Marduk
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extra-biblical legends
- Thread starter TimCallahan
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pakeha
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A fascinating thread-
I hope you won't forget Joseph of Arimethea (Glastonbury)
And St James (Santiago de Compostela)!
HansMustermann
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Well, in all fairness, Acts uniformly mentions him as "John, who was also called Mark", which could mean a nickname of some sorts. I mean, it's pretty much the same construct as "Mary, who was called Magdalene" in Luke 8:2. Since it's the same Luke, I think he's probably using the construct to mean the same thing.
Of course, that still gets us the problem of a guy with an Aramaic name and a Latin proper name as a nickname. It's kinda like having a guy called, dunno, Robert called Chaoxiang in our days in America. There better be a good story behind that
That said, it's still a funny identification, considering that it's clear that Mark the gospel guy isn't a native of the region, and doesn't know the language, customs or geography of the region at all. Not only that, but he obviously didn't check with anyone who knows. The problem that Mark doesn't know what he's talking about has been obvious to scholars as early as Origen, who concluded that Jesus's travels must be symbolic because otherwise it makes no sense. And arguably as early as Matthew, since the biggest reason for Matthew to write his own modified Mark gospel seems to have been to correct Mark's many many mistakes.
Whereas the guy in Acts is a native.
So, you know, they CAN'T be the same guy.
And it's... interesting to see some scholars who know better, still argue it as the same Mark and thus knowing what he's talking about.
tsig
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Pilate the saint
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church recognized Pilate as a saint in the 6th century, based on the account in the Acts of Pilate,[34] as it does his wife, Claudia Procula, whose strange dream of Christ induced her to try to stop his crucifixion.
Looks like the ultimate "I was a sinner til I found Christ" tale.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church recognized Pilate as a saint in the 6th century, based on the account in the Acts of Pilate,[34] as it does his wife, Claudia Procula, whose strange dream of Christ induced her to try to stop his crucifixion.
Looks like the ultimate "I was a sinner til I found Christ" tale.
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
...
So, yes, inventing extra lore happened a lot. Fanboys tend to do that kinda thing
Or for a trip to bizarro world, you always have The Acts of Paul and Thecla. The main message seems to be, "Sex is bad, so let us write as many scenes about stripping women naked and attempting to have them eaten by wild animals as possible."
Then you realize how well the story ties in with 1 Corinthians...
HansMustermann
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Erk. Now that you mention it...
The_Fire
Unimpressed Female
ETA: Ooops...read "infanfcy" as infanticide......Thus my answer was NOT OT....
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TimCallahan
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You might try reading the Book of Enoch, also called 1 Enoch. The other books of Enoch weren't in sequence, as in 2 Samuel, 2 kings or 2 Chronicles. Some of the later Enoch books were written as late as the fourth century. The original Book of Enoch was written about the same time as the Book of Daniel, ca. 150 BCE. It was one of many apocalyptic works collectively called the pseudepigrapha, from pseudo = "false" + epigraph = "inscription." Hence, the the pseudepigrapha are "falsely inscribed," i.e. falsely attributed to an ancient patriarch. Among these are the Testament of Abraham, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Assumption of Moses.
The Book of Enoch is based on two rather odd passages in Genesis. Among the pre-flood patriarchs who had incredibly long lives there was Enoch, the father of Methuselah. Of his fate Gen. 5:24 says, "Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him." This laconic statement has been taken a number of ways. In the Wisdom of Solomon, another falsely inscribed book, it is implied that God cut Enoch's life short to keep him from being corrupted by the increasing evil of the world that would lead to the flood. Another interpretation was that Enoch did not die, but was bodily assumed into heaven. this assumption into heaven is the basis for Enoch being able to see the revolt of the "watcher" angels.
The second passage on which the book of Enoch is based is Gen. 6:1 - 4:
When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. Then the LORD said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.
