13. The Purpose of Acts

Although I employ the title “The Purpose of Acts” out of deference to a traditional category of Lukan scholarly inquiry, “Purposes of Acts” might be more apropos. The question of the “purpose” of Acts’ implied author is inseparable from the question of his work’s implied “theology” or, in a broader sense, his themes and emphases. Examining Luke’s themes leads to the question of why he emphasizes what he does; as noted in above, ancient historians wrote from deliberate perspectives. To ask why Luke writes what he does invites inevitably (if somewhat more speculatively) the historical question of reconstructing, as best we can, the situation that prompts him to write. I will discuss at greater length the historical setting of his apologetic emphasis. But whereas the earlier chapters of this introduction focused more on historical questions, the chapters on Luke’s purpose (), his story’s relation to the story of Israel (), its themes (), and its overarching narrative unity () focus on the more “theological” questions, although historical and narrative questions in Acts are not fully separable.

My extended discussion of genre closed (in above) with a discussion of apologetic histories and Luke’s place in this category of literature. Scholars have frequently (and correctly) emphasized Luke’s apologetic purpose, and this chapter will devote substantial attention to this proposal. Just as speakers in Acts provide apologetic arguments through historical retrospectives (most notably in Acts 7), Luke himself does so through his entire narrative.

Before addressing Luke’s apologetic intentions in further detail, however, I must survey other proposed purposes for Luke-Acts. Not all of these are mutually exclusive; even Josephus probably had other purposes in addition to his apologetic objectives. (For example, Luke’s emphasis on the Gentile mission of the past is surely an encouragement to continue in, and a model for, carrying out this mission in his own day; some of these issues will be introduced in this chapter but developed more fully in the discussion of some of Luke’s themes, in below.) After returning to the question of the apologetic function of Acts, I will turn, in the following chapter, to the closely related issues of the book’s relation to the ancient story of Israel.

Scholars have proposed various purposes for Acts (or, more broadly in some cases, Luke-Acts). One purpose that is explicit in Luke’s prologues is the communication of historical information (Luke 1:1–4; Acts 1:1), a purpose inseparable from the work’s genre (see discussion in – above). But as noted in above, ancient works of history had other purposes than simply communicating information for information’s sake. These other purposes helped shape what information was presented and how it was presented.

As a sample of traditional scholarly views, one may take C. S. C. Williams’s survey of proposals roughly a half century ago. Several of these views include an apologetic emphasis and hence will recur later in this chapter. First, some (e.g., B. S. Easton in 1936) believe that Acts presents Christianity as the true Judaism, hence protected under Roman law. Second, others (e.g., W. G. Kümmel) believe that Acts was also intended to build up Christians. Third, yet others (e.g., J. I. Still in 1914) see Acts as Paul’s trial defense. Fourth, the Tübingen school (now largely abandoned) saw Acts as a synthesis of Judaistic and Pauline Christianity. Finally, Dibelius argued that Acts emphasized theology by showing how God helped the message spread.

This survey of views illustrates the problem of isolating a single purpose in the narrative of Luke-Acts; in fact, multiple themes are likely at work, and it is not a foregone conclusion that all these emphases represent the same purpose. Although probably written after Paul’s death (and hence not for his trial, even if it includes strategies prepared for that trial), Acts is heavily apologetic (and some of its strategies might help later Christians on trial). (For the emphasis on an apologetic for Paul, see , , above, as well as discussion below.) Although Acts is no mere synthesis of traditional Jewish Christianity and Pauline thought, it illustrates the diversity of early Christianity without choosing to focus on the conflicts that occurred as consensus was growing. Acts, like Luke, is intended to edify Christians both by placing them in a broader historical perspective and by providing teaching and moral examples. Acts also emphasizes God’s activity, implies that this activity continues, and invites the church of Luke’s day to continue to follow the models for mission and evangelism the book provides.

Posing alternatives may be an unhelpful method of investigating the purpose for Luke-Acts. Rarely do writers today, or did writers then, have only a single agenda in mind when producing a literary work; even Paul’s letters to particular congregations often treat multiple issues in the congregations despite some pervasive themes (e.g., 1 Corinthians; 1 Thessalonians). If Acts provides apologetic material, it thereby supplies also a model for how its readers should respond to persecutors, including members of the Roman government when they are on trial. Luke wants to avoid unnecessary conflict posed by Christian hostility toward the state; he expects that Christians can usually function within the society that he knows. Luke’s historical perspective answers Jewish objections about the Way’s departure from Jewish tradition and consequent (or potential) Roman suspicions that the Way has abandoned any proper claim to be part of a protected ethnic religious heritage.

One could add other views to Williams’s summary of proposals; for example, some argue that Acts is evangelistic—that is, that Luke seeks to commend Christianity to Theophilus’s circle. At least if adapted slightly, this proposal has much to commend it: Theophilus himself has been instructed (Luke 1:4), but Theophilus could use Luke-Acts for public readings at banquets that include non-Christian social peers and clients.

The problem with this proposal as a primary purpose is that Luke’s ideal audience is steeped in the LXX, which would not be the case with most of Theophilus’s social peers (though it could be for some of his clients if Theophilus is or has been patron or benefactor for a synagogue association, such as a “father of a synagogue” often was). Although Luke may have been happy or even eager for his work to be used in such evangelistic settings, it seems doubtful that non-Christians constitute his primary audience for the work. Luke, presumably, wants to encourage others in what they have been taught, just as he does Theophilus (1:4). That Luke has a major interest in evangelism, however, can hardly be questioned.

Even if Acts is not primarily directly evangelistic, Luke has a major interest in historically validating the Gentile mission, which had already been proved successful, and, likely also, in providing models for continuing mission. Acts focuses on the mission of bringing witness to all peoples (Acts 1:8). The focus of Acts is not simply church history in the mold of Eusebius but the expansion of the Christian message through pivotal agents. In view of such agents, it might even be titled “From Jesus to Paul.”

Because the mission to all nations, after the early chapters, concerns especially the Gentile mission, many scholars see the Gentile mission (or a Diaspora mission with a Gentile agenda) as Luke’s central theme (including myself; see comments on Luke’s theology in below). Some think that Luke is defending the Gentile mission for a largely Jewish Christian audience, but given our ethnic reconstruction of Luke’s audience (despite its Jewish base), it is more likely that he is encouraging especially Gentile Christians despite non-Christian Jewish opposition. Then again, the responses of the broader synagogue community may have generated both apologetic replies and Gentile Christians’ need for encouragement that they were genuinely accepted without circumcision. Issues raised by some Jewish leaders about Paul’s involvement in unrest also threatened to taint the legacy of his Gentile mission, and hence many of his churches, especially after his execution.

Although we may view mission and apologetic as distinct purposes, for Luke they were closely intertwined. Luke’s apologetic was a concrete expression of mission in his own context, and it was often mission that generated the need for the apologetic.

Luke’s largest agenda in Luke-Acts itself is to place the mission of Jesus and the church in its place in salvation history. Like good ancient writers, Luke is happy to start a story in the middle, providing the background as he proceeds: although he opens the story with Jesus’s coming, biblical quotations and allusions point to the implicit prequel.

Acts likewise points to an unfinished mission of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth; by planting it in Rome, Paul has laid a solid foundation for continuing outreach and provides a model for the continuing mission of the church until Jesus returns (1:8–11). Jesus is thus the centerpiece and climax of history, and his apostles illustrate how Luke’s audience should continue his mission. As Stephen (Acts 7) and Paul (Acts 13) preach from what Luke treats as key themes in biblical history, Luke provides clues for his more specific agendas in the themes he emphasizes while recounting the history of Jesus, the Jerusalem church, and Paul.

Because Luke’s narrative, though situated in the metanarrative of salvation history, spans a more limited (albeit focal) period, it invites us to focus our attention further. The Gospel begins (Luke 1:9) and closes (24:52) in Jerusalem (indeed, in the temple, 1:9–10; 24:53), grounded in the heritage of the OT. Acts, however, begins in Jerusalem (Acts 1:4) but proceeds to Rome (28:16), the sample of (more particularly, the symbolic, strategic center and stepping-stone for) “the ends of the earth” most relevant for Luke’s readers in the empire. Although this mission to the “ends of the earth” is rooted in Scripture (cf. 13:47, quoting Isa 49:6) and begins in Jerusalem, its fulfillment and goal are eschatological (even in the Isaiah texts as they were understood) rather than the heritage in which this future goal is grounded. God’s agents work toward the goal in continuing history, but its final boundary is the end (Acts 1:6–8).

