62 Polyb. 3.33.17-18 (citing here a bronze tablet of Hannibal).
60 E.g., Philost. Vit. soph. 2.23.606 (who unsuccessfully tried to evaluate conflicting reports this way in 2.5.576), in contrast to his lack of interviews for earlier information.
61 Aune, Environment, 81 (citing Hdt 2.52; Polyb. 3.48.12; 4.38.11; 10.11.4).
62 Polyb. 3.33.17-18 (citing here a bronze tablet of Hannibal).
63 Polyb. 12.9.2; cf. also Plut. Demosth. 2.1-2. Urban centers tended to provide better access to documentary sources and those whose memories preserved events (Demosth. 2.1). For plausibility and probability as criteria in ancient historical writing, as in ancient rhetoric more generally, see Rothschild, Rhetoric of History, 62-64.
64 Meister, “Historiography: Greece,” 421. For the preference for oral sources, see also the discussion in Aune, Environment, 81.
65 Consulting distant records would be even more difficult (cf. Pucci Ben Zeev, “Capitol”), though this is different from consulting people orally when one traveled to a region, as Luke may have done.
66 Fornara, Nature of History, 56. By its nature, earlier (rather than recent) history necessarily depended on earlier historians (Pliny Ep. 5.8.12).
67 Fornara, Nature of History, 61 (citing Suet. Caesar 56).
68 E.g., Abbott, Acts, 131-4; Ramsay, Luke the Physician, 26; Rackham, Acts, xvi; Williams, Acts, 22-30; Spencer, Acts, 12-13; Dunn, Acts, x; Fitzmyer, Acts, 50; Le Cornu, Acts, xxvii-xxviii; Chance, Acts, 4; Parsons, Luke, 8; Fusco, “Sezioni-noi”; Botermann, “Heidenapostel”; Riesner, “Zuverlässigkeit,” 38-39; Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 66, 82. Significant detractors nevertheless remain (e.g., Barrett, “Acts and Corpus”).
69 Nor did he pretend to have done so; Luke includes the “we” sparingly, not pervasively or even commonly.
70 On the value of participation in ancient historiography, see e.g., Byrskog, Story as History, 58- 64, 153-57.
71 See e.g., Dibelius, Studies in Acts, 136; Fitzmyer, Theologian, 11-16; Kurz, Reading Luke-Acts, 112-13.
72 With e.g., Hengel and Schwemer, Between Damascus and Antioch, 7; Neil, Acts, 22-23.
73 While Luke’s and Paul’s theological perspectives differ, the differences have too often been overstated, especially in Vielhauer, “Paulinism”; see critiques in Borgen, “Paul to Luke”; Donfried, Thessalonica, 90-96; Porter, Paul in Acts, 189-206.
74 Many also argue that the style is not distinguishable from the bulk of Luke’s work (e.g., Dibelius, Studies in Acts, 104, 136).
75 Robbins, “We-Passages”; idem, “Land and Sea.”
76 See Fitzmyer, Theologian, 16-22; Hemer, “First Person Narrative”; and especially Praeder, “First Person Narration,” 210-14 (refuting Robbins’ specific parallel claims).
77 Usually with narrators centuries before their own time (e.g., Plut. Dinner 1, Mor.146BC; 4Q537; 1 Enoch; 4 Ezra; 2 Bar.; etc.).
78 For the prefaces (which include first-person usage) prefiguring the “we” narratives, see Cadbury, “We in Luke-Acts”; Dupont, Sources, 167.
79 Fusillo, “Novel,” 840.
80 Also in biography (e.g., Philost. Vit. soph. 2.21.602-4); see discussion of historians’ first- and third-person narration in Keener, John, 918.
81 Nock, Essays, 828; see also Porter, Paul in Acts, 24-27.
82 E.g., Cadbury, “We in Luke-Acts”; Dibelius, Studies in Acts, 135-37; Dupont, Sources, 164-65; Packer, Acts, 3; Munck, Acts, xliii; Hanson, Acts, 21-24; Neil, Acts, 22-23; Dunn, Acts, x; Spencer, Acts, 12-13; Fitzmyer, Acts, 103.
83 Alexander, Preface, 128.
84 See Alexander, Preface, 128-30. The term an?then could also mean “thoroughly,” but here presumably means “from an early point,” paralleling “from the beginning” (Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 123); “from the beginning” appears in histories to claim the presence of eyewitnesses from the start (Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 119-22).
85 Moessner, “Poetics,” 85-97. Cf. also Hemer, Acts in History, 322 (noting that Cadbury thought this involved even participation, a reasonable surmise only in Acts and not the Gospel).
86 Moessner, “Poetics,” 97; idem, “Prologues,” 413. The closest parallel is Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.54, 213ff, where Josephus uses the same language to underline that he is thoroughly immersed “in the events, traditions, and reports,” hence can evaluate the various claims.
87 Witherington, Acts, 27. Witherington, Acts, 27, 32-34, places Luke closer to a Polybius than to many other historians. Still, most writers would not have the resources to travel as much as Polybius, and the limitations of the “we-narratives” suggest that Luke’s travel, too, was limited, though this section specifies only the period that Luke was with Paul during the events he narrates.
88 See comments above, especially Nock, Essays, 821-32 (esp. 828; cited by various commentators). Although there is no consensus, most scholars favor an eyewitness source behind the we-narratives, and probably a majority identify the “we” author with Luke (see discussion in the excursus in my Acts commentary at Acts 16:10).
89 As Bruggen, Narratives, 65-66, notes, it does not require Luke to have been an eyewitness for the events of the Gospel.
