Session 2.4: October 20, 2023
Scripture Reading: Acts 1:1-2
I wrote the former account, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after he had given orders by the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.
End of Genesis Discussion
Last week I attempted to wrap up our brief discussion of Genesis. Because I ran out of time, I would like to use the first few minutes of our current session to tie up loose ends. I think it is important that as we study Acts, we have a general understanding of the Christian worldview—the key reason behind my Genesis detour.
I attempted to take a “minimum facts” approach to the first three chapters of Genesis. By that I mean that I focused on the core or basic lessons taught by the text. These are by no means all the lessons we could learn from it but, instead, those central tenets with which nearly every Christian would agree. Here’s a brief summary of the points we discussed:
(1) One God. The text of Genesis contains no theogony (i.e., genealogy of gods), theomachy (i.e., conflict between gods), or deicide (i.e., death of a god). None of that. Genesis has God—the one and only. This monotheism was radically different than any other belief in the region. (A question was asked last time regarding whether Genesis was the first religious story to introduce monotheism. I still cannot confirm an answer, but I can say that all the major monotheistic religions trace back to the Genesis account.)
(2) God Is Not Like Nature. Whereas in other ancient Near Eastern myths, the line between nature and gods is blurred, that line is an unbreachable chasm in Genesis. Other stories have the gods turning into nature, such as the earth being made out of Tiamat’s corpse, or being one with a natural phenomenon, like the night being a god of the night. In Genesis, God simply speaks creation into being. Nature is not divine in any sense. And God is not “natural” in any sense. If we are willing to go beyond the Genesis story and take into account the whole counsel of scripture along with a bit of theology, I think we can confidently say that God is an uncreated, necessary being, in whose unchanging character goodness itself is rooted.
(3) Nature Is Not Spiritual. Is there a spirit of the water, and a spirit of the wind, and spirit of the day, and a spirit of the night? According to many, if not all, ancients myths: yes. According to Genesis: no. This is the very foundation of science. The natural world is not personal, so it behaves according to impersonal principles that can be relied upon to act consistently. Moreover, this natural world has been made by a mind not completely unlike ours, so we can expect the natural world to be intelligible. This is another foundational principle of science. In our modern world, we are so used to assuming these concepts, we forget how original and revolutionary they truly are.
(4) Man in the Image of God. Other ancient Near Eastern myths tell us that man was created to do the drudging work of which the gods had grown weary. Genesis tells an entirely different story. Man was created in the image of God, to be fruitful and multiply, and rule the earth. Regarding the image of God, often called the imago Dei, I went into a little bit of philosophy to explain what that could possibly mean. I suggested that the mainstream Christian view is that of ontological personalism—although many people get it wrong and think that it is empirical functionalism. This latter view says that personhood is being able to perform certain functions—such as rational thinking. Well, that means fetuses, people in a state of coma, and even people who are asleep are not persons! Ontological personalism says that we are a rational soul. So, the imago Dei is part of our substance, so we can’t lose it.
There is a fifth point I wanted to make but that I did not have time to discuss, and it is a crucial point to the Christian story.
THE ORIGINAL PLAN WAS GOOD BUT THEN…THE FALL
Author Sandra Richter in The Epic of Eden describes God’s original intent by pointing out that the creation narrative is not complete in six days—there is a seventh day. On that day God rested. On the seventh day creation is as it should be, so God could stop to rule over all of it. God and creation were in peace. With that in mind, Richter concludes:
In sum, Genesis 1 tells us of God’s first, perfect plan—a flawlessly ordered world infused with balance and productivity. Here every rock, plant and animal had its own designated place within God’s design, a God-ordained space in which each could thrive, reproduce and serve the good of the whole. And we see from the structure of Genesis 1 that the force that held this peaceful and productive cohabitation in balance was Yahweh’s sovereignty over all. But as Day 6b makes clear, God chose to manage this creation through his representative ʾAdām. Thus humanity is given all authority to protect, maintain and develop God’s great gift under God’s ultimate authority. This is who Yahweh is, who humanity is and how both relate to the creation. And regardless of how you choose to harmonize science and Bible, this message is clearly part of the intent of Genesis 1. I would say it is the primary intent.
Then Richter makes the connection between Genesis 1 and the repeating theme of the book of Genesis: covenant.
You may have noticed that my description of Genesis 1 sounds a lot like the relationship between a vassal and his suzerain; a relationship in which the vassal is given full autonomy within the confines of his overlord’s authority. When this reading of Genesis 1 is wedded to Genesis 2, the profile of covenant becomes even clearer. Here the suzerain (Yahweh) offers his vassals (Adam and Eve) the land grant of Eden with the stipulation that humanity care for it and protect it.
Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate [ ʿābad] and keep it [šāmar]. (Gen 2:15)
In addition to this perfect place, Adam and Eve are given each other (Gen 2:18-25), and as is implied by Genesis 3:8, they are given full access to their loving Creator. The only corner of the garden which was not theirs to use and enjoy was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:
From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die. (Gen 2:16-17)
In essence, Adam and Eve are free to do anything except decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. Yahweh reserves the right (and the responsibility) to name those truths himself. (Emphasis added)
This was Adam and Eve’s perfect world. Not just fruit and fig leaves, but an entire race of people stretching their cognitive and creative powers to the limit to build a society of balance and justice and joy. Here the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve would learn life at the feet of the Father, build their city in the shadow of the Almighty, create and design and expand within the protective confines of his kingdom. The blessing of this gift? A civilization without greed, malice or envy; progress without pollution, expansion without extinction. Can you imagine it? . . . This was God’s perfect plan: the people of God in the place of God dwelling in the presence of God. Yet, as with all covenants, God’s perfect plan was dependent on the choice of the vassal. Humanity must willingly submit to the plan of God. The steward must choose this world; for in God’s perfect plan, the steward had been given the authority to reject it.
But then the fall came. And, surprisingly, then redemption came too.
God’s perfect plan (and humanity’s perfect world) was a matter of choice. Did ʾAdām want this world? Or one of their own making? The ones made in the image of God could not be forced or coerced, but instead were called upon to choose their sovereign. And choose they did. Whenever I think of this moment, the lyrics of Don Francisco’s old folk song echo in my mind: “And all their unborn children die as both of them bow down to Satan’s hand.”16 God’s original intent was sabotaged by humanity, stolen by the Enemy. ʾAdām rejected the covenant, and all the cosmos trembled. Genesis 2:17 makes it painfully clear what the consequences of such an insurrection would be: in that day, “you shall surely die.” But amazingly, mercifully, even though Yahweh had every right to wipe out our rebellious race, he chose another course—redemption. In a move that continues to confound me, God spared the lives of Adam and Eve (and their unborn children) by redirecting the fury of the curse toward another—the battered flesh of his own Son. This is the one the New Testament knows as “the last Adam” (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:22, 45). And although the first Adam did not die, the second surely did. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Introduction to Acts
We are finally done with our brief exploration of Genesis, and we are ready to start discussing Acts. We should introduce the book first and consider its genre, date, author, and historical context. Next week we will finally fall into our trusted pattern of reading scripture and discussing its main points. Believe me, I am as ready as you are to start doing that.
Genre
As we begin the study of Acts, just like with Genesis, we need to ask the question of genre. Except in this case, there is hardly a question. Virtually everyone agrees that Acts is narrating history. The only (rather nuanced) debate is whether Acts is historiography or biography. (I am using the term historiography to refer to a genre of literature. Using the term “history” can be confusing because one is not certain whether the claim is that the text intends to convey historical facts or whether those historical facts are true.)
Historiography vs Biography
What’s the difference between historiography and biography? Roughly speaking, biography focuses on one person, his life, his accomplishments, and his character. Historiography focuses on something other than a person (although it may discuss notable individuals at length), such as an event, a nation, or a movement. Is Acts about the life of Paul? Or, is Acts about the early church?
I bet your question is a different one: why does it matter? The truth is it does not matter much, but it could change our interpretation of certain passages. When we ask question like, “Why would the author include this material?” or “Why would he omit that information?”, our choice of genre matters.
Anyways, I will keep the discussion of this topic brief.
Biography Proposal
Biography is the most common genre proposal after historiography. This proposal retains for Acts the same genre usually assigned to the Gospel of Luke. To many scholars, extending the Gospel’s genre to the second volume seems a logical step. Acts, as a continuation of Luke’s Gospel, provides parallels of Peter and Paul with Jesus, as one might expect in the ancient genre of parallel lives or in ancient double biographies. Moreover, Acts falls in the correct length range for ancient biographies.
Despite many biographic elements, however, Acts self-evidently does not constitute a biography of a single figure. In fact, it seems less interested in sketching vivid portraits of past heroes than in tracing the spectacular development of “the way.” Certainly Acts focuses on major characters, but Acts does not focus on a single character. Even Paul, its dominant and climactic example, functions as an agent of the work’s driving theme, the gospel’s expansion. Acts closes not with his death but with his proclamation in Rome. Despite its biographic emphases, Acts thus functions as historiography carried out partly in a biographic manner.