Thus Luke-Acts seeks to continue the biblical story by pivoting it, albeit in a way predicted and prefigured earlier in the story (Acts 13:17–41; also 7:2–53). Without denigrating the foundational story of Israel, Luke-Acts redirects the focus from heritage to mission. Many observe the geographic pattern, in Acts, of Jerusalem to Rome, an observation emphasized earlier by B. H. Streeter, who titled Acts “The Road to Rome.” Whereas Luke’s Gospel is framed with scenes of worship in the temple (Luke 1:9; 24:53), his second volume begins in Jerusalem but ends in Rome. Indeed, even Paul’s custody experience, which constitutes the climactic section of Acts, proceeds from Jerusalem to Rome, recapitulating the geographic progression of the book as a whole. I believe that the theological function of this geographic shift in Acts is the movement of the community’s focus from heritage to mission.

This redirection from heritage (epitomized in Jerusalem) to mission (exemplified in Rome) would challenge even most of Diaspora Judaism in its focus on Jerusalem, a historic centrality that had undoubtedly caused ideological crisis after 70 C.E. Moreover, before that time Christians even in the Pauline circle continued to cede a special authority or relevance to Jerusalem (Rom 15:19, 25–27; Gal 2:1) or to Jerusalem leaders or other “authentic” Jewish Christians (2 Cor 11:22; Gal 1:17, 22; 2:9; Phil 3:5; cf. 1 Cor 1:12; Col 4:11; 1 Thess 2:14).

Even former pagans might be accustomed to privilege Jerusalem; as pagans, they had been familiar with particular sites holy to certain cults, deities, or heroes or even with cities dedicated to special patron deities. Pagans might question the power of the Christian deity, since his holy city was destroyed by Rome, but Luke shows that God himself judged Jerusalem (Luke 19:44; 20:16, 19; 21:22; 23:28–31) for rejecting both Jesus (9:22; 17:25; 18:31; 20:17) and his messengers of reconciliation toward Gentiles (Acts 22:21–22). The people of Jerusalem preferred Barabbas, an anti-Roman revolutionary, depending on human power (Luke 23:18; Acts 3:14), to Jesus, their divinely promised leader, who heeded the pleas of a Roman officer (Luke 7:9–10).

If Luke wrote Acts just before or after 70 C.E. (cf. Luke 21:25–28), he may have considered Paul’s ministry as itself fulfilling the prerequisite for the end stipulated in Christian tradition, taking the gospel to the ends of the earth (Luke 21:12–15 [cf. 12:11–12]; Acts 1:6–8; Mark 13:10; Matt 24:14; Rom 11:25). But the indeterminate period of the “times of the Gentiles” implied after 70 (Luke 21:24) allows for a continuation of history beyond that tragedy and hence suggests that Paul’s ministry, like the Diaspora Jewish hearers in Acts 2:5–11, fulfilled that mission only proleptically.

After 70, believers might readily see a connection between Jesus’s call to Diaspora mission and his warning of Jerusalem’s impending destruction (Luke 19:43–44; 21:6–24); worldwide mission, rather than the heritage in Jerusalem, must be their focus. Thus the pre-70 Diaspora mission, with Paul as a key voice, now assumed an importance that parts of the church had not recognized in advance. Subsequent history vindicated the Spirit-driven movement from heritage to mission, and Luke chronicles this movement in his historical monograph, as an invitation to participate until the end.

As noted in , , above, ancient historical writers sought to provide moral instruction or ethnic, civic or national pride for their own generation through the lessons of the past. Luke’s record and adaptation of Jesus’s teachings in the Gospel should be enough to alert us to Luke’s interest in praxis and not mere information for its own sake. Luke-Acts offers patterns that are prescriptive, not merely descriptive. Luke looks not only to the past but to the church’s continuing witness through the Spirit.

The expectation of models for imitation in ancient biography and historiography more generally would prime Luke’s first, ancient Mediterranean audiences to look for models also (see above on historians’ agendas). More concretely in his work, the parallels among characters (see below) suggest consistent patterns that not only serve a potential apologetic value (e.g., vindicating Paul for those who respected Jesus; see , ) but also provide a norm (or, better, a template) recognizing God’s continuing activity.

In this case, Jesus (in the Gospel) and the evangelizers and church planters (in Acts) provide a missiological model for Luke’s audience as they continue the task. Why else emphasize that the Spirit is given for mission (Acts 1:8) and also available to all subsequent generations of believers in addition to the first (2:38–39)? Luke thus encourages his audience to expect continuing signs and wonders (the primary method for securing attention for the message in Luke-Acts, as a simple survey of Acts will show), preaching, church planting, persecution, and the growth of the Way in the face of opposition (see, e.g., , sects. , , below). By this observation I do not imply that Luke offers all these models for every individual (as individualistic Western readings might be tempted to suppose). Rather, he offers them for the Christian movement as a whole (though with some features applicable to some individuals, e.g., key missionaries, doing work analogous to that of figures in Acts).

Luke writes history, but ancient historiography includes paradigms and lessons for the audiences of the historians’ own era. Since patterns in Jesus’s ministry are replicated in the ministry of the Jerusalem church and then in the Gentile mission (the latter still carried on in Diaspora churches of Luke’s era), it is difficult to evade the conclusion that the repetitive features in Luke’s portrayal of the early church are deliberate and paradigmatic. If the mission continues till the end of the age (see Acts 1:8), Luke’s history of the positive prototypes for this mission suggests how the church should continue to carry it out. Some modern readers might seek to evade this conclusion partly by distinguishing conspicuously supernatural activity, such as signs and wonders, from potentially “natural” activity, such as preaching the gospel, arguing that only the latter is a model. This criterion for dividing Luke’s material, however, is anachronistic, distorting Luke’s purpose in the service of accommodating Enlightenment rationalism (see above). For Luke and the apostolic church, preaching the gospel was no less supernatural than the signs and wonders that followed it (hence “the word of the Lord” throughout Acts; cf. also 1 Thess 2:13); to persuade without the Spirit’s power might produce religious converts like those of any other cult, but this approach to proselytization was less than the apostolic ideal portrayed in our early Christian documents (1 Cor 2:4–5; 1 Thess 1:5; 2:13).

below will investigate some of these concepts more fully, addressing especially the central Gentile mission and, at greatest length, the more controversial issue of “signs.” The relationship between Judaism and the Jesus movement, and between Jewish and Gentile believers, is also addressed to some degree in below.

The move away from Jerusalem may not only help Luke explain and defend the existence of a mixed Diaspora church against Jewish detractors. It may also offer his audience an apologetic against Gentile detractors who complain about a movement whose initiating center has been destroyed, apparently abandoned by Israel’s own God. Among Luke’s purposes, his entire narrative offers an explanation for Jerusalem’s destruction (Luke 19:42–44; 21:20–24, esp. 21:22) and reveals that God had long before demonstrated his freedom from the temple (see comment on Acts 7) and his commitment to reaching the Diaspora, including (most strikingly) Gentiles there. Thus the Christian movement should retain what pagans respected most about Judaism (such as its ethical monotheism and ancient roots) while remaining free of what annoyed pagans most about Judaism (especially its perceived ethnic separatism).

Many scholars have proposed that Acts is an apologetic; the continuity of salvation history (addressed further below) could be part of this apologetic. I turn now to the apologetic functions of Acts, including its potential apologetic audiences, the question of legal tolerance for particular cults, ancient appeals for Roman toleration, and arguments from antiquity in the service of apologetic. The following chapter will turn to the closely related matters of the relation of Luke and his narrative world to first-century Judaism, and subsequently to some sample themes that illustrate Luke’s theology. Each of these subjects is related to the purposes of Acts, which are likely too diverse to be summarized under a single rubric.

Scholars generally regard Luke-Acts as at least partly an apologetic work. Some do demur, pointing to Roman officials rejecting the gospel, but even the least favorable officials (e.g., Acts 24:27) do not condemn Paul despite the request of often high-status accusers; they are not Paul’s primary enemies, and often they protect him. Even before an examination of Luke’s work in greater detail, the presence of numerous apologetic speeches (esp. 7:2–53; 22:3–21; 24:10–21; 26:2–29) and of “apologetic” and accusatory language appears to support this premise.

But why does Luke need an apologetic? Probably not to impress Roman officials directly; few today take Acts (in its finished form) as a legal brief. Further, some elements in Acts would, in fact, work against the favor of Roman courts if presented to Roman officials—which makes it unlikely that Luke intended the entire book to function in this way. Luke authored his two-volume work not primarily for outsiders but to legitimate and confirm faith (Luke 1:4). Likewise, whatever Jewish apologists’ intentions for their works, it is doubtful that they received a large hearing outside Jewish circles; despite Judaism’s probable numeric strength in the empire, most were not widely read by Gentile audiences. This was probably the case with most minorities.

