Part 1: The First Outpouring of the Spirit (1:1–2:47)
Part 1
Acts 1–2 offers a strategic opening unit for Luke’s second volume. Fulfilling promises by OT prophets and Jesus himself, the exalted Lord pours out God’s Spirit on his witnesses, initiating cross-cultural witness and carrying on Jesus’s mission.
The literary preface, by ancient standards, was Acts 1:1 or 1:1–2, but this is distinguishable from an introduction connecting Acts with the previous book. This introduction may be 1:1–11 or 1:1–14, although the entire larger opening block of Acts as a whole may well extend until 2:47. Not only the introduction proper (probably 1:1–11 but possibly 1:1–14) but also the opening scenes up to the first summary statement (2:41–47) address the transition from Jesus’s ministry to that of the “successors” of his mission narrated in the Gospel. The abridged preface (1:1) may imply this transition in “all that Jesus began to do and teach.” Jesus’s promise of the Spirit to equip the apostles as witnesses closes Luke’s Gospel (Luke 24:48–49) and opens Acts (Acts 1:4–8), in a strategic transition from Jesus’s biography as he departs (1:9–11). Luke highlights this transition with motifs from the biblical account of the transition from Elijah’s to Elisha’s ministry.
Before the Spirit is poured out (2:1–47), the exact contours of the group of apostolic witnesses are carefully defined (1:15–26). The transition between volumes 1 and 2, then, is a transition of leadership from Jesus to the apostles (the Spirit working through both) and from Jesus’s active ministry in person to his continuing ministry through his name (2:38; 3:6) and (most regularly emphasized in Acts) the Spirit (2:33). The empowerment of the Spirit is foundational for the rest of the church’s mission, as is clear from the warning not to leave Jerusalem without it (1:4).
In the entire context of Acts, this transition prepares the way for another one, namely, Paul’s mission to uncircumcised Gentiles and hence the transition to the multicultural church of Luke’s own day. The risen Jesus remains active through the church, which continues to bear witness along the lines carefully defined by the apostles whom Jesus himself commissioned. The Diaspora mission highlighted by Jesus for the disciples in 1:8 surfaces quickly in Luke’s narrative. Even on Pentecost, the witness to the nations is proleptically foreshadowed in the Jewish hearers from many regions (2:9–11).
The first two chapters of Acts introduce major themes in Acts, just as the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel introduce its major themes: Beverly Gaventa rightly notes that these include “fulfillment of prophecy, the power of the Holy Spirit, the apostolic witness to Jesus, and the formation of Christian community.” Signs and wonders and a foreshadowing of the gospel going out to the nations are also essential elements in this section. That such themes appear here is hardly surprising; introductions often prefigured major themes, especially in rhetoric but also in other venues.
Opening comments on this section also provide an appropriate place to comment on a stylistic feature more common to the first half of Acts, probably meant to characterize the Jerusalem church. In the early twentieth century, C. C. Torrey, a master of Semitic languages, contended for a probable Aramaic influence in the first half of Acts, especially in the speeches. He then went beyond this relatively modest claim to deny that it was sufficient to regard these as merely “frequent Semitisms; the truth is that the language of all these fifteen chapters is translation Greek through and through, generally preserving even the order of words.” He argued that this Semitic character contrasts starkly with the lack of Semitic style in Acts 16–28, where the few apparent Semitisms probably simply represent Koine or occasionally Luke’s having become accustomed to the translation Greek.
Some others have followed Torrey’s argument, doubtful that Luke’s skill in imitating the LXX would be sufficient to produce such an array of Semitisms. Indeed, though Torrey was by no means disposed to accept large portions of Scripture as historically reliable, his argument in this case might well lend support to those who contend that Luke has some secure historical sources for the first part of the book. Yet as I have suggested in the introduction, we have other sufficient grounds for believing that Luke has secure sources about the Judean church; his two years in the Levant (Acts 21–26) would have permitted him considerable opportunity to hear various accounts. Probably most of these were oral; though some of those who recounted them to Luke may have been bilingual, providing an aramaized style at points, it is not clear the extent to which recounting in such style would affect Luke’s own style in reporting their words. Even if it did exert a notable degree of such influence, would it by itself produce the pervasive Semitic language often attributed to these chapters? Further, the likeliest suggested individual source for some of the early chapters, Philip (cf. 21:8–10), was a Hellenist who would have been among the least likely to be influenced by Aramaisms (6:1, 5).
