Why is there prebaptismal justification in Acts 10?

An explanation often put forward for why Cornelius and those with him were justified prior to baptism in Acts 10:43-48 is that the prebaptismal reception of the Holy Spirit was offered as proof of God's acceptance of Gentiles. But that acceptance had already been revealed to Cornelius by an angel and to Peter in his vision. And a reception of the Spirit at the time of baptism would also have been proof of the acceptance of Gentiles. Changing the timing of the reception of the Spirit wasn't needed. The best explanation for the prebaptismal timing of the reception of the Spirit is that that's the normal scenario. Its normativity is further evidenced by how Cornelius and those with him are cited as being justified in the same way as others in Acts 11:17-18 and 15:7-11.

The Prominence Of Sola Fide In Acts

One of the factors to take into account when judging the small number of passages in Acts that are cited against justification through faith alone is how often only faith or repentance (two sides of the same coin) is mentioned as the means of receiving justification: 2:21, 3:16, 3:19, 4:4, 9:42, 10:43-44, 11:17, 11:21, 13:39, 13:48, 14:1, 14:27, 15:9, 16:31, 16:34, 17:34, 19:2, 26:20.

I'll expand on some of those passages, to clarify why I've cited them. Acts 3:16 refers to a healing, but it's probably the sort of double healing passage I've discussed elsewhere. The healed man is referred to as praising God after the healing and is described as following the apostles (3:8, 3:11). Both of those make more sense if he had converted than if he hadn't. And Peter and John don't say anything to the man about a need to do anything else in order to be reconciled to God, which also makes more sense if the man had already been reconciled to God. Furthermore, Peter refers to the healed man's faith as "the faith which comes through [Jesus]" (3:16). A reference to "the faith" makes more sense if it's a faith that people in general are supposed to have, not just people seeking a healing.

Some of the passages I've cited mention faith without mentioning justification (4:4, 9:42, 14:1, 17:34), but the passages make the most sense if faith is viewed as bringing about justification. If something more was needed for reconciliation to God, then it would make less sense to highlight faith so much and not mention more. Seeing these passages as referring to justification also aligns them better with the rest of the material in Acts, like the other passages cited above.

How Luke 3 Sheds Light On Acts 2

I want to comment on one of the issues involved in the controversy over Acts 2:38 and the relationship between justification and baptism. Sometimes the question of verse 37 will be highlighted, and it will be suggested that baptism shouldn't be mentioned in verse 38 if it isn't a means of obtaining justification.

The assumption seems to be that the question of verse 37 is equivalent to the one in 16:30. But the "to be saved" qualifier of 16:30 isn't present in 2:37.

Furthermore, there's a parallel between Acts 2 and Luke 3. The question of "what shall we do" comes up a few times in Luke 3:10-14. And John the Baptist keeps answering by mentioning actions that go beyond obtaining justification. He's addressing what should be done in general, which goes beyond acquiring justification (the "fruits" he had referred to earlier, in verses 8-9). Similarly, Acts 2 seems to be addressing a broader rather than narrower context.

Peter goes on to provide them with many other words and to tell them to be saved from "this perverse generation" (verse 40). It seems that more than justification is in view.

Where's James the son of Zebedee in later New Testament history?

Acts 12:2 reports his martyrdom. Notice the corroboration of that account elsewhere in the New Testament. Though James is so prominent in the gospels and was the first apostle taken by Herod in Acts 12, he's not referred to as still alive, much less prominent, in the portions of the New Testament covering later history. The James of Galatians 2:9 is most naturally taken as the James of chapter 1, the brother of Jesus, and the James of chapter 2 isn't mentioned next to John in 2:9, as the son of Zebedee probably would be. So, James the son of Zebedee is conspicuous by his absence in Galatians 2. He's also not mentioned elsewhere in the material that covers post-Acts-12 history, and none of the apostolic documents are attributed to him.