Apologists may write for sympathetic audiences, providing them a more direct apologetic than is possible for hostile ones. If Acts provides models for Christian mission (see below), it also provides raw material for implementing this mission successfully, including biblical apologetics for Luke’s hearers to use with Jewish objectors, and legal precedents to use in Roman lawcourts (cf. Luke 21:12–15; 1 Pet 3:15). It refutes the treason charge against Jesus; when Jesus was arrested, the disciples had swords (Luke 22:36), but only to number Jesus as a transgressor (22:37); further, the swords were few (22:38), and Jesus opposed their use (22:51). Instead of portraying Jesus as sanctioning the use of weapons, the narrative immediately provides a countercharge against those who arrested him (22:52–53). Pilate repeatedly declares Jesus innocent (23:4, 14, 22), condemning him only for non-Roman political considerations (23:20, 23). The leader of the Roman execution squad further declares Jesus’s innocence after his execution (Lukan redaction in 23:47). Likewise, Luke also responds at great length (Acts 21–28, not including passages that predict or foreshadow it) to Paul’s detention, which became an issue of some discussion even in the Roman church (cf. Phil 1:15–17; 2 Tim 1:16) and may have remained so after his execution.

Such an apologetic approach is not incompatible with Acts as a model for ministry; successful examples in Acts may encourage witnesses that they, too, may obtain a hearing in the Greco-Roman world. Readers wishing to reapply Luke’s point in today’s world might look for ways to provide apologetic and engage with their culture today, although the specific ways to implement this approach would vary from one culture to another.

Rome plays a crucial role in Luke-Acts from beginning (Luke 2:1) to end (Acts 28:16), and Acts climaxes in Rome as a culminating vindication for the Gentile mission. Scholars have proposed various apologetic audiences for Acts, some of which involve Rome: in some views, Luke defends Rome to Jesus’s followers; in others, Luke defends Jesus’s followers directly to Rome; in yet others, Luke offers Jesus’s followers a defense and confirmation that they can use as needed. (One could nuance the list in greater detail by noting other variations on these views, and some overlap between the second and third proposals.)

Some suggest that Luke presents Rome positively to offer an apologetic supporting Rome to his audience. This goal does appear in ancient histories: Josephus pragmatically defends Rome to his people (probably also expanding distinctions between Pharisees and overlapping elements of populist resistance). Likewise, historians from the East during the Roman Empire portrayed Rome positively, “regarding Roman rulership as necessary and legitimate.”

Although Luke does want to prevent Christians from antagonizing Rome and apparently works in a region and a period in which severe persecution (such as under Nero in 64 C.E.) is not the rule, the book contains too much defense of Christians before authorities for his primary interest to be the defense of authorities. As noted in , , above, apologetic historiography often defended minority peoples against the criticism of the elite; Josephus also provides many precedents defending his people vis-à-vis Rome. More commonly, scholars believe that Luke sought to provide an apologetic supporting Christians in the Roman Empire. Some argue that Luke wrote Acts, or at least the accounts of Paul’s hearings and experiences in Acts 22–28, for Paul’s defense in Rome.

That Paul and Luke would have prepared earlier precedents in this way is not unlikely, but they would hardly expect a representative of the emperor to listen to the entire work Luke-Acts. Few scholars today see the entire work as a trial brief; naturally, the majority who date Acts after Paul’s death cannot do so. More than likely, Luke expects the work’s direct audience to be Christians who need confirmation in what they have already heard (much like Theophilus, Luke 1:3–4).

Such confirmation does not exclude apologetic concerns, however: the truth in which Luke wishes to confirm his audience could well include the truth about Jesus, despite the charge on which he was crucified under Pilate, as well as the truth about Paul, the Gentile mission’s most prominent advocate, despite the charge on which he was executed under Nero. The audience may need to be equipped to respond to misrepresentations of their faith lodged against them by the gossip or even policies of outsiders.

Some argue that Acts’ apologetic audience seems primarily Jewish. Only one of the final defense speeches addresses specifically a Roman; Luke affords more space to Paul’s custody than to his missionary journeys, but even when addressing Roman officials, Paul is answering Jewish issues, and he continues to address Jewish issues (and a Jewish audience) in his final speech in Acts. Acts concludes not with legal vindication but with God’s faithfulness to his people.

All these observations are important, but Luke would have had to address any accusations against Paul, a founder of his movement, if, in fact, these were an issue vis-à-vis local and Roman governments. Luke is probably interested in answering Jewish objections of concern to his audience both because of their own relationship with local Jewish communities (and probably sometimes relatives) and because of the effects of such accusations on Christians’ standing with regard to Rome.

Acts, as a whole, functions as a highly refined literary apologetic useful in addressing various external—including Roman—concerns. The very amount of space devoted to Paul’s custody (Acts 22–28, plus briefer earlier custodies) indicates this interest. Luke often signals by repetition the points he wishes to emphasize. For example, he underlines the Gentile mission by three times repeating the Cornelius narrative (Acts 10–11; 15) and three times repeating the account of the conversion of the apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9; 22; 26). In the same way, he reports three Roman hearings concerning Paul’s final custody, none of which supplies any conclusive evidence against him.

Although our present book of Acts is not a trial brief, parts of it focus so fully on Paul’s (or others’) innocence that one must wonder if some of this material was not originally collected for such a purpose. Paul as an executed convict of Rome could also become an apologetic issue for Luke’s era if slanders survived him (cf., e.g., 21:21; Rom 3:8; 2 Cor 6:8); it was far easier to simply dissociate from Paul’s memory than from Jesus’s (cf. Phil 1:17–18; 2 Tim 4:10, 16), but not so easily if he was father of the Gentile mission. The truth that should have vindicated Paul the first time might need to be reapplied for the sake of the defense of his gospel. I have just mentioned Paul’s defense speeches, but we can examine also the riots that followed Paul’s ministry. Undoubtedly, a significant and potentially deadly charge against Paul was that he stirred unrest (Acts 24:5); followers of one “Chrestus” had already been charged with stirring unrest in Rome’s Jewish community under Claudius (Suet. Claud. 25.4), and Nero certainly branded them as seditious (Tac. Ann. 15.44).

In this light, Luke’s reports of the riots following Paul’s ministry take on more serious overtones than for scholars who (like Pervo) view them primarily as entertainment. Unrest followed Paul’s preaching in most places where he went, and Luke cannot easily deny this. But Luke can provide explanations that defend Paul and return charges against the accusers (a conventional forensic strategy; See comment on Acts 24:19). Thus Jewish rabble-rousers (the kind Rome particularly despised after 66 C.E.) often started the trouble (Acts 9:23; 13:50; 14:2–4, 19; 17:5–8; 18:12); or vested economic interests vied against Paul, as when some falsely denounced him as non-Roman because he was forced to cast out a demon (a benevolent act; 16:18–21); or when a rabble-rouser in Ephesus accused him of hurting local interests (19:25–29).

Just as Josephus must show that Tiberius’s expulsion of Jews from Rome (see comment on the later expulsion in Acts 18:2) stemmed from a lone exploiter, and the Judean-Roman war from irresponsible governors and a few Jewish bandits, Luke must show that Paul’s enemies, not Paul himself, caused the unrest of which he was accused.

Yet Roman courts and important officials (people with the kind of status that weighed in Roman courts) exonerated him (16:36–39; 18:14–15; 19:37–40)! Even so, Luke’s historiographic sensitivity does not allow him to paint every official the same way, and he cannot suppress some tension (e.g., 4:27; 24:27). Moreover, some close calls (17:10) suggest that just behind the surface of Luke’s apologetic were serious challenges against Paul; chains, imprisonment, and execution were shameful in the empire, and Luke had an important but difficult job in exonerating Paul. Association with one convicted of a crime could be used in courts to imply guilt by association, so that some would seek to dissociate themselves from one’s memory or legacy (e.g., Quint. Decl. 307.6).

Toward the end of Paul’s life and soon afterward, his prisoner status was problematic even for some Christians (cf. Phil 1:17; 2 Tim 1:8, 12, 16); the prominence of this concern in Philippians (Phil 1:7, 12–20; 2:17) could have made it a very relevant issue for Luke’s own immediate setting (at least for non-Christian critics there; cf. Phil 1:28–30), especially if we have correctly situated the work’s provenance (based on the frequency of the “we” in Philippi; see above, , ). How does one honor the founders of one’s movement, hence the movement itself, when they are vilified by a world that values the verdicts of corrupt courts and human status? Showing that such condemnations were aberrations rather than appropriate precedents would also better equip other Christians to defend their position vis-à-vis Rome.

Further, Luke (much like Josephus for Diaspora Jews) multiplies various official outcomes and expressions of favor that could function as legal precedents against persecuting early Christians as subversives (Acts 13:12; 16:38–39; 17:32–34; 19:38–40; 24:20–27; esp. 18:14–15; 26:30–32). Herod Antipas, Pilate, and a centurion all pronounce Jesus’s innocence toward the end of the first volume (Luke 23:15, 22, 47). Luke often portrays the disorder accompanying the spread of Christianity as due to hostility from fellow Jews (or, on two occasions, “vested property interests”).

