Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Secret Alias
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

Post by Secret Alias »

The reference to Egyptian and Jewish worship (in Tacitus), is interesting as the name Chrestus/Chrestos (in Suetonius) may have been as popular in Egypt
Are you sure you didn't write Acts? It is interesting that the same kind of bad reading of source material allows for a partisan to see the text as saying what he/she wants it to say across the ages. If you want to read Suetonius as referring to Christians you can. You can combine Tacitus and Suetonius to get a story like Acts 18. All you have to do is read badly and with an agenda.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Secret Alias wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:48 pm
pseudo-MacSon wrote:The reference to Egyptian and Jewish worship (in Tacitus), is interesting as the name Chrestus/Chrestos (in Suetonius) may have been as popular in Egypt
Are you sure you didn't write Acts? It is interesting that the same kind of bad reading of source material allows for a partisan to see the text as saying what he/she wants it to say across the ages. If you want to read Suetonius as referring to Christians you can. You can combine Tacitus and Suetonius to get a story like Acts 18. All you have to do is read badly and with an agenda.
that's not what i wrote ...
Last edited by MrMacSon on Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Wait a minute. I am not insulting you. I am just saying we all have this tendency to connect 'A' with 'B' and create 'C' out of 'A + B' when we don't know if they really are about the same thing.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Secret Alias wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:48 pm
pseudoMacSon wrote:The reference to Egyptian and Jewish worship (in Tacitus), is interesting as the name Chrestus/Chrestos (in Suetonius) may have been as popular in Egypt
Are you sure you didn't write Acts? It is interesting that the same kind of bad reading of source material allows for a partisan to see the text as saying what he/she wants it to say across the ages. If you want to read Suetonius as referring to Christians you can. You can combine Tacitus and Suetonius to get a story like Acts 18. All you have to do is read badly and with an agenda.

I wrote this
MrMacSon wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:59 pm
The reference to Egyptian and Jewish worship (or rites, as another translation has it), is interesting as the name Chrestus/Chrestos [& other versions thereof] may have been as popular in Egypt as in Greek-related regions. And there are indications shipping from Egypt to regions like Pontus and vice versa created significant cultural ties (and spread Egyptian religions to Pontus and other coastal regions of Asia Minor in 1-3 a.d.).
.

since edited to
MrMacSon wrote: The reference to Egyptian and Jewish worship (or rites, as another translation has it) is interesting, as the name Chrestus/Chrestos [& other versions thereof] may have been as popular in Egypt as in Greek-related regions. And there are indications shipping from Egypt to regions like Pontus and vice versa created significant cultural ties (and spread Egyptian religions to Pontus and other coastal regions of Asia Minor in 1-3 a.d.).
Last edited by MrMacSon on Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Right I am saying you added 'A' and 'B' to get 'C' even though 'A' and 'B' are probably not the same event. Hence the reference to 'did you write Acts'? I obviously know you didn't write Acts.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Secret Alias
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Andrew is saying (as best as I understand it)

1. A (Suetonius) and B (Tacitus) are not the same event
2. Andrew is saying that Acts is independently corroborating A
3. Adamczewski is saying that Acts is taking bits from A and B to make C (= that A is a Christian event)

Andrew might be right. But i don't think that anything in A leads us to accept his conclusion that an expulsion in Rome would lead to an expulsion from Italy and to the East. I think Acts got that from Tacitus.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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MrMacSon
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

Post by MrMacSon »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:49 pm Wait a minute. I am not insulting you. I am just saying we all have this tendency to connect 'A' with 'B' and create 'C' out of 'A + B' when we don't know if they really are about the same thing.
Secret Alias wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:51 pm Right, I am saying you added 'A' and 'B' to get 'C' even though 'A' and 'B' are probably not the same event. Hence the reference to 'did you write Acts'? I obviously know you didn't write Acts.
OK, but the point is that texts like Acts, and probably most of the other Christian texts, canonical and otherwise, are likely to be conflations (= syncretisms) of various things

(I was just reading Annals 2.47-85, and there are commentaries in there, especially around Germanicus [& Tiberius] that align with or be the basis of some of the Christian-gospel narratives).

SecretAlias wrote:
I think Acts got that from Tacitus.
.
I think that is a distinct possibility.
Secret Alias
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Here https://books.google.com/books?id=zO4-M ... 22&f=false Adamczewski argues that
Since Luke chronologically correlated the trial before Gallio with the expulsion of the Jews from Rome (Acts 18:2.11-12), the description of the outcome of the trial, namely that of driving of the Jews away from the Roman realm and of public beating of their leader (aTieAauva): Acts 18:16-17), probably alludes to Josephus' reference to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome (omipxeoOai, eAauvco: Jos. Ant. 18.84).
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MrMacSon
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Secret Alias wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:55 pm
.. But I don't think that anything in A leads us to accept his conclusion that an expulsion in Rome would lead to an expulsion from Italy and to the East. I think Acts got that from Tacitus.
I often think 'Rome' in those ancient texts, especially Christian ones, does not mean the city, I think it often means the empire or an administrative or executive component of it: the Senate, or the government, or similar eg. as you have just posted, 'the Roman realm'.
Secret Alias
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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius

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Adamczewski theory is very sophisticated. He assumes that the author of Acts had access to the Pauline letters and that
The entire account of Paul's activity in Corinth (Acts 18:1-17) is therefore a hypertextual reworking of the contents of 1 Cor and 2 Cor with the use of several other literary motifs. 3.4.4 Paul's corrective activity in the Jewish-Gentile Church (Acts 18:23- 20:2)
I think this is very ingenious and probably true and explains why Acts doesn't cite the Pauline letters directly. It isn't because the author doesn't know the material. He is creating a kind of loose 'cento' of a mix of historical texts and themes from the Pauline letters.
Last edited by Secret Alias on Tue Apr 24, 2018 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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