One of the arguments that Britt and Wingo frequently come back to is the argument from silence. We’ve already discussed this previously, but another point we have to take into consideration is that we have few early Christian writers in general.
Dealing with Acts specifically, Britt and Wingo attempt to build an argument that maybe Irenaeus, or someone affiliated with him, had some role in the creation of Luke and Acts. That there was some connection between the two. This argument begins with the idea that Irenaeus was the first to mention the book of Acts by name, as well as directly quote it.
How does this stand up though? Prior to Irenaeus, we have fewer than 10 Christian authors (excluding the New Testament authors). Some of these we only know by their writing, such as the author of “Didache.” For others, like Papias, we know they wrote a five-volume treatise called “An Exposition of the Lord’s Oracles,” but it didn’t survive.
In general then, we simply lack sources. We lack written records as a whole, and even often when we do know of ancient writers, it’s not uncommon for their writings to be lost, or fragmentary. Making arguments from silence then often doesn’t work.
We also have to look at the way that Britt and Wingo framed their argument. They purposely omit anything but direct quotes. Yet, direct quotes are often lacking in ancient writings in general.
When it comes to Acts, we have a possible illusion to it in the writings of Ignatius. There are difficulties here in confirming this, because Ignatius doesn’t provide direct citations. Ancient Greek also didn’t have quotation marks, which would signify a direct quote. With all of this in mind though, there is a possible illusion to Acts 20:29 in Ignatius’ Epistle to the Philadelphians.
Ignatius isn’t the only possibility here. When we look at Clement of Rome, we see an obvious reference to Acts. In 1 Clement, chapter 2, it appears that he quotes Acts 20:35. It also appears that the Letter of Polycarp mentions the book of Acts a couple of times.
It is true that none of these are direct quotes. None cite the source they are referencing, or mention the title of the work they are referencing. We also have to take into consideration that often these quotes are from memory. It’s doubtful, for example, that Clement had a copy of all of the texts he references, and instead would have had to access them only through the church at Rome.
We also can’t rule out the idea that some of these apparent quotations were in fact just part of the oral tradition. But even when we keep all of this in mind, it is virtually certain that the books of Acts was referenced before Irenaeus.
This textual witness should put to rest the idea that Irenaeus was somehow involved in the creation of Luke and Acts. But as Britt and Wingo have already dismissed those non-direct quotes, they can continue forwarding their argument.
Their argument doesn’t get far though before we run into another issue. The original Greek of Irenaeus’ “Against Heresies,” hasn’t survived. What we have instead are Latin copies, as well as an Armenian manuscript that contains only two of the books.
While Irenaeus’ work has been reconstructed in Greek, we are looking at a text that has undergone multiple translations. This process will leave the stylistic fingerprints of the translators. Carl Vogel, and Gerard Lynch, in their 2018 article, “The translator’s visibility: Detecting translatorial fingerprints in contemporaneous parallel translations,” show that things such as verb frequencies are strong indicators of a translator’s style, and that this confirms prior studies that have been done.
Looking at “Contre les heresies, Livre I. Tome I,” by Adelin Rousseau and Lous Doutreleau, we get a glimpse into the reconstruction process. It is this series, by the Sources Chretiennes, that is the primary Greek reconstruction of Ireneaus’ work, and thus, since there really isn’t a quality alternative here, we can assume Britt and Wingo utilized this source.
There is a host of challenges that Rousseau and Doutreleau mention when it comes to reconstructing the Greek. There were things such as anomalies with morphology, having to standardize spelling, as well as even correcting the manuscripts. And then there is the matter of their own word choice when it comes to translating different words and phrases, not to mention the need to make their own conjectures as to what the text read in Greek.
All of this adds compounding complications to this endeavor. Adding even more complication to what Britt and Wingo are trying to do is the fact that Irenaeus quotes from not only Acts, but from other New Testament texts. With some of the chapters being quote heavy, it’s not a surprise that some similarities show up.
These analyses that Britt and Wingo supposedly ran though, are nowhere to be found. They basically say, trust me bro, which isn’t even close to being good enough here. When combined with all the other issues with such a comparison, by not showing their actual results, it just further invalidates their argument.
This may be why they shift from the stylometric analysis to other sources. But the next source of argumentation isn’t much better, as it relies on the conflation of names. Specifically, the name Theophilus.
Britt and Wingo attempt to connect Theophilus of Antioch with Irenaeus, and then claim that it would make sense for Irenaeus to address Luke and Acts to this Theophilus. Now, it is quite certain that Irenaeus would have known of Theophilus of Antioch. The problem is that Irenaeus never mentions him.
Sophia Compton, in her 2006 article, “Theophilus of Antioch and Irenaeus on Logos and Sophia,” shows that while Irenaeus never mentions Theophilus by name, it’s likely, based on shared ideas within their writings, that Irenaeus was aware of him. And in many places, the two did agree.
However, as Robert Grant states in his book, “Irenaeus of Lyons,” there were clear disagreements. Irenaeus rejected terms that Theophilus was known to use in regards to God, and also corrected his language about God’s two “hands.”
Quite possibly more important for our argument here is that, as Grant points out, Irenaeus does mention a different Theophilus, one of Caesarea, in his “Ecclesiastical History.” What this highlights is that Theophilus is not a unique name. One can not simply see the name Theophilus and assume that it could only relate to a single person.
From here, Britt’s and Wingo’s argument really takes a nose dive. For instance, they claim that there are anti-Marcionite jabs throughout Luke and Acts, “From the direct lifting and rearranging of Marcion’s gospel to the diminishing of Paul, the apostle Marcion claimed authority from, in Acts from the figure we see in the letters attributed to Paul, the overall goal seems to establish an orthodox claim on all apostolic authority.”
Neither one of these claims supports the idea that there are jabs throughout Luke and Acts though. Especially since they haven’t demonstrated that Luke is an edit of Marcion’s Gospel. And even if we assume that Acts does diminish Paul, would it even matter? After all, the church still accepted the letters of Paul anyway.
Rounding out this section, we will focus on just two more claims (we will return to a number of their arguments here later on). The first deals with a misunderstanding of Greek. This is an issue that plagues this work, as Britt and Wingo are attempting to deal with Greek texts, yet they don’t seem to understand Greek.
This really is highlighted with their attempt to explain why the Gospel of Matthew was attached to the name Matthew. They claim that Matthew in Greek is, “Maththaios,” while the Greek term for disciple or student is, “mathetes.” Ignoring that they get the Greek wrong (Matthew is actually Matthaios), the two words aren’t related, even though they contain some of the same letters. While “mathetes” does mean something like disciple or student, “Matthaios” doesn’t have any similar meaning. Instead, “Matthaios” is the transliteration of a Hebrew name, which means “gift of Yahweh.”
Finally, the weakness of Britt’s and Wingo’s case on trying to connect Irenaeus to Luke and Acts is seen in their concluding remarks. They mention how David Trobisch believes that the New Testament canon we find in the Bible was created by Polycarp, who was the teacher of Irenaeus. The authors use this idea as a get out of jail free card. They claim, “If there were any genuine, direct quotes from canonical Luke not found in Marcion’s gospel prior to the time of Irenaeus, this would likely explain how it might be the case.”
So even if evidence would appear that contradicts their idea, they have a way to dismiss it. As a whole, it should be clear that their argument holds no real weight. What it does show though are serious issues with their methodology, and just some basic flaws in their understanding of the historical method, and the historical context of this time.