Most scholars, though impressed with Torrey’s considerable command of Aramaic (stronger, indeed, than that of the vast majority of his critics), have failed to find his case persuasive. Some allow that some sections may have Aramaic sources (esp. in 1:1–5:16; 9:31–11:18; parts of Acts 12 and possibly 15), but feel that Torrey overstated his case. In a thorough study in 1965, Max Wilcox demonstrated that although some traditional material may exist in the speeches and elsewhere, a continuous Semitic source in Acts is improbable. Fitzmyer, a noted scholar in the Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls (not, of course, available in Torrey’s time) notes that Torrey’s patterns based on later Aramaic do not fit the Aramaic of Luke’s day. More important, many of Torrey’s “Aramaisms” are clear echoes of the LXX (which was, in the general sense, already “translation Greek”). Granted, Luke omits the apodictic conjunctions typical of the LXX (and Hebrew), but that Luke significantly reduces parataxis in his use of Mark indicates that Luke does not favor this style in general (whether in a source such as Mark or, presumably, in his own composition).
The Semitic style early in Acts, probably modeled on the LXX, was not, of course, due to scholars’ imagination. Often, at least, Luke’s Semitisms probably deliberately recall Septuagintal style in exclusively Jewish settings where this style would be appropriate. But rhetoricians advised varying style according to the subject matter, and Luke accordingly demonstrates his stylistic versatility by using more “biblical Greek” in Jerusalem (where his Diaspora audience would expect such style) and a more conventional Aegean style of Greek, climaxing in Acts 17, in the Diaspora. This is the same method Luke employs in the first two chapters of his Gospel, a method of deliberate archaizing meant to parallel Greek writers’ “atticizing” style. The extent to which Luke comfortably competed in Attic style may be debated, but churches accustomed to biblical Greek readings would appreciate a style in which otherwise more sophisticated “atticizing” orators could not compete.
Even before the rise of the Second Sophistic, some (e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus) had long contended for a purist, Atticist approach to rhetoric; this practice must have been increasing in the late first century. Some of these writers deliberately archaized their historical narratives with Atticist style. A pure Attic style might make his work difficult for some of his ideal audience, and rhetoricians did recommend adapting speech styles to the audience. Thus one of the most popular novels of a period after the second-century Atticist revival has a “limp” style, possibly deliberate, that seemed characteristic of novels appealing to popular, “nonelite audiences.” Acts is not a novel (see discussion in the introduction, , ), but Luke’s ideal audience, though probably partly elite (1:1), is not limited to the elite, and they appear less rhetorically concerned than typical recipients of works by elite writers.
Although atticizing per se might be excessive and not common in Acts, deliberate archaizing might be a different matter: The best-informed segment of Luke’s target audience, schooled in Scripture in synagogues or by those who had been, might appreciate Luke’s deliberate archaizing with a Septuagintal flavor when focusing on his heritage. Although Quintilian warns against archaisms in rhetoric (Inst. 2.5.21; cf. 8.3.60; 12.10.42), Latin writers could archaize deliberately to elevate the language, such as in prayers or official documents. (See some further discussion of Atticist versus the more bombastic, so-called Asianist style of rhetoric at Acts 17:22.)
Our current title for Acts (Πράξεις ἀίοστόλων, “Acts of Apostles”) appears widely by the end of the second century. The title’s first element, “Acts,” is not inappropriate, given other works such as Valerius Maximus’s Memorable Deeds and Sayings (see the discussion of the ancient genre of “acts” in the introduction, , ). This correspondence need not, however, suggest that Luke issued the book with such a title on the outside of the scroll; πρᾶξις is not a frequent Lukan term, especially in this sense (Acts 19:18; Luke 23:51), and this title, “Acts of the Apostles,” fits the era of the proliferation of apocryphal acts in second-century Christianity. In contrast to “Acts” (see introduction, ), the second element, “of the Apostles,” is less accurate. The emphasis on the “apostles” (by which Luke means especially the Twelve) hardly carries through the book, but their role at the beginning of the narrative apparently led real readers to overestimate their centrality to the narrative.
This later title distracts from the work’s primary theme exemplified in the shift from Jerusalem to Rome. Acts continues the story of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, and the stories of both volumes are embedded in Luke’s broader understanding of salvation history rooted in the LXX. Acts traces this continuing story through the Jerusalem church (exemplified especially in Peter) and the mission as far as Rome, particularly through Paul, Luke’s prime agent in the Gentile mission. If Luke’s first volume was “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (; see comment there), his second volume might be titled “What Jesus’s Followers Continued to Do and Teach” (cf. the emphasis on apostolic teaching in 2:42), with a special focus on Peter and Paul. The two volumes together might thus be called “Deeds and Sayings” or “Acts and Teachings,” with the speeches representing the direct teachings of the second volume. But because the primary characters of the work as a whole are not the Twelve, the title as we have it is not what Luke would have titled the work. What Luke himself might have wished the work to be called, we can at most speculate.