Granted, it was never safe for public documents to challenge the Roman authorities or portray them in a hostile light, least of all for a sect whose founder was a provincial executed on a cross. But the accumulation of precedents in Acts (see , , above) is probably no more a coincidence than are the analogous precedents in Josephus (see below). Further, some of the primary accusations that Christians had to counter after the middle of the first century included charges of subverting family structures and so threatening Roman authority (e.g., 1 Tim 5:15; 6:1; Titus 2:5, 8, 10). Acts emphasizes both genders, all classes, and, when possible, the conversions of households in response to that of the paterfamilias (e.g., Acts 10:2, 24, 44; 16:31–33).

I noted above that Paul had detractors in the churches as well as outside them (Phil 1:7, 12–20; 2:17; 2 Tim 1:8, 16; 4:16). Paul’s final hearing before Nero’s court—whether culminating the detention narrated in Acts 28:16–31 or a subsequent detention—ended with his execution and probably affected more than Paul. In keeping with his calling to preach to kings (Acts 9:15; cf. Luke 21:12), Paul probably used the occasion to offer his message in some form to the emperor and/or his court (cf. 2 Tim 4:16–18; perhaps earlier Phil 1:13), as Luke apparently implies (Acts 23:11; 27:24). Some members of the churches were ashamed of his testimony (cf. 2 Tim 1:8), and preaching could exacerbate persecution, at least for those already detained (cf. Phil 1:17). Luke thus has reason to provide samples of Paul’s earlier preaching while in Roman custody (22:1–21; 24:10–21; 25:10–12; 26:2–29), revealing that he offered no objectionable teaching.

Likewise, if some believed that Paul’s final, bold testimony inflamed Nero’s persecution more fully, Luke has already shown that the ultimate outcome of such events was positive. Jesus’s death scattered his disciples, but God soon empowered them. Persecution in response to Stephen’s preaching (explicit in 11:19) scattered the church, but in so doing spread the gospel (8:1–4; 11:19–21). Paul carries on Stephen’s role as witness (22:15, 20–21), and believers should not despise his legacy. The long-range benefit to the kingdom outweighed the short-term suffering.

Although Jesus’s teachings in the Gospel are socially transformative through those who embrace them (cf. Luke 12:33; 14:33; 18:22) and Jesus does challenge the Sadducean elite (20:13–18), Luke is careful to avoid any suggestions of political subversion. Luke (3:12; 5:27–30; 7:29, 34; 15:1; 18:10–13; 19:2) includes more tax gatherers than Mark (Mark 2:15–16); their fairly positive role may help counter any associations with Judean nationalism epitomized in the revolt of 66–73. “Render to Caesar” is an obvious case in point (Luke 20:25). Whereas most of Luke’s audience may not have caught the allusion to the tax revolt in Luke 2:2, contrasts with revolutionaries in Acts 5:36–37 and 21:38 are obvious enough. Far more explicitly than in the other Gospels, the expected kingdom involves peace (Luke 1:79; 2:14; 19:38; Acts 10:36; though cf. Luke 12:51), dissociated from Jerusalem’s revolt (Luke 19:42). Mentions of “Caesar” are hardly incidental. Charges of sedition against Caesar (Luke 23:2; Acts 17:7; cf. 25:8) are fabrications, as is clear to Luke’s audience (Luke 20:22, 25); Paul proves so confident that he has not dishonored Caesar that he appeals to him for vindication (Acts 25:11; 28:19; cf. 25:12, 21; 26:32; 27:24).

The challenge belongs to the future (1:6–7; 3:19–21; Luke 21:25–28, 31), not so much the present. Even with reference to the future, Romans at the beginning of the empire looked for a future golden age. Christ supplants Caesar in that vision, and Christian monotheism could not brook Caesar worship in the present (cf. Luke 20:25; Acts 12:22–23); but Luke suggests this fundamental disagreement in as conciliatory a manner as possible. Although it is certainly true, as some scholars have argued, that the eschatological vision of a just and caring community (cf., e.g., Luke 18:22–30; Acts 2:44–45) and a greater kingdom lend themselves readily to challenge societal injustice and the mores of Roman imperialism, this is not an application that Luke would dare offer explicitly. Luke does not address a democracy that welcomes political participation, nor can he count among his audience the elite that controlled the political order (which then included and could include few Christians). His kingdom movement is a minority sect that can, at most, transform the world for the better on a local scale countless times over, proclaiming good news and spreading what ought to be the ideal, eschatological community. His alternative kingdom belongs to an eschatological dimension that transforms society instead of challenging Rome politically in the present.

Many components in Acts have apologetic potential. Visions and revelations could provide convincing evidence to outsiders (cf. Acts 23:9; 26:19), just as accounts of signs and wonders could (for the propagandistic value of signs, see , , below). Clearly, many of the speeches in Acts function apologetically for various audiences, such as Israel (7:2–53), philosophers (17:22–31), and Roman authorities (Acts 24–26). Luke makes use of outsiders’ speeches for apologetic purposes as well: Gallio (18:14–15); Ephesus’s town clerk (19:35–40); Festus, Bernice, and Agrippa (26:31–32); and so forth.

I argued in , , that Acts includes (probably in addition to its general apologetic) an apologetic for Paul, defending his legacy against the charges surrounding his custody and (on a post-Pauline date) his execution. Some scholars also argue that Acts includes a defense of Paul against his detractors in parts of the church (cf. Phil 1:15–17); this may be especially relevant for some Jewish followers of Jesus still uncomfortable with the Gentile mission. The precedents for Roman toleration in Acts suggest that this is not Luke’s only concern, but it is plausible as a part of it.

Certainly, Paul had some opponents in conservative Jewish Christian circles (Acts 21:21; Rom 3:8; 2 Cor 11:22; Gal 2:4; cf. Rom 15:31). Luke emphasizes Paul’s monotheism, sometimes in contrast to that of his Jewish detractors (Acts 14:14–19; 19:26–27, 33–34); his otherwise shameful sufferings gain respectability by being linked, in the work’s structure, to those of Jesus and the apostles before him. One side of Luke’s work may answer (perhaps in advance) Jewish detractors of Paul. Some may have emphasized his Diaspora origins, forcing Luke to emphasize Paul’s orthodox Palestinian upbringing (22:3), though, for Luke’s own audience, Paul’s Diaspora background was a virtue (for which reason Luke also stresses this).

To reiterate a point emphasized in , Luke’s primary apologetic audience need not be Jewish. Although apologetic responses to Jewish objections appear in biblical arguments in some of the book’s apologetic speeches, especially in its closing scene, this apologetic does not guarantee a direct unbelieving Jewish audience any more than the book’s apologetic concerning riots (See comment on Acts 24:5) guarantees a direct audience of Roman officials. Rather, Luke is providing a biblically literate Christian audience (composed of both Jews and Gentiles) a response to objections that concern them. That is, an apologetic for a group is not necessarily an apologetic directly to that group.

Yet Jewish opinions of the Diaspora Christian movement (and Paul, its apostle) would be relevant not only for their own sake. If Roman magistrates were to accept Christianity as an ethnic religion, a sect within Judaism, Paul’s relationship with Judean Judaism could also become an apologetic concern toward Roman law. Although Plato reveals various agendas in writing, some of his works focused on Socrates’s greatness, a matter that would convey some status importance to his adherents despite his execution. But Socrates’s virtue may have been less controversial by the time that Plato wrote than Paul’s was in some circles of Luke’s day.

Luke’s apologetic directed toward Rome in Acts often does emphasize that Rome understood Christians as a socially harmless sect or party within Judaism. This may be one reason that Luke ties Jesus and his movement into the larger history of Israel (see discussion on Luke and the OT in below), although he certainly has other historical reasons to stress the solidarity as well. If Judaism was a permitted religion (see below), then Christians should be likewise; the two groups shared a common appeal to an argument from antiquity (see below). Identification with Judaism could also exempt early Christians from civic pressure to participate in the imperial cult.

So long as the Jesus movement remained a part of Judaism, it would remain entitled to any legal privileges that Judaism had in the Roman Empire. Although Luke obviously has strong theological reasons (not the least of them his appropriation of Jesus’s and Paul’s Jewish canon and history) to emphasize the continuity of Israel and the Jesus movement, he likely has apologetic reasons as well (see below).

A long line of scholarship argues that Judaism was a religio licita, based on privileges conferred by Julius Caesar and confirmed by Augustus. Others deny that Judaism fit this category or argue that the category of religio licita did not formally exist. The phrase, in fact, first appears in Tertullian (Apol. 21.1), not in Roman law. Some maintain that Romans always treated foreign cults ad hoc.

Despite these reasonable objections to the phrase, evidence indicates that some groups were generally tolerated. Indeed, if the term religio licita first appears in Tertullian, he used it with good reason; collegia licita is attested earlier, which would be relevant to Jewish groups in the empire. Precedents could help indicate which groups had earned and retained such toleration. Although rulers and provincial officials were not bound by precedent, they respected precedent and used it as a guide. Rome’s respect for ancestral religions provided a means of arguing for political legitimation. Christians might not find protection under the umbrella of Judaism as a “legal religion,” but they could find it within Judaism as an ancient religion. In practice, this might amount to virtually the same thing.

