(2) Who Are Luke’s Witnesses?

(2) Who Are Luke’s Witnesses?

The term “witness” often functioned in a legal context. In such settings, it mattered whether the witness was reliable or unreliable. In classical Athens, witnesses were a more important source than documents, but over time documentary evidence grew more prominent (cf. Justin. Cod. 4.20.18); outright mistrust of witnesses, however, belongs only to the later empire. In Judaism, one who was able to testify firsthand yet withheld the testimony could be viewed as liable before God. In the LXX, the term indicates an appeal to objective evidence, and it frequently appears in lawcourt or controversy imagery.

Other uses may have been originally metaphoric extensions, but the metaphor was common enough that the originally figurative use had become by this period part of the term’s standard semantic range. A Stoic philosopher, for example, could claim that good persons are among God’s servants and his μαρτύρων (Epict. Diatr. 3.26.28) and that God summons wise people to testify (μαρτύρησόν) concerning what he expects from them (1.29.47). Although the legal setting does not therefore delimit the term’s use, we should note that it sometimes functions in this way in Luke-Acts, especially given the frequent setting of persecution and lawcourts (Luke 21:12–15; Acts 22–26).

At the same time, the importance of the term is that it involves verification; Luke writes not a court brief but a historical monograph that, like a legal brief, can be verified or falsified by testimony (Luke 1:2). Personal testimony implied firsthand knowledge (usually historical but occasionally revelatory). Naturalists regarded eyewitness observations of phenomena as particularly noteworthy (Sen. Y. Nat. Q. 3.25.8); likewise, a general might refuse to credit a report until confirmed by an eyewitness (Xen. Hell. 6.2.31). But most relevant to Luke’s genre, historians reckoned eyewitness evidence particularly reliable. Writers could cite other authors as if witnesses in a courtroom; Josephus thus produces historians as “witnesses” for his claims (Ag. Ap. 1.4), and Plutarch claims that Homer testifies (μαρτυρεῖ) in support of his view (Plut. Or. Delphi 22, Mor. 405A). Thucydides, recognizing the dangers of oral tradition, focused primarily on contemporary history, where sources could be cross-examined; “Polybius (e.g., Polyb. 4.2.3), pays at least lip service to Thucydides’s views on evidence, but the question did not apparently worry Roman writers.” Luke himself, who has examined at least some eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2–3; Acts 16:10), naturally follows the historiographic tradition of the Greek East, using testimonies as part of his own case for his hearers, just as do the witnesses in his narrative world.

Luke applies the term “witness” especially to the eyewitnesses of the gospel story that he recounts in his first volume (Acts 1:21–22). The apostles had to bear witness to Jesus’s resurrection in a variety of settings (2:32; 3:15; 4:33; 5:32; 10:39, 41; 13:31). Jesus had performed miracles as a testimony (Luke 5:14; Mark 1:44; cf. Acts 2:22) and earlier sent his disciples and commanded them to provide testimony against those who rejected their message (Luke 9:5, presumably effective in the day of judgment; Mark 6:11); in the Gospel the wicked also were said to testify against themselves (Luke 11:48; cf. 4:22; paradoxically, 22:70–71).

But just as the supernatural empowerment was not for the first witnesses alone (Acts 2:39), neither is the commission to testify about what one has seen, which applied to both Paul (22:15, 18; 23:11; 26:16, 22; cf. 20:26) and Stephen (22:20). Others, too, would “see and hear” dramatic events about which they could bear witness (2:33; 8:6; and esp. 22:15; for the original disciples, see Luke 10:24; Acts 4:20; for others before the disciples, Luke 2:20; 7:22). The prophets “bore witness” before Jesus’s coming (Acts 10:43; cf. 1 Pet 1:11–12), and so the role of witness was never limited to the Twelve.

Further, Acts does not report (as later tradition does) the dispersal of the original witnesses to the nations, despite Luke’s commitment to the Gentile mission (and the probability of at least some trips, 1 Cor 9:5). Yet witness to the “ends of the earth” fulfills an eschatological prerequisite (rooted in the restoration of Israel texts in Isa 41:5, 9; 43:6, 10; 45:22; 52:10) that in Luke’s day remained incomplete. Although the commission as witnesses thus refers, in the first instance, to the eyewitnesses of Jesus’s public ministry (Acts 1:21–22), it functions paradigmatically for the mission of the church in its Gentile mission. Luke’s narrative will thus fill out what they were to expect in the course of being witnesses, especially in terms of sufferings.

In view of Luke 24:46–48, the parallel passage in the Gospel that informs this one, the disciples are to bear witness concerning the gospel story (with an emphasis on Jesus’s passion and resurrection), to which they are eyewitnesses. Because this story is a microcosm of Luke’s own Gospel (especially in its expanded form implied in Acts 1:21–22), Luke probably sees his own mission as reporter in similar terms, providing a detailed narrative based on his consultation with witnesses (Luke 1:2). The focus of the gospel story is Jesus’s suffering and resurrection on the third day, according to the Scriptures (24:46–47; the “these things” of 24:48; cf. 1 Cor 15:3–4); the appropriate response to the proclamation is repentance (Luke 24:47).

Although the focus of the testimony’s content is the gospel story (especially given Luke’s emphasis on narrative), Luke’s wording also implies the relevance of Christology here (cf. Acts 2:36). That Jesus calls them to be “my witnesses” (1:8; not mentioned in Luke 24:48 but perhaps implied in 24:46–48) evokes the language of “my witnesses” in Isaiah, but there it is God speaking (Isa 43:10, 12; 44:8). Although Luke’s narrative does not articulate an understanding of Jesus’s deity in the early Jerusalem church, he presumably can take for granted this belief in his circle of churches (cf. Rom 9:5 for possible use of the language; for clearer use of the idea in some sense, 1 Cor 8:6; Phil 2:6–7). The exegesis of Joel 2:32 suggested in Acts 2:21 and 2:38 reinforces the likelihood that Luke intends 1:8 to suggest a divine Christology.

The rest of Acts provides frequent examples of the Spirit-filled speech that this passage predicts (e.g., 2:4; 4:8, 31; 13:9).

The mission summarized here represents the theme of Acts (the Gentile mission), which moves from heritage to mission (see introduction, , ). Acts marks an obvious geographic shift from Jerusalem to Rome, theologically underlining the movement of the narrative (and ideally of the community’s focus) from heritage to mission. Even here in the introduction, the focus shifts from Israel’s promised restoration (1:6) to the Gentile mission (1:8), likewise appropriate to the eschatological era. Jesus’s words about the mission are stated as a promise rather than as a command, and this mission will be successful because “the most reliable of characters” has promised it.

Ancient critics sometimes expressed annoyance with those who, having expressed a subject, digressed from it. Luke, however, maintains his newly stated focus on the Gentile mission throughout this volume. (Contrary to first impressions, he even prefigures it in his Gospel; see the comment on the Gentile mission in our introduction, , . See also comment on Acts 1:8 as an outline for Acts, below.) The mission’s expansion here is expressed geographically, but Acts develops it ethnically as well, so that the gospel crosses all barriers; we blandly call this the “Gentile mission” but could also call it the “universal mission.”

Early Christian supporters of the Christian mission (including Matthew, John, and Paul as well as Luke) needed to articulate their understanding of the mission carefully partly because their activity was so distinctive. Traveling merchants, preachers, and even priests spread their religions as they traveled; Jews also welcomed proselytes. All of this religious zeal occasionally drew xenophobic Roman ire when it converted Romans in Rome, though the Romans were generally legally tolerant of such activity even in the capital. But Paul’s mission went considerably beyond most contemporary models. Ancient cults provided propaganda, but this was typically limited to public ceremonies and inscribed testimonies. In pagan circles, traveling teachers carried their messages, but we lack evidence for their “sense of vocation deliberately to attempt a geographically-defined expansion,” or a systematic mission like Paul’s.

Despite some Jewish people who may have actively sought proselytes (like a traveling merchant in Jos. Ant. 20.34–48), Judaism did not send formal “missionaries.” (Nor, given their pervasive presence in the Diaspora, would Jewish people have needed to do so; they had simpler, less confrontational, ways to win Gentiles to their faith. Some scholars envision a concerted Jewish mission to the Gentiles; they are right in recognizing some Jews’ interest in making proselytes, but the evidence does not support any centralized effort, which is what many mean by a “missions” movement.) For the early Christians, what was especially unique was their message, not their method, yet the current state of scholarly discussion suggests that the methodology of Paul and his circle was also distinctive to a considerable degree in that era.

For those who knew it especially through their Bible, Jerusalem evoked a rich plethora of images surrounding Israel’s heritage, from David’s time forward. (Luke often employs the indeclinable Septuagintal name for Jerusalem, Ἰερουσαλήμ, as in Acts 1:8, but sometimes, as in 1:4, the declinable Ἱεροσόλυμα, which in Greek presumably evokes the thought of the ἱερόν, the temple. He usually prefers the familiar Septuagintal spelling for the city in Acts 1–10, reinforcing the premise that he evokes a “biblical” milieu in the early chapters of Acts.) Apart from the gospel story, Luke’s ideal audience would have known more about Jerusalem than Galilee, both because of their biblical heritage and the relative fame of urban Jerusalem (even before 70 C.E. and certainly afterward).

Although Luke, who employs Mark extensively in his Gospel, must have been aware of the widespread tradition that Jesus spent time with his disciples in Galilee after the resurrection (Mark 14:28; 16:7; Matt 26:32; 28:7, 10, 16; John 21:1), he simplifies the movement in his narrative by mentioning only the disciples’ experience in Jerusalem (compare Luke 24:6 with Mark 16:7), which also seems to be part of the tradition of resurrection appearances (John 20:1–29).

Some scholars have thought that Jesus’s Judean and Galilean resurrection appearances are incompatible; Marxsen, for example, thinks that Mark emphasized a parousia in Galilee (Mark 14:28; 16:7) and was followed by later traditions in Matt 28 and John 21 whereas Luke and John had Judean appearances. But both kinds of appearances appear early in the tradition; it made little sense to invent Galilean appearances, despite Mark’s favoritism toward Galilee, and it is difficult to account for Luke’s certitude in Acts without a Judean apostolate, despite his theological use of Jerusalem (see further comment below).

Sanders suggests that when Luke’s Jerusalem center is taken into account, the most plausible scenario is that the disciples “fled to Galilee and then returned to Jerusalem,” where Galileans often traveled in any case. Yet some of Luke’s details require an appearance in Jerusalem before the flight to Galilee. Luke indicates that Jesus left two Judean disciples about sundown (Luke 24:29, 31), and the disciples hurried immediately to Jerusalem (24:33), where Jesus greeted all the disciples together (24:36).

That the closest disciples remained in Jerusalem immediately after the Passover despite fears of persecution (cf. John 20:19) makes sense, since they would be in mourning for their master, who had just been buried. This mourning period normally lasted seven days. The disciples would naturally be continuing in their most intense mourning period at this time; later rabbinic traditions suggest that such mourning included sitting on the ground without shoes and abstaining from working, washing, anointing, and even study of Torah. One might expect them not to travel during this time. Mark’s Galilean emphasis explains why Jesus promises an appearance to the disciples in Galilee (Mark 14:28; 16:7). But since the disciples were from Galilee and had families and fellow disciples there (who would have returned after Passover if they had come to Jerusalem and who would need to hear about the Lord’s resurrection), it is also historically likely that they did return there (again, even if one were skeptical of resurrection appearances there). Interestingly, the author of John 21 does not treat the Galilean appearance as incompatible with a prior Judean appearance such as in Luke (John 21:1).