Jesus' Use Of Mountains

Something the Synoptics, the fourth gospel, and Acts have in common is that they refer to Jesus' use of mountains. And we often see two or more of those sources referring to his using mountains in similar ways (to teach, to be with the Twelve, to be alone, to pray, etc.). For example:

More About The Name Statistics Argument

Luuk van de Weghe and Jason Wilson recently published an article furthering the argument for the historicity of the gospels and Acts based on name statistics. Here's a short video Michael Jones recently produced about that article, and here's a longer one by Than Christopoulos.

Corroboration Of The Gospels And Acts In Paul's Letters

The documents are written in different genres and at different lengths (the shortness of some of Paul's letters), among other differences. We shouldn't expect Paul to say much about the contents of the gospels and Acts. But he does say more than people typically suggest.

In addition to the more obvious references - the timing of Jesus' life, his crucifixion, the Last Supper, his being betrayed, his having multiple brothers, that one of the brothers was named James, the names of some of Jesus' disciples, etc. - there are many less obvious corroborations. I want to link some examples I've discussed in the past. See here on Jesus' childhood in Paul's letters. And here on Jesus' performance of miracles. Or here on undesigned coincidences, some of which involve the letters of Paul. Here's something on the details involved in Galatians 2:9. Go here and here for posts about details related to Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. See this post on the soteriology of the gospels, and notice the parallels in Paul (the significance of Abraham, justification through faith alone, etc.). Or the posts here and here on relational and moral issues, like the primacy of love and opposition to polygamy.

These examples, which are large in number and variety, are far from exhaustive. There's so much more that could be cited regarding Trinitarianism, moral issues, etc. And skeptics typically accept some facts about Jesus that aren't referred to anywhere in what they consider the genuine letters of Paul (e.g., Jesus' residence in Nazareth, his baptism by John the Baptist, the initial unbelief of his brothers).

How The Author's Travels Support The Authorship Attribution Of Luke/Acts

I've written before about how Acts ends with a "we" passage that places the author in Rome and how some of the earliest evidence we have for Lukan authorship comes from sources closely connected to that city. Something else to note about the authorship of Luke and Acts is that multiple sources in multiple locations should have been in a good position to know who wrote the documents. The "we" passages in Acts, which suggest participation by the author in the events in question, are evidence that the author traveled widely. And he apparently was writing Acts as he traveled, doing preparatory work for writing while traveling (e.g., gathering information from people, taking notes), or some of each, given the nature of the details in the document. (For evidence to that effect, see here, here, and here.) So, people in a large number and variety of locations should have had significant evidence regarding who wrote Acts (and the gospel of Luke). That includes being in a good position to falsify an incorrect authorship attribution. That's especially true given all of Luke/Acts' references to times, places, individuals involved, etc. I've argued that some of Luke's material on Jesus' childhood likely was acquired in the context of Acts 21. So, it looks like the authorship of the third gospel, not just Acts, is also directly connected to his travels in the "we" passages. Attribution of the third gospel and Acts to Luke was widespread and seems to have not faced much opposition. That makes more sense if the attribution is correct than if it's incorrect. That's true not only as a general principle, but even more so in light of the author's travels.

Neglected Evidence For Acts' Material On The Resurrection Appearance To Paul

There are some good arguments that are often brought up for the material on Jesus' appearance to Paul in Acts, such as the authorship of Luke/Acts and the general historical reliability of the author. See, for example, my posts on such issues here, Craig Keener's video on Luke's historiography here, and a video featuring Lydia McGrew on the subject of hard things Acts gets right here. What I want to focus on in this post is some evidence that comes up less often. I'll occasionally mention more common arguments in the process of discussing the less common ones, but my focus here is on lines of evidence that have gotten less attention.

Responses To Objections To The Name Statistics Argument

I've occasionally discussed a line of argument for the gospels and Acts based on the names of individuals in those documents. Lydia McGrew recently completed a good YouTube series responding to some objections to the argument.

