Acts of the Apostles

This article is about the book in the Christian New Testament. For the literature genre, see Acts of the Apostles (genre). For the acronym, see ACTS (disambiguation).
"Acts" redirects here. For other uses, see Act.
Acts of the Apostles
Ancient manuscript page showing Greek text
Acts 5:12–21 on Uncial 0189 (verso; c. AD 200)
Information
ReligionChristianity
AuthorTraditionally Luke the Evangelist
LanguageKoine Greek
Periodc. 80–90 AD
Chapters28
Full text
Bible (Literal Standard Version)/Acts at English Wikisource
[1]

The Acts of the Apostles[a] (Koine Greek: Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, Práxeis Apostólōn[3] and Latin: Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament. It recounts the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message across the Roman Empire.[4]

Acts and the Gospel of Luke form a two-volume work known as Luke–Acts by the same author.[5] Tradition identifies the writer as Luke the Evangelist, a doctor who travelled with Paul the Apostle, though the text does not name its author.[6][5] Critical opinion remains divided about whether Luke the physician wrote it.[7] Many scholars still regard the author of Luke–Acts as a companion of Paul, although they note tensions with the Pauline epistles.[8][9][10] Most scholars treat Acts as historiography, though focus is more on the author's aims than on settling questions of historicity.[11][12][13] The book is usually dated to 80–90 AD.[14]

The Gospel of Luke depicts the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Acts continues the story of Christianity, beginning with the ascension of Jesus and the mission from Jerusalem into the wider Mediterranean world. The early chapters describe Pentecost, the shared life of the first believers, and the establishment of the church at Antioch. The later chapters follow Paul as he carries the message throughout the empire and conclude with his imprisonment in Rome as he awaits trial.

Luke–Acts addresses how the Jewish Messiah came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church by arguing that the message reached the Gentiles after the Jewish rejection.[4] The work also defends the Jesus movement for Jewish audiences, since most speeches respond to Jewish concerns while Roman officials arbitrate disputes about Jewish customs and law.[15] Luke presents the followers of Jesus as a Jewish sect entitled to legal protection, but remains ambivalent about the future of Jews and Christians, affirming Jesus' Jewish identity while emphasizing the Jews' rejection of the Messiah.[16]

Composition and setting

Main article: Authorship of Luke–Acts

Title, unity of Luke–Acts, authorship and date

Acts 26:20 on Papyrus 29 recto (c. AD 250)[1]
Acts 26:7-8 on its verso.

The name "Acts of the Apostles" was first used by Irenaeus in the late 2nd century. It is not known whether this was an existing name for the book or one invented by Irenaeus; it does seem clear that it was not given by the author, as the word práxeis (deeds, acts) only appears once in the text (Acts 19:18) and there it refers not to the apostles but to deeds confessed by their followers.[3]

The Gospel of Luke and Acts make up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts.[5] Together they account for 27.5% of the New Testament, the largest contribution attributed to a single author, providing the framework for both the Church's liturgical calendar and the historical outline into which later generations have fitted their idea of the story of Jesus and the early church.[17] The author was not named in either volume, as was common for ancient biographies and histories, including Tacitus’s Germania and Diogenes Laertius.[18][19] According to Church tradition dating from the 2nd century, the author was Luke, named as a companion of the apostle Paul in three letters attributed to Paul, but a twentieth century consensus emphasized the differences with the Pauline letters, such as Acts’ representation of Pauline theology, casting the tradition into doubt.[20][21] [22][23] Many scholars have questioned authorship by the physician Luke, and critical opinion on the subject was assessed to be roughly evenly divided near the end of the 20th century.[24] More recent developments in interpretation find that Paul and the author of Luke–Acts are not as different theologically as previously thought.[25] Most scholars maintain that the author of Luke–Acts, whether named Luke or not, met Paul.[26][27] He was educated, a man of means, probably urban, and someone who respected manual work, although not a worker himself; this is significant, because more high-brow writers of the time looked down on the artisans and small business people who made up the early church of Paul and were presumably Luke's audience.[28]

The interpretation of the "we" passages as indicative that the writer was a historical eyewitness (whether Luke the evangelist or not), remains the most influential in current biblical studies.[29] Objections to this viewpoint include the above claim that Luke–Acts contains differences in theology and historical narrative which are irreconcilable with the authentic letters of Paul the Apostle.[30]