Thus it is possible that the disciples met Jesus in Jerusalem, then followed him again to Galilee, after the need to mourn had vanished, and then were sent back to Jerusalem well before Pentecost. Even the journey to Galilee was not undertaken overnight, however, and so it seems easier for us not to suppose that the “forty days” (Acts 1:3) all transpired in Jerusalem; it could thus be after the disciples had returned to Jerusalem that Jesus gives his command to remain there, perhaps a week or so before Pentecost. If Jesus and his disciples arrived in Jerusalem several days, perhaps as much as a week, early for Passover (Luke 19:28; 21:37; 22:7), it is not incredible that the disciples would have arrived perhaps a week or more early for Pentecost, even had they lacked specific instructions concerning their mission there.

Although Luke has reason to emphasize Jerusalem’s centrality, he does not invent it: historically, it was the center of the apostolic mission (Rom 15:19, 25–26, 31; 1 Cor 16:3), and the pre-Pauline apostles remained there for some time (Gal 1:17–18; 2:1). To argue otherwise is to extrapolate a permanent return to Galilee from the Gospels’ mention of disciples returning there temporarily, while ignoring earlier and more explicit textual evidence suggesting that the movement began in Jerusalem. Nor does Luke explicitly rule out any Galilean appearances, as if he polemicizes against a competing Galilee tradition. Luke is not anti-Galilean (e.g., Luke 1:26; 2:39; 4:14; Acts 1:11; 9:31; 10:37; 13:31), though both his focus on the church’s Judean heritage and his own urban Aegean cultural sphere render him much more enthusiastic about the biblically familiar and urban Jerusalem.

More important, the readers who knew enough of Pentecost (Acts 2:1) to know that it was a biblical pilgrimage festival would readily infer that many Galilean Passover pilgrims would have normally returned to Galilee and then returned to Jerusalem later for Pentecost. Again, Luke does not rule out Galilean appearances that he does not narrate; we do not need to exclude historical evidence that could be complementary rather than contradictory. (Jesus’s command to remain in Jerusalem in Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4 occurs, according to Luke’s chronology, in connection with the ascension after forty days of appearances and hence would not exclude any prior return to Galilee.) But by omitting intervening Galilean appearances and focusing exclusively on Jerusalem, Luke clarifies his focus on Jerusalem, the theological (as well as historical) location of the mission’s beginning.

The theological priority of Jerusalem could explain Luke’s invention if it were such, but in light of all the evidence, it explains the disciples’ historical relocation to Jerusalem even better. The earliest Christians may well have accorded the location eschatological significance (cf. Acts 1:6); Luke’s mention of Olivet in 1:12 may suggest that he himself recognized such significance in view of Zech 14:4. Jerusalem was for Judaism the theological center of the world; many Jews viewed it as the center literally (cf. Ezek 5:5; 38:12). Thus texts might portray judgment beginning at the temple (Ezek 9:3–7; 10:18–19; 11:22–23) or in Jerusalem (Jer 25:17–26), and the center of future eschatological hope as Jerusalem (Isa 2:3; Mic 4:1–3).

Although, for most Greeks and some others influenced by them, the world’s “navel” was Delphi, most of the empire saw the political center of their world as Rome; Rome even included one monument measuring distances to major cities in the empire, with another monument to its north, the Umbilicus Romae, as the symbolic center of the Roman world. Greek novels set in a past era might omit Rome, but Luke, writing about events in the recent real world of the empire, could hardly do so.

A mission from Jerusalem to Rome (as far as the book of Acts carries us) moves from the heart of salvation history to the heart of the empire, hence from heritage to mission (in contrast to the Gospel, which begins and ends in Jerusalem). In his Gospel, Luke gives little play to Jesus’s Markan journeys in Gentile territory (except in Luke 8:26–39), just as Luke reserves his emphasis on the Gentile mission especially for his second volume.

One should not think that these interests are mutually exclusive chronologically (whatever Luke’s alleged penchant for dividing time into eras; cf. Gal 2:7–9). Just as a Jewish mission remains in effect concurrent with the Gentile mission (e.g., Acts 13:46; 18:6; 19:8–9; 28:28), the Jerusalem church was flourishing in 21:20 and presumably continued to flourish for several more years until the beginning of the Judean-Roman war of 66–70 C.E.

Acts 1:8 is a paradigm based on salvation-historical priority, and Luke does not provide a clear indication of how his own audience should adapt it. Presumably, they, like the apostles, would start their mission at their own location. The geographic pattern of Paul’s ministry in 26:20 closely follows the paradigm of 1:8 (cf. Luke 24:27), except that it appropriately starts where Saul found himself just after his conversion, and when it returns to Jerusalem, it returns to his home (cf. Acts 8:1). Yet Luke’s primary audience in the sphere of the Pauline mission will most identify not with Jerusalem (or starting there) but with the fact that they are part of those carrying on the mission to the “ends of the earth” (on which see discussion below).

Instead of the τε that precedes Ἰερουσαλήμ being pleonastic in view of the following polysyndeton (the three occurrences of καί that follow), we might translate, “not only in Jerusalem but also . . . ” Because one feminine definite article covers both the Greek words for Judea and Samaria, we should think of them together as the next stage of the mission (thus we read of more of the Judean mission in 9:32–43, after the Samaritan mission of 8:5–25). Thus we may have not four geographic sections of Acts but three.

Luke may occasionally employ the title “Judea” for the entire province under the governor (i.e., Judea and Samaria without Galilee; Luke 3:1); sometimes he employs it for all Palestine (Luke 1:5; 7:17; 23:5; Acts 10:37), but most often for the Jewish land (what “Judea” means) minus Samaria, Galilee, and perhaps even Caesarea. Sometimes Luke also distinguishes Judea from Jerusalem (Luke 6:17; Acts 1:8; 8:1); the meaning here might be, “the rest of the Jewish homeland inhabited by Jews” as opposed to Gentiles and Samaritans. Thus the disciples are to start with the ancestral capital, spread to the rest of Jewish Palestine, and then (shifting from primarily topographic to primarily cultural distinctions) to Samaria. The “ends of the earth” could then mean everything else, whether Diaspora Jews or Gentiles or both.

When Luke provides his basic thesis for Acts in 1:8, he also has in mind the programmatic passage he will provide in 2:17–21 (parallel to the Isaiah text’s role in Luke 4:18–19). There salvation will come to “all humanity” (Acts 2:17; cf. Luke 3:6), by which Luke (as likely opposed to Peter, the speaker in the narrative world) implies Gentiles as well as Jews (cf. Acts 2:39); there, as in this context (1:6–8), this will be accomplished in the “last days” by the Spirit’s enablement (2:17–18). But whereas Joel provides some of the backdrop, themes from Isaiah constitute the foreground.

Just as Acts 1:8 alludes to Isaiah for “my witnesses,” it also alludes to Isaiah for the geographic range of the testimony of God’s salvation (Isa 41:5, 9; 42:10; 43:6; 45:22; 48:20; 49:6; 52:10; 62:11). That Luke depends on Isaiah’s language here is clear: although mention of the ends of the earth is common in ancient literature, Luke’s complete and exact phrase ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς appears four or five times in the LXX (Isa 8:9; 48:20; 49:6; 62:11; also Pss. Sol. 1:4) and only twice in the NT (Acts 13:47 and here); it also appears in Christian writings dependent on Isaiah or Acts but “nowhere else in the immense range” of literature in the Thesaurus linguae graecae (TLG). Most important for the interpretation of the phrase in Acts 1:8, Luke’s other use of the phrase, 13:47, specifically quotes Isaiah (Isa 49:6). More generally, “ends of the earth” is a common Septuagintal “phrase for distant lands, especially in the prophets . . .  without any conscious reference to any one place.” Most scholars do recognize the allusion to 49:6 in Acts 1:8. It is not surprising that Acts 1:8 appears to allude to Scripture, since the passage it recapitulates (Luke 24:47–48) is explicitly grounded in Scripture (24:44–46).

The “ends of the earth” thus includes the entire Gentile mission (Acts 13:47), even though Luke’s narrower goal for his own narrative in Acts will be Rome because it is the heart of the empire, the world known directly by his audience. (Rome’s conquests had deliberately forced all its empire to focus on Rome, as was widely acknowledged.) If some prophecies in the Gospel are fulfilled in Acts and some prophecies in both remain future (Luke 21:25–28; 22:16–18; Acts 1:6–7; 3:19–21), there is no reason to assume that the end of Acts closes off further fulfillment of this opening statement. Thus Paul’s ministry in Rome exhausts neither the Gentile mission nor the “ends of the earth.” Instead it predicts this mission’s completion in a proleptic way, just like the presence of Diaspora Jews at Pentecost (Acts 2:5) or the first conversion of a Gentile, who, not coincidentally, comes from a region Greeks regarded as at the literal southern ends of the earth (8:27).

Paul seems to have taken such proleptic symbolism seriously himself, claiming that his mission was preaching the gospel fully to all the earth (Rom 15:18–19; cf. Col 1:6), though, for him, his remaining goal was Spain (the western border) by way of Rome and Jerusalem (Rom 15:23–25, 28). His interest in Spain (and in every people under heaven; cf. Rom 15:11; 16:26; Gal 3:8; Col 1:23) may presuppose an early logion like this or Matt 24:14 (though cf. the less contextually explicit Mark 13:10).

Most ancients held that the river Oceanus encircled the world; to go beyond it was to reach the literal ends of the earth. Usually, when they spoke of the ends of the earth, however, they meant the lands before Oceanus, such as Spain in the west and Ethiopia in the south. Still, in the time that Luke was writing, Rome was pressing “beyond the limits of Ocean”; Claudius had added Britannia to the empire in 43 C.E. Elsewhere in the north, some knew about Ireland. For many, exotic places such as “Thule” (possibly Iceland or Norway) were at the ends of the earth; a first-century writer calls Thule the farthest of lands (Sen. Y. Med. 379).

For Pliny the Elder, the ocean surrounded the western limits of the world (beyond Spain); in the north, some had sailed from north of Germany around Jutland (Denmark) and as far as very cold Scythia. Pliny placed the Caspian Sea on the northeast end of the world (N.H. 2.67.167). Some had reportedly sailed from Spain south past Mauretania all the way to Ethiopia (2.67.169); if true, and if by “Ethiopia” they meant the region most often so designated in antiquity, they had circumnavigated Africa. (But some might have regarded the dark-complexioned West Africans as “Aethiopians,” since many ancients would not have limited the title to Meroë; see comment on Acts 8:27.)

The phrase could epitomize distance (Catull. Carm. 11.2–3). Some employed the phrase poetically; hence Ovid complains that his place of exile is the very end (extremum) of the earth (Ovid Tristia 4.9.9). Someone wandering in exile might depict his travels as going to the furthest part of the earth. Cicero complains that Mithridates seeks to gather troops in the northeast, in ultimis terris (Agr. 2.19.52). Cicero also praises Rome’s glory as known to peoples in the most distant parts of the world (Verr. 2.5.64.166). The phrase appears in a hyperbolic mission statement in a pseudepigraphic letter attributed to Crates of Thebes, writing to Hipparchia: “And seek wise men, even if you have to go to the ends of the earth [ἐί’ ἔσχατα γῆς].”