Scholars differ as to the introduction’s contours (much of the summary taken from Gaventa, Acts, 62): Acts 1:1–2 (Krodel, Acts, 51; Conzelmann, Acts, 3–4); 1:1–5 (Lake and Cadbury, Commentary, 2; Bruce, Acts3, 97, 102); 1:1–8 (Haenchen, Acts, 144–47); 1:1–11 (Johnson, Acts, 23–32); and 1:1–14 (Barrett, Acts, 61–64; Marguerat, Actes, 21, 33–34; Pervo, Acts, 34; Langner, Hechos, 282–83). Walton, “Beginning,” 467, sees “the ends of the earth” (1:8) as the goal of the opening verses.
Walton, “Beginning,” esp. 466, also sees all of Acts 1–2 as a bridge between Jesus’s life and the church; likewise others (Luke 24:44–53 and Acts 1:1–11 as a bridge between the Gospel and Acts, e.g., Mallen, Reading, 79). In some genres, “prologues” could prove quite lengthy (Zimmermann, “Prologue,” 2–3). On the role of “succession” in Luke-Acts, see, e.g., Talbert, Acts, xix–xxv.
A good transition could summarize what came before while introducing what would come next (Rhet. Her. 4.26.35).
I use the term here in its narrower Lukan sense rather than in the broader Pauline sense. On apostleship and its background, see, e.g., Keener, John, 310–15. For earlier studies of apostles and apostleship relevant for Acts, see Mattill and Mattill, Bibliography, 296–98, §§4142–73.
Gaventa, Acts, 61.
Both in rhetorical advice (Rhet. Alex. 29, 1436a.33–39; Dion. Hal. Thuc. 19; Lysias 24; Cic. Or. Brut. 40.137) and in actual speeches (e.g., Sen. E. Controv. 1.pref. 21; Dio Chrys. Or. 38.8; cf. Pliny Ep. 2.3.3). In a particular kind of speech, one could forgo normal order, but this was unusual (Men. Rhet. 2.4, 391.19–28; 392.9–14; 393.23–24).
This was less emphasized in philosophic argument than in rhetoric (Fronto Eloq. 3.4), but it appears there as well. Other good writers also introduced the points to be covered (Polyb. 3.1.3–3.5.9, esp. 3.1.7; 11.1.4–5; Virg. Aen. 1.1–6; Aul. Gel. pref. 25; Soranus Gynec. 1.intro.2; 1.1.3; 2.5.9 [25.78]; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 7.1; 8.1; Zimmermann, “Prologue,” 2–3).
Torrey, Composition, 3ff. Cf. Martin, “Evidence,” 59 (favoring Hebrew over Aramaic). In a more general, less linguistic way, Greco-Roman specialists also observe the noticeable shift from a more “Hebraistic” flavor of Acts’ earlier chapters to a more “Hellenistic” flavor in its later ones (e.g., Ramsay, Luke the Physician, 50–51).
Torrey, Composition, 7.
Ibid.
E.g., Ehrhardt, Acts, 1; Ladd, Theology, 313.
E.g., Witherington, Acts, 168.
On bilingualism influencing style, see comments on Acts 21:40.
See already Foakes-Jackson, Acts, xiii.
Bruce, Acts1, 22 (citing De Zwaan, “Greek Language,” 44ff.); Bruce, Commentary, 28.
Wilcox, Semitisms of Acts. Even where Wilcox argued for some genuine Semitisms apart from the LXX, he has been critiqued by others (see Horton, “Semitisms”; survey of views in Powell, Acts, 28–29). Wilcox has also argued strongly for a dominant bilingualism in Judea and Galilee (see Wilcox, “Influence,” 1094–95).
Fitzmyer, Acts, 81–82; and passim on particular verses (e.g., p. 444, on Acts 9:32). Torrey, Composition, 9, does admit that knowledge of Judean Aramaic in Luke’s day is scanty, but sufficient evidence remains to reconstruct the basic syntax of Semitic languages.
Fitzmyer, Acts, 81–82; see also Hengel, Acts and History, 62; see esp. De Zwaan, “Greek Language” (noting abundant LXX language and quotations; similarly, Clarke, “Septuagint”). The most common form of the LXX is especially “literal” in the Pentateuch.