The earliest possible date for Luke–Acts is around 62 AD, the time of Paul's imprisonment in Rome,[31][b] Most scholars date the work to 80–90 AD on the grounds that it uses Mark as a source, looks back on the destruction of Jerusalem, and does not show any awareness of the letters of Paul.[33] Some contend that if it does show awareness of the Pauline epistles (argued to begin circulation in the late first century) or the work of Josephus, a date in the early 2nd century is possible.[34][35][36] [c] However, many arguments mediate against this dating, such as the Gospel of John's awareness of the gospel, its independence from the Gospel of Matthew in the two-source hypothesis, and 1 Clement.[38]

Manuscripts

There are two major textual variants of Acts, the Western text-type and the Alexandrian. The oldest complete Alexandrian manuscripts date from the 4th century and the oldest Western ones from the 6th, with fragments and citations going back to the 3rd. Western texts of Acts are 6.2–8.4% longer than Alexandrian texts, the additions tending to enhance the Jewish rejection of the Messiah and the role of the Holy Spirit, in ways that are stylistically different from the rest of Acts.[39] The majority of scholars prefer the Alexandrian (shorter) text-type over the Western as the more authentic, but this same argument would favour the Western over the Alexandrian for the Gospel of Luke, as in that case the Western version is the shorter.[39]

Genre, sources and historicity of Acts

The title "Acts of the Apostles" (Praxeis Apostolon) would seem to identify it with the genre telling of the deeds and achievements of great men (praxeis), but it was not the title given by the author, who instead aligned Luke–Acts to the 'narratives' (διήγησις diēgēsis) which others had written, and described his own work as an "orderly account" (ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς). It lacks exact analogies in Hellenistic or Jewish literature.[40] [3] Balch compares Luke-Acts to the works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who wrote a well-known history of Rome, and the Jewish historian Josephus, author of a history of the Jews.[41] Like them, he anchors his history by dating the birth of the founder (Romulus for Dionysius, Moses for Josephus, Jesus for Luke) and like them he tells how the founder is born from God, taught authoritatively, and appeared to witnesses after death before ascending to heaven.[41] No sources have been identified for Acts,[42][43] but the author would have had access to the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures) and the Gospel of Mark. Advocates of the Two-source hypothesis argue that Luke knew the Q source, while a growing number of scholars defend either the Farrer hypothesis where Luke used Matthew without Q or the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis where neither were used.[44][45][46][47] He transposed a few incidents from Mark's gospel to the time of the Apostles—for example, the material about "clean" and "unclean" foods in Mark 7 is used in Acts 10, and Mark's account of the accusation that Jesus has attacked the Temple (Mark 14:58) is used in a story about Stephen (Acts 6:14).[48] There are also points of contact (meaning suggestive parallels but something less than clear evidence) with 1 Peter, the Letter to the Hebrews, and 1 Clement.[49][50] Other sources can only be inferred from internal evidence—the traditional explanation of the three "we" passages, for example, is that they represent eyewitness accounts.[51] The search for such inferred sources was popular in the 19th century, but by the mid-20th it had largely been abandoned.[52]

Ministry of the Apostles: Russian icon by Fyodor Zubov, 1660

Acts was read as a reliable history of the early church well into the post-Reformation era. Attitudes towards the historicity of Acts have ranged widely across scholarship in different countries.[53] The debate on the historicity of Acts became most vehement between 1895 and 1915.[54] The influential scholar Ferdinand Christian Baur suggested that the author had rewritten history to present a united Peter and Paul and advance a single orthodoxy against the Marcionites. Today there is less interest in determining the historical accuracy of Acts (although this has never died out) than in understanding the author's theological program,[13] though a middle range of scholars see Acts as relatively reliable by standards used to evaluate Hellenistic historiography.[55]

Most New Testament scholars view Luke-Acts as representing a form of historiography with a number of sub-genres under discussion, with other proposed genres including novel, epic, and ancient biography.[11][12]

Audience and authorial intent

Luke was written to be read aloud to a group of Jesus-followers gathered in a house to share the Lord's supper.[41] The author assumes an educated Greek-speaking audience, but directs his attention to specifically Christian concerns rather than to the Greco-Roman world at large.[56] He begins his gospel with a preface addressed to Theophilus (Luke 1:3; cf. Acts 1:1), informing him of his intention to provide an "ordered account" of events which will lead his reader to "certainty".[28] He did not write in order to provide Theophilus with historical justification—"did it happen?"—but to encourage faith—"what happened, and what does it all mean?"[57]