Verse 3 in the passage above, which I've hilited, seems intrusive. The rest of the passage deals with the angels desiring mortal women and begetting children on them. As semi-divine beings, these children, like such heros of Greek myth as Heracles and Achilles were, "the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." The fruit of the unions of angels with mortal women are called the Nephilim, a word variously translated as "fallen ones" or "fellers," i.e. tyrants. I've used the Revised Standard Version (RSV) above. In the King James Version (KJV) the verse is translated, "There giants in the earth in those days." Other Bible passages equate the Nephilim with the Anakim, Rephaim, Emim and Zamzumim, all of whom are depicted as giants. Josiphus also refers to the Nephilim as being like the beings the Greeks called giants (gigantes).
In the Book of Enoch, God has given a number of angels the task of watching over the human race, to keep me on the right track. Instead, these watcher angels decide to rebel against God by going down and having sex with mortal women. They also teach men how to make weapons of war, women how to use cosmetics and all the dark arts of divination and astrology. This precipitates war in heaven, and God eventually chains the watcher angels under the earth, much like the titans being chained in Tartarus. The leaders ofthe angelic revolt in Enoch are Shemihazi and Azazel. Satan as a name is an invention of the New Testament.
The canon of the New Testament wasn't finalized until well into the fifth century. We know that the Book of Enoch was part of the Christian scriptures before the finalization of the canon from a number of clues. In the epistle of Jude, which is so short it isn't divided into chapters, verses 14 and 15 say:
It was of these that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads to execute judgment on all, and to convict the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
Since Enoch doesn't have a speaking part in Genesis, his prophecy can only refer to the Book of Enoch. Another reference in Jude to the Book of Enoch is found in verse 6:
And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day.
The angels who left their proper dwelling are the watcher angels who came down to earth to have sex with mortal women.
Until a copy in Aramaic of the Book of Enoch was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the only version available was from the Ethiopian church. When Christian missionaries converted many of the Ethiopians ca. 330, the Bible they brought to the new converts contained the Book of Enoch. So it was part of the (unofficial) scriptures of the Christian church, or at least some branches of it as late as the first third of the fourth century.
The passage in Genesis 6 about the sons of God having sex with the daughters of men smacks a bit too much of pagan myth for many Christians and is the probable reason Enoch was eventually excluded from the Christian canon. What is called the "Sethite Doctrine" is used as a rationalization of the passage. According to this view the "sons of God" are men from the line of Seth, Adam and Eve's third son; while the "daughters of men" are women from the line of Cain. Thus, these Cainite hussies seduced and corrupted these nice Sethite boys. This explantation is accompanied by a vehement denial that the Nephilim were giants. This, in itself, involves extra-biblical myth-making, in this case a myth of monotheism.
As to the revolt of the angels, it isn't really extra-biblical, since it is alluded to in the Book of Revelation. That said, the apocalypse itself has given rise to all sorts of extra-biblical material, such as the rapture, dispensationalism and Milton's Paradise Lost.
TimCallahan
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Interesting. I've read the Acts of Pilate, but I didn't now the Ethiopian church had canonized him. Thanks for that it of information.
HansMustermann
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It certainly is up there, though I wouldn't go as far as call it ULTIMATE. Paul has IMHO a better claim up there, since between him and Luke (in Acts), you find claims of his not being just a sinner or inciting to kill a Christian or two, but is apparently such an unholy scourge upon the early Christians that
A) he lays waste to the church in 3 provinces, 2 of which he had no jurisdiction over. And is even on some secret mission to Damascus which is even in another country and DEFINITELY doesn't allow some random a-hole from Jerusalem to come and conduct purges on the authority of some high priest from Jerusalem. And
B) so well known he is (though strangely he rushes to add that nobody would actually recognize him
), that those churches in 3 provinces breathe a sigh of relief when he, the one guy Paul, gives it up.And then he finds Jesus and BAM, not only he's saved, but he's THE Apostle to 99% of the world, baby.
But yeah, early Christians LOVED a BS story along the lines of, "I was skeptical and even hostile, but now I've seen the truth" about as much as penis growth pill peddlers love it these days. There's a reason you'll find identically-structured fake testimonies for every snake oil these days.
