minutes a day and really get a grasp on the book of Acts if you've enjoyed this give us a thumbs up it helps us just kind of spread the word and let other people find out about the channel and if you want to know more about apologetics and theology think about studying with me of Biola we have a distance apologetics program and we go through a lot of the historicity of these issues the Gospels we look at Acts and read books by Keener and by others and also if you're not ready for masters we do have a certificate program we will walk you through just kind of a formal way of learning apologetics in our department and actually for tuning in if you go down the description below there's a discount code for you that'll actually save you a good amount of money so keep dr. King or hang on please don't disappear yet but I want to thank the rest of you and there's no livestream this Sunday but next week have randy alcorn coming on and we're going to talk he's done a lot of work on heaven so we're gonna discuss the book by Bart airmen on heaven and how what we can learn from it and some of the ways that Alcorn sees it a little bit differently so that'll be next Wednesday you will not want to miss that but god bless thanks so much for joining us

Channel: Sean McDowell

Views: 24,049

Keywords: Acts, reliable, trustworthy, historical, historicity, believable, credible, accurate, archaeology, manuscripts, proof, apologetics, discussion, conversation, scholar, commentary, evidence

Id: uSrAbfXmlL0

Length: 62min 0sec (3720 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020