Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[Minimalist]

The Damascus Road bullshit story appears only in Acts and Acts is, well.....

THE EVIDENCE OF ACTS
1 . Acts as Historical Fiction
The book of Acts has been all but discredited as a work of apologetic historical
fiction. 1


Pg 359  On The Historicity of Jesus, Richard Carrier

Before some jesus freak shitwit jumps up screeching about how Carrier "hates" god I left the footnote in and print below the text of the note.

1 . See Richard Pervo, The Mystery of Acts (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2008);
and Richard Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009),
for the most thorough accounting of this fact (see especially the latter, pp. 17-18),
with substantial support in Thomas Brodie, The Birthing of the New Testament: The
lntertextua/ Development of the New Testament Writings (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix,
2004), esp. pp. 377-445 (on Acts specifically); Dennis MacDonald, Does the New
Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2003); and John Dominic Crossan, The Power of Parable:
How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 201 2),
pp. 196-217. See also Clare Rothschild, Luke-Acts and the Rhetoric of History: An
Investigation of Early Christian Historiography (TDbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004);
Loveday Alexander, 'Fact, Fiction and the Genre of Acts', New Testament Studies 44
(1998), pp. 380-99; and P.E. Satterthwaite, 'Acts against the Background of Classical
Rhetoric', in The Book of Acts in its Ancient Literary Setting (ed. Bruce Winter and
Andrew Clarke; Grand Rapids, Ml: Will iam B. Eerdmans, 1 993), pp. 337-80. There are
conservatives who protest, but not with logicaJiy valid arguments.

So, sorry assholes.  It is not just one guy telling you that your book is a pile of shit.  There are many.