Acts (or Luke–Acts) is intended as a work of "edification", meaning "the empirical demonstration that virtue is superior to vice."[58][59] The work also engages with the question of a Christian's proper relationship with the Roman Empire, the civil power of the day: could a Christian obey God and also Caesar? The answer is ambiguous.[15] The Romans never move against Jesus or his followers unless provoked by the Jews; in the trial scenes the Christian missionaries are always cleared of charges of violating Roman laws; and Acts ends with Paul in Rome proclaiming the Christian message under Roman protection. On the other hand, Luke makes clear that the Romans, like all earthly rulers, receive their authority from Satan, while Christ is ruler of the kingdom of God.[60]

Structure and content

Acts 1:1–2a from the 14th century Minuscule 223

Structure

Acts is divided into 28 chapters. The work has two key structural principles. The first is the geographic movement from Jerusalem, centre of God's Covenantal people, the Jews, to Rome, centre of the Gentile world. This structure reaches back to the author's preceding work, the Gospel of Luke, and is signaled by parallel scenes such as Paul's utterance in Acts 19:21, which echoes Jesus's words in Luke 9:51: Paul has Rome as his destination, as Jesus had Jerusalem. The second key element is the roles of Peter and Paul, the first representing the Jewish Christian church, the second the mission to the Gentiles.[61]

  • Transition: reprise of the preface addressed to Theophilus and the closing events of the gospel (Acts 1–1:26)
  • Petrine Christianity: the Jewish church from Jerusalem to Antioch (Acts 2:1–12:25)
2:1–8:1 – beginnings in Jerusalem
8:2–40 – the church expands to Samaria and beyond
9:1–31 – conversion of Paul
9:32–12:25 – the conversion of Cornelius, and the formation of the Antioch church
  • Pauline Christianity: the Gentile mission from Antioch to Rome (Acts 13:1–28:31)
13:1–14:28 – the Gentile mission is promoted from Antioch
15:1–35 – the Gentile mission is confirmed in Jerusalem
15:36–28:31 – the Gentile mission, climaxing in Paul's passion story in Rome (21:17–28:31)

Outline

Content

See also: Early Christianity and Jewish Christians

The Gospel of Luke began with a prologue addressed to Theophilus; Acts likewise opens with an address to Theophilus, and its preface links it to both Luke’s gospel and the biographical and historiographical approach of Luke 1.[62]

The apostles and other followers of Jesus meet and elect Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot as a member of The Twelve. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends and confers God's power on them, and Peter and John preach to many in Jerusalem and perform healings, casting out of evil spirits, and raising of the dead. The first believers share all property in common, eat in each other's homes, and worship together. At first many Jews follow Christ and are baptized, but the followers of Jesus begin to be increasingly persecuted by other Jews. Stephen is accused of blasphemy and stoned. Stephen's death marks a major turning point: the Jews have rejected the message, and henceforth it will be taken to the Gentiles.[63]

The death of Stephen initiates persecution, and many followers of Jesus leave Jerusalem. The message is taken to the Samaritans, a people held in hostility by the Jews, and to the Gentiles. Saul of Tarsus, one of the Jews who persecuted the followers of Jesus, is converted by a vision to become a follower of Christ (an event which Luke regards as so important that he relates it three times). Peter, directed by a series of visions, preaches to Cornelius the Centurion, a Gentile God-fearer, who becomes a follower of Christ. The Holy Spirit descends on Cornelius and his guests, thus confirming that the message of eternal life in Christ is for all mankind. The Gentile church is established in Antioch (northwestern Syria, the third largest city of the empire), and here Christ's followers are first called Christians.[64]

The mission to the Gentiles is promoted from Antioch and confirmed at a meeting in Jerusalem between Paul and the leadership of the Jerusalem church. Paul spends the next few years traveling through western Asia Minor and the Aegean, preaching, converting, and founding new churches. On a visit to Jerusalem he is set on by a Jewish mob. Saved by the Roman commander, he is accused by the Jews of being a revolutionary, the "ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes", and imprisoned. Later, Paul asserts his right as a Roman citizen, to be tried in Rome and is sent by sea to Rome, where he spends another two years under house arrest, proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching freely about "the Lord Jesus Christ". Acts ends abruptly without recording the outcome of Paul's legal troubles.[65]