An Update To An Argument From The Names In The Gospels And Acts

Luuk van de Weghe is a New Testament scholar who's recently done some work on an argument for the historical reliability of the gospels and Acts based on the names that appear in the documents. I'll quote some of what Richard Bauckham has written about the argument, then quote some more recent comments from van de Weghe, updating Bauckham's material:

"Thus the names of Palestinian Jews in the Gospels and Acts coincide very closely with the names of the general population of Jewish Palestine in this period, but not to the names of Jews in the Diaspora. In this light it becomes very unlikely that the names in the Gospels are late accretions to the traditions. Outside Palestine the appropriate names simply could not have been chosen. Even within Palestine, it would be very surprising if random accretions of names to this or that tradition would fit the actual pattern of names in the general population....Onomastics (the study of names) is a significant resource for assessing the origins of Gospel traditions. The evidence in this chapter shows that the relative frequency of the various personal names in the Gospels corresponds well to the relative frequency in the full database of three thousand individual instances of names in the Palestinian Jewish sources of the period. This correspondence is very unlikely to have resulted from addition of names to the traditions, even within Palestinian Jewish Christianity, and could not possibly have resulted from the addition of names to the traditions outside Jewish Palestine, since the pattern of Jewish name usage in the Diaspora was very different. The usages of the Gospels also correspond closely to the variety of ways in which persons bearing the same very popular names could be distinguished in Palestinian Jewish usage. Again these features of the New Testament data would be difficult to explain as the result of random invention of names within Palestinian Jewish Christianity and impossible to explain as the result of such invention outside Jewish Palestine. All the evidence indicates the general authenticity of the personal names in the Gospels." (Jesus And The Eyewitnesses [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006], 73-74, 84)

"Simply put, these works [The Infancy Gospel Of Thomas, The Gospel Of Nicodemus, etc.] do not hold up to scrutiny based on naming patterns, and we can see the card player's bluff. From my survey of twenty-three sources in Appendix A, the only extra-biblical works that display onomastic congruence [alignment between a database of ancient name usage and the source it's being compared to] are the works of Plutarch, Suetonius, and Josephus….These authors' works are the very same ones that the biblical scholar Craig Keener suggests mark the height of historical sensitivity for the genre of Greco-Roman biography when expectations of historical reliability were at the highest. Onomastic congruence appears to be a byproduct, however unintentional, of the information-driven nature of these historiographical works.…In my 2022 PhD Dissertation (University of Aberdeen) as well as in my article, 'Name Recall in the Synoptic Gospels,' I discuss the problem that Ilan I [a database of ancient Jewish names gathered by Tal Ilan] does not provide an onomastic snapshot of Jesus' Palestine, since her database covers approximately five hundred years. This seems too broad to determine onomastic patterns. I refine Ilan's database to the years 30 BCE to 90 CE and confirm that onomastic congruence can still be demonstrated. Incidentally, Richard Bauckham is currently working on a new prosopography (50 BCE to 135 CE) with the aim of acquiring greater accuracy, correcting further errors discovered in Ilan I, and supplementing her data with new inscriptions being published by the Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae. My thanks to Dr. Bauckham for providing his unpublished material for me to review; it is apparent that the efforts of acquiring more precise data will lead toward the further justification of onomastic congruence in the Gospels and Acts." (The Historical Tell [Tampa, Florida: DeWard, 2023], 35-36, n. 42 on 146)

How much does Acts support the apostles' willingness to suffer for their resurrection testimony?

Lydia McGrew just concluded a good series of videos on the following topic:

This week I'm starting a series about this question: Does Acts support the idea that at least twelve specific, named individuals were willing to risk their lives for the claim that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead?

Some skeptics have claimed that even if we take Acts at face value in its account of the early days of Christianity, it still doesn't support this claim. They may downplay the seriousness of the risk. They may imply that only Peter and John among the original twelve disciples actually stood up and took a risk or that the others stopped taking a risk after the religious leaders first told them to stop preaching.

In the coming weeks I'll be addressing these claims from Acts itself. Here I am setting up the question.

Remember, this is addressing what we can learn from Acts itself if we take the narrative at face value about who was proclaiming the resurrection and what they were risking.