Traditional Palestinian Jewish works often displayed mistrust of the rulers and portrayed them as persecutors rather than defenders (e.g., 1 En. 103:14–15). Authors of Hellenistic Jewish works, however, had provided flattering portrayals of benevolent Ptolemaic rulers (e.g., Let. Aris. 24), and some such writers also gave Rome generally high marks (cf. Jos. Ant. 14.188–240). Diaspora Judaism often experienced and viewed Rome as a protector, especially in troubled areas such as Alexandria, where their minority rights were regularly challenged.

One way to provide apologetic with Roman official policy in mind was to cite precedents of Roman toleration. When codified, Roman law noted the differences between particular legal systems (such as Roman law) and universal law (Gaius Inst. 1.1); particular legal systems applied only to particular peoples.

Rome generally accommodated local cults so long as they provided no threat to public order; it preferred to keep all deities well disposed toward the Roman state. In Rome itself foreign cults remained suspect during some periods but could be regulated and in time accepted. After all, as polytheists, most inhabitants of the empire could accept the existence of the deities whose cults were in dispute, if not always the decorum of their followers. Thus Rome welcomed the cult of Ceres (Demeter), using Greek priestesses so that she would feel at home but providing her Roman citizenship so that she would help Rome (Cic. Balb. 24.55). When the Romans besieged towns, Roman priests would invoke local deities, promising them greater worship by the Romans if they would abandon the besieged towns under their protection (Pliny E. N.H. 28.4.18).

Exceptions were usually extreme cases, such as the Druids of Gaul and Britain, accused of practicing human sacrifice. New cults also had to beware of fitting Romans’ stereotypical fears that they might subvert Roman family values; the memory of second-century B.C.E. excesses of the Dionysiac cult was never far from the surface.

Jewish apologists were more than happy to appeal to this precedent of basic Roman tolerance where it supported their cause. Josephus notes that each nation should observe its own laws properly rather than critique those of other nations, as the anti-Semite Apion does (Ag. Ap. 2.144). Specifically, Romans did not force peoples to break the laws of their own cultures (2.73). Josephus appeals to Roman decrees to show the Jewish people’s loyalty to Rome (2.61), an idea much in dispute in the decades after 70; Augustus himself, he notes, defended Diaspora Jews’ religious rights (Ant. 16.162–65). None of the Caesars sought to reduce the privileges that Alexander of Macedon bestowed on the Jewish people (Jos. War 2.488). In his Antiquities, Josephus cites various Jewish rights repeatedly established in the Diaspora, which E. P. Sanders summarizes as follows:

To assemble (Ant. 14.214–16, 227, 235, 257–58, 260–61)

To keep the Sabbath (14.226, 242, 245, 258, 263–64)

To keep to their “ancestral” food (14.226, 245, 261)

To decide their own affairs (14.235, 260)

To contribute money (14.214, 227)

More generally, they could exercise the right to pursue their own customs (14.213–16, 223, 227, 242, 245–46, 258, 260, 263). These rights probably varied from place to place—Josephus normally cites local precedents—but cumulatively, they provided a strong argument from Roman and many local traditions for tolerance.

Josephus may select only favorable decrees (and only the most favorable parts of such decrees), but their limited yet public and falsifiable nature, in a work submitted to potential imperial examination, among other factors, indicates that he did not simply invent such precedents. (That an occasional precedent might have been fabricated before him and unknown to him is not impossible; in some less cosmopolitan locations, at least some governors’ edicts were suspected of being of dubious authenticity.) The idea of appealing to precedents was hardly limited to Josephus. Rome had to choose between persecuting Jews and making exceptions for them that others would count as privileges; usually it chose the latter course.

That Luke would provide a similar (albeit necessarily more limited) appeal to precedents (noted above) is not surprising. Still, Luke’s apologetic remains distinct from that of Josephus. Josephus is less apt to emphasize the conversion of Romans; Jewish proselytism had provoked considerable Roman hostility. Acts, like some Diaspora Jewish literature, values conversion too highly to omit it.

But if (as most scholars think) Luke writes after Nero’s persecution, Christians have a negative precedent against them. Provincial governors’ decrees could normally serve as precedent, but an imperial decree could ratify or annul any policies based on such decrees (Pliny Ep. 10.108.1–2). Governors’ precedents would be of limited value to Luke if Nero later established new imperial precedent—but they were all that Luke had. Distancing from Nero would help; although he was loved in the Greek East, including by some Jewish people, his memory was hateful to the Roman aristocracy—that is, the class that would supply further governors’ decrees.

Unlike some of his successors in church history, however, Luke does not emphasize that it was just a “bad emperor” who began the persecution; nor does he appeal to the apparent affection for the Jewish community held by Nero’s mistress Poppaea as a reason for persecution of Christians (happily, since we lack clear reason historically to believe that there was any connection there). He prefers the safer route of emphasizing entirely positive precedents.

Respectable people esteemed and appealed to antiquity, the ultimate form of precedent. Thus, for example, in epideictic rhetoric it was easier to praise a more ancient city than a newer one. A rhetor had to dismantle the argument from antiquity before challenging the esteemed Plato. Another writer, a rhetorical historian, defends his right to critique Plato by appealing to the fact that others (starting with Plato’s famous pupil, Aristotle) have done so. One rhetorician contends that if two laws conflict, one should prefer the older one.

For Romans, any discussion of their own religion and customs must start with their ancestors (Val. Max. 1.1.1). In underlining the heinousness of Verres’s temple robberies, Cicero often stresses the antiquity of the sanctuaries he desecrated. Even when anxious to obliterate the depraved Bacchic cult from Rome, Romans left the oldest altars, which they believed stemmed from a less corrupted period of Bacchic worship (Livy 39.18.7). Romans respected Greeks because of their antiquity and their influence on the origins of civilization (e.g., Pliny Ep. 8.24.2–3). Greek and Jewish respect for antiquity was one reason for locating the Sibylline prophetess in the distant past. Antiquity could also become a matter of apologetic importance. Augustus accepted only those foreign rites (such as those at Eleusis) the antiquity of which was undisputed, but treated Egyptian and Judean cults as superstition unfit for Romans (Suet. Aug. 93).

Seeking to establish their own claims to significance, Egyptians emphasized the special antiquity of their tradition. (Romans made some concessions to Egyptian culture on account of its antiquity, but Egypt’s critics, especially many Greeks, were not so readily persuaded.)

To compete with Egyptians, Phoenicians, and (more easily) Greeks, early Jewish apologetic historians had to date Jewish beginnings as early as possible. Thus Eupolemus suggests that Jews introduced use of an alphabet; Artapanus goes further, crediting them with “all important aspects of civilization.” Despite a very different impression gained from a straightforward reading of Genesis, Josephus declares that the Jewish people are five thousand years old and not derived from anyone else (Ag. Ap. 1.1). Many doubt their antiquity because Greek historians fail to mention them (1.2), and so Josephus introduces further evidence (1.3–29), emphasizing that the Greeks themselves are less ancient (1.7).

Josephus may title his magnum opus Antiquities of the Jews to recall Dionysius’s Roman Antiquities; the preface of each work promises to cover the respective nation’s “ancient history and political constitution” (Jos. Ant. 1.5; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.8.2). The emperor Claudius defended Jewish rights to maintain their “ancient” customs (Jos. Ant. 19.283, 290). Thus Josephus may open his most explicitly apologetic work, Against Apion, by specifying that he has already established the great antiquity of his people in his Antiquities (Ag. Ap. 1.1). (Josephus apparently writes especially for interested Gentiles, hence more apologetically and more for an “outside” audience, in contrast to Luke’s probably believing primary audience.)

In the first book of his polemic against Apion, Josephus repeatedly returns to the antiquity of Judaism (1.215–18, 227), for example, that of Jerusalem (1.196); he indicates that the point of book 1, indeed, was to demonstrate this antiquity (2.1). Moses was, he claims, the most ancient lawgiver (2.154–56, 279), and Josephus claims he has demonstrated that, contrary to anti-Jewish slanders, many authors do mention his people and that they are very ancient (2.288). Josephus’s line of argument was time-honored in more ways than one; though contending that many Jewish customs were dishonorable, even Tacitus had to admit that some must be defended on the basis of their antiquity (Tac. Hist. 5.5).

Second-century Christian apologists continued this line of argument. Justin contended (rightly) that Moses was more ancient than all Greek writers—and (wrongly) that Plato (in Rep. 10) derived material from Moses (Justin 1 Apol. 44). Tertullian argued that Christians had the true mysteries, of which others were poorer copies; he further insisted (with Scripture in view) that the Christian mysteries were older (Tert. Apol. 47.14).

