What parts in the Acts of the Apostle are believed to be sourced from the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus?

Answer 1

The author of Acts of the Apostles did not use the writings of Josephus as his main source, but did rely on them for historical background. Many parallels have been found between the works of Josephus and some representative examples follow: * Josephus used the term sects or 'philosophical schools' (Greek: haireseis), to describe the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. Luke was the only other author known to have described the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes this way (Acts 5:17, 15:5, 26:5), and he also referred to Christianity as another philosophical school of the Jews (Acts 24:5, 28:22). * Moreover, Luke had Paul call the Pharisees the 'most precise school' among the Jews in the reference at 26:5. Only Josephus and Luke referred to the Pharisees as the 'most precise school'. * Luke had Gamaliel speak about an uprising that had taken place under Theudas, placing this speech in Acts 5:36, before the martyrdom of Stephen. In the next verse, Luke said that after this man, Judas of Galilee rose up. The uprising by Theudas occurred within the procuratorship of Fadus, who was procurator in the years 44-46 CE. However, Acts 11:25-28, tells us that Paul was already a Christian before the famine that also started around the same time as this uprising. It is evident that Luke knew nothing of Theudas from Christian sources, but inserted mention of him into the account as a piece of useful history that Luke learnt from Josephus, and no where else. We can establish that because, when Josephus mentioned Theudas, he immediately followed with commentary on the sons of Judas and then took the opportunity to describe the much earlier actions of Judas himself. Luke repeated the incorrect sequence of Theudas and Judas, which only makes sense in the context of Josephus' narrative - a clear sign that Luke relied on information from Josephus. * Luke, writing in Greek, used the term sicarii, a Latin word for assassins. Josephus, who also wrote in Greek, seems to have been the first to use this foreign word as a term for Jewish rebels who carried out assassinations under cover of urban crowds. * Both Josephus and Luke mentioned three specific rebel leaders, and no other, even though Josephus says there were numerous such men. These rebels were Theudas, Judas and 'the Egyptian'. Luke had the chief captain ask Paul whether he was the Egyptian who led four thousand sicarii (KJV translated as 'murderers') into the desert (Acts 21:38). Far from leading anyone into the desert, 'the Egyptian' wanted to bring down the walls of Jerusalem by a miracle. Ancient writers did not acknowledge their sources using footnotes in the style of modern academic authors, but they did have another way of acknowledge their sources, known as mimesis. This was an intellectually amusing technique that required placing a clue, or flag, within the text, enabling others to identify the source. But the flag must not be obvious - it had to be a clue that needed to be searched for and identified. Josephus had dedicated Jewish Antiquities to Epaphroditus, a real name that meant 'Touched by Aphrodite'. Luke dedicated both the Gospel and Acts to Theophilus, which means 'Friend of God'. This could be a real name but is an apparent transvaluation of Epaphroditus.