Here are links to each part in the series:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

D.A. Carson On Colin Hemer

I recently came across D.A. Carson's eulogy of Colin Hemer after seeing it linked by Lydia McGrew.

The Gospels And Acts' Polymodal Resurrection Accounts Corroborated In The New Testament Letters

The comments about hearing, seeing, and touching in 1 John 1:1 aren't limited to resurrection appearances, but surely included them and included them prominently. The passage is about the Word of Life, a context in which including resurrection from the dead makes more sense than not including it. The author is writing as one among the "we" of apostolic eyewitnesses, in contrast to the "you" of his audience. The apostolic experience wasn't limited to witnessing the resurrected Christ, but did include witnessing him in that context (Acts 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 9:1). It could be argued that the resurrection experiences only included the seeing mentioned in 1 John 1:1, not the hearing and touching, but that's a less likely interpretation for multiple reasons. It's more complicated, and it involves an unlikely scenario in which a witness like the letter's author would be so interested in hearing and touching for the large majority of Jesus' life, but not so interested or unable to obtain hearing and touching in the resurrection portion of Jesus' life. The simplest and best understanding of 1 John 1:1 is that the author is appealing to the apostolic polymodal interaction with Jesus throughout his life, including his resurrection appearances. Given the emphasis placed on witnessing Jesus' resurrection in particular in order to qualify as an apostle (Acts 10:40-41, 22:14-15, 1 Corinthians 9:1), it would go against the context of apostolicity to make the apostolic experience in 1 John 1:1 so much more limited in the resurrection context than in the pre-resurrection context. Notice, also, that even in a scenario in which the author happened to never get an opportunity to hear or touch Jesus in the resurrection context, the passage would still be another example of the witnesses' interest in such interactions with Jesus. Given the large number of resurrection appearances that were reported and how many people were involved (e.g., 1 Corinthians 15:5-8), it's highly unlikely that few or none of the hundreds of people involved attempted to interact with Jesus in the way described in 1 John 1:1 or that they kept trying and failing to do so without realizing they were hallucinating, imagining things, or whatever. And 1 John 1:1 is a "we" passage. So, the critic who wants to appeal to the possibility that the author himself happened to only think he saw the risen Jesus, without thinking he heard or touched him, still has to address the other resurrection witnesses included in the "we".

1 Timothy 5:18 is also relevant. For more about the likely reference to Luke's gospel as scripture in that passage, see here.

The Importance Of Rome's Testimony About Luke's Authorship

My last post mentioned some corroboration of Lukan authorship of the third gospel from sources predating Irenaeus (Marcion and his earliest followers, Justin Martyr, a Roman source Irenaeus cited). People often claim that Irenaeus provides the earliest attribution of the third gospel to Luke, but these sources move the earliest attribution and some partial corroboration of it prior to when Irenaeus wrote.

And notice how all three of these pre-Irenaean sources are connected to Rome. Marcion was in Rome, Justin Martyr spent some time there, and Irenaeus' source seems to be Roman.

Paul traveled to Rome multiple times, spent a long time there, and died in that city. The author of Luke and Acts claimed to be a close companion of Paul and frequently discusses him and refers to traveling with him, including going with Paul to Rome around the time when the third gospel was published (Acts 28:14). Given the nature of the events leading up to and following Acts 28:14 and the recording of a large amount of detail in the author's recounting of the events, there's a good chance that the author used his time in Rome to do a lot of his work composing Acts. That would have provided some opportunities for the author (and Paul and whoever else) to have had discussions with the Roman Christians about the writing of the gospel and its sequel. Even if his work on Luke/Acts while in Rome was of a lesser nature, such as just taking some notes, that sort of situation would also have some significance here. If Colossians and Philemon were written from Rome, Colossians 4:14 and Philemon 24 place Luke there, and 2 Timothy 4:11 has Luke in Rome again later on. The references to Mark with Luke in Roman contexts (Colossians 4:10, Philemon 24, 2 Timothy 4:11) add to the likelihood that issues involving Luke's gospel would have been discussed.