Theology

Paul's conversion, from Livre d'Heures d'Étienne Chevalier (c. 1450–1460), Jean Fouquet, in the Château de Chantilly

Prior to the 1950s, Luke–Acts was seen as a historical work, written to defend Christianity before the Romans or Paul against his detractors; today Acts is widely recognized as both historiographical and theological.[66] [67] Luke’s theology is expressed primarily through his overarching plot, the way scenes, themes and characters combine to construct his specific worldview.[68] His "salvation history" stretches from the Creation to the present time of his readers, in three ages: first, the time of "the Law and the Prophets" (Luke 16:16), the period beginning with Genesis and ending with the appearance of John the Baptist (Luke 1:5–3:1); second, the epoch of Jesus, in which the Kingdom of God was preached (Luke 3:2–24:51); and finally the period of the Church, which began when the risen Christ was taken into Heaven, and would end with his second coming.[69]

Luke–Acts is an attempt to answer a theological problem, namely how the Messiah, promised to the Jews, came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; the answer it provides, and its central theme, is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it.[4] This theme is introduced in Chapter 4 of the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus, rejected in Nazareth, recalls the rejection of prophets. At the end of the gospel he commands his disciples to preach his message to all nations, "beginning from Jerusalem." He repeats the command in Acts, telling them to preach "in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the Earth." They then proceed to do so, in the order outlined: first Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, then the entire (Roman) world.[70]

For Luke, the Holy Spirit is the driving force behind the spread of the Christian message, and he places more emphasis on it than do any of the other evangelists. The Spirit is "poured out" at Pentecost on the first Samaritan and Gentile believers and on disciples who had been baptised only by John the Baptist, each time as a sign of God's approval. The Holy Spirit represents God's power (at his ascension, Jesus tells his followers, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you"): through it the disciples are given speech to convert thousands in Jerusalem, forming the first church (the term is used for the first time in Acts 5).[71]

One issue debated by scholars is Luke's political vision regarding the relationship between the early church and the Roman Empire. On the one hand, Luke generally does not portray this interaction as one of direct conflict. Rather, there are ways in which each may have considered having a relationship with the other rather advantageous to its own cause. For example, early Christians may have appreciated hearing about the protection Paul received from Roman officials against Gentile rioters in Philippi (Acts 16:16–40) and Ephesus (Acts 19:23–41), and against Jewish rioters on two occasions (Acts 17:1–17; Acts 18:12–17). Meanwhile, Roman readers may have approved of Paul's censure of the illegal practice of magic (Acts 19:17–19) as well as the amicability of his rapport with Roman officials such as Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:6–12) and Festus (Acts 26:30–32). Furthermore, Acts does not include any account of a struggle between Christians and the Roman government as a result of the latter's imperial cult. Thus Paul is depicted as a moderating presence between the church and the Roman Empire.[72]

On the other hand, events such as the imprisonment of Paul at the hands of the empire (Acts 22–28) as well as several encounters that reflect negatively on Roman officials (for instance, Felix's desire for a bribe from Paul in Acts 24:26) function as concrete points of conflict between Rome and the early church.[73] Perhaps the most significant point of tension between Roman imperial ideology and Luke's political vision is reflected in Peter's speech to the Roman centurion, Cornelius (Acts 10:36). Peter states that "this one" [οὗτος], i.e. Jesus, "is lord [κύριος] of all." The title, κύριος, was often ascribed to the Roman emperor in antiquity, rendering its use by Luke as an appellation for Jesus an unsubtle challenge to the emperor's authority.[74]

Comparison with other writings

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, ascribed to Valentin de Boulogne, 17th century

Gospel of Luke

As the second part of the two-part work Luke–Acts, Acts has significant links to the Gospel of Luke. Major turning points in the structure of Acts find parallels in Luke: the presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple parallels the opening of Acts in the Temple, Jesus's forty days of testing in the wilderness prior to his mission parallel the forty days prior to his Ascension in Acts, the mission of Jesus in Samaria and the Decapolis (the lands of the Samaritans and Gentiles) parallels the missions of the Apostles in Samaria and the Gentile lands, and so on (see Gospel of Luke). These parallels continue through both books, contributing to the narrative unity of the work.