It's really just a version of the Skeptic archetype in fiction stories. You know that the reader or audience will doubt some elements of your story, and basically you want to address that. But you can't just stop, break the 4th wall, and address the reader directly. So you introduce a character that voices the same doubts and objections you expect the reader to have, and who is proven wrong. Thus addressing them without breaking the plot.
So if you make, say, a TV series about some guy, let's say an FBI agent called Mulder
who investigates woowoo BS and it's real, you add a character, let's say Scully, who's skeptical about every one of them, and then is proven wrong.As a bonus, not only it works to suspend the disbelief of those inclined to disbelieve, but it works even better for those who were peddling the same nonsense themselves. Those get to identify with the guy proving that darned skeptic wrong, or at least vicariously experience the satisfaction of proving that Skeptic character wrong.
And of course, there's nothing to keep one from merging the Skeptic with the Contagonist (e.g., the same character that doubts an "ufologist" hero's hare-brained UFO hunts, might offer him some job away from them), or even the Protagonist, or whatever. And really that's what Paul and all these first person testimonies do. They offer a short story in which the Protagonist is also the Skeptic that was convinced and now is a believer.
TimCallahan
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It certainly is up there, though I wouldn't go as far as call it ULTIMATE. Paul has IMHO a better claim up there, since between him and Luke (in Acts), you find claims of his not being just a sinner or inciting to kill a Christian or two, but is apparently such an unholy scourge upon the early Christians that
A) he lays waste to the church in 3 provinces, 2 of which he had no jurisdiction over. And is even on some secret mission to Damascus which is even in another country and DEFINITELY doesn't allow some random a-hole from Jerusalem to come and conduct purges on the authority of some high priest from Jerusalem. And
B) so well known he is (though strangely he rushes to add that nobody would actually recognize him
And then he finds Jesus and BAM, not only he's saved, but he's THE Apostle to 99% of the world, baby. . . .(major snip) . . .
With respect to Paul, we're dealing with two accounts here. In 1 Cor. 15:9 paul says he persecuted the church. He also says this in Gal. 1:13. In Galatians, he also says his gospel was straight from Jesus himself (Gal. 1:11, 12):
For I would have you know , brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it. but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
So, he apparently had some kind of radical conversion experience. That said, the whole road to Damascus mythos from Acts has to be fiction for all of the reasons you cite. Thus, the violent persecutions of the church Paul alludes to in Galatians wold have to have been limited to Judea, or more a product of his own disturbed mind.
Do you have any information on the latitude the Romans gave the Jewish religious authorities in enforcing orthodoxy within Judea? Roman procurators seem to have had authority in Judea from the deposing of Herod Archelaus in CE 6, through CE 66, except for a brief period from 41 - 44, when Herod Agrippa I ruled both Judea an Galilee. If Paul was persecuting Christians during the reign of Herod Agrippa I, he might have had a free hand, unhindered by the Romans. Otherwise, he might have run afoul of them.
HansMustermann
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To be honest, while I can't authoritatively say that, I can note that I seriously doubt that the following two stories can be reconciled, and they're both peddled by theologians:
1. The Jewish authorities had no power to give a death penalty, hence needing to go to Pilate.
Note that this doesn't have to be actually based on anything historical, though. It was prophecised that the scepter wouldn't leave Judah until the Messiah comes, and all proposed datings for Jesus back then were just-in-time for such a change of scepter. Making the case that the locals lost the most important authority, is just making that case.
(Note that actually Josephus only indicates that Ananus was replaced for convening a Sanhedrin without asking the Roman procurator for approval. It doesn't say that once convened, it was powerless to give a sentence.)
But anyway, it is part of arguing Jesus true.
Yet...
2. Paul would somehow have the authority to get Stephen stoned, or at least conduct his own persecutions. Or if not "authority", at any rate, the Romans don't seem to show the kind of interest that that kind of organizing and supervising a public murder would get. If #1 is true, Paul wouldn't be there to preach anything after that.
The two can't be true at the same time.
There is the time window you mention, yes, but it doesn't quite square with Paul's trip to Damascus. I don't mean the Acts novel this time, but he does mention himself in Galatians that as soon as he got his gospel (not from man, but from his own hallucinations... err... I mean, from Jesus) he went to Arabia and returned three years later.