The earliest Diaspora followers of Jesus endured most of the challenges faced by Judaism, but in addition, they could be scorned for their lack of antiquity if they were regarded as a new sect that had broken from Judaism. Thus Luke, like Josephus regarding Judaism, must demonstrate the antiquity of his movement’s message. By grounding the Christian movement as a fulfillment of biblical prophecies, Luke “would have given Greek-speaking Christians the chance to appeal to an argument from antiquity.” Of course, early Christians believed that they were not a new religion but the fulfillment of biblical prophecy (cf., e.g., Mark 1:3–4; Rom 3:21; 1 Pet 2:4–10); Luke did not invent this conception for apologetic purposes. The question here is not whether they viewed themselves as continuous with Judaism but how Luke’s emphasis on this continuity serves his larger apologetic.

That this movement included uncircumcised Gentile converts might seem problematic, although not dramatically so, to outsiders: other Jews did accept (usually) circumcised converts and uncircumcised sympathizers, and much of the Roman elite disapproved more of circumcision than of less overt displays of sympathy. By accepting foreigners into their house churches, Lukan Christians might appear to be behaving differently from Moses’s and even Jesus’s customs (cf. the charges in Acts 6:11–14). Luke must show that this movement does in fact accord with “the ancient founder(s), in this case, Moses and Jesus.” (Luke manages to accomplish this continuity within the bounds of his historical genre and information.)

Arguments for antiquity worked not only in apologetics directed toward Gentiles, but also in intra-Jewish debates. The Pharisees, for example, defended their traditions on the basis of their antiquity, though they did not elevate their traditions to the level of Scripture as the Essenes did. The intra-Jewish debate over the status of the Jesus movement could remain a threat to the Gentile world’s perception of the movement’s Jewish identity and hence to its appeal to an ancient precedent for rejecting the world’s gods. If in time Gentile converts predominated, outsiders (or even insiders) might doubt the movement’s connection with its ancient heritage and hence view it as a new religious aberration that without acceptable cause despised the empire’s patron deities and challenged the stability of the social order.

Whether discussing rhetoric or religion, Greeks and Romans regarded precedent as important. If arguments from antiquity were helpful, arguments by precedent might also carry weight with conservative Roman courts and magistrates. Precedents might not be ancient, but they were, in any case, older than the current decisions; decisions were thus normally best guided by the past unless one had good reason to depart from such precedents.

This sense that decisions established legal tradition was ancient and pervasive. In classical Athens, for example, a rhetor might declare that by shaping the city’s attitudes, the jury metaphorically functions as lawmakers (Lysias Or. 14.4, §139). Legal interpreters could argue on the basis of not only the lawgiver’s intention but also the court’s interpretations of the law that reinforced it (Rhet. Alex. 1, 1422b.20–25). In the Roman Republic, “practices sanctioned by custom” could become formal laws. Even the emperor Augustus excused his rejection of a plea on the basis that he did not like to make exceptions and break custom. Early in Vespasian’s reign, law officially rooted his powers in those of Augustus (CIL 6.930). This preference for dependence on precedent probably hardened further over time. One later body of Roman law admonishes the judge especially “not to depart from the statutes, imperial pronouncements, and custom” (ne aliter judicet, quam legibus aut constitutionibus aut moribus proditum est).

Provincial Roman officials were not bound to follow Roman ordo, legal precedents, or local customs; Roman policy gave such officials discretion to decide cases on their own merits (through cognitio, examination). Nevertheless, they would follow precedent more often than not.

Luke had a risky, two-pronged apologetic. First, the Jesus movement was securely grounded in Israel’s history and hence merited the toleration accorded ancient and ancestral religions. This was true despite the massive influx of Gentiles; their presence was not the denial but the logical development of the ancient faith. It was, in fact, no more problematic than that of Gentile God-fearers in the synagogues (problematic as this appeared to some Romans). Second, the movement was not nationalistic or subversive and was not to be associated with the revolutionaries who led the Judean revolt of 66 C.E. (cf. Acts 5:36–38; 21:38–39; Luke 20:25; 23:2–4).

Although Luke’s apologetic did not prevent persecution in the Roman Empire, it may have reduced it in some circles. What we can say more certainly is that second-century Christian apologists picked up and developed further the same conciliatory sort of approach toward Greek and Roman culture. Some may have gone further than Luke would have appreciated (Clement of Alexandria embraces Greek philosophy far more than does Acts 17), but many Christians’ conciliatory approach to the empire likely helped gain Christians toleration in some parts of the empire.

How can modern interpreters, often concerned to derive applicable principles from Luke-Acts, make use of such themes? One way to understand Luke’s apologetic more fully is to seek modern analogies similar to Luke’s agenda.

Part of Luke’s apologetic is that the apostolic movement posed no threat to Roman order; the apostles proclaimed the kingdom but waited for God himself to establish it. To translate such an apologetic into today’s cultures might entail demonstrating to authorities in countries where Christians are repressed for their faith that Christians pose no threat to, but rather offer a benefit to, their societies.

Of course, Luke, who emphasizes moral concerns (e.g., care for the poor), would not carry this so far as to strip Christians of a moral voice (especially in societies that welcome the voice of all citizens). But by virtue of their own historical situation, the earliest churches (like postexilic Israel before the Hasmonean era) offer more straightforward models for minority churches in sometimes hostile environments than for Christian discipleship in the midst of Christendom. Since the vast majority of today’s governments are secular, Islamic, or atheistic and practicing Christians are minorities in most of the world’s cultures, Christians in most societies may find some value in Luke’s apologetic. Here, as at many other points, modern Christian interpreters are tempted to proof-text or ignore sections of Luke-Acts without understanding it first on its own terms, but careful study suggests that Luke offers some fruitful directions we have rarely pursued. Even the most clearly historically conditioned elements of his apologetic reflect careful strategies that may also offer wisdom in other settings if the new settings are taken into proper account.

Luke probably has more than one agenda in Luke-Acts. One of them appears to be vindication for the mission to uncircumcised Gentiles (and hence for its leading advocate, Paul), probably with implications for how the Spirit will continue this mission in Luke’s own day. As will be suggested in (), Acts probably offers the apostolic model for the church’s continuing mission rather than only a recitation of past history vindicating the church’s foundation.

More commonly emphasized is the work’s function as apologetic historiography, vindicating the Christian movement with the larger Roman world. Romans generally tolerated Judaism because it was an ancient, ethnic religion; although the Christian movement now included many Gentiles (and some Romans despised Roman conversions to Eastern cults), Luke argues for his movement’s continuity with biblical history to indicate that it should be tolerated. Many would not be convinced by Luke’s argument for toleration, but it was the best and, from the vantage point of first-century Christianity, perhaps the most authentic one available.

With, e.g., Powell, Acts, 13 (who offers [13–19] a fuller survey of proposed purposes for Acts than here). For older studies on Luke’s purpose, see Mattill and Mattill, Bibliography, 152–57, §§2029–96.

That is, “purpose” is more bound up with the question of authorial intention (or what we can infer of the plan of the ideal author) than with merely themes we infer by their prominence and repetition in Luke-Acts. As a secondary level of inference, the question of purpose entails more subjective judgments than does discerning Acts’ “theology” per se.

Most historically oriented Diaspora Jewish works displayed a significant apologetic interest (Wandrey, “Literature: Jewish-Hellenistic,” 696).

Stagg, Acts, 5–18, surveys various proposed purposes, focusing on “unhindered” (Acts 28:31) and the expansion of the Jesus movement beyond the ethnic confines of Judaism (esp. 12–17).

See, e.g., Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 253. That at least one purpose of historiography is to say something about the past has already been argued (ch. 4 above) and need not be repeated here, where we focus on more particular ideological emphases (see , above, for how ancient historiography’s past material was often ideologically framed).

With Bruce, Acts³, 22, who also (22–27) sees Luke as an apologist (cf. idem, Message, 50–51); see also Maddox, Purpose, 21, 186 (noting Luke’s emphasis on ἀσφάλειαν, the final word of the Gospel’s preface, Luke 1:4). As noted above, these elements combine in apologetic historiography.

C. Williams, Acts, 15–18.

One reason for abandoning this position, besides the obsolescence of its philosophic underpinnings, is the increased recognition of Paul’s Jewish heritage; see, e.g., Davies, Paul; Sanders, Paul and Judaism; Longenecker, Paul; Donaldson, Paul and Gentiles.

See, e.g., Dunn, Acts, xi–xiii; Liefeld, Acts, 30–32. One proposal that has generated little support and is not likely is that it is an antignostic polemic, well as Luke’s concrete historical theology might work for that (see Talbert, Luke and Gnostics, passim).

Cf. Mattill, “Date and Purpose,” 350, for Acts as an “apology for Paul and the world mission.” Some others also view it as partly (though usually not primarily) an apology for Paul’s apostleship, challenged by others (Bruce, Commentary, 24).

Cf. Tannehill, Acts, 329, on Acts 26: it “provides both a defense of Paul against his detractors and a model for the later church.”

Even in a significantly later period, churches faced Roman intolerance because they lacked the excuse of belonging to a separate national religious tradition (Judge, Athens, 56).