90
BDAG cites for this sense Dion. Hal. Pomp. 6.3; Max. Tyre 16.3h; Jos. Ant. 18.342; 19.125; Ag. Ap. 1.55; Papias 2:2; 12:2; and Lk 1:2. The original apostolic tradents implied in Lk 1:2 knew Jesus’ entire public ministry (Acts 1:21-22; cf. Gerhardsson, Memory, 280-88). The term here includes more than the twelve (Acts 1:21-22; Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 389; cf. Lk 24:33; Dillon, Eye-Witnesses, 291).
91 Alexander, Preface, 34-36 (on the convention of autopsia, see Alexander, Preface, 34-41). Herodotean history uses the word this way more than Thucydidean history does (Alexander, Preface, 38; cf. Adams, “Preface,” 189), and often with an emphasis on distant locations (Alexander, Preface, 121; as Judea would have seemed to Luke). She suggests that the use for the author’s presence at events in Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.55 depends on Polyb. 3.4.3 (against Polybius’ normal usage). (In principle, at least, Luke could depend on the same passage as Josephus, but in reality probably was less apt to know Polybius.)
92 Byrskog, Story as History, 48-49 (arguing on 49 that Alexander focuses too much on the term, whereas leading classicist experts on autopsy in ancient historiography emphasize the centrality of the practice).
93 Byrskog, Story as History, 49-53, addresses Heraclitus and others; 53-57, Herodotus; 58-59, Thucydides; 59-62, Polybius (note esp. Polyb. 4.2.1-2 on p. 60); 62-63, Josephus (noting Ag. Ap. 1.47).
94 Byrskog, Story as History, 63, noting Livy as the exception, most following the Greek preference. He notes (63) that Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.6.2 “praises Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus . . . for relating with great exactness only the events at which they themselves had been present.”
95 Byrskog, Story as History, 93-94.
96 Byrskog, Story as History, 94 (for it not always being possible, he cites Polyb. 12.4c.4). Byrskog, Story as History, 94-98, deals with the use of oral sources in Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; he notes (98) the more unusual defense of some that oral sources were even better than autopsy (Isoc. Panathen. 150; Strabo 2.5.11), but suggests (98-99) that more commonly they were appreciated as supplementing autopsy. For documents’ use of eyewitnesses in historians, see Byrskog, Story as History, 149-53.
97 Byrskog, Story as History, 122 (excepting Livy). Of course, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and others covering long periods of history could not depend on immediate oral history for most of it, as they themselves recognized. For apologetic use of autopsy (as in Josephus), see Byrskog, Story as History, 214-22.
98 Byrskog, Story as History, 63-64, citing Pliny Ep. 6.16 (esp. 6.16.22); 6.20. For the Annals Tacitus would have access to witnessses starting in the period of Nero’s later years (Byrskog, Story as History, 64), though our extant text of Ann. ends soon after.
99 Alexander, Preface, 120. Historians considered this the best evidence (Aune, Environment, 81, citing Hdt 2.99; Polyb. 12.27.1-6; 20.12.8; Lucian Hist. 47).
100 Most extensively, see Rothschild, Rhetoric of History, 213-90, noting this authenticating technique.
101 As Maddox, Purpose, 21, 186, emphasizes, “confirmation” is a primary purpose of Luke-Acts; asphaleia is the climactic, final word of Luke’s preface.
102 E.g., Isaeus Pyrr. 40; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.43.2; Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.107; cf. Ag. Ap. 1.50-52, 56. The less widely known a claim was, the more subject to suspicion it would be (Xen. Ages. 5.6).
103 E.g., Eurip. El. 361-62; Demosth. Letter 5.1; Cic. Att. 2.11; Sen. Ep. Lucil. 47.1; P. Oxy. 32; Apul. Metam. 1.26.
104 E.g., Cic. Att. 1.10, 13; 4.1; 8.14. This method could be quick; a letter from Caesar in Britain reached Cicero in less than a month (Cic. Quint. fratr. 3.1.8.25). Despite modern postal service those of us traveling to and from many parts of Nigeria, Kenya and Cameroon in recent years have still carried mail for acquaintances.
105 For financial sharing, see e.g., Rom 15:25-27; 1 Cor 16:1-2; 2 Cor 8-9; cf. the shared expense later in Lucian Peregr. 13.
106 Sterling, Historiography, 135.
107 Sterling, Historiography, 136. Greeks themselves recognized that Egyptian culture predated and influenced their own.
108 Sterling, Historiography, 137-225. Josephus’ rival Justus probably provides one example no longer extant (see Rajak, “Justus of Tiberias,” 92). For apologetic in hellenistic Jewish narrative writers, see further Holladay, Theios Aner, 234 and passim.
109 Wandrey, “Literature: Jewish-Hellenistic,” 696; cf. Ferguson, Backgrounds, 349.
110 Sterling, Historiography, 226-310. More generally, others also emphasize Josephus’ apologetic objectives (e.g., Feldman, “Apologist of World”; in defending himself, Vogel, “Vita 64-69”; Lamour, “L’organisation”). Others offered briefer monographs of apologetic history, e.g., Philo’s Flaccus; see Meiser, “Gattung.” Its discourses help support this conclusion. In contrast to Luke’s work, Flaccus is more rhetorical and focuses on the blame aspect of epideictic, with abundant overt editorializing.
111 See especially Sterling, Historiography, 311-89; for others, see Mason, Josephus and New Testament, 196-97; Kee, Every Nation, 11-12; Johnson, Acts, xii.
112 See Holladay, “Acts and Fragments” (also arguing that Acts shares with these works the heroic characterization of the central heroes). See comment below on Luke’s use of the OT.
113 To make such a claim was not to claim canonicity, although canon was apparently an open question among many Jewish groups. See the discussion of such questions in Smith, “Scripture.”
114 E.g., Sumney, Opponents, 86.