Distant peoples to the east included Scythians (Sen. Y. Med. 483) and Indians (Med. 484). Likewise, ancient writers sometimes spoke of India as in the eastern ends of the earth. Thus one could pair Spain as the western and India as the eastern sides of the world. After the conquests of Alexander of Macedon, whose successors held territory even near the Punjab for a time, some Greek thinkers were in contact with Indian thinkers. Much was rumored and known about India—for example, that they were the world’s most numerous people, that they had “naked” philosophers, and that a widow might be burned on her husband’s funeral pyre. Not only mercantile ties (e.g., in ivory, pearls, or other expensive substances) but also philosophical and religious ties existed. It was said that India sent envoys to Augustus. Trajan’s conquests in the early second century expanded Roman influence to India’s borders.

Proposed examples of connections between Jewish and Indian texts appear to be coincidental, based on shared themes and images from a somewhat related milieu. But some Jews were apparently even engaged in, or knew directly of, trade with India. A mid-first-century C.E. guidebook for the Red Sea has survived, and it reports the African coast as far south as Dar es Salaam, then the voyage to the mouth of the Indus River and especially the profitable Malabar Coast of India. Many Roman gold and silver coins have been recovered in southern India, especially from the times of Augustus and Nero. By the late second century, mariners reached Annam (today’s Vietnam), and others “traded with Malaya and Java.”

Like India, China was known to be far away. The empire also had trade ties with China, although, because of its greater distance, it was not known as well as India. A well-known item of the China trade was silk; one late third-century C.E. source rates a pound of silk as the price of a pound of gold. What is known as the Silk Road already linked these two great empires by the first century. China knew of Rome (by the name Daqin), again primarily as a source of foreign treasures. Some Roman voyagers may have reached Canton; in 226 C.E., after a Western merchant came to Vietnam by ship, Chinese records indicate that he “was sent on to the emperor at Nanking” and report “a large and expensive gift that a group from the West brought the emperor in 294.”

Some ancients wrote of Spain (especially Gades) as the ends of the earth; even for those in Rome, it was “the west” (Sil. It. 3.325). One thought of the east and the west together as “both abodes of the sun” (Ovid Her. 9.15–16 [LCL]). That Spain formed one boundary of the ends of the known world undoubtedly informed Paul’s desire to go there (Rom 15:24, 28; 1 Clem. 5.5–7) despite obstacles he would face there, though it is not explicitly part of Luke’s horizon. Parts of Spain were quite romanized, though some earlier elements persisted in local culture. Spain was well known in the empire; Roman merchants had regular ties with Spain, and Spain had figured prominently in recent generations’ history. Because of the chief trade routes, ancient maps depict east-west distances on a larger scale than north-south ones; this made the westernmost known land a natural “end” of the earth.

More relevant is that Nubia stood at the southern ends of the Mediterranean world’s earth (see comment on Acts 8:27). The African court official’s conversion proleptically symbolizes the future completion of the mission to the southern ends of the earth. Homer’s view of Ethiopians had great influence; Strabo refers to his view that “Ethiopians live at the ends of the earth, on the banks of Oceanus . . .  at the end of the earth.” Mythographers were happy to speculate on the cosmology of the four ends of the earth (e.g., 1 En. 35:1–36:2), reporting (unverifiable) marvels at the earth’s “ends.” In the distant north, for example, dwelt the mythical Hyperboreans.

Many scholars cite Pss. Sol. 8:15 to argue that some viewed Rome as the ends of the earth, a view that, as they note, fits well the place where Acts concludes (Acts 28:14–31). Psalms of Solomon refers to Pompey, but since, historically, Pompey came from many years of warfare in Spain, it is not completely clear whether the author and his audience would think of Rome. The matter is disputed, however; unless the ideal audience of Psalms of Solomon were well informed concerning events in the west more than a century earlier, they might well think of Pompey as simply coming from Rome, since he was a Roman. Some Jewish documents could refer to Italy as the “west” (δυσμῶν, Sib. Or. 4.102–3). In the first century B.C.E., Rome and Spain were both in the far west from a Judean perspective, but they would be far more readily distinguished for a first-century C.E. Greek audience.

Despite this possible reference to Rome, Rome was not what most people in the eastern empire thought of when they heard “ends of the earth.” For most, the peoples of the ends of the earth would have been “Germans, Scythians, Indians and Ethiopians,” as well as Britons. Dio Chrysostom can use such a phrase to mean “everywhere” (Or. 13.9). Greeks by this period lacked a single standard conception of the world and what constituted its ends. But more important for Luke, as already noted, the LXX as a whole and Isa 49:6 in particular (which Luke quotes in his other clear use of the phrase, in Acts 13:47) invite a very broad reading of the phrase.

Rome thus serves the function of the ends of the earth for Luke, but only in a proleptic way, as already noted, like the Diaspora Jews at Pentecost (Acts 2:5–11) or the African court official (8:27). Barrett thinks that Rome is in view but in a sense that also looks beyond it: if one can evangelize Rome, one can also evangelize the rest of the world. Thus it likely means “Rome, but to Rome not as an end in itself but as representative of the whole world.”

Therefore it seems likely that Luke’s “ends of the earth,” while prefigured at various stages (including his own conclusion), looks beyond the close of his work to the continuing mission. The “open end” of Acts invites Luke’s audience to participate in this universal mission. Ultimately, context determines meaning; the ends of the earth meant different things in different contexts, but the LXX uses the phrase to emphasize universality. Thus there is, in a real sense, no outline after Samaria; the mission “reaches beyond the end of Acts.”

Much to the dismay of modern NT commentators (whose suggested outlines often conflict with those of their peers), most ancient writers did not produce, and many of their works do not readily fit, hierarchical outlines. Good Hellenistic and Roman writers did, however, offer thoughts in some organized sequence (cf. Luke 1:3), and some works even contain explicit and detailed outlines at the beginning of their books (though none of these appears in the NT). Those who did not offer outlines often provided previews of main themes, sometimes sequentially.

Some scholars complain that Luke violates convention by not giving a preview for his second volume, but most agree that Acts 1:8 fulfills this function. Most see the text as a programmatic statement for Acts; Martin Hengel calls the geographical range in 1:8 “a mere table of contents for Acts.” Certainly, it includes the major themes of Acts: the Spirit’s power for the worldwide mission (see introduction, , sects. , ). Even skilled rhetoricians did not always fulfill their introductory promises, though ancient critics sometimes expressed annoyance with those who, having expressed a subject, digressed from it. Luke, however, keeps to the point.

Some writers also stated a thesis or hypothesis that they then developed in their work; although Luke has not offered anything so technical here, such devices do illustrate that forethought to questions of introduction was common. By usual definition, a thesis offered a theoretical topic whereas a hypothesis offered a concrete topic with particulars. Orators often stated their theses or topics toward the beginning of a speech (e.g., Dio Chrys. Or. 1.11; 38.5–6); a rhetorical argument was to begin with a proposition. Other skilled writers likewise often stated their topic at the beginning of books; Paul, for example, probably uses a thesis or hypothesis in his most polished extant letter (Rom 1:16–17). (Because philosophers proposed theses for discussion, their proposals were generally not self-evident statements.)

Not only terse thesis statements but preliminary summaries were common (e.g., Dio Chrys. Or. 38.8; see our introduction to 1:1–11). Cicero opines that a good orator “will announce what he is about to discuss and sum up when concluding a topic” (Or. Brut. 40.137 [LCL]). It was considered appropriate, as here (Jerusalem; Judea and Samaria; ends of earth), to divide one’s material into a small number of topics, then treat them in succession. Many writers would offer such brief outlines of their material at strategic points. It is thus no surprise that a historian could outline material to cover before elaborating it (e.g., Vell. Paterc. 2.129.1, explicitly).

Thus Seneca the Elder notes that Latro would, before his speech, “set out the points at issue in the controversia he was to declaim,” but Seneca also notes that orators do not always do this because this practice makes it obvious if they leave anything out (Controv. 1.pref. 21). Many writers provided outlines at the beginning of what they would cover, albeit far more explicitly than Luke does here. Few went so far as Pliny the Elder, who provided a table of contents so thorough that it consumes the entire first book of his Natural History. Perhaps most relevant is that a good historical preface should show causes of events and outline “the main events” (Lucian Hist. 53).

That Luke’s advance summary comes in an oracle of Jesus is appropriate from a literary standpoint. Oracles provided a useful literary means to announce what would come, without digressing from the narrative world into an aside. Oracles often functioned as plot-moving devices (e.g., Apollod. Epit. 5.10; see further comment on Acts 2:23); in a very general way, Jesus’s words here provide an outline for the geographic plot of Acts.

If Luke briefly outlines the rest of the book here, why does he focus on geographic divisions? Most obviously, Luke’s focus on the gospel’s expansion invites geographic as well as chronological development. Other suggestions may provide further context for this approach. Witherington suggests that Luke follows the geographic form of arranging history established by Ephorus and, “like Ephorus and Polybius before him, divides the world into geographical regions and proceeds to discuss what is happening in each one at a time.” This practice would help explain a historian focusing on geography but leaves unanswered the reason for Luke’s specific outline. James Scott makes a case for a traditional Hellenistic Jewish division of nations. There is here a threefold mission relating to Jewish geography, built on the table of nations tradition: “Shem (Acts 2:1–8:25), Ham (8:26–40), and Japheth (9:1–28:31).” Some Hellenistic Jewish authors divided the world into three continents: Asia (Jos. War 2.358–59, 366), Libya (2.363, 383), and Europe (2.358). Although Luke’s own world does not require (or his sources permit) equal treatment of each of these sections, it is not unlikely that Luke had such broad divisions in mind at least in part (see comment on the transition between Asia and Europe in Acts 16:9–11).

Although this is an outline for Acts, it does not provide a very clear (and certainly not a very symmetrical) structure; other structural analyses will be more fruitful for those concerns (see introduction, , ). At the same time, this is an explicit outline for the mission that Luke gives us, and it constitutes one starting point for recognizing the book’s development.

Can Luke really expect much of his audience to follow intelligently the geographic movements in his work? Some ancient writers assume a high degree of geographic knowledge for their audience, as Maclean and Aitken point out:

As one might expect in a dialogue in which a major characters [sic] is a Phoenician merchant who sails the Aegean and the Black Sea, the Heroikos is replete with geographical references. Like the merchant, the audience is expected to recognize the names of cities, regions, islands, mountains, and rivers where associated with the biographies, exploits, and sanctuaries of the heroes, their sanctuaries or where supernatural marvels are to be found. The majority of these are in the northern Aegean, the Hellespont, and the Troad, but the world circumscribed by the dialogue extends from India to Spain and from Ethiopia to the banks of the Danube.

The primary geographic horizons of Acts (the locations where Luke focuses the greatest detail, apart from Jerusalem) are very similar except that Luke presupposes less detailed knowledge. (Indeed, Luke’s knowledge of the Aegean Islands and coastal cities is stronger than his knowledge of Galilean geography despite the subject of his Gospel and Polybius’s admonition for historians to visit all the places they wrote about. But Luke was admittedly not alone; numerous writers confused locations in Palestine, including Jewish writers.) When Luke mentions, for example, the regions the Spirit did not allow Paul to enter (Acts 16:6–7) or the landmark Samothrace (16:11), Luke expects his ideal audience to understand the allusions as more than a set of unfamiliar names. As mentioned in the introduction, , , this suggests an audience in the Greek East, probably in the Aegean rim.