E.g., Larkin, “Recovery of Luke-Acts,” 410–12; cf. Liefeld, Acts, 31; against the centrality of evangelism in Luke’s purpose, see, e.g., Maddox, Purpose, 20. Stanton, Jesus of Nazareth, 29–30 (on Luke 1:4), thinks that Luke seeks Theophilus’s conversion, but this is unlikely: Theophilus had already been “instructed” deeply enough to know much of the gospel tradition (1:4).

For “fathers of synagogues,” see, e.g., CIJ 1:66, §93; 1:250f, §319; 1:360, §494; 1:372–73, §§508–10; 1:393, §533; 1:398, §537; 1:505, §694; perhaps 1:397, §535; 1:462, §645; 1:463, §646; 2:9, §739. The title is sometimes connected with benefactions (e.g., CIJ 1:520, §720, here “father of the people”). See also the survey in CIJ 1:xcv–xcvi.

See, e.g., Liefeld, Acts, 24. Admittedly, Luke’s purpose may not be clear from prologues alone (cf. Brown, “Prologues”).

See, e.g., Bovon, Theologian, 238; Kistemaker, Acts, 33–34.

Hengel, “Geography of Palestine,” 36; this title is more accurate than “Acts of the Apostles,” since, apart from Peter, it focuses on those whom Luke rarely (Paul) or never (Stephen) calls apostles.

See Donfried, “Christology and Salvation.” This is my view of Matthew’s version of the Gentile mission (Keener, Matthew, 719–20).

See Maddox, Purpose.

Cf. Wright, People of God, 373–75. Larkin, “Recovery of Luke-Acts,” rightly speaks of Luke-Acts as “grand narrative,” hence a metanarrative that provides cohesion for individual stories. Miller, Empowered for Mission, 42–43, 82, sees Acts’ purpose as missiological.

Many ancient epics presuppose a broader cycle of widely known oral stories to which allusion was made (e.g., allusions to the voyage of the Argo in Hom. Od. 12.69–72; cf. also Acts 20:35); further, most people heard such epics multiple times and hence could approach the story with the necessary preliminary story in mind. On Luke-Acts as a continuation of the biblical story, see , , below.

Cf. Karris, Invitation, 15. Goppelt, Times, 9, rightly notes that Luke connects Jesus and the development of the church in terms of redemptive history.

Despite the geographic shift and the emphasis on the Gentile mission (Acts 28:28), the Jewish people remain prominent (28:17–28).

Cf. similarly others, e.g., Green, “Demise of Temple”; Bowe, “Birth.”

E.g., Neil, Acts, 27; Packer, Acts, 2; Eckey, Apostelgeschichte; Judge, Athens, 50 (noting that the title “Acts of the Apostles” distracts from this theme).

Streeter, Gospels, 531–32.

Ibid., 532.

For Jerusalem-centeredness in a broad range of ancient Jewish sources, see Keener, John, 613–14; and especially comment on Acts 1:8.

Tiede, Prophecy, thinks that Luke explains the sufferings of 70 C.E. especially to Jewish Christians. I have argued that he responds apologetically to questions about it but do not see it as his primary purpose.

See, e.g., Maclean and Aitken, Heroikos, lxxxviii, xc.

Cf. Col 1:23; perhaps 1 Thess 1:8; Rom 15:19–24; probably 2 Pet 3:9, 15.

With, e.g., Walton, “Acts,” 30 (noting that elements of conversion indicated in Acts 2:38–42 recur in subsequent narratives, albeit in varying sequence). While acknowledging some exemplary value (esp. 20:35), Barrett, “Imitatio,” 262, does not view it as central, contrasting it with a historical emphasis on Jesus as savior and apostles as witnesses. But a forced choice between historical events and models would not make sense in ancient historiography (see , above, regarding historians’ agendas).

With, e.g., O’Day, “Acts,” 306.

E.g., Hengel, Acts and History, 60; Kent, Jerusalem to Rome, 17; Downing, “Law and Custom” (Christians as religious in the most respectable ways); Bruce, “Apologetic and Purpose” (Christians as not subversive, for Rome); idem, Acts³, 23–25; idem, Message, 52; Puskas and Crump, Introduction, 143–46. Lüdemann views Luke’s apologetic treatment of the Roman government as serious distortion (“Tale”; cf. “Impropriety”), but Luke was no more tendentious than most historians of his own day and some in ours. Rothschild, Rhetoric of History, 65–66, says that historians often treated their histories as cases to be defended.

Gaventa, Acts, 48; cf. Davies, Gospel and Land, 281; Maddox, Purpose, 95 (who nevertheless accepts apologetic as a subsidiary purpose).

A case was considered very strong when one could appeal it to even otherwise unfavorable judges (Pliny E. N.H. pref. 10); Luke shows that objective, or even negatively biased but not hostile, critics will not repress the faith. This observation does not imply the invention of data, which could undermine one’s case; for the consistency of Acts with Pauline evidence for positive relations (esp. Rom 13:1–7), see discussion in Bruce, “Powers.” For God’s sovereignty over rulers in Luke-Acts, see brief discussion in the excursus at Acts 2:23.

The verb ἀίολογέομαι appears eight times in Luke-Acts (all forensic, including the six in Acts; Luke-Acts provides 80 percent of the NT uses; it appears once in the Apostolic Fathers, in Mart. Pol. 10.2, and just three times in the LXX [Jer 12:1; 38:6 [31:6 ET]; 2 Macc 13:26]); the noun ἀίολογία twice more (Acts 22:1; 25:16; only one-quarter of NT uses, but these, like most of the others, are forensic; in the LXX, it appears only in Wis 6:10, and never in the Apostolic Fathers).

The verb κατηγορέω appears thirteen times in Luke-Acts (almost 60 percent of NT usage; in the LXX only at 2 Macc 10:21; in the Apostolic Fathers, only in 1 Clem. 17.4), and the noun κατήγορος four times (every NT usage [in the LXX, only at Prov 18:17; 2 Macc 4:5; in the Apostolic Fathers, Ign. Magn. 12.1], though Rev 12:10 employs κατήγωρ). Luke does not employ κατηγορία, which appears three times in the NT (never in the LXX or the Apostolic Fathers).

Mattill, “Purpose”; idem, “Naherwartung,” is exceptional. More recently, and well argued, see Mauck, Trial, noting that Acts ends with Paul in prison and rightly noting how Luke’s portrait absolves Paul of charges of fomenting unrest (ix); Mauck rightly underlines Luke’s provision of narrative arguments throughout Acts (34–40; for documents potentially used at the hearing, see 194–96). Yet the function as a trial brief depends on his dating the work to roughly 61–62 C.E. (see pp. 41–45), and the current narrative of Luke-Acts neither fits the form of a trial brief (esp. one suited for busy Roman judges) nor can be completely explained by that purpose alone.

See Cassidy, Society, 145–55, noting the disciples’ defiance (Acts 4:19–20; 5:29 [p. 154]; though cf. my comment ad loc.) and the Zealot (Acts 1:13; Luke 6:15 [p. 155]). Cf. the tension in the NT more broadly in Bryan, Caesar.

Marshall, “Luke and ‘Gospel,’” esp. 291; Schneider, “Zweck” (noting how Luke emphasizes the community’s connection back to Jesus). Also Witherington, Acts, 37, 63, who accepts it as apologetic, but for insiders rather than outsiders. Stoops, “Riot,” 90, suggests that happy as Luke may have been for Roman authorities to read the work, he would not assume this audience likely and that, rather, he encouraged Christians, establishing self-definition and providing “political apologetic.”

E.g., the Letter of Aristeas is commonly viewed as an apologetic, but some think that it is meant to keep Jews and others in Egypt on friendly terms and to justify residence there (Hacham, “Aristeas”) or is propaganda to make Jews more open to Greek education (Tcherikover, “Ideology,” 83).

See Feldman, “Reflections on Jews.” For a survey of sources, see Stern, Authors.

For applicability of the apologetic for Luke’s audience, cf. deSilva, Introduction, 355. Roman magistrates before Nero usually seem to have distinguished Christians from politically sensitive Jewish messianic movements (see Bacchiocchi, “Rome and Christianity”)—though cf. comment on Acts 17:7; 18:2.

For the use of countercharges in ancient forensic rhetoric, See comment on Acts 24:19.

Luke’s omission of the cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11:14, 20), however, is unrelated to concerns about property damage; he includes the destruction of the swine (Luke 8:32–35; though one might attribute this damage to the demons).

See “unhindered” as the final word in Acts (Acts 28:31) and compare Jos. Ant. 16.41, 166 for apologetic value.

Cf. Plümacher, Geschichte, 168. It should be noted, however, that in these cases Rome provides part of the backdrop for specifically Jewish encounters.

Cf. ibid., 135–69.