Historiography Proposal
The genre proposal most supported by scholars is that of historiography—to be more precise, that of a historical monograph (i.e., a one-volume historiographical text). As a historical monograph, it is a work covering a specific historical topic. In contrast to listing events by year in annalistic fashion (a common type of text in the ancient world), some ancient historians would write monographs that arranged their accounts around a main theme. Various factors support the thesis that Luke conceives of his project as primarily a history of some sort. Unlike in a novel, Luke uses sources abundantly in his first volume (i.e., the Gospel of Luke) and presumably in his second volume as well, although we cannot distinguish them clearly in Acts. Luke’s claim to investigate or have close acquaintance with his information (Luke 1: 3) fits historical works, and his occasional use of the first-person plural emphasizes the involvement considered ideal for a good Hellenistic historian. Speeches, the preface, the employment of world history as a context, and other features support this understanding of the work’s genre. Luke’s extensive use of public monologues in Acts plainly fits the conventions of ancient histories but not of biographies or novels. Luke-Acts also includes what appear very much like the prefaces found in histories. When possible, Luke sets his events in the context of world history, just as historians (and almost exclusively historians) did in their histories (Luke 2: 1– 2; 3: 1– 2; Acts 18: 12).
Although it should go without saying, we must be careful to distinguish ancient historiography from modern historiography. We should not demand ancient historians to conform precisely to modern historiography. Ancient historians sometimes fleshed out scenes and speeches to produce a coherent narrative in a way that their contemporaries expected but that modern academic historians would not consider acceptable when writing for their own peers. This contrast reflects the different interests of ancient and modern historiography: ancients emphasized a cohesive narrative more than simple recitation of facts; moderns value exactness in details much more than the rhetorical flow of the narrative for their audience.
Date
Views on the date of Acts range widely. No particular proposed date between 64 A.D. and 90 A.D. is absolutely compelling. The centrist position (70s– 80s), has by far the most adherents; probably the early date (60s) is second in number of adherents; a date in the 90s ranks third; and the second century boasts the fewest adherents. I will only discuss the two most widely held views.
Pre-70
Usually, scholars arguing for a pre-70 date contend that Acts ends where it does because the events had unfolded only this far at the time of Luke’s writing, that is, about 62 A.D. I will discuss the reasons for this view and their potential responses by scholars who hold to the “centrist view.”
Both ancient and modern interpreters have asked and argued: Why else would Luke devote a quarter of Acts to Paul’s trial and appeal yet not record the outcome? Scholars respond that these abrupt endings were not entirely uncommon. Examples would include the Gospel of Mark and Thucydides text on the Peloponnesian War. Granted, they might add, if Luke recorded Paul’s Roman hearings in Jerusalem and Caesarea for use at a trial before Caesar, this material was clearly compiled before Paul’s death. One can, however, still affirm a later publication of the material. Moreover, Luke could have suppressed explicit mention of Paul’s death because it did not suit his larger narrative purpose (e.g., martyrdom). Luke is under no obligation to narrate Paul’s execution, the centrist would claim, because his climax is the gospel reaching the heart of the empire. Finally, the number of Greek words in Acts is nearly the same as for the Gospel of Luke, which may have been the fullest length for Luke’s normal scrolls. In other words, Luke may have run out of room when writing Acts.
Scholars supporting a pre-70 date have also advanced other arguments favoring this position, drawn especially from the setting the book seems to address. One argument is based on Luke’s failure to describe the temple’s destruction as past. Other arguments to date Acts before 70 AD include:
- Acts portrays Jews as being both a spiritual and political power who had influence with Roman courts, an unlikely situation after 70.
- Expectation of Roman justice would be unlikely after the Neronian persecution of 64–65.
- Acts betrays almost no knowledge of Paul’s letters.
Post-70
The argument for a date after Paul’s death follows from the usual premise that Mark wrote before Luke. Papias reports that Mark wrote what he had heard from Peter; if this language suggests that their relation is past, it probably points to a date after Peter’s death. If Luke wrote after using Mark, he presumably would be writing after Peter’s death as well and presumably after Mark’s Gospel had begun circulating among churches in urban centers.
Most scholars believe that Luke 21 (e.g., Luke 21: 20; cf. 23: 29– 31) reflects the accomplished fall of Jerusalem and argue that Luke wrote Acts after completing his Gospel. However, one could counter that most of the discrete elements in Luke 21 could date from before the war of 66–70; various Jewish figures predicted judgment on Jerusalem and its temple before its demise, and the language recycles Septuagintal descriptions of Jerusalem’s earlier sufferings. Certainly, Jerusalem’s judgment was in view before 70 A.D. (Luke 11: 50– 51; Matt 23: 35– 36).
Most scholars today suggest dates between 70 and 85, with some as late as 90. This range of dates is before Josephus’s publications. (Scholars who suggest a later date for Acts often also suggest that it is based or influenced by the works of Josephus.)
