Been doing some research in regards to the "relationship" between OT/NT writings. Currently trying to write up a piece to counter the "eyewitness" claim many apologists use in relationship to Acts 1:1-4 and others (2 Peter 1:16-17 and John 19:35 are used as well): "[T]he internal evidence test reveals individual authors of individual books claiming to be eyewitnesses or to have carefully investigated the truth." These apologists approach the defense of their faith from a fundamentalist evangelical perspective, (willfully) ignoring the scholarly work.
I happen to be a fan of Dr. Robert M. Price (the Bible Geek), below is a "transcript" of a 2008 podcast (0-8:35) specifically dealing with the Lukian passage, which got the ball rolling (in other words RABBIT HOLE). In this cast he mentions a paper he did concerning the NT as OT midrash,
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls lent great impetus to the recognition of the widespread use among New Testament writers of the pesher technique whereby prophetic prooftexts for the divine preordination of recent of events was sought. Slower (but still steady) in coming has been the realization of the wide extent to which the stories comprising the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are themselves the result of haggadic midrash upon stories from the Old Testament (as we may call it here in view of the Christian perspective on the Jewish canon that concerns us). The New Testament writers partook of a social and religious environment in which currents of Hellenism and Judaism flowed together and interpenetrated in numerous surprising ways, the result of which was not merely the use of several versions of the Old Testament texts, in various languages, but also the easy switching back and forth between Jewish and Greek sources like Euripides, Homer, and Mystery Religion traditions.which is a new way (for me) of looking at the genesis of the NT gospel narratives.
The original question as posed to Price:
If authentic do you think the author is guilty or innocent? By innocent I mean does the author think his sources are historical in nature having genuine historical information to add from his "eyewitnesses and servants [ministers] of the word" or is he guilty in the sense of being one of the earliest known Jesus historicists who knowingly takes symbolic source stories and construes them as a Jesus biography?RP: The passage is an addition in the sense that I'm convinced that canonical Luke, catholic Luke is a worked over padded out addition of the gospel first used by the Marcionites. The so called Gospel of the Lord, Gospel of Marcion, whomever wrote it (we don't know.) That version certainly did lack this, and probably began with the syncronism, as it's called, chapter 3:
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught [informed].
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,,,That's were the gospel first started. Hans Conselmann first pointed that out, he didn't think/believe that Marcion's version was the original, but even he for other reasons thought that chapter 1 and 2 were later add-ons. I think they have been added on as well as a lot of other material plus the whole book of Acts by our buddy Polycarp of Smyrna and that he was writing to Theopolis of Antioch, a fellow 2nd century bishop.
Whether he was innocent, did he believe this stuff was true? No doubt that he did. Was he engaged in double think? Did he realize that he had altered things and how could he believe they were accurate if he altered them? He probably thought that he was restoring the truth. He no doubt seriously believed that Marcion had abridged a gospel that was catholic leaning. I don't think was true (in regards to M) but he (Luke) probably did. And so he figured he was restoring what the gospel must have said or what it really meant.
Where he got that stuff, I doubt that he made up the first couple of chapters. They're not like the book of Acts exactly, which he did construct. These first 2 chapters seem to be based on Aramaic originals, at least in the case of the John the Baptist nativity. It's possible that Polycarp then sort of xeroxed it, paraphrased it as a Jesus Nativity; inter-spliced them as we now read it. He based, I think, it on an independent John the Baptist nativity circulated by those who believed in a John the Baptist.
I imagine that he figured, that yes it is all true, that it was literally true. His reason for thinking that would not be historical in nature in terms of our view of history, a scientific critical view of history. But I doubt that he was actually foisting some sort of a scam (though it not above people to do that) in the ancient and modern churches to engage in pious fraud but one need not assume that was occurring. Take for example, Matthew, who generates so much of his story based on what he thinks the OT predicted therefore must have happened. Our gripe with him is epistemological, not ethical. We dont think one can get facts that way. It's like the Aquarian Gospel of Levi Dowling. Where does he get this stuff, he thinks he is getting it from the Akashic Records. I say he is getting it from his imagination, BUT he is not lying about it.
It is the same thing here. In so far, more or less, the whole gospel narrative, does matter which one your talking about, it is derived from OT passages as I have tried to show in my essay New Testament Narrative as OT Midrash. But again, it is an epistemology. Once you came to believe that Jesus was a recent historical figure (a flesh and blood human being) and you decided when he must have lived, then you go to the scriptures to determine what must have happened and you crack the code as you believe to get that information. So they figured they could rewrite these OT passages to yield the facts of what had happened with Jesus.
We'd never do that. I don't think they were necessarily deceptive. It's a mind game and it would never count as history today. Apologists don't want to admit things like that happened, they are too modern to accept something like that though some of them still do it. Have you ever heard some say- well, Jesus must have had a beard just like in the Sunday school books because doesn't the prophecy say "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting." (Isa 50:6, KJV) Since "we" know that has to be a prediction of Jesus, Jesus must have had a beard. People still do that. Though they don't think they should if they really thought about it.
The fact that "these guys" did, I don't think you can accuse them of lying about it. Not that there isn't some prevaricating in the NT. There is a much bigger gap and we think automatically, deception and posture because we find it hard to believe the processes of the ancients some times.
Luke's Preface