This puts critics of the traditional gospel authorship attributions in a bad position. How likely is it that there would be so many early literary references to Mark and Luke in Rome (more than what I've cited above), including references to their being in the city for so long and in such significant contexts, if they hadn't been there? And if they were there, how likely are the Roman Christians to have been as ignorant as skeptical hypotheses require them to have been regarding Mark and Luke's relationships with the gospels attributed to them? The Roman church was in a good position to have reliable information on the authorship of the third gospel (and its genre, historicity, etc.). So, not only do we have testimony on the authorship of that gospel predating the testimony of Irenaeus, but we even have it from such significant sources.

The Accuracy And Significance Of Acts 5:36-37

Lydia McGrew just produced a good video on the subject. I agree with her view of the Theudas issue, which is what the video is focused on, but she only briefly discusses the importance of Luke's comments on a census in verse 37. I've written some posts on the significance of that verse for how we interpret the census account in Luke 2. Here's a collection of links to some of my Facebook posts on the Luke 2 census, one of which addresses Acts 5:37. Those posts provide brief overviews of the issues involved. For a lengthier discussion of the relationship between Acts 5:37 and Luke 2, see here.

Did Paul experience a guilt hallucination on the road to Damascus?

Jonathan McLatchie and Alex O'Connor (CosmicSkeptic) recently debated the topic "Theism or Naturalism, which provides a better account of reality?". I want to comment on a couple of issues related to Jesus' resurrection that came up in the debate. I'll address one of those issues here and the other in a later post.

How Much The Author Of Luke Is Identified

Modern critics of Christianity make a big issue of the supposed anonymity of the gospels. The weakness of that objection should be evident to anybody who's looked closely at the narrow sense in which anonymity is being appealed to and how much the gospel authors were identified outside of that narrow context. The third gospel provides a good example.

The author isn't named anywhere in the main body of the text in Luke or Acts. The obvious question that follows is: So what? As I've discussed before, there are many reasons to think the author was named in other contexts early on, sometimes from the start. And we can learn a lot about the author even from the main body of the text. He isn't named there, but he is described there and acts there. We can discern a lot about his knowledge, interests, and so forth from his writings, and he refers to himself as somebody who was a travel companion of Paul and had met James, a member of Jesus' immediate family, for example. We know of particular occasions on which he was with such individuals, many details about significant events he experienced, etc. I'm just summarizing here. The amount of information we can gather from all of these contexts (mentioned here and in the post linked above) is large. The fact that the author isn't named within the main body of the text doesn't have much significance.

Skeptical Inconsistencies On The Historicity Of Christian Sources

"Harnack, Acts, 272: 'The agreement which in these numerous instances exists between the Acts (chaps. i.-xiv.) and the Pauline epistles, although the latter are only incidental writings belonging to the later years of the Apostle, is so extensive and so detailed as to exclude all wild hypotheses concerning those passages of the Acts that are without attestation in those epistles.' The logic is the same as arguments that a source unreliable where it can be checked should be assumed unreliable elsewhere (cf., e.g., Ehrman, Interrupted, 110, on Papias)." (Craig Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Volume I [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2012], n. 120 on 238)

The Significance Of Galatians 2:9

I've often discussed how unlikely it is that Galatians 2:9 would have been written if the earliest Christians had believed in a papacy. Not only is Galatians a good place to go when addressing the doctrine of justification, but it's also a good place to go when the papacy is being discussed. But notice that Galatians 2:9 is also significant in the context of the historicity of the gospels and Acts. Those documents portray Peter, James, and John as the most prominent members of the Twelve (for non-papal reasons), frequently putting Peter and John together, and Galatians 2:9 has Peter and John together as reputed pillars of the church (James the son of Zebedee being dead by then). And the prominence of James the brother of Jesus in Galatians 2:9 is what we'd expect from Acts. So is the placing of Paul and Barnabas together. There's other relevant material in Galatians as well, but 2:9 is a good passage to remember as one that concisely illustrates so much.