That the earliest churches looked to Jerusalem for leadership (Gal 2:1–10) and, still more, for spiritual heritage (Rom 15:25–26) and symbolic centrality (Rom 15:19; Gal 1:17–18; 4:25–26) is not surprising. Many cults were local, so that people far from Ephesus might still worship the Ephesian Artemis (see comment on Acts 19:27) or someone far from Pharos could worship Isis of Pharos. But just as Jerusalem’s destruction led most of Judaism to consider precedents for a nonsacrificial faith (especially from the exilic period), it must have led Christians to look for precedents in which the churches did not need to look to Jerusalem (e.g., the Antioch mission; Acts 11:19–30; 13:1–3; Gal 2:11). The Romans could feel threatened by loyalty to Jerusalem, in any case; witness the fiscus judaicus imposed on all Jews in the empire as a result of Jerusalem’s revolt.

Cultural interchange, by this period, had been sufficient for urban populations to recognize the need to respect (albeit sometimes mainly in the sense of “tolerate”) differences among cultures. This did not eliminate cultural disdain—for example, Greeks against (an often slightly modified definition of) “barbarians” (See comment on Acts 28:2) or, less consistently, Roman disdain for outsiders (especially in Rome itself). But cross-cultural evangelism would be easier in the relatively tamed nationalisms and ethnocentrisms of the empire than in the more hostile intertribal conflicts that existed in many locations before and outside it.

The promise of Jesus’s return in this passage (implicitly associated with the time of the kingdom’s restoration, Acts 1:6) is to be regarded as no less certain than the promise of the Holy Spirit’s coming just treated in 1:3–8 (and fulfilled in 2:4).

Jesus’s “taking up” is critical for Luke, predicted in the major turning point of Luke’s narrative, Luke 9:51, and introduced in a way that frames Jesus’s departure in Acts (Acts 1:2, 11). It forms the narrative basis for Luke’s theology of Christ’s exaltation (Acts 2:33–36). It also provides the imagery of his return; because Jesus will return the same way he left (1:11), his departure in a cloud (1:9) fits the image of his return (Luke 21:27).

As addressed at much greater length in the introduction (ch. 16, sect. 1), ancient biographers often used other lives that they believed providence had paralleled with their subject as a criterion for selecting the most relevant anecdotes (e.g., Plut. Thes. 1.2). The better ancient biographers believed that they discovered parallels already in history, rather than simply invented them (Plut. Sert. 1.1; Cim. 3.1–3; see introduction). Though more restrained and usually attempting to be more comprehensive, historians also looked for parallels because they believed in a divine pattern in history.

Some scholars have compared Luke-Acts to a particular form of ancient biography that functioned as a succession narrative. Though the examples of entire biographies modeled this way are, at best, relatively few, they do illustrate the importance of succession and could form a more explicit link than most parallel lives (on which see introduction, , ). To the extent that this model is relevant to Luke-Acts, it applies most securely to the pivot where the transition of leadership occurs, namely, the passage presently under discussion.

Succession could prove a messy matter when no successor was designated beforehand. According to one line of tradition, the struggles for Alexander’s kingdom after his death stemmed from his willing the kingdom “to the best man” (Arrian Alex. 7.26.3 [LCL]). Solomon’s succession to David was accomplished safely only by a formal coregency (1 Kgs 1:32–40). Jesus, however, clearly designates his “successors” (or, more in line with Luke’s pneumatology, his agents).

Jubilees presents Jacob as Abraham’s successor for a blessing to the nations (Jub. 19:17). Second-century rabbis spoke of disciples of prophets who waited on them and became prophets in their own right, such as Joshua with Moses and Elisha with Elijah (Mek. Pisha 1.150–53, מתלמידי הנביאים). Later rabbis spoke of an unbroken chain of tradition from Moses to Joshua to the elders to the judges to the prophets and then to the sages of old (ʾAbot R. Nat 1 A; 1:2 B). A probably Amoraic tradition contends that just as God replaced Moses with Joshua and Eli with Samuel, so, when one great rabbi (e.g., R. Akiba) died, another (e.g., R. Judah ha-Nasi) was born. Then again, some opined that whatever one could pass on, its strength could diminish over the generations.

The closest background here is that of Elijah’s passing on his ministry to Elisha—described as passing on the firstborn’s portion of the Spirit that was on him (2 Kgs 2:9, 15; cf. Sir 48:12). Moses likewise imparted the Spirit to Joshua, so that he was filled with the Spirit of wisdom (Deut 34:9; cf. Acts 2:4; 6:3, 10). Although both may form part of the background, however, the transfer of the Spirit from Elijah to Elisha is most relevant, for it is part of the OT’s only explicit ascension scene (to which the passing on is explicitly connected; 2 Kgs 2:10, 13; cf. Sir 48:9, 12). Plainly, in view of both these earlier biblical models, Jesus is passing on his prophetic ministry and empowerment to his disciples.

In Acts, granted, the Spirit carries on Jesus’s ministry in a sense (cf. Acts 9:5, 34). But it seems closer to the heart of Luke’s emphasis to say that the disciples carry on Jesus’s ministry and that the Spirit anoints or empowers both for their tasks (Luke 4:18; Acts 2:17–18; 10:38).

Because the Elijah-Elisha succession is by far the most relevant as background for Acts 1:9–11, it is helpful to note Luke’s comparisons and contrasts between Jesus and Elijah elsewhere. But it may be helpful to survey other early Christian comparisons between Jesus and Elijah.

In Mark, followed and articulated more explicitly by Matthew, John is the new Elijah, the Lord’s promised forerunner (Mal 4:5; Sir 48:10; Mark 9:13; Matt 17:12–13). For John’s Gospel, the Baptist is neither Elijah nor the Mosaic prophet (John 1:21, 25); although some rightly recognized Jesus as a prophet, he is not merely a prophet (4:19; 6:14; 7:40). For Revelation, the church apparently subsumes the roles of Elijah and Moses (Rev 11:6, 12). Other early Christians viewed Elijah as a model of faith in general (Jas 5:17); in later centuries, Shenoute and some other Egyptian Christian saints were portrayed according to the model of Elijah.

In Luke-Acts, however, Jesus occasionally and John more often (Luke 1:17) fill the role of Elijah; most significant are the passages where Jesus is like Elijah but much greater than he. Jesus heals leprosy (5:12–13) like Elisha (2 Kgs 5:14; Luke 4:27; cf. perhaps Moses in Num 12:13–15) and does other works that are applied exclusively or especially to these prophets. Many of these comparisons are most explicit in Luke 9 and 10. In Luke 8–10, Jesus sometimes resembles Elijah, though not all the proposed connections here are clear. He raises the dead (7:14–15; 8:54–55), sometimes in relative privacy (8:51; but already Mark 5:40; 1 Kgs 17:19–23; 2 Kgs 4:33); the life of the child returns (Luke 8:55; 1 Kgs 17:22; cf. 2 Kgs 4:35; not explicit in Mark 5:42); compare also the “upper room” as the scene for a raising from the dead in Acts 9:37–39 (1 Kgs 17:19, 23; 2 Kgs 4:10, 21, 32). Jesus multiplies food (Luke 9:16–17) as Elijah and Elisha did (1 Kgs 17:16; 2 Kgs 4:3–7, 42–44). Power flowing from Jesus involuntarily (Luke 8:46) might resemble Elisha in 2 Kgs 13:21. Jesus’s command to his disciples to greet no one because of the urgency of their mission (Luke 10:4; missing in Matt 10:10) echoes Elisha in 2 Kgs 4:29. The most explicit connection appears in Luke’s special programmatic scene in the Nazareth synagogue, where Jesus compares his own ministry with those of Elijah and Elisha (Luke 4:25–27; see ).

The contrasts, however, are more explicit; yet these are contrasts not because Jesus is unlike Elijah but because, though much like him, he is by far his superior. Jesus appears in Luke 9:8 as a reported new John, Elijah, or prophet (moved from Mark 6:15). But Jesus counters this perception (Luke 9:19) by inviting his disciples to recognize his messiahship (9:20). Jesus is no mere Elijah but one with whom Elijah and Moses speak respectfully (9:30, 33–35). In “special” Lukan material, the disciples want to call down fire (9:54) as Elijah did (1 Kgs 18:37–38), but Jesus rebukes them (Luke 9:55). A prospective disciple wants to follow Jesus according to the rigorous standards by which Elisha followed Elijah (9:61; 1 Kgs 19:20), but Jesus demands more (Luke 9:62; cf. 1 Kgs 19:19, 21).

Activity

Jesus

Elijah

Elisha or others

Heals leprosy

Luke 5:12–13

—

2 Kgs 5:14; cf. Num 12:13–15

Raises the dead relatively privately

Luke 8:51

1 Kgs 17:19–23

2 Kgs 4:33

Child’s life returns

Luke 8:55

1 Kgs 17:22

2 Kgs 4:35

Upper room as scene for raising

(Peter in Acts 9:37–39)

1 Kgs 17:19, 23

2 Kgs 4:10, 21, 32

Multiplies food

Luke 9:16–17

1 Kgs 17:16

2 Kgs 4:3–7, 42–44

“Greet no one”

Luke 10:4

—

2 Kgs 4:29

Explicit comparison

Luke 4:25–27

—

—

For Luke, John is explicitly the new Elijah; he will go in his “Spirit and power” (Luke 1:17) because, like him, he is filled with the Holy Spirit (1:15). In a sense, John, like Elisha, has received Elijah’s mantle (2 Kgs 2:12–13); both Elisha (2:9) and John (Luke 1:17) receive the Spirit of Elijah. His mission of turning fathers to children refers to the role of the Lord’s forerunner in Mal 4:5, reinforcing Luke’s subtle hints at a divine Christology. John’s mission as a new Elijah is to Israel (Luke 1:15–17), but Elijah’s mission, as Jesus declares in his programmatic statement, extended to Gentiles (4:25–27); thus it prefigures the church’s Gentile mission in Acts. Because John follows the model of Elijah by being “filled with the Spirit” (1:15), the church, soon to be filled with the Spirit (Acts 2:4), will do the same. The exalted Jesus is much greater than the ascending Elijah (see ), and he gives the church, his “successor,” a greater measure of the Spirit than Elijah passed on to Elisha (2:33).

Jewish tradition naturally developed the image of Elijah in multiple directions. It elaborated the promise of Elijah’s return in Mal 4:5–6 (MT 3:23–24), a development that surfaces as early as Ben Sira (Sir 48:10). Later rabbis seized particularly on this feature of eschatological expectation, although they developed it in very different ways from nonrabbinic streams of thought. That Elijah remained alive was safely assumed from the biblical text (2 Kgs 2:9–12; Mal 4:5–6; cf. 1 Macc 2:58; Sir 48:9), and later rabbis continued to work from this assumption. In these later rabbis, however, his role in the present period before the final time became more prominent than his eschatological function, perhaps due, in part, to the de-emphasis of messianic eschatology after the sufferings under Hadrian. (The rabbis also tended to view the prophets as protoscribes.) Like other biblical prophets, Elijah became a master halakist, often sent to settle rabbinic disputes; also sometimes described with a role comparable to that of angels, the rabbinic Elijah often was sent on divine errands to miraculously aid rabbis.

Elijah or Elisha

Jesus

(Elijah honors him, Luke 9:30–35)

Jesus repudiates idea that he is a new Elijah (Luke 9:8, 19–20)

Elijah calls down fire (1 Kgs 18:37–38)

Jesus refuses to call down fire (Luke 9:54–55)

Elijah permits Elisha to bid farewell to his family (1 Kgs 19:19–21)

Jesus’s demands are higher than Elijah’s (Luke 9:61–62)

—

John rather than Jesus is the new Elijah, forerunner for the Lord (who is Jesus; Luke 1:17)

Other rabbinic evidence, however, does point to Elijah’s eschatological role. The rabbis were clearly aware of Malachi’s prophecy and anticipated Elijah returning at the end of the age, destined to appear alongside rabbinism’s other eschatological figures. Elijah would also exercise an eschatological halakic role, especially (in line with the rabbinic interpretation of Malachi) in determining proper lines of descent (Israelites versus proselytes, etc.). Although the bulk of this evidence derives from the more numerous Amoraic texts, some of it is also Tannaitic.