Most, “Imitate Septuagint?” For earlier syntactic arguments for Aramaic sources, see Martin, “Evidence” (summary, 59).
Luke uses the most familiar LXX spelling for Jerusalem in Acts 1–10 (excepting 1:4, which some scholars argue is distinctively Lukan, and in 8:1, 14, 25, which some might attribute to a special source or, more likely, to a view away from Jerusalem); he varies the spelling afterward (cf. Ross, “Spelling of Jerusalem”). This could suggest an LXX source in these chapters but probably reflects Luke’s deliberate septuagintalizing of the early chapters, and the broader Greco-Roman setting of later ones.
With Witherington, Acts, 43–44.
Aune, Environment, 117; Alexander, “Septuaginta,” 17–21. See discussion of Semitisms in the introduction, , ; more briefly, , . Arguing for genuine Semitisms in Luke 1–2, see Farris, “Semitic Sources” (making a strong argument for translation Greek); Laurentin, “Traces d’allusions” (favoring Hebrew over Aramaic); Jung, Language (arguing for Hebrew sources); Wenham, “Source Criticism,” 145 (tentatively); Marshall, Luke, 46–47 (allowing that originally Hebrew sources may have “reached [Luke] in Greek form”); Winter, “Observations,” 121 (contending that Luke is often more Hebraic than the LXX here); Most, “Imitate Septuagint?” (noting that Luke’s omission of apodictic καί counters the view that he imitates the LXX). Others disagree (see, forcefully, Turner, “Hebraic Sources”), countering that Luke imitates LXX style here (Stanton, Gospels, 162; Aune, Environment, 117); for numerous parallels with the Judean Psalms of Solomon in Luke 1:6–79, see Knox, Jerusalem, 90 (much less convincingly, Aalen, “Chapters,” suggests a relation between Luke’s Gospel and 1 En. 91ff., possibly even [p. 13] that Luke was its Greek translator!). Either translation Greek or Greek with Aramaic interference might fit interviews with Judean sources.
For this approach in the first century B.C.E., see Rowe, “Style,” 156; in the mid- to late second century C.E., see, e.g., Trapp, Maximus, xxxiv; and works on the Second Sophistic.
See, e.g., Calboli, “Atticism,” 325 (imitation went from Lysias to Thucydides to archaizing more generally).
On adaptation to audience tastes, see, e.g., Rhet. Alex. 22, 1434b.27–30.
Dowden, “Callisthenes,” 651. Others believe that novels did appeal to the elite; their style, in any case, remains popular, like Luke’s.
Aune, Environment, 117; Witherington, Acts, 44; Alexander, Context, 250–52; for Luke’s LXX imitation and his archaizing style, see also Plümacher, Lukas, 38–72 and 72–78, respectively. Alexander, “Septuaginta,” 17–19, treats this as a sort of intensive “intertextuality” (17), a living “Jewish Greek” (19) that exceeded mere LXX imitation. This is not “low register” (17) but a social dialect (23), providing cultural cohesiveness (26). Roman historians sometimes borrowed the style of Roman epics (Rebenich, “Historical Prose,” 312), and even sculptors often revived earlier styles (Stewart, “Retrospective Styles”).
See Blänsdorf, “Archaism.”
Pesch, Apostelgeschichte, 1:22–23; Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 56; Pervo, Acts, 29; and Hull, Spirit in Acts, 13, citing the Latin version of Iren. Her. 3.12.11 (probably); 3.13.3 (clearly referring to our book of Acts, which is quoted repeatedly in 3.14.1); Clem. Alex. Strom. 5.82.4; Tert. Bapt. 10.4; Anti-Marcionite Prologue to Luke; the Muratorian Canon (though other titles were also available). See also Euseb. H.E. 3.4.6 (noted in Weiser, Apostelgeschichte, 26).
Cf. Pesch, Apostelgeschichte, 1:22–23. Gounelle, “État de la recherche,” thinks that the eventual title of Luke’s Acts may have polemicized against some of the second-century acts.
Parsons, Departure, 184, citing the “primacy effect” (what comes first affecting perceptions of what follows). Second-century readers probably also assumed Paul’s apostleship, despite Luke’s rare application of the title to him.
Agreeing with, e.g., Judge, Athens, 50, who thinks that Luke’s own title is simply “The Second Logos for Theophilus” (see Acts 1:1).
Assuming that the “began” is not grammatically superfluous; see my comment there.