The problem is that the date of Paul's conversion -- just like most of the biblical sources -- tend to be pushed back to the earliest possible date, to make it seem more authoritative. So since Damascus changed dates in 37 CE, the earlies possible date for Paul's escape from there is 37 CE. So his conversion would be some 3 years earlier, circa 34 CE. But generally the estimates range from 33 CE to 36 CE for his conversion.
That falls well outside the interval when the Romans gave a bit more autonomy.
In fact, the whole reason to push it back is to get it as close as possible to Jesus's death. Which gives us the same time frame and the same praefect ruling Judea at the time of BOTH things argued above. The 33-36 estimates for Paul's conversion are all squarely within Pilate's rule. You know, the same guy who the locals totally had to ask to execute Jesus.
Yet the same guys argue that in the same interval the high priest could send a guy like Paul around to kill people or instigate a stoning, and Pilate totally wouldn't mind that.
Something doesn't quite match, you know?
Exactly which of them is true, or what point in between, I couldn't really say. The way I read Josephus, I don't really see support for the idea that the local courts had no power whatsoever. More likely the reason the Romans wanted to be notified is that, like in Acts, the Romans only wanted to make sure no Roman citizens get killed under some provincial laws, and they wanted to have clear rules about who's in charge. But I could be wrong. It just seems to me like whether one or the other is true, BOTH can't be true at the same time.
1. The Jewish authorities had no power to give a death penalty, hence needing to go to Pilate.
Note that this doesn't have to be actually based on anything historical, though. It was prophecised that the scepter wouldn't leave Judah until the Messiah comes, and all proposed datings for Jesus back then were just-in-time for such a change of scepter. Making the case that the locals lost the most important authority, is just making that case.
(Note that actually Josephus only indicates that Ananus was replaced for convening a Sanhedrin without asking the Roman procurator for approval. It doesn't say that once convened, it was powerless to give a sentence.)
But anyway, it is part of arguing Jesus true.
Yet...
2. Paul would somehow have the authority to get Stephen stoned, or at least conduct his own persecutions. Or if not "authority", at any rate, the Romans don't seem to show the kind of interest that that kind of organizing and supervising a public murder would get. If #1 is true, Paul wouldn't be there to preach anything after that.
The two can't be true at the same time.
There is the time window you mention, yes, but it doesn't quite square with Paul's trip to Damascus. I don't mean the Acts novel this time, but he does mention himself in Galatians that as soon as he got his gospel (not from man, but from his own hallucinations... err... I mean, from Jesus
) he went to Arabia and returned three years later.The problem is that the date of Paul's conversion -- just like most of the biblical sources -- tend to be pushed back to the earliest possible date, to make it seem more authoritative. So since Damascus changed dates in 37 CE, the earlies possible date for Paul's escape from there is 37 CE. So his conversion would be some 3 years earlier, circa 34 CE. But generally the estimates range from 33 CE to 36 CE for his conversion.
That falls well outside the interval when the Romans gave a bit more autonomy.
In fact, the whole reason to push it back is to get it as close as possible to Jesus's death. Which gives us the same time frame and the same praefect ruling Judea at the time of BOTH things argued above. The 33-36 estimates for Paul's conversion are all squarely within Pilate's rule. You know, the same guy who the locals totally had to ask to execute Jesus.
Yet the same guys argue that in the same interval the high priest could send a guy like Paul around to kill people or instigate a stoning, and Pilate totally wouldn't mind that.
Something doesn't quite match, you know?
Exactly which of them is true, or what point in between, I couldn't really say. The way I read Josephus, I don't really see support for the idea that the local courts had no power whatsoever. More likely the reason the Romans wanted to be notified is that, like in Acts, the Romans only wanted to make sure no Roman citizens get killed under some provincial laws, and they wanted to have clear rules about who's in charge. But I could be wrong. It just seems to me like whether one or the other is true, BOTH can't be true at the same time.
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7th sextile
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The mysterious magoi of aMatthew have proven irresistible to the legend makers.