The evidence for Elijah’s eschatological role is hardly limited, however, to later rabbinic evidence. Aune finds reference to him as forerunner in 1 En. 90:31; 4 Ezra 6:26 assumes him among historic figures with special roles at the end of the age (among those who never died); and Matthew (Matt 17:10) unhesitatingly follows Mark (Mark 9:11) in presupposing that this role was widely known in Jewish circles. Sirach’s portrayal of Elijah as a restorer and forerunner of the end time (if not explicitly of the Messiah) is very close to this.

Comparing these traditions with Luke may highlight the contrast more than the similarities, apart from the expectation of his return. Luke follows the biblical narrative model of Elijah, especially applicable because of the biblical promise of Elijah’s eschatological activity; it is not clear whether he knew of other Jewish traditions about Elijah. The allusion to Elijah in the ascension narrative, along with widespread expectation of Elijah’s eschatological role, may reinforce the emphasis on inaugurated eschatology in this context.

Ancient literature includes many ascension narratives, although the closest background for Luke’s is the early biblical account of Elijah’s ascension, connected with Elisha’s receiving a double portion of his spirit. How would ancients have understood such narratives? What implications does this understanding have for discovering what Luke sought to communicate to his first-century audience through this narrative? Finally, if we find significant evidence for pre-Lukan tradition (and we do), how can modern readers grasp or (for Christian readers) assimilate a tradition so foreign to our contemporary cosmology?

Ascension narratives were common in ancient literature; what is most distinctive about that of Jesus is his bodily resurrection, not his relocation. Most of these claims addressed the mythological past and appeared more often in dramatists and mythographers than in historians (except for the universal histories that treated the very ancient and disputed periods acknowledged to be uncertain). Thus Heracles vanished (ἠφανίσθη) from among people after his ascension (Lysias Or. 2.11, §191). Dionysus seized his mother, Semele, from Hades and both ascended to heaven (Apollod. Bib. 3.5.3). Zeus took Polydeuces to heaven (3.11.2). Romans claimed that Romulus was translated to heaven (Sil. It. 5.145). When Iphigeneia disappeared, some assumed that she was taken up among the gods.

Usually ascension narratives apply to heroes who had a divine parent anyway, but sometimes writers claimed that heroes were able to ascend because they merited it. Thus, for example, Hercules was taken into heaven (caelo receptus) to reward his “virtue” (virtutem) (Phaedrus 4.12.3). Alexander’s evil deeds nearly prevented his ascension to heaven. Josephus’s Moses, perhaps because of his humility, does not want anyone to think that he ascended because of special virtue (Ant. 4.326). Elijah, by contrast, was taken up (ἀνελήμφθη) as far as into heaven (εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν) because of his great zeal for the law (1 Macc 2:58).

In Jewish narratives, God or angels could go up to heaven again. Sometimes these provide formal parallels to Luke’s description (though some such parallels merely reflect the common theme of ascension in both); the ascent of divine wisdom might provide an especially fruitful theological comparison, although the evidence is limited and is figurative rather than epic. But these differ in content from Luke’s emphasis on a human’s being raised to heaven at the end of his earthly ministry. (Angels descended from heaven and ascended there again precisely because many were thought to normally live there. The common denominator of ascension stories is simply a cosmology that places the suprahuman in heaven.)

Early Jewish rapture stories often developed OT accounts (Elijah) or possible hints (Moses, Enoch), though sometimes they were transferred to other characters as well (Ezra). Josephus believed that Enoch went to God (Ant. 1.85); that Elijah did as Enoch (9.28); and that Moses wrote of his apparent death only to prevent people from thinking that he went to God (4.326). These Jewish stories form almost the closest repository of motifs from which Luke can draw.

Yet without doubt, the closest parallel, one carrying over from the impartation of the Spirit in the context (Acts 1:8), is the biblical account of Elisha’s succession of Elijah. Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:9–11 both echo 2 Kgs 2:11. Luke’s repetition of ἀναλαμβάνω for the ascension (Acts 1:2, 11) fits the use (also repeated) in 4 Kgdms 2:9–11. Elisha received the firstborn’s portion of the Spirit who was on Elijah, precisely because he was with him at his ascension (2 Kgs 2:10); this underlines the importance of the disciples’ presence with Jesus at his ascension in the present passage. (The clouds, which do not appear explicitly in 2 Kgs 2, probably evoke Dan 7:13, as in Luke 21:27; Mark 14:62.) That they saw Jesus ascend into heaven might evoke Elisha witnessing Elijah ascend, which validated Elisha’s succession because he remained with Elijah long enough to witness it (2 Kgs 2:15–18). Zwiep’s conclusion here is certainly correct:

Luke’s primary source of inspiration was the biblical story of Elijah’s ἀνάλημψις into heaven and his expected return at the end time (2 Kings 2:1–18; Mal 3:22–23; Sir 48:9–12; 1 Macc 2:58). Luke’s terminology to describe Jesus’s ascension (ἀναλαμβάνομαι, Acts 1:2, 11, 22; ἀνάλημψις, Luke 9:51) and the nature of his eschatological activity (ἀίοκαθίστημι, Acts 1:6; ἀίοκατάστασις, Acts 3:21) are clear echoes of the language traditionally used in connection with Elijah. The stress on the visibility of Elijah’s departure to heaven (2 Kings 2:10), the subsequent passing of the spirit from Elijah to Elisha as a means of empowerment for his future task (2 Kings 2:9–10), and the promise of his eschatological return “to restore all things” (cf. Mal 3:23; Sir 48:12) are themes which, each in their own way, have put their imprint upon . . .  the opening chapters of Acts.

Still, early Christians also found, in Jesus’s ascension, fulfillment of Ps 110:1 (explicit in Luke 20:42; Mark 12:36; Matt 22:44; Heb 1:13), exemplified also in this context (Acts 2:33–34; cf. 7:55–56). They cited the authority of Jesus for the use of this text (Mark 12:36; 14:62), and in Luke’s story Jesus is also the source for the early Christians’ biblical theology surrounding his exaltation (Luke 20:42; 22:69). See comment on for Luke’s use of this key to approaching the ascension’s theology.

Jesus’s exaltation is important for Luke, connecting Jesus’s resurrection with his messianic enthronement (see Acts 2:25, 30–36). Jesus remains exalted at the Father’s right hand (7:55–56; Luke 22:69) until his return (Acts 2:35; Luke 21:27), though he also remains active among his people (e.g., Acts 9:3–5 [esp. “from heaven,” v. 3], 34; 16:7; 18:9–10). Some sources extrinsic to Luke’s direct narration can also shed light on how he understands the ascension narrative. Certainly, Luke interprets the ascension in light of Ps 110:1; Jesus as exalted Lord imparts his Spirit. Further, the backdrop in the succession narrative of Elijah and Elisha indicates that, for Luke, Jesus is passing his mission to the church as exemplified in its leading representatives.

Often ascension involved apotheosis, transformation into divinity or immortality. A cloud took Heracles to heaven, making him immortal (Apollod. Bib. 2.7.7), as he was taken from one place to another (μεταστάντος) to the gods (2.8.1). At Heracles’s funeral pyre, he left his human nature (ἀνθρωίείας φύσεως, Philost. Hrk. 28.1). When Romulus was taken up, his mortal body was dissolved (Ovid Metam. 14.824–28); after a star from heaven burned up his wife, changing her mortal body, she was reunited with him as a goddess (14.846–51). After a voice called Empedocles up to heaven, his followers decided that he had become a god and that they should now sacrifice to him (Diog. Laert. 8.2.68). Some ancients apparently thought that Apollonius ascended to heaven (Philost. Vit. Apoll. 8.30). Some scholars have also compared imperial apotheosis after death (though, naturally, without bodily resurrection intervening!), which functioned as political legitimation. (On the deification of emperors at their death, see comment on Acts 12:22–23.) Perhaps most relevant is that some Greco-Egyptian Jewish sources viewed Moses’s putative ascent to heaven as an apotheosis.

Some scholars therefore point out that even uninformed Gentiles would see in this text at least hints about Jesus’s current divinity and immortality. Granted, to read the account as a narration of Jesus’s “deification” violates an intrinsic reading of Luke-Acts (see discussion below); nevertheless, this Greek perspective is helpful in recognizing the extent to which Jesus’s ascension is also his exaltation to a new public status.

Yet it is not the entire picture. Since Luke’s ideal audience is knowledgeable in the LXX and the rest of Luke-Acts, suggestions of “deification” here are overstated. Monotheistic rapture accounts (e.g., of Elijah, Enoch, or Moses) do not generally connote deification or the conferral of immortality for virtue. Jesus was already God’s Son (Luke 1:32, 35; 3:22; 4:41; 8:28; 9:35; 10:22; 22:70) and, more important, had already exchanged his mortal body for an immortal one at the resurrection (24:31–43). The exaltation is Jesus’s public investiture, but Aune contends that a purely pagan Greek reading without taking into account Luke’s report of the resurrection is inadequate: “The ascension tradition of Luke-Acts, while it has external similarities with Graeco-Roman conceptions of ascensio, has two important material differences: (1) The ascension tradition . . .  does not change the status of Jesus, only his location and mode of presence. (2) The ascension tradition is intimately connected with the resurrection tradition.” Jesus’s status as God’s Son is not new; his public status, enthroned at God’s right hand, is new but, even for Luke, one of the more Hellenistic writers in the NT, it rests on Ps 110, not on anything resembling Greek apotheosis. Luke undoubtedly invested special attention in the introductory section to Acts as he did the first two chapters of his Gospel, in which he would seek to connect with the entire range of his audience. But despite foreshadowings of his Diaspora milieu (esp. in 2:9–11), Acts 1–2 still moves in the Judean world of Luke’s Gospel. It shares the biblically informed ideal audience also addressed through the first two chapters of the Gospel.

Although many scholars feel comfortable with the narrative’s theology, they are less comfortable with its historical value; some naturally question both, especially those who reasonably expect a historical basis for theological premises presented as historical narrative.

One approach is to view the ascension account as purely visionary. But although one could postulate such an explanation for the original experience behind the account, it is difficult to read Luke on these terms. The verb ἀτενίζω need not point in this direction, nor are angels confined to visions; nor, in view of Acts 8:39, does Luke seem to question whether God could physically relocate his servants, even when he echoes biblical visionary language from Ezekiel.

Lüdemann, not surprisingly, rejects the historicity of the account, rightly noting that it is “rooted in the conceptions of the time.” Certainly, modern science renders beyond credibility literal ascensions into “heavens” in the forms assumed by ancient cosmology (see esp. comment on “heaven” in Acts 1:11). Nevertheless, if Luke’s tradition reports an event of Jesus being taken from the disciples after his resurrection, one could allow and even expect Luke and/or his sources to understand and describe it in the cosmological language of his day, without denying that he reports a tradition concerning an event. Luke communicates his message for a context where his audience was familiar with deities’ residence in heaven (19:35) and Jewish language about heaven (cf., e.g., Isa 66:1 in Acts 7:49; Ps 110:1 in Acts 2:34; and the allusion to Isa 14:12 in Luke 10:15, 18).

