What were the findings of the Acts Seminar?
Upvote:-2
The Acts Seminar was one of several seminars set up by The Westar Institute as "large-scale, collaborative research projects" on various topics in early Christian history. Fellows attending and voting at the Seminars are academics in theology, Bible studies and cognate fields. The voting system was based on traditional scholarly practice, whereby each member of the Seminar assigned a colour to his or her response to a question after full discussion, as described by the institute's Wikipedia page:
- RED: This information is virtually certain; it is supported by a preponderance of the evidence and is accepted as historical.
- PINK: This information is not certain but is probably reliable; it fits well with evidence that is verifiable and so is regarded as borderline historical.
- GRAY: This information is possible but unreliable; it is not a clear fabrication but lacks supporting evidence and so is regarded as dubious.
- BLACK: This information is improbable; it does not fit verifiable evidence or seems to be a fabrication and is regarded as nonhistorical.
As described by the Seminar summary report, the goal was to go through the canonical Acts of the Apostles from beginning to end and evaluate it for historical accuracy. The Seminar announced that its principal findings were:
- The use of Acts as a source for history has long needed critical reassessment.
- Acts was written in the early decades of the second century.
- The author of Acts used the letters of Paul as sources.
- Except for the letters of Paul, no other historically reliable source can be identified for Acts.
- Acts can no longer be considered an independent source for the life and mission of Paul.
- Contrary to Acts 1-7, Jerusalem was not the birthplace of Christianity.
- Acts constructs its story on the model of epic and related literature.
- The author of Acts created names for characters as storytelling devices.
- Acts constructs its story to fit ideological goals.
- Acts is a primary historical source for second century Christianity.
"The Seminar has not found a core historical story of Christian beginnings in Acts", which is "not to say that Acts is totally unhistorical but to observe that it is less helpful in the historical reconstruction of Christian beginnings than previously assumed."
The full report of the Seminar is published as Acts and Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report (Polebridge Press, 2013), edited by Dennis E. Smith, Joseph B. Tyson.
More post
- 📝 Calvinism: How does Limited Atonement Work in View of the Universality of Christ's Work?
- 📝 What is a Nazirite?
- 📝 Can God deliberately bring a good through a moral evil, according to Catholicism?
- 📝 Can financial incentives be used to make converts?
- 📝 What theological problem in the Henoticon triggered the excommunication of the Patriarch Acacius, by the Bishop of Rome in the fifth century?
- 📝 Revelation 18:4 - Should we leave Babylon if we are in the "Great Babylon"?
- 📝 Why did Jesus say, "Do not touch me"?
- 📝 Is the Solar System Described in a Psalm?
- 📝 Why did Jesus turn water into wine?
- 📝 Is the Holy Spirit more effective at restoring people's mental health than secular therapeutic approaches and treatments?
- 📝 According to the Anglican Church, did the prophets in Old Testament have a concept of life after death?
- 📝 How do Catholics reconcile Christ's intercessory prayer with the doctrine of the Trinity?
- 📝 Is there a theological lesson (modern or traditional) in who carved the tablets for each set of the Ten Commandments?
- 📝 Are there any biblical accounts of women performing a miracle from God?
- 📝 How could Cain have built Enoch?
- 📝 Reasons for Restriction of Tridentine Rite post Vatican II
- 📝 Will we still feel affection towards others when we are in heaven?
- 📝 How do trinitarians interpret John 8:58?
- 📝 What is the Orthodox canon?
- 📝 Why is faith the quality that God chooses to reward?
- 📝 Was there a special significance in God's choice of ravens for supply of provisions to prophet Elijah?
- 📝 According to LDS can an unmarried person be exalted equally with a married person or at all?
- 📝 How does the Tree of Life fit in Evolutionary Creationism
- 📝 Does the Bible suggest that there would be a literal apostasy of the early Christian church?
- 📝 What is Catholic Church's view on capital punishment?
- 📝 Do Jehovah's Witnesses believe the 144 000 are from Israel?
- 📝 What are the Biblical arguments against modalism?
- 📝 What does Eastern-Orthodoxy teach about the Law and Gospel division?
- 📝 Can a priest give a Mass in American Sign Language (ASL)? What does he do when he is supposed to lift up the Eucharist while speaking in ASL?
- 📝 According to pre-tribulation pre-millenialists, when would and will Christians be persecuted for their faith as a sign to the world?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What were the findings of the Acts Seminar?
- 📝 What were Martin Luther's opinions on the Crusades?
- 📝 What were the main doctrinal disagreements between Luther and Calvin?
- 📝 What were the Nephilim, and what role did they play in the Bible beyond just being mentioned?
- 📝 What were Martin Luther's main disagreements with the Catholic Church?
- 📝 What passages of Scripture were used by the popes and crusaders to justify the Crusades?
- 📝 In what order were the books in the New Testament written?
- 📝 What were the early Christians officially persecuted for?
- 📝 What were the beliefs, teachings, and practices of the church regarding slavery in the New World?
- 📝 What are the arguments that Acts was written prior to 70 AD?
- 📝 What person(s) of the Trinity were the people of the Old Testament interacting with?
- 📝 What were the major disagreements between Erasmus and Luther during the Protestant Reformation?
- 📝 Were there implicit laws not referenced in the Acts 15 letter to gentile believers?
- 📝 What is the significance of the four laws given to early Christians who were not ethnically Jews?
- 📝 What were the Jehovah's Witness arguments against doing the Nazi salute?
- 📝 What were Jesus's last words on the cross?
- 📝 What languages were used during Mass from paleo-Christianty until the Council of Trent?
- 📝 According to LDS, what principles of the gospel were corrupted in the Great Apostasy?
- 📝 What is the origin of the Orthodox belief that Sts. Joseph and Mary were betrothed but not married?
- 📝 For what purpose were the "Chosen People" chosen?
- 📝 What were the reformers' views of biblical inerrancy?
- 📝 What liturgical languages were used in the worldwide church/broad christiandom around 500 AD?
- 📝 What is the significance of "Zealot" in Acts 1:13?
- 📝 If one divorces is it considered adultery to marry again no matter what the circumstances were for this decision?
- 📝 What is the biblical basis that people who are attracted to the same sex were not created by God that way?
- 📝 What would happen if the Pope were to abuse his power?
- 📝 What was the basis for saying that 11th-century Greek churches were "rebaptizing" Latins?
- 📝 What hymns about death were common in the early 1400s?
- 📝 What were the common exonyms of the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches leading up to and after the Great Schism (1054)?
- 📝 What were the circumstances behind the loss of the "True Cross?"