However, apparent differences between Luke and Acts, such as the timing of the Ascension,[75] have led to debates over the nature of the unity between the two books. While not seriously questioning the single authorship of Luke–Acts, these variations suggest a complex literary structure that balances thematic continuity with narrative development across two volumes.[76] Literary studies have explored how Luke sets the stage in his gospel for key themes that recur and develop throughout Acts, including the offer to and rejection of the Messianic kingdom by Israel, and God's sovereign establishment of the church for both Jews and Gentiles.[77]

Pauline epistles

Acts agrees with Paul's letters on the major outline of Paul's career: he is converted and becomes a Christian missionary and apostle, establishing new churches in Asia Minor and the Aegean and compelling Gentile Christians to not obey the Jewish Law. There are also agreements on many incidents, such as Paul's escape from Damascus, where he is lowered down the walls in a basket. However, Boring and Phillips note differences with the letters, notably Paul's problems with his congregations (internal difficulties are said to be the fault of the Jews instead), a final offering to the church leaders in Jerusalem that is accepted but has no mention in the letters, Christology, apostleship, and details about the same incidents such as Paul's arrest in Damascus and his relationship with James and Peter.[78][79] Recent shifts in interpretation find that the Paul and the author of Luke–Acts are not as different theologically as previously thought.[25]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The book is sometimes simply called Acts (which is also its most common form of abbreviation).[2]
  2. ^ Those who posit later dates consider early-dates as problematic, and propose theological reasons for Acts open ending, and challenge assumptions trying to harmonize Acts with Pauline chronology.[32]
  3. ^ Others question the idea that the Pauline epistles were used by Luke as part of a collection or at a particular date.[37]