Many scholars suggest the theological significance of Luke’s language, while not sharing (as in fact virtually no one today does) the cosmological presuppositions that appear to inform his language. Thus Dunn notes that we may accept the ascension while weighting more heavily than Luke’s own audience would the metaphoric nature of its description. Benoit argues that early Christians had different traditions about the ascension and hence that the best view is that Christ entered the new, spiritual world, opening it and being exalted on the day of his resurrection. John A. T. Robinson views the ascension as not spatial but as emphasizing Christ’s ascendancy over creation. These interpretations appear more plausible if “heaven” not only could function as a location but also “stood analogically for the spiritual world above.” Although Luke often means only “sky” (e.g., Luke 4:25; 8:5; 9:58; 12:56; 13:19; 17:24; 21:11; Acts 2:19; 10:12; 11:6), he at least sometimes follows earlier usage, well documented in early Judaism, for “heaven” as a circumlocution for God (Luke 15:18, 21) or in association with God (11:13) or his realm (15:7; 19:38), associated also with a hope for the righteous (6:23; 10:20; 12:33; 18:22). See further discussion under the heading “Heaven (1:11)” below.

Such “demythologization” dare not be pressed too far, as if we may privilege modern philosophical approaches to ancient texts in disregard of Luke’s genre. Luke uses his standard historiographic style here rather than writing as a knowing mythographer. Given Luke’s treatment of his sources (such as Mark) where we can check him, it seems likely (at least to myself) that Luke believed that his sources reported that some had seen Jesus ascend, albeit probably quickly, as Elisha saw Elijah ascend quickly. One could affirm that Luke had such a tradition or affirm even the event’s historicity yet view the event’s spatial imagery as a divine accommodation to the culture’s dominant cosmology. Still, Luke has shaped the event in his own language.

Lüdemann rejects the plea that it was a literal event described symbolically, noting (correctly) that we do not make the same claim for other ascension accounts of the day. This conclusion, however, may press too much into the comparison with the other accounts: few of the other accounts appear as recent events in historians who regard them as certain; most, in fact, are legendary descriptions from the distant past. There exist only so many ways of reporting people’s watching a person’s disappearance to another realm (assuming that such a disappearance might occur), and none of these ways determines the genre of the report. Further, divine or heroic figures could disappear without visibly ascending, diminishing any need to report an ascension as a necessary element of Jesus’s departure, though the visible ascent was naturally the most dramatic way to report such a disappearance (e.g., Tob 12:20–22).

If we make an allowance for Luke’s use of contemporary cosmology, it seems more appropriate for critics who discount all such reports (including Luke’s) to affirm explicitly, instead of merely implying, that such events cannot or do not occur. Usually such denials stem from antisupernaturalistic presuppositions, though one could, in principle, deny the possibility of some kinds of supernatural events without denying all of them. (For a brief critique of antisupernaturalism as a necessary paradigm, see introduction, .)

More objective (less presuppositional) grounds could exist to question Luke’s report. First, the account coheres well with Luke’s theology and includes OT “types” such as the forty days and the Elijah succession narrative. To this we may respond that everything Luke reports fits his own theology and style; this observation need not undermine Luke’s use of sources (among which we would include Mark and Q in his Gospel). Further, the types could just as easily belong to Luke’s sources as be his invention; his Elijah typology in the Gospel portrays John more explicitly than Jesus as the new Elijah, and Luke was not the only writer capable of Elijah typology. Characteristically, Matthew plays on forty days for Moses/Israel typology even more plainly than does Luke’s Gospel (Matt 4:1–2; cf. 2:15, 18, 20). Jesus himself may have chosen to emulate Elijah, as did some other ancient figures.

Second, why would other sources not provide eyewitness reports of something as dramatic as the ascension? But these grounds are much less substantial than they might first appear, since the other Gospels stop their narration before this point: Mark probably ends even before the promised resurrection appearances (Mark 16:8), though the longer later ending, possibly dependent on Luke, narrates the ascension (16:19). Matthew prefers to end on Jesus’s commission and the promise of his continuing presence with the disciples (Matt 28:18–20). John also ends his Gospel with resurrection appearances and no mention of Jesus’s departure in the narrative; but he does explicitly predict that departure, and as an ascension (John 20:17; cf. 3:13; 6:62). Other first-century Christian writers accept it theologically and consequently—given ancient cosmology—probably historically; see 1 Tim 3:16; Eph 4:8–10; Heb 4:14; 7:26; 8:1; 9:24; and 1 Pet 3:22. Many more texts place Jesus in heaven, whether they are describing his current reign (cf. Ps 110:1; e.g., Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1–2; Heb 1:3; Rev 5:6–14; 6:16; 7:9–10, 17) or his future parousia from heaven (e.g., Phil 3:20; 1 Thess 1:10; 4:16; 2 Thess 1:7; Rev 19:11–16; cf. Phil 2:9–10). It might be difficult for ancient hearers to envision this location for Jesus without inferring an ascension. The criterion of multiple attestation produces unexpected support to Luke’s basic claim at this point.

Those who did not narrate the ascension surely did not omit it out of believing that Jesus remained among them in the same way as before. Did they believe that Jesus continued to converse and eat with his followers on earth as he did before his death or in the initial resurrection appearances? He did, after all, cease to appear among them except in isolated cases, such as Paul’s or (more typically) pneumatic visions. Did the appearances simply stop (for the most part), or was their stopping marked by a climactic resurrection appearance in which the disciples witnessed Jesus parted from them? And if the disappearance was not witnessed, at the least the risen Jesus’s physical absence would have to be noticed. Given Luke’s emphasis on the concreteness of Jesus’s resurrection appearances—or, more accurately, the disciples’ continuous experience of the risen Christ—implied in Luke 24:3, 23, 37–43 and Acts 1:3, an ascension would have to follow at least for Luke. The physically resurrected Christ was obviously not living and reigning from some undisclosed location on earth.

Zwiep’s study of Jesus’s ascension recognizes pre-Lukan components for the narrative, as well as Lukan design. Zwiep suggests that Luke wove together earlier building blocks of the ascension tradition, such as the close of the special period of resurrection appearances, but used Jewish ascension narratives (Elijah, Enoch, Moses, etc.) as a model to help him construct these traditions into a cohesive narrative. In addition, one might suspect that early Christian expectation of believers’ future gathering to Jesus, exemplified especially in 1 Thess 4:15–17, may have also helped shape the imagery, given the promise that Jesus would return in the “same manner.”

Most scholars who reject altogether historical tradition in the narrative do so because of their critical orientation; most scholars who accept earlier tradition behind it (including myself) can do so because of different epistemological presuppositions. Meanwhile most scholars critiquing the other scholars’ works do so on the basis of the assurance that their own presuppositions are superior to the others’. Those more skeptical of the narrative’s historicity, however, should at least acknowledge the qualitative difference between Luke’s potential dependence on recent eyewitnesses and the reports of some ascensions surrounding legendary characters of many centuries past. (And scholars ought not, as some scholars in the past were sometimes wont to do, simply to dismiss the academic credibility of scholars who work with different premises, as if the critics themselves lack identifiable presuppositions.)

The details of the narrative are important for its interpretation. Angels explain Jesus’s departure, just as they explained his resurrection (Luke 24:4–7). Not only the angels (cf. Luke 9:26) but the mention of the cloud and heaven fit predictions of Jesus’s return, as well as signs of divine glory in the Scriptures.

The physical impossibility of clouds holding a person’s weight was no more lost on ancient critics than modern ones (Mac. Magn. Apocrit. 4.1–7). Most ancient writers would, however, allow special properties or activities of cloud-like vapors generated by deities or the deity for special purposes.

Sometimes deities hid in a cloud or hid someone else in a cloud while removing them or taking them to heaven. Since mist was the only way the ancients knew to hide in open sight, it is not surprising that it often appears. Occasionally, Jewish sources also report clouds as vehicles for ascensions. Josephus claims that Moses disappeared in a cloud, Moses writing that he died lest people assume that he was taken to God (Ant. 4.326). In some texts a human agent of God could fly on, or be moved by, clouds (1 En. 14:8; 39:3). Scholars also note that heavenly ascents and descents in ancient texts were sometimes effected in clouds. (Haenchen, indeed, distinguishes Luke’s account from contemporary accounts because Luke does not mention the cloud lifting Jesus; but this distinction probably makes too much of a few parallels.) Apparently borrowing conventional Canaanite or West Semitic imagery, the Hebrew Scriptures sometimes portray Israel’s God coming in the clouds (Pss 97:2; 104:3; Isa 19:1; cf. Dan 7:13).

Luke’s ideal audience would undoubtedly think particularly of two clouds from his first volume: the cloud of God’s glory at Jesus’s transfiguration (Luke 9:34–35), which compares Jesus favorably with Moses (who was earlier glorified, Exod 34:29) and Elijah (Luke 9:30–31, 35), and the cloud in which Jesus would return in glory (Luke 21:27; see comment on ). Elijah ascended with a whirlwind (2 Kgs 2:11), which some texts regard as a cloud.

One should probably think here of a cloud of glory associated both with the Lord (Exod 16:10; 24:16; 40:34–35; Num 16:42; 1 Kgs 8:11; 2 Chr 5:14; Isa 4:5; Ezek 10:4) and with the son of man (Dan 7:13; hence Luke 21:27 via Mark 13:26). God’s dwelling was associated with his glory (e.g., 1QM XII, 2,​ ​​כ​ב​ו​ד​כ​ה​​)​. In later Jewish tradition, God’s presence could be banished by sin or invited by merit. Here Luke offers no emphasis on God’s departing presence, however, since this presence will be restored and multiplied at Pentecost a few days later (Acts 2:2–4).

That their “eyes” saw him may be emphatic (in light of Luke 2:30; 10:23) and might possibly contrast with their previous inability to recognize him (24:16, 31; cf. Acts 26:18; 28:17); Luke frequently employs ἀτενίζω (gaze). Some scholars argue that the angelic order to stop gazing would challenge what Luke’s audience would assume to be the natural reaction, implying that the disciples should stop being concerned with the event that has just occurred and get busy. This proposal could also fit Acts 1:6–8, which redirects attention from theological speculation to action. Luke asks similar questions in 22:16 (“Why delay?”; cf. perhaps Luke 6:46) and especially (with regard to “gazing”) in Acts 3:12, and even more clearly (with regard to looking for the risen Christ) Luke 24:5.

The two men in white recall the men at the tomb in Luke 24:4–7, connecting the ascension and resurrection announcements (see ).

The parallel might suggest that the angels here query their hearers’ behavior because they should have believed what Jesus already spoke, as the men at the tomb explicitly indicate in Luke 24:6–7. That is, the disciples should have understood and expected Jesus’s ascension, in this instance because he had told them how he would return (in the clouds, 21:27), implying where he had to go before he could return from there.

Luke 24:4–9

Acts 1:10–12

Behold, two men in flashing clothing (24:4)

Behold, two men in white clothing (1:10)

Question: “Why are you seeking the living one with the dead?” (24:5)

Question: “Why have you taken your stand looking into heaven?” (1:11a)

Explanation of Jesus’s absence: “He is not here, but instead rose and is alive” (24:6)

Explanation of Jesus’s absence: “Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but will return” (1:11)

They return to the city (24:9)

They return to the city (1:12)

The men in Luke 24:4 may well also echo Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration discussing Jesus’s exodus (9:30). Johnson, indeed, suggests that the two men may be Moses and Elijah; but this suggestion may press the analogy too far. If these figures were Moses and Elijah, why would Luke identify them explicitly in Luke 9 but not at their subsequent appearances (where their “propaganda” value would be no less significant)? More likely, ancient readers would see the figures at the tomb and here as angels, who also make other strategic announcements in Luke-Acts (1:13, 30; 2:9–15; Acts 8:26; 10:3–7, 22; 11:13; 27:23–24); Luke makes this claim explicit for the resurrection narrative in Luke 24:23.