From the spare tale in Matt. they've been : numbered (3). "raced" ("Asian","African",
"Euro"(?)),crowned ( 3 Kings),baptized (by St Thomas),martyred in Persia or India,named (many linguistic variations,the Latinate being Caspar,Melchior,Balthasar),made even greater wanderers to the West in death than in life,(Jerusalem>Istanbul>Milan and finally and all too fittingly for the inventors of the Christmas present,Cologne) and oh yeah -canonized.(Pre-Congregation,still not bad for guys who may not even have existed.)
Fanfic confession : I was raised RC,so of course we had a little creche valiantly competing with the Xmas tree for attention.One tradition was to "journey" the mini-Magi from a remote spot in the room toward the stable/manger/messiah,moving them(and their camel) a little each night between 25Dec and 6Jan.This was regarded as a religious ritual,only a little less sacred than Midnight Mass,and my siblings remember me "getting us all in trouble" with my extra-biblical additions,particularly giving the camel a name,a doofy voice,and a few lines.Camel : so,uh-you guys gettin' thirsty yet?Melchior:Shut up,Bob. Bob the Camel :Jesus Christ!Who died and made you king? Melchior:Melchior II ! (getting in Bob's face) you got somethin' to say about it? Bob:What are you gonna do your majesty,throw myrrh at me? (Caspar and Balthasar awkwardly pull Melchior back without letting go of their gifts)Caspar(grumbling to Balthasar)that stupid camel of yours,always causing trouble! Balthasar:My camel!I thought he was your camel !! Bob :Heh-heh. ---- and so on until a responsible adult showed up to gve the blasphemy lecture.
From the spare tale in Matt. they've been : numbered (3). "raced" ("Asian","African",
"Euro"(?)),crowned ( 3 Kings),baptized (by St Thomas),martyred in Persia or India,named (many linguistic variations,the Latinate being Caspar,Melchior,Balthasar),made even greater wanderers to the West in death than in life,(Jerusalem>Istanbul>Milan and finally and all too fittingly for the inventors of the Christmas present,Cologne) and oh yeah -canonized.(Pre-Congregation,still not bad for guys who may not even have existed.)
Fanfic confession : I was raised RC,so of course we had a little creche valiantly competing with the Xmas tree for attention.One tradition was to "journey" the mini-Magi from a remote spot in the room toward the stable/manger/messiah,moving them(and their camel) a little each night between 25Dec and 6Jan.This was regarded as a religious ritual,only a little less sacred than Midnight Mass,and my siblings remember me "getting us all in trouble" with my extra-biblical additions,particularly giving the camel a name,a doofy voice,and a few lines.Camel : so,uh-you guys gettin' thirsty yet?Melchior:Shut up,Bob. Bob the Camel :Jesus Christ!Who died and made you king? Melchior:Melchior II ! (getting in Bob's face) you got somethin' to say about it? Bob:What are you gonna do your majesty,throw myrrh at me? (Caspar and Balthasar awkwardly pull Melchior back without letting go of their gifts)Caspar(grumbling to Balthasar)that stupid camel of yours,always causing trouble! Balthasar:My camel!I thought he was your camel !! Bob :Heh-heh. ---- and so on until a responsible adult showed up to gve the blasphemy lecture.
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TimCallahan
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. . . (major snip) . . . There is the time window you mention, yes, but it doesn't quite square with Paul's trip to Damascus. I don't mean the Acts novel this time, but he does mention himself in Galatians that as soon as he got his gospel (not from man, but from his own hallucinations... err... I mean, from Jesus
The problem is that the date of Paul's conversion -- just like most of the biblical sources -- tend to be pushed back to the earliest possible date, to make it seem more authoritative. So since Damascus changed dates in 37 CE, the earlies possible date for Paul's escape from there is 37 CE. So his conversion would be some 3 years earlier, circa 34 CE. But generally the estimates range from 33 CE to 36 CE for his conversion.
That falls well outside the interval when the Romans gave a bit more autonomy. . . .(major snip) . . .
Regardless of what sort of authority Paul might have had in Judea, he would have had none outside it. The whole road to Damascus story, like the rest of Acts, is propagandistic fiction.