References

  1. ^ a b Aland, Kurt; Aland, Barbara (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Translated by Rhodes, Erroll F. (2nd ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-8028-4098-1. Archived from the original on October 5, 2023.
  2. ^ "Bible Book Abbreviations". Logos Bible Software. Archived from the original on April 21, 2022. Retrieved April 21, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Matthews 2011, p. 12.
  4. ^ a b c Burkett 2002, p. 263.
  5. ^ a b c Burkett 2002, p. 195.
  6. ^ Nickle 2001, p. 43.
  7. ^ Brown, Raymond E. (1997). Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Anchor Bible. pp. 267–8. ISBN 0-385-24767-2.
  8. ^ Theissen, Gerd; Merz, Annette. The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide. Fortress Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-4514-0863-8.
  9. ^ "The principle essay in third regard is P. Vielhauer, 'On the "Paulinism" of Acts', in L.E. Keck and J. L. Martyn (eds.), Studies in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 33–50, who suggests that Luke's presentation of Paul was, on several fronts, a contradiction of Paul's own letters (e.g. attitudes on natural theology, Jewish law, christology, eschatology). This has become the standard position in German scholarship, e.g., Conzelmann, Acts; J. Roloff, Die Apostelgeschichte (NTD; Berlin: Evangelische, 1981) 2–5; Schille, Apostelgeschichte des Lukas, 48–52. This position has been challenged most recently by Porter, "The Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Letters: Some Common Misconceptions', in his Paul of Acts, 187–206. See also I.H. Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leister: InterVarsity Press, 1980) 42–44; E.E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 2nd edn, 1974) 45–47.", Pearson, "Corresponding sense: Paul, dialectic, and Gadamer", Biblical Interpretation Series, p. 101 (2001). Brill.
  10. ^ Keener, Craig (2020). Acts (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-1108468688.
  11. ^ a b Bond, Helen; Hurtado, Larry (2015). Peter in Early Christianity. Eerdmans. p. 63-64. ISBN 978-0802871718.
  12. ^ a b Adams, Sean (2013). The Genre of Acts and Collected Biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-1107041042.
  13. ^ a b Holladay 2011, p. unpaginated.
  14. ^ Charlesworth, James H. (2008). The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide. Abingdon Press. ISBN 978-1-4267-2475-6.
  15. ^ a b Pickett 2011, pp. 6–7.
  16. ^ Boring 2012, p. 563.
  17. ^ Boring 2012, p. 556.
  18. ^ Gurtner, Daniel; Tabb, Brian (2025). Engaging the First Christian Historian: Essays on Luke-Acts (The Library of New Testament Studies). Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 73-74. ISBN 9780567713421.
  19. ^ Burkett 2002, p. 196.
  20. ^ Wolter, Michael (2018). The Gospel According to Luke: Volume 1. Baylor University Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-3161549328.
  21. ^ Theissen & Merz 1998, p. 32.
  22. ^ Perkins 1998, p. 253.
  23. ^ Boring 2012, p. 590.
  24. ^ Brown, Raymond E. (1997). Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Anchor Bible. pp. 267–8. ISBN 0-385-24767-2.
  25. ^ a b Wolter 2018, p. 7.
  26. ^ Keener, Craig (2020). Acts (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-1108468688.
  27. ^ Immanuel, Babu (2017). Acts of the Apostles: An Exegetical and Contextual Commentary. Fortress Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-1506438092.
  28. ^ a b Green 1997, p. 35.
  29. ^ "A glance at recent extended treatments of the "we" passages and commentaries demonstrates that, within biblical scholarship, solutions in the historical eyewitness traditions continue to be the most influential explanations for the first-person plural style in Acts. Of the two latest full-length studies on the "we" passages, for example, one argues that the first-person accounts came from Silas, a companion of Paul but not the author, and the other proposes that first-person narration was Luke's (Paul's companion and the author of Acts) method of communicating his participation in the events narrated.17 17. Jurgen Wehnert, Die Wir-Passegen der Apostelgeschitchte: Ein lukanisches Stilmittel aus judischer Tradition (GTA 40; Gottingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989); Claus-Jurgen Thornton, Der Zeuge des Zeugen: Lukas als Historiker der Paulus reisen (WUNT 56; Tugingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991). See also, Barrett, Acts of the Apostles, and Fitzmyer, Acts of the Apostles.", Campbell, "The "we" passages in the Acts of the Apostles: the narrator as narrative", p. 8 (2007). Society of Biblical Literature.
  30. ^ "The principle essay in this regard is P. Vielhauer, 'On the "Paulinism" of Acts', in L.E. Keck and J. L. Martyn (eds.), Studies in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 33–50, who suggests that Luke's presentation of Paul was, on several fronts, a contradiction of Paul's own letters (e.g. attitudes on natural theology, Jewish law, christology, eschatology). This has become the standard position in German scholarship, e.g., Conzelmann, Acts; J. Roloff, Die Apostelgeschichte (NTD; Berlin: Evangelische, 1981) 2–5; Schille, Apostelgeschichte des Lukas, 48–52. This position has been challenged most recently by Porter, "The Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Letters: Some Common Misconceptions', in his Paul of Acts, 187–206. See also I.H. Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leister: InterVarsity Press, 1980) 42–44; E.E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 2nd edn, 1974) 45–47.", Pearson, "Corresponding sense: Paul, dialectic, and Gadamer", Biblical Interpretation Series, p. 101 (2001). Brill.