Their garb in white (Acts 1:10) helps reinforce their identity as angels (cf. John 20:12; Rev 15:6). This color was not, of course, associated exclusively with angels. People wore white or linen for a variety of reasons. (Linen had long been the most common fabric for clothing in Egypt and elsewhere. Dyed garments were usually heavier woolen garments; white clothes could be of wool or linen, but linen was rarely dyed and could instead be bleached white.) People especially wore white or linen to enter or serve in sacred places, including the Jerusalem temple. Pythagoras’s disciples used white and linen; some deities were portrayed wearing white, though those associated with death could be portrayed as wearing black. Roman politicians also wore white to emphasize purity, and Romans wore white on other important occasions. But the figures are certainly not priests here, are not in the temple here, and therefore better fit Jewish expectations for angels.

More generally, white could signify good, and black could signify evil or negative things (Diog. Laert. 8.1.34). Black or dark colors also could symbolize death or mourning, and white, life and joy, which are appropriate associations here. (The contrast between light being positive and dark being negative mostly reflects associations with day and night, darkness being related to night, not, as some have wrongly assumed, to complexion.) Although these uses are broader than angelic, they do cover the angelic use of white. With the possible exception of Moses and Elijah, mentioned above, who else, supernaturally informed enough to dress for the occasion, would speak for Christ here to his own apostles?

Luke introduces them with “behold” (ἰδού, Acts 1:10) in his typical style; it appears seventy-eight times in Luke-Acts (e.g., Luke 2:10; Acts 12:7). This frequency reinforces the probability that the expression here is pleonastic, that is, a case of emphatic superfluity. The angels open their address with “Men, Galileans” (Acts 1:11), following Luke’s typical rhetorical style (“men” frequently paired with a local or ethnic term, 2:14, 22; 3:12; 5:35; 13:16; 17:22; 19:35; 21:28). Some scholars have taken the specific designation of “men” here as unduly gender exclusive, but whatever the use may be elsewhere (e.g., the direct address in 1:16; see esp. comment on Acts 2:14), here those so designated are, presumably, literally male. “They” in 1:12–13 are specified as the apostles (i.e., the eleven; 1:2, 26), to which the “women” of 1:14 are added.

That Jesus is “received up” (a form of ἀναλαμβάνω, Acts 1:11; also 1:2, 22) may offer a wordplay with the forms of λαμβάνω in 1:8 and ὑίολαμβάνω in 1:9: Jesus is “received up” whereas the disciples “receive” power to carry on his mission. Nevertheless, the sense of the term here is relevant; ἀναλαμβάνω can apply to taking aboard (20:13–14) and, most relevant here, taking up into the sky (10:16). The fourfold repetition of “into the heaven” is emphatic. For many ancients, heaven was the celestial and divine realm; see comments on analogous instances of Lukan usage above (in the section ). In some Jewish literature, it appears even as a circumlocution for God.

The older cosmology was a three-tiered universe of heaven, earth, and underworld, with the vast majority of the dead in the last. From the Hellenistic period forward, many intellectuals conceived of the earth as a sphere surrounded by the planetary spheres in which the sun, moon, and planets moved. In this period many thinkers, both Greek and Jewish, came to believe that unencumbered souls would rise upward to the highest heavens. (Some even believed in forms of astral immortality.)

Hostile spirits were sometimes thought to inhabit the lower heavens, and so Jesus’s ascension can function as his triumph over them in some early Christian theology (Eph 1:20–22; 1 Pet 3:22). Luke does not emphasize this theological conviction as some other early Christian writers do. Frequent as heavenly journeys are in Jewish apocalyptic literature, Luke offers no such imagery here.

Despite numerous descriptions of heroes’ ascents, ancient literature offers far more accounts of postmortem and visionary ascents. But while these may provide useful insight into their authors’ cosmology and offer parallels of language as other ascents to heaven, Luke might intend his narrative about the apostles’ experiences with their bodily risen Lord to stand over against these ideas.

Because Jesus will return the same way he left (Acts 1:11), his departure in a cloud (1:9) fits the image of his return (Luke 21:27). Luke probably also emphasizes the continuity of Jesus’s bodily identity at his return, as Luke did for Jesus’s body before and after the resurrection (24:39–40). (The angels’ announcement that he will return in the same way may even function as an allusion to what Jesus already spoke, as in 24:5–8.)

The verse immediately after the ascension narrative proper reinforces this picture of Jesus returning the same way he left: he left from Mount Olivet (Acts 1:12), which would also be the place where the Lord would come (Zech 14:4). The implicit allusion to Zech 14 recalls a context relevant to early Christian interpretation (Zech 14:5 in Mark 8:38; 1 Thess 3:13), as Luke presumably knew (Luke 9:26). Presumably, this future coming of the king (at the time when his enemies would be subdued, cf. Acts 2:34–36) would coincide with the consummation of the kingdom (1:6–7) and the completion of witness to the ends of the earth (1:8).

Other promises within Luke’s narrative are fulfilled; there is no reason to doubt that Luke expects the promise of Jesus’s coming (1:11) to turn out the same way. Of the three promises introduced in 1:4–11, one (the promise of the Spirit) is fulfilled in 2:4, another (the witness beyond Judea) is progressively fulfilled (at least proleptically) later in Acts, and the final promise (Jesus’s coming) remains future but certain. Some Jewish people also seem to have expected those who ascended to return in the end time (4 Ezra 6:26).

The Jesus who would return would be the same Jesus who had risen; the emphasis might be necessary so that no one would think he would return as another (cf. Luke 17:22–24) coming merely in the “spirit” of Jesus (like John, who came as “Elijah,” 1:17). Certainly the rise of impostors was a possibility (21:8). But “this Jesus” may simply be emphatic proclamation, recurring in Peter’s proclamation in Acts 2:32, 36 (cf. 10:36) and in Paul’s proclamation in 17:3 (cf. 9:20, 22).

I followed the same methodology (though to a greater extent) in discussing John’s prologue at much greater length than other Johannine pericopes (Keener, John, 331–426).

See, e.g., Virg. Aen. 1.1–6; Aul. Gel. pref. 25 (introducing subject matter in chapter headings at the beginning, whether Gellius’s or an editor’s; see LCL, 1:xxxviii–lxiii). See fuller discussion in note above.

See, e.g., Rhet. Alex. 29, 1436a.33–39; Dion. Hal. Thuc. 19; Lysias 24; later, Hermog. Method 12.427 (where Kennedy adds Dion. Hal. Comp. 23; Quint. Inst. 9.2.106).

Palmer, “Monograph (1993),” 22.

Zehnle, Pentecost Discourse, 128–29 (quote, 128), except that he compares not the infancy narratives but the programmatic scene in Luke 4:16–30 (which we would compare with Peter’s speech; cf. also Zehnle, Pentecost Discourse, 130).

E.g., Pesch, Apostelgeschichte, 1:61, 72 (with Luke 24:50–53); Miller, Empowered for Mission, 56–60; in detail, Goulder, Type and History, 16–17; cf. Longenecker, “Aversion”; Borgman, Way, 249–52. For other transitional themes, cf. Zehnle, Pentecost Discourse, 103–4.

Aune, Environment, 90, 117, citing Polybius, Strabo, Diodorus (Diod. Sic. 1.42; 2.1.1–3; 3.1.1–3; 18.1.1–6), Josephus, and Herodian, while also noting their absence in many places; Marguerat, Actes, 36. Although Luke may well have presented Theophilus with the first volume earlier, one cannot infer this conclusion primarily from the recapitulation here (as Witherington, Acts, 107, seems to do). Writers sometimes recapitulated the prior work and surveyed the present book in a preface (Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 368, citing Hdt. 1.42; 2.1.1–3; 3.1.1–3; 8.1.1–6).

Fitzmyer, Acts, 194.

Brownson, “Introduction,” x.

Chance, Acts, 34. I have adapted it only slightly, especially by noting “power” in both. For briefer lists of comparisons, see, e.g., Langner, Hechos, 285; Wolter, “Proömien,” 492.

Aune, Environment, 135, citing Hdt. 3.3; 4.11, 179; 7.150, 167, 214; Polyb. 1.36.4; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 4.2.1.

Cf. Parsons, Departure, 189–90; Marguerat, Actes, 48; on the narrative function of redundancy in Luke-Acts (explaining the overlap), see Parsons, Departure, 191–93; for the function of variations, see 193–98.

See our introduction, . Josephus even composes different speeches for the same incident in different works; compare Jos. War 1.373–79 with Ant. 15.126–46; cf. possibly the adaptation of a scene in Tacitus suggested in Woodman, Rhetoric, 176–79. Cf. the importance of variation, alongside sometimes verbatim agreement, in the “recitation composition” characterizing rhetorical culture (Robbins, “Writing,” 146–55; cf. Dewey, “Oral-Aural Event,” 148–49). Even eyewitness accounts are more consistent in the gist than in most incidental details (Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 333–34, 344–45), and so Luke’s approach is more realistic than the expectations of some modern readers.

Witherington, Acts, 107; cf. Blomberg, Gospels, 157–58; for Luke’s practice of variation here and elsewhere, see Mussies, “Variation.”

Witherington, Acts, 107.

Parsons, Departure, 197, probably correctly (unless our conception of appropriateness is influenced by subsequent liturgical use of the Aaronic benediction [Num 6:22–27; cf. lifting hands for blessing people in Lev 9:22; Sir 50:20–21] for closure). Many scholars see in the lifting of hands here an allusion to the priestly blessing (e.g., Danker, New Age, 24; Stempvoort, “Interpretation of Ascension,” 34; particularly fully, Mekkattukunnel, Blessing), although not all agree (e.g., Bock, Luke, 1945). Litwak, Echoes, 148, associates it with OT blessings such as Gen 49; Deut 33.

Wright, People of God, 378.

Witherington, Acts, 107–8; cf. Wright, People of God, 378. Tannehill, Acts, 10, sees this conflict as an example of Luke’s penchant for variation going too far (also Acts 9:7 with 26:14).

See Perkins, Reading, 255–56.

See, e.g., Robbins, “Prefaces”; Alexander, “Luke’s Preface.” Alexander, Context, 16, notes that “scientific” prefaces do not identify genre and that Luke-Acts is not a technical scientific work.

See Aune, Environment, 121 (cf. 89–90, 120–21); idem, “Prooimion”; Callan, “Preface and Historiography”; van Unnik, “Once More Prologue”; Schmidt, “Influences”; Moessner, “Arrangement,” 158–63; idem, “Synergy” (comparing Luke’s approach with that of Dionysius); Witherington, Acts, 11. Contrast Pervo, Profit, 5, 144 (treated earlier). Alexander, Context, 12–13, notes that she never denied that Luke intended his work as “history,” but contends (17–18) that the preface resembles those of technical treatises rather than histories, perhaps suggesting the kind of history Luke intends.

For a comparison between 4 Macc 1:1–12 and Luke 1:1–4 and ancient speeches, see Klauck, “Rhetorik: Exordium.”

