Early Christianity

In Acts or in that part of Acts which is concerned with the

adventures of Paul in Asia Minor and Greece, one is aware

all the time of the Hellenistic and Roman shading. The

historical framework is exact. In terms of time and place

the details are precise and correct.One walks the streets

and market-places, the theatres and assemblies of first-

century Ephesus or Thessalonica, Corinth or Philippi, with

the author of Acts. The great men of the cities, the magis-

trates, the mob, the mob-leaders, all are there. The feel

and tone of city life is the same as in the descriptions of

[the geographer] Strabo and [the orator] Dio of Prusa. The

difference lies only in the Jewish shading.

(Sherwin-White 1963: 120 [emphasis added])

In some respects, an attempt to reconcile data from the New

Testament writings with those drawn from classical sources can

be a fruitful approach. Indeed, the case study in chapter 4 of this

book will examine how far this style of investigation can get us

in understanding the world of the apostle Paul. Nevertheless, there

are serious problems that must always be borne in mind. Even

those books of the New Testament that appear to give straight-

forward historical information can mislead. Thus the Gospel of

Lukepresents Jesus’ human parents Joseph and Mary travelling

to Bethlehem to comply with the census conducted by the Roman

governor Quirinius (2.2). The miraculous conception of Jesus

happens only a short time (1.26) after that of John the Baptist,

which this gospel says occurred ‘in the days of Herod, king of

Judaea’ (1.5). But this historical verisimilitude collapses when we

discover that Herod died in 4 BCand that Quirinius’ census only

occurred in AD6.^1 There is a further risk that modern Roman

historians are becoming isolated from current trends in New

Testament studies undertaken by biblical scholars. In particular,

by treating certain New Testament writings little differently from

classical sources, Roman historians risk losing sight of the

special problems that biblical texts present. In what follows, I

will concentrate on what is perhaps the major problem that will

SOURCES AND THEIR INTERPRETATION

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