  31. ^ Armstrong, Karl L. (2021). Dating Acts in its Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-567-69647-2.
  32. ^ Glover, Daniel B. (2025). "An Early Date for Acts? Dispensing with Some Recent Arguments, Bulletin for Biblical Research". 35 (2): 239–268. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  33. ^ Charlesworth, James H. (2008). The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide. Abingdon Press. ISBN 978-1-4267-2475-6.
  34. ^ Tyson, Joseph B., (April 2011). "When and Why Was the Acts of the Apostles Written?", in: The Bible and Interpretation: "...A growing number of scholars prefer a late date for the composition of Acts, i.e., c. 110–120 CE. Three factors support such a date. First, Acts seems to be unknown before the last half of the second century. Second, compelling arguments can be made that the author of Acts was acquainted with some materials written by Josephus, who completed his Antiquities of the Jews in 93–94 CE...Third, recent studies have revised the judgment that the author of Acts was unaware of the Pauline letters."
  35. ^ Boring 2012, p. 587.
  36. ^ Gnuse, R. (2002). Vita Apologetica: The Lives of Josephus and Paul in Apologetic Historiography. Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, 13(2), 151–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/095182070201300203, Abstract: "This article suggests that the author of Acts may have been inspired by Josephan texts when crafting biographical narratives about Paul."
  37. ^ Tannehill, Robert. "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists by RICHARD I. PERVO Review by: Robert C. Tannehill". The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 69 (4): 827–28 – via JSTOR.
  38. ^ Runesson, Anders (2021). Jesus, New Testament, Christian Origins. Eerdmans. pp. 6–3. ISBN 9780802868923. Many arguments speak against such a late dating...the gospel seems to have been known to the author of John's Gospel...Luke and Matthew were written independently...which is harder to believe the farther apart they are dated...1 Clement, usually dated to the end of the 90s CE, appears even more distant from the first Christ-believing heroes than does Luke
  39. ^ a b Thompson 2010, p. 332.
  40. ^ Aune 1988, p. 77.
  41. ^ a b c Balch 2003, p. 1104.
  42. ^ Bruce 1990, p. 40.
  43. ^ Bond, Helen; Hurtado, Larry (2015). Peter in Early Christianity. Eerdmans. p. 70. ISBN 978-0802871718.
  44. ^ Boring 2012, p. 577.
  45. ^ Powell 2018, p. 113.
  46. ^ Runesson, Anders (2021). Jesus, New Testament, Christian Origins. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802868923.
  47. ^ The Synoptic Problem 2022: Proceedings of the Loyola University Conference. Peeters Pub and Booksellers. 2023. ISBN 9789042950344.
  48. ^ Witherington 1998, p. 8.
  49. ^ Boring 2012, p. 578.
  50. ^ Pierson Parker. (1965). The "Former Treatise" and the Date of Acts. Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 84, No. 1 (Mar., 1965), pp. 52–58 (7 pages). "Furthermore, the relative calm of both of Luke's books, and sparse apocalyptic as compared with Matthew and Mark, sugg the church was out from under duress when Luke wrote. This is cially true of Acts. Some scholars used to put Acts in the second century, but few nowadays would do so. Indeed if Clement of Rom knew the book, as he seems to have done, it will have to be prior to a. d. 96." and "I Clem 2 1 with Acts 20 35; I Clem 5 4 with Acts 12 17; I Clem 18 1 w 13 22; I Clem 41 1 with Acts 23 1; I Clem 42 1–4, 44 2 with Acts 1–8; I Clem with Acts 26 7; I Clem 59 2."
  51. ^ Bruce 1990, pp. 40–41.
  52. ^ Boring 2012, p. 579.
  53. ^ Setzer, "Jewish responses to early Christians: history and polemics, 30–150 C.E.", p. 94 (1994). Fortress Press.
  54. ^ Hemer & Gempf, "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", p.3 (1990). Mohr Siebeck.
  55. ^ Keener, Craig S. (2020). Acts. Cambridge New York (N.Y.): Cambridge University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-1108468688.
  56. ^ Green 1995, pp. 16–17.
  57. ^ Green 1997, p. 36.
  58. ^ Fitzmyer 1998, pp. 55–65.
  59. ^ Aune 1988, p. 80.
  60. ^ Boring 2012, p. 562.
  61. ^ Boring 2012, pp. 569–70.
  62. ^ Adams, Sean (2013). The Genre of Acts and Collected Biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-1107041042.
  63. ^ Burkett 2002, p. 265.
  64. ^ Burkett 2002, p. 266.
  65. ^ Freedman, David Noel; Myers, Allen C.; Beck, Astrid B., eds. (2000). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4. OCLC 44454699.
  66. ^ Buckwalter 1996, p. 6.
  67. ^ Hubbard, Jeffrey (2024). "Philosophical Protreptic and the Preface to Luke's Gospel". Journal of Theological Studies. 75. Oxford University Press: 63-79. doi:10.1093/jts/flae006. Does he write as an investigator who personally interviewed eye witnesses? As some type of historian?…Usually regarded as the consensus position. See especially Cadbury, 'Commentary on the Preface of Luke', pp. 489–510; van Unnik, 'Remarks', pp. 461–82; I.I. Du Plessis, 'Once More: The Purpose of Luke's Prologue', NovT 16 (1974), pp. 259–71; Terrance Callan, 'The Preface of Luke-Acts and Historiography', NTS 31 (1985), pp. 576–81.
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  69. ^ Evans 2011, p. no page numbers.
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  73. ^ Phillips 2009, pp. 119–21.
  74. ^ Rowe 2005, pp. 291–98.
  75. ^ Zwiep 2010, p. 39.
  76. ^ Parsons & Pervo 1993, pp. 17–18.
  77. ^ Tannehill, Robert C. (1991). The narrative unity of Luke-Acts. 1: The gospel according to Luke. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-2557-3.
  78. ^ Phillips 2009, p. 196.
  79. ^ Boring 2012, pp. 581, 588–90.

Sources

Further reading

allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_the_Apostles