Since it's doubtful Paul would have had the power to put people to death, perhaps any persecution of the Christian sect would have been limited to petty harassment and bullying. We see this pattern of behavior on the part of Nehemiah. When this priest found that Jewish men had married non-Jewish women his reaction was as follows (Neh. 13:25a):
And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair . . . .
Or again, there's Nehemiah's reaction to the grandson of the high priest marrying an outsider (Neh. 13:28):
And one of the sons of Jehoida, the son of Eliashib, the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I chased him from me.
Nehemiah's actions remind me a lot of those of a schoolyard bully. This sort of harassment and bullying could have been accomplished any time the Roman authorities were not present.
TimCallahan
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Yeah, all that Matthew says of them was that the were magoi, i.e. Zoroastrian holy men, viewed as something like magicians (which derives from magoi) and that the came from the east, which wold mean the Parthian Empire. I hadn't realized any of them were supposed to have made it to Cologne. Can you give me a link on that?
I love it! I've heard of the tradition of moving the Magi closer to the creche day by day. I think every creche scene needs to feature Bob.
HansMustermann
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But, as I was saying, I'm not referring to the Acts story for the purpose of that chronology. In 2 Corinthians 11:32-33 Paul himself says:
32. In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.
33. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.
33. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.
What I'm saying is: King Aretas didn't rule Damascus until 37 CE. If Paul in Galatians says that he was gone for 3 years, that pegs the lowest date for his conversion to 34 CE.
That's what gives us the estimates for it being somewhere between 33 CE and 36 CE, really. Well, that and the wishful thinking of pushing everything to the earliest date that can't be debunked, so as to be closer to the events and more authoritative.
Basically indeed I don't care much for the Acts fiction, but since Paul gives us a city and a king's name, it can be used to estimate where in time that could happen.
And that puts it squarely in the same time and under the same Governor where for Jesus the apologetics need the local authorities to have no authority whatsoever. So unless one dismisses that part from the Jesus story as fiction (which, as you know, I'm all for), it seems to me that a guy like Paul couldn't be given more authority to persecute heretics than even the high priest Caiaphas, a friend and collaborator of Pilate, was allowed.
I doubt that he'd get away even with that under Pilate, TBH. I mean, shouting insults, probably. But actual assault and battery, in an age when Rome had a major problem with zealots attacking people? I don't think he'd get away with that.
If nothing else, when he becomes a major public figure, surely someone would not hesitate to use that accusation against him.
So, yeah, he was probably just some minor fanboy foaming at the mouth, if even that. I.e., something that would hardly count as:
I was greatly persecuting the Church of God and destroying it.
(Galatians 1:13)
(Galatians 1:13)
or
do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
(1 Corinthians 15:9)
(1 Corinthians 15:9)
With the mention that the verb used actually indicates some form of earnest persecution, like hunting down and/or putting to flight.
And again this is from Paul, not from Acts.
So it's not just Acts that makes him some great scourge of the early Christians. Acts probably just confabulates stuff from Paul, same as Luke does everywhere else. It adds some fantastic elements and drama of its own, but nevertheless there still is a claim from Paul himself that he was doing some noteworthy persecution and that he was "destroying" (ἐπόρθουν) the church of God.
He's not claiming to be just foaming at the mouth, but actually destroying the early church.
ETA: which is really why I was basically getting at: Paul is just writing some uplifting testimonial fiction, on the same "I was evil until I found Jesus" template that's used to this day. Except nowadays people tend to stick to less fantastic stuff than "I was laying waste to the Christian church". Hence my saying that Paul's story may well have a claim to be the ultimate such story. Taken all the way to eleven, and all that
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pakeha
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What?
Acts is simply prop-lit?
What about Luke's accuracy an historian, then?
Acts is simply prop-lit?
What about Luke's accuracy an historian, then?
And also Catalunya's favourite creche figure
HansMustermann
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To be fair, I don't think that anyone except apologists like DOC take Luke for a great historian. I don't think Tim ever said that there was much accuracy to be found in Luke
Beerina
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