68 Rick Strelan 3. A False Prophet The argument that Bar Jesus was someone bordering closely on the Christian community, if not actually within it, gains momentum from the term, ‘false prophet’. However, rather than seeing this term as identifying him as a genuine prophet, the great majority of scholars read this as an association with paganism and magic. Haenchen, for example, says Luke “must have imagined Bar-Jesus as the proconsul’s court-astrologer, who at the same time claimed to know the magic formulae by which the bonds of fate can be broken” (12). Thus he is understood to be not only outside of the Christian pale but even also of the Jewish. Pesch also thinks he is representative of a Jewish-heathen syncretism (13), a view supported by Barrett who thinks that the double description of him as false prophet and magos suggests “that he stood on the boundary between Judaism and heathenism” (14). Jervell is one of the few who rejects this notion and insists that he was associated with the synagogue, and was “ein jüdischer Wundertäter; das Wort mavgo" reicht nicht aus für die Bezeichnung ‘Synkretismus’” (15). And Schille at least considers the possibility that ‘false prophet’ might be used in the same way as it is used in the Didache, that is, as referring to early Christian charismatic prophets. But he then rejects that idea and prefers to interpret ‘false prophet’ in the sense of a gohv". He does so because he identifies Bar Jesus as a magician (16). Fitzmyer understands the description ‘false prophet’ to mean that Bar Jesus “posed as a prophet” (17). This is misleading and reduces the full impact of this episode. Bar Jesus did not pose as a prophet — he was indeed a prophet, but in Luke’s opinion, a false one. A false prophet made the same claims as the true prophet — both appealed to a divine authority for their pronouncements. It must also be remembered that the claim of Luke and other Christian writers that prophecy was alive and active was basically a Christian claim. Most non-Christian Jews believed that prophecy had ceased altogether in the Second Temple (12) HAENCHEN, Acts, 398. (13) R. PESCH, Die Apostelgeschichte (Zürich – Neukirchen-Vluyn 1986) II, 21 and 26. (14) BARRETT, Acts, I, 613. Compare also G. STÄHLIN, Die Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen 1975) 176; for others, see JERVELL, Apostelgeschichte, 346, n. 416. (15) JERVELL, Apostelgeschichte, 346, n. 416. (16) G. SCHILLE, Die Apostelgeschichte des Lukas (Berlin 1984) 287. (17) FITZMYER, Acts, 499.