Walaskay, Came to Rome, 64, may go too far in arguing that Luke wrote to defend Rome “to his church” (removing most anti-Roman sentiments in his sources), but his insights retain value. One might contrast several reasonably fair officials (by standards that provincials might expect) in Acts with Apuleius’s portrait of a soldier trying to steal a poor man’s animal and having the man, who resists him, killed (Metam. 9.39–42; for other cases of soldiers’ abusing the right of requisition, see Livy 43.7.11; 43.8.1–10; Hdn. 2.3.4; 2.5.1; P.Lond. 3.1171; IGLS 5.1998 = SEG 17.755 in Sherk, Empire, 89, 136; PSI 446). Most scholars position themselves in a more nuanced way between Cassidy’s and Walaskay’s poles on whether Luke is anti- or pro-Roman (Chen, Father, 239); Luke’s approach varies (Walton, “State,” 33–35), offering “a strategy of critical distance from the empire” (35), with elements both appealing to Rome and indicating political reversal (Kelber, “Imperialism,” 143–44; cf. Omerzu, “Apologetik”; Burrus, “Acts,” 152–53; Talbert, Romans, 297). One should make good use of positive relations (cf., e.g., Acts 25:16) but be prepared for negative ones (Navone, “Empire”). (One could employ the categories of empire even for resistance literature; cf. deSilva, “Tools,” on 4 Maccabees.) On Luke’s attitude toward the Roman state in his Gospel and Acts, see also Horn, “Haltung” (addressing also Herod’s family and Christian apologetic). Scholars vary also on Tacitus’s views toward the empire (see Laistner, Historians, 117–20, questioning Tacitus’s consistency; doubting also his consistency on religion, 115–17).

See Spilsbury, “Josephus on Rise”; cf. Neusner, Politics to Piety, 2. For the positive view of Rome’s imperial activity in 1 Macc 8, see Hidal, “Rombilden.” Josephus’s apologetic does not mean that he always distorted his accounts (e.g., Leoni, “Wishes”; idem, “Incendio,” argues that Titus did not order the temple’s burning).

Although Josephus dissociates Pharisees from “Zealots” (War 2.118, written in the wake of the war), even he confesses that Zealots shared most Pharisaic views (Ant. 18.23; and Pharisaic influence, 18.4, 9); certainly, there was some cooperation at times (18.4), and they shared some common mistrust of Rome (cf. probably m. ʾAbot 1:10; 2:3) and (at least in an earlier period), at the very least, an ideal of civil disobedience (War 1.648–55). Cf. Sanders, Judaism, 13–14, 408–11; Horsley and Hanson, Bandits, xv, 194, 198; Witherington, Christology of Jesus, 83–84; Simon, Sects, 44.

Meister, “Historiography: Greece,” 420. Romans, of course, naturally glorified Rome also (e.g., Livy 1.28.11).

E.g., Bammel, “Activity,” 364n26. Early Christian apologies such as those of Athenagoras and Justin did take the form of ambassadorial appeals to the emperor, following a Jewish apologetic form in material in Josephus and Philo (see Schoedel, “Ambassadorial Activities”).

Against the trial brief hypothesis, see, e.g., Munck, Acts, lviii–lix; Kent, Jerusalem to Rome, 17; Witherington, Acts, 14; Liefeld, Acts, 31.

That Paul’s kerygmatic language could be construed in political ways (Donfried, “Rethinking”) may have made an apologetic on his behalf more urgent.

For Acts as apologetic, see Alexander, Context, 183–206.

Ibid., 200. Against Alexander, I would count three, since Festus is part of the audience in Acts 26; but the Jewish element in Acts 22 and 26 cannot be minimized.

Alexander, Context, 204–5.

Ibid., 205.

Ibid., 206.

Which seems to be the case even later in some settings, such as Rev 2:9; Mart. Pol. 13.1; 17.2; 18.1.

See my fuller discussion in Keener, “Apologetic.” Acts may include more trial scenes than the five standard Greek novels put together (Schwartz, “Trial Scenes,” 118).

See Witherington, Acts, 73. Cf. officials’ vindications of Jesus’s innocence in the Gospel (Luke 23:4, 14, 22; cf. also 23:41, 47), as noted above.

Cf. Luke-Acts as an apologetic for Paul in Wasserberg, “Lk-Apg als Paulusapologie.” This may not exhaust Luke-Acts, but it seems an important function, especially given the final quarter of Acts.

Cf. Suet. Nero 16.2; Tert. Apol. 5.3–4; cf. later Sulp. Sev. Chron. 2.29 (in Barrett, Documents, 17). Others blamed the fire completely on Nero (Suet. Nero 38; Dio Cass. 62.16.1–18.1, esp. 62.16.2), though Rome (e.g., Tac. Hist. 1.2; Suet. Aug. 30.1; Claud. 18.1; Tit. 8.3–4), like other locations (e.g., Pliny E. N.H. 28.4.19; 28.5.26; Pliny Ep. 10.33.1–3; 10.39.4), suffered many fires and some scholars doubt Nero’s complicity (e.g., Bohm, “Nero”).

Stoops, “Riot,” 73, argues that Luke here employs “a pattern of apologetic argument developed among diaspora Jews. The argument ran: ‘Because our opponents riot our rights ought to be confirmed’” (citing [pp. 79–80] Philo Embassy 335–36; Jos. Ant. 14.244–46; 16.58–60; 19.284–85; War 2.487–98; 7.107–11). Jewish people had learned that demonstrating their opponents to be at fault in riots led to reaffirmation of Jewish rights but failure to do so led to their mistreatment (79). The same principles could apply to Christians as a Jewish sect (81). We may add Josephus’s arguments on how unjust repression of Jews helped spark the tragic war (e.g., Ant. 20.183).

Minority cults depended on sponsors of status to achieve more mainstream status (White, Origins of Architecture, 1:58–59), and the words of people of rank weighed much more heavily in courts (Gaius Inst. 4.183; cf. Jas 2:6; Winter, Welfare, 111–13; idem, Left Corinth, 60–64; Rapske, Custody, 56–62), although this may have been more fully formalized legally in the second century (Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 115–16; Krause, “Honestiores”; Callistr. Dig. 47.21.2) and many complained about wealth protecting the guilty (Cic. Verr. 1.1.1; 1.3.8; 1.5.13; Libanius Declam. 36, e.g., 36.8–9; cf. ʾAbot R. Nat. 20, §43 B). For the Jewish apologetic use of outsiders’ speeches affirming Jewish identity, see now Padilla, Speeches, 42–105 (applying this research insightfully to comparable outsiders’ speeches in Acts, 106–32).

E.g., Maddox, Purpose, 95; Davies, Gospel and Land, 281 (probably going too far).

So does a condemned criminal (Luke 23:41), though this would not impress the more elite members of Luke’s audience.

Bruce, Commentary, 20–21 and 21n16 (though Bruce in this earlier work still applied this claim to a life setting before Nero’s persecution, p. 22). For some causes of hostility to Christians and their message, see, e.g., Green, Thirty Years, 17–24 (esp. 20–24, for Gentiles).

Witherington thinks that Acts is positive toward Roman authorities because it was not safe to be otherwise in the Flavian period (Acts, 62–63, citing Tac. Agr. 2, but this probably has only Domitian in mind), but antigovernment tracts would be considered subversive at any time in the period of the empire.

For how such charges were viewed as subverting Roman authority, see Keener, Paul, 140–42; for the family as a microcosm of the state, see Malherbe, Social Aspects, 51; Meeks, Moral World, 21; cf. Cic. Off. 1.17.54.

Talbert, Acts, 113, uses Luke 20:25 to help explain both Luke’s usually positive attitude toward the state and his hostility toward ruler worship in Acts 12:22–23. That Luke can describe Paul “calling on” Caesar (25:11) as well as on Christ (22:16; cf. 2:21; the same verb) does not suggest a rigid incompatibility of kingdoms.

The census would evoke taxation, but a connection between Judas the Galilean and a revolt under Quirinius was probably not widely remembered. Luke might know something of it, given the reference to “peace” in Luke 2:14.

Still, one of Jesus’s disciples is a “zealot” (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13); whatever this title may have meant originally, it probably carried more revolutionary connotations after 70 C.E.

Cf. discussion in Kim, Caesar, 156–57.

The goal of contextualizing Luke’s models in societies allowing political participation is important, but we should also recognize the limitations of Luke’s context and not anachronistically judge him as falling short of our construct for a different kind of society. That is, we should not take Luke out of his context, but may find Lukan principles, including political ones, that would need to be applied differently in different contexts. Cf. the helpful balance in Rowe, World: because religion and politics were inseparable (9), Luke’s vision of Christianity challenges pagan culture, yet without sedition (4–7, 51; for the challenge, esp. 17–51; for the innocence, 53–89); also Kim, Caesar, 200–201: we cannot expect a struggling minority sect to safely challenge political structures; cf. also Harrison, Authorities, 43, regarding Paul: Paul had to articulate the right balance, avoiding alienating the authorities or compromising Christ’s Lordship (cf. also 7).

Munck, Acts, lx–lxi.

See, e.g., Bruce, Commentary, 24.