The harmonistic method

DagoodS said:

“I was not discussing Paul’s trip to Jerusalem, but rather the double trip to Damascus, in an attempt to align the contradictions presented in Acts 9:1-25 as compared to Gal. 1:15-17 and 2 Cor. 11:32-33.

There is no ready-made criterion for telling when an ancient historian is skipping years.

I appreciate your honesty. We have no internal reason to place any three year hiatus in Acts 9:21-23, nor any methodology by which to do so. Not in regards to any ancient historians, but the author of Acts in particular.

It was as I suspected—a trumped up apologetic. (Not yours, mind you, just an apologetic.)”

1.You continue to retail in equivocations: for x not to say that something happened, and for x to say that something did not happen, are hardly equivalent propositions.

Silence is not evidence of a nonevent. Silence is not evidence of a contradiction.

2.No, we have no internal reason to see an interval in Acts 9:21-23. But that misses the point.

In the nature of the case, synchronizing two overlapping accounts isn’t based on internal reasons alone, but an external relation generated between two independent, but intersecting accounts.

And this isn’t distinctive to Biblical chronology. This is involved with any relative chronology of ancient world, whether ANE chronology or Greco-Roman chronology.

3. Once again, there’ is no generic methodology. To demand a generic methodology is unhistorical.

We take our sources as they come to us. We don’t impose an extrinsic methodology on the primary sources.

The only “methodology” in synchronizing two overlapping accounts is whatever relation successfully aligns the two accounts in time and place. Certain combinations work, while others do not.

4.Of course, if you insist that one or both of our sources are erroneous, then the exercise is artificial. But that requires a separate argument.

The harmonistic principle is not distinctive to Christian apologetics, but is used in historical reconstructions generally.

5.Finally, it’s disingenuous for an unbeliever to demand a harmonization, and then, when a harmonization is given, accuse the Christian of a “trumped up apologetic.”

If you dismiss any proposed harmonization as DOD, then spare us the insincere demand for one.