Author of Luke-Acts
Today almost all scholars acknowledge that Luke and Acts share the same author. Beyond this general agreement, a majority of scholars agree that Luke was a Gentile, writing for a largely Gentile (or, perhaps more accurately, mixed Gentile and Jewish) Diaspora audience. A much smaller number, though probably still the majority, argue that the author was at least a short-term companion of Paul. Of possible candidates in Pauline literature who fit this description, Luke the physician (Col 4:14) is the likeliest candidate historically and also the one supported (despite his relative obscurity) by subsequent Christian writers who claimed access to earlier sources no longer available to us. Let’s explore that last claim a little further.
Luke the Physician
If we treat Acts the way we treat analogous historical works from its era we should accept the work’s eyewitness claims as authentic indications of the author’s presence. Internal evidence points strongly to a Christian who accompanied Paul on a small number of his travels and should have become well acquainted with him especially on the journey to Jerusalem and Rome. Although the external evidence is less important, it strongly points to Luke “the physician” (Col 4: 14) as the author, a claim that tradition is not likely to have invented (given Luke’s relative obscurity). The external and the internal evidence are compatible, making Luke the likeliest author.
The primary reason for many scholars treating “we” in Acts differently than they would in most other ancient historical works is the argument that a genuine traveling companion of Paul cannot have so misunderstood him. (As we study Acts we can examine this assertion further. Is Acts really at odds with the letters of Paul?)
What is some of the external evidence that supports Luke the physician as the author of Acts? Irenaeus (ca. 180 A.D.) attributes Acts to Luke. The same is true of Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and others. Moreover, a very early manuscript (175–225 A.D.) calls the gospel the “Gospel according to Luke.” Simply put, our earliest external evidence unanimously supports Luke’s authorship. Given his relative obscurity, this is probably not coincidence.
Finally, and admittedly of less importance, the language is consistent with that of a physician.
Gentile or Jew
Whether we believe the author of Luke and Acts to be Luke, can we determine whether the author is Gentile or Jew? From his geographical competence and his interpretation of Judaism, it is certain that he was not a Palestinian Jew. He may have been a Diaspora Jew with interests in the Gentile mission, but given his relationship to Judaism and perspectives, many scholars prefer the idea that he was a Gentile. Scholars who, on other grounds, identify the author with the Luke mentioned in Col 4: 14 will likely also conclude that he was a Gentile. If Luke was a Gentile, he was nevertheless one with considerable experience of Judaism. Although he could have acquired much of this knowledge as a Christian, it is reasonable to suggest, as some scholars have, that he may have been a God-fearer with a long-standing knowledge of the Diaspora synagogue. His immersion in the Septuagint, however, is considerable; if he did not grow up with it, he must have acquired it long before and thoroughly, for he knows how to write Greek with a “biblical” or “Jewish accent,” so to speak.
Audience
Scholars often suggest that Luke’s audience was wealthier and more highly educated, on average, than that of the other Gospels. Luke dedicates his work to a “most excellent” Theophilus (Luke 1: 3), a title suggesting that Theophilus was probably a person of prestige and rank in society. Although Theophilus is an explicit “narratee,” no ancient audience would assume that the dedicatee was necessarily socially representative of Luke’s ideal audience. One might dedicate a work to a patron who would be of higher rank than the clients who heard the work read, for example, at one of the banquets sponsored by the patron. Nevertheless, by addressing Theophilus as at least a part of his audience, Luke appeals to a person with some status in the larger society. Luke further emphasizes many people of status following the Way (e.g., Luke 8:3; 23:50–51; Acts 13:12; 17:4; 28:7); likewise, he portrays Paul’s status as relatively high, a point of interest to any ancient hearer but perhaps especially to another person of status. Although his Gospel contains the most sweeping condemnations of the accumulation of wealth (e.g., Luke 3:11; 12:13–21, 33; 14:33), his very emphasis on this issue might suggest an audience that can afford to be challenged in the area of generosity. Finally, an educated audience would best appreciate the elements of classical rhetoric alongside the appropriate stylistic variations for different settings.
What we can possibly conclude from this is that Luke’s target audience is relatively stable (and hence not hostile to the culture). Luke is positive toward the culture without needing to sound polemical about the need to separate from it.
Luke’s ideal audience appears to be urban, Greek, and perhaps in officially Romanized cities such as Corinth and Philippi and would be familiar with some measure of education and with public orations, Jewish religion, and some philosophic ideas.
The question as to whether Luke’s audience is largely Jewish or Gentile may be, in one sense, a forced dilemma. By this period the Greek churches included a sizable number of Gentiles; Philippi had never had a large Jewish population to begin with. At the same time, most of these churches grew from synagogues or at least Jewish prayer groups and would include a sizable number of Jewish people.
Finally, we are ready to start reading Acts!