Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 76

Acts 28:3-6. Paul being bitten by a viper, felt no harm from the effects of the poisonous bite, and was, therefore, held by the barbarians surrounding him, to be a God.

The ease with which a human being was deified in those days, accounts for the astonishing superstitious belief that Jesus was at the same time mortal and a God.

Acts 28 is the last chapter in the book, which does not so much conclude as it just stops. No mention is made of Paul's death, and no mention is made about the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple. Both would have made excellent points for the author, so I consider this evidence that Acts was written long before the destruction of that temple.

This chapter begins with Paul on Malta. The first thing to note is that the term "chief man" was the actual term used for the Maltese leader during the middle of the First Century. A later forger would not have been able to get that and hundreds of other details right. For more on the historical accuracy of the Gospel accounts, take a look at this video:


To address Troki's point, he states that it was easy for someone to think that a human was a god. This is true. The ancient Greeks and Romans did believe that the gods were capable of taking on human form and walking among us. What was not easy for them to believe is that the universe is a creature of one supreme God.

The ancient Greco-Roman religions saw their gods in much the same way that the Stargate movie and TV series saw them. They are creatures of the universe, but far more powerful than us. These ascended beings could give power and aid to weaker mortal creatures. This is utterly disanalogous to the doctrines of Christianity which teach that the creator and sustainer of all things took on corporeal form, as Paul writes on Colossians:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
 (Colossians 1:15-20)

A. Lukyn Williams takes a different approach to this accusation:

On the account of Simon Magus given in the Acts our Rabbi remarks that he finds in a Polish work called the Great Old Chronicle* that Simon performed many miracles by the aid of magic, and that therefore he was worshipped as a god. So, the Rabbi concludes, was it with Jesus. The Rabbi further illustrates his theory by the incident at Malta recorded in Acts 28:6, when the islanders said St. Paul must be a god because he shook off the viper from his hand and was uninjured. The last comparison is of little weight. For the chance remark of the uneducated barbarian produced no belief in the divinity of the Apostle. Nor is there much point in the comparison between Simon Magus and our Lord.

What force has the Great Old Chronicle, written a thousand years or more after the events, as a witness to the truth of Simon's doings? And even if it were true that Simon wrought miracles by magic, how does this afford proof that Jesus wrought them by the same method? Besides, is the moral difference between the two to go for nothing? Do Jews really intend to place a charlatan like Simon on the same level as Him who has been the means of raising whole nations to the highest position in the scale of ethics? Is it thinkable that the beneficent effect of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth has been due to fraud and magic? We Christians appeal confidently to the moral sense of every fair-minded and cultivated Jew, and ask if it is possible that good fruit can grow out of an evil tree? If not, it is time to have done with such unsavoury comparisons, and to recognize the unique grandeur of Jesus of Nazareth.