For this list, see Aune, Environment, 89–90; in general, see Earl, “Prologue-Form in Historiography.”

This list is from Aune, Environment, 90.

For this convention (though not pervasive), Adams, “Preface,” 183–84, cites Plut. Rise and Fall of Athens 1.1; Jos. War 1.16; Ag. Ap. 1.1; and the implications of Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.4.3. Pervo, Acts, 35, doubts the convention, regarding Josephus as its earliest example.

See Aul. Gel. pref. 10; Apul. Metam. 1.1; Jos. Ant. 1.2–3, 7; cf. Jos. War 1.3; Ant. 20.263 (conclusion).

On Luke’s approach toward his predecessors, see below; cf. also Massey, “Disagreement,” esp. 71–72.

On this, see Thucyd. 1.22.1–2; and our introduction, –, esp. here and .

Aune, Environment, 90; see further Heath, “Invention,” 103. For the emphasis on securing the audience’s favor, see also Gärtner, “Prooemium,” 16–17; much fuller comment at Acts 17:22.

With Fitzmyer, Acts, 193.

The first preface in a multivolume work was usually the most important (Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 368).

Witherington, Acts, 105.

Johnson, Acts, 28, citing as an example Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.1 and 2.1. Some scholars continue the preface beyond Acts 1:1 (certainly the sentence does not end there; Palmer, “Monograph [1993],” 23), but Luke is simply smoothing his transition to the narrative, as rhetoricians advised (Sen. E. Controv. 1.1.25; also Hanson, Acts, 57, citing Lucian Hist. 55; cf. Anderson, Glossary, 70–71).

Conventions that were common were not therefore mandatory for every preface. Polybius claimed that prologues were useful to focus readers’ attention on the correct agenda (Polyb. 11.1.1–2), but since prologues were neglected in his day (11.1.3), he preferred to provide introductory summaries instead (11.1.4–5), except in his first six books.

By calling his first volume “word” (λόγον), Luke probably does expect us to see his gospel story as part of the larger divine “word” or “message” that his writings often mention (e.g., Luke 1:2; 4:32, 36; Acts 2:41; 4:4; and passim), but as this parallel with Philo indicates, it was also a normal way to describe one’s earlier account.

As Lucian True Story 2.47 does, but only in jest (LCL, 1:357n1: “The biggest lie of all, as a disgruntled Greek scribe remarks in the margin!”).

E.g., Ramsay, Traveller and Citizen, 27–28; idem, Teaching, 370.

Johnson, Acts, 24 (comparing Philo Good Person 1; Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.1); Barrett, Acts, 65; Carter and Earle, Acts, 1; Knowling, “Acts,” 49; Arrington, Acts, 4. Although one might not expect such loosened sense in atticizing introductions, Koine employed superlatives less often than classical Greek (Dana and Mantey, Grammar, 39–40), and a comparative adjective may function like a superlative (Wallace, Grammar, 111, 299–300); cf., e.g., Matt 5:19; 22:36, 38.

Lake and Cadbury, Commentary, 2; Bruce, Acts¹, 65; Bruce, Commentary, 32n12; Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, 557; Blass, Debrunner, and Funk, Grammar, 34, §62; Parsons and Culy, Acts, 2.

C. Williams, Acts, 54; Schille, Apostelgeschichte, 66. Whereas Luke never uses πρότερος (only eleven times in the NT), he uses πρῶτος (“first”) frequently, and there can be no question that sometimes it simply means the first of two, e.g., Acts 7:12–13 (though the brothers came again in Genesis, “first” is contrasted with “second” here); 12:10.

Luke might prefer more classical usage in his primary preface (Luke 1:1–4) without requiring it here (Acts 1:1).

Widely noted, e.g., Carter and Earle, Acts, 23; Lake and Cadbury, Commentary, 3; Witherington, Acts, 10.

Haenchen, Acts, 137n4.

Its pleonastic use is rarer in Acts than in the Gospel (Acts 2:4; 11:4; 24:2), but so is its normal sense, though it does occur in some texts, most referring to speech (8:35; 11:15, in view of 10:44; the cases of 18:26 and 27:35 could be argued either way). Other texts could also use “begin to” with verbs of speech deliberately (e.g., Sib. Or. 3.560, ἄρξονται . . .  κλῄζειν).

See also Johnson, Acts, 24.

E.g., Bruce, Acts¹, 66 (regarding it as “emphatic”); idem, Acts³, 21; Blaiklock, Acts, 49; Reicke, “Lord and Church”; Hays, Moral Vision, 112, 120; Burridge, “Genre of Acts,” 28; cf. Barrett, Acts, 2:lxxxv, who holds it as probable but allows that “even if he did not intend it Luke would not have disagreed.” Cf. similarly Chrys. Hom. Acts 1 (NPNF 11:7): “The Gospels, then, are a history of what Christ did and said; but the Acts, of what that ‘other Comforter’ said and did.”

Hays, Moral Vision, 120–22.

Goulder, Type and History, 63–64, pointing to the parallels in Acts (see further discussion in of our introduction). “The whole book is an exposition of this sentence” (64).

Hull, Spirit in Acts, 179–80, notes that syntactically it could simply reflect comprehensiveness but, in view of Luke’s theology, probably means that the second volume carries forward this subject matter of the first.

See Gaventa, Acts, 63, 162, noting also that Jesus’s apostles are his “witnesses” (Acts 1:22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39; 13:31).

Jesus’s speech in Luke is regularly connected with teaching (Luke 4:15, 31; 5:3, 17; 6:6; 11:1; 12:12; 13:10, 22, 26; 19:47; 20:1, 21; 21:37; 23:5). Acts likewise emphasizes apostolic teaching (Acts 5:21, 25, 28; 11:26; 18:11; cf. 21:21, 28) and connects it explicitly with preaching (4:2, 18; 5:42; 15:35; 28:31; also other verbs of speaking, 18:25; 20:20).

Higgins, “Preface and Kerygma,” 91, argues from Acts 1:1 that the kerygma in Acts (like its detailed account in Luke’s Gospel) includes not only preaching but miracles demonstrating the preaching; this would fit Luke’s emphasis on signs (on which see in our introduction). On “deeds” in encomia, see, e.g., Malina and Neyrey, Portraits, 28–33 (citing Menander Rhetor and esp. Aristotle).

Probably already a generation later, Mark’s recitation of Peter’s recollections appears in similar words (Papias frg. 3.15, in Euseb. H.E. 3.39.1; cf. here Kurzinger, Apostelgeschichte, 9). Papias’s language could possibly reflect the influence of Acts 1:1, but given the completely different wording might simply reflect broader usage.

Fornara, Nature of History, 1–2, 116, 185; Witherington, Acts, 10–11 (who provides some of these references); Aune, Environment, 91. The special form of novelized history in Xen. Cyr. 5.1.1 also claims to recount what Cyrus and his allies ἔίραξάν τε καὶ ἔλεξαν in Cyr. Bk. 4.

See Wardle, Valerius Maximus, 66 (citing esp. Val. Max. 4.1.12; 6.2.pref.; 7.2.pref.; 7.3.pref.; 9.3.pref.; 9.11.pref.; 9.11.12).

E.g., ancient thinkers typically coupled deeds with words (in Jewish sources, see Sir 3:8; Wis 1:16; Test. Ab. 9:4 A; Test. Gad 6:1; Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.169, 292), e.g., Hesiod W.D. 710; Aeschylus Suppl. 515; Xen. Cyr. 5.1.1; Hell. 6.3.12; Mem. 1.5.6; 4.4.10; Aeschines Tim. 30; Isaeus Menec. 32, 38; Isoc. Nic. 61 (Or. 3.39); Theophr. Char. 1.1; 14.1; Ap. Rhod. 3.81; Polyb. 3.111.10; 31.29.11; Catull. Carm. 76.8; Val. Max. 1. pref.; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 20.1–2; Epict. Diatr. 1.25.11; 2.9.13; Pliny Ep. 10.3A.3; Ael. Arist. Def. Or. 279, §87D; Panath. 403, in 320D; Lucian Runaways 15; Hipp. 1; Max. Tyre 15.6; Diog. Laert. 6.2.64; 6.3.82; Iambl. V.P. 2.10; 8.35; Men. Rhet. 2.4, 394.20–21; Hdn. 1.2.4; Eunapius Lives 495. Such advice was an ancient commonplace (Demosth. Olynth. 3.14; Philip. 2.1; 3.15; Diod. Sic. 9.9.1; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.33.3; 9.10.3; 9.47.4; 11.1.4; 11.58.3; Cic. Fam. 13.6a.4; Quint. Inst. 1.pref. 14; Mus. Ruf. 1, p. 36.4–5, 9–12; 8, p. 64.11; Aul. Gel. 17.19; Max. Tyre 25.1–2; Porph. Marc. 8.142–43; 14.237–39; 16.277–78). For coupling of “word” and “deed” elsewhere, see, e.g., Rhet. Alex. 9, 1430a.14–21; 36, 1442a.16–18; 38, 1445b.30–34; Fronto Ad verum imp. 2.8; Philost. Hrk. 32.1; Iambl. V.P. 24.108; 33.232.

See Robbins, Jesus the Teacher, 63. Some early readers used the sequence of “do” and “teach” to support doing before teaching (John Cassian Conferences 14.9 [Martin, Acts, 3]). Jewish teachers taught “deeds” as well as words (Gerhardsson, Memory, 185), and their behavior could even constitute halakic precedent (t. Piska 2:15–16; Sipre Deut. 221.1.1; y. b. Meṣiʿa 2:11, §1; Demai 1:4; Nid. 1:4, §2; Sanh. 7:2, §4; Yebam. 4:11, §8).

E.g., Dion. Hal. Lit. Comp. 5; Mek. Pisha 1.28 (Lauterbach, 1:3); Gen. Rab. 1:15; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2.

Also common in ancient writers; see Keener, John, 1241–42, citing, e.g., Hom. Od. 3.113–17; Lysias Or. 2.1, §190; Diod. Sic. 16.95.5; 1 Macc 9:22; 2 Macc 2:24–25; Philo Abr. 1; Spec. Laws 4.238; Song Rab. 1:3, §1; Pesiq. Rab. 3:2; Iambl. V.P. 28.135.

Witherington, Acts, 9 (citing Thucyd. 2.65.2, 9). Pervo, Acts, 35, suggests more specifically that it also characterized prefaces.

Witherington, Acts, 9 (citing Lucian Hist. 55; Diod. Sic. 16.1, and contrasting biographies). In contrast to an attempted universal history, however, a historical monograph would focus on a particular topic and cover merely this in detail; Conzelmann, Acts, 3–4, sees monograph characteristics here.

Citroni, “Dedications,” 438.

Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 123.

Cf. Pliny the Elder’s criticism of Apion’s immodesty in claiming that his dedications bestowed immortality on their recipients (N.H. pref. 25); cf. Josephus’s lavish praise of Epaphroditus in Ant. 1.8.

Citroni, “Dedications,” 439.

For this distinction, see Keener, “Friendship,” 381–82; idem, John, 1006–9; for Roman dedications and the patronage system, see Citroni, “Dedications,” 438; idem, “Patronage, literary,” 1125.

Since authors normally received nothing from booksellers (Citroni, “Patronage, literary,” 1125), patronage was especially important.

E.g., Cic. Fin. 1.1.1; 3.1.1; 3.2.6; Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.1; 2.1; Quint. Inst. 4.pref. 1; Artem. Oneir. 3.pref.; often in the historical work of Vell. Paterc. (1.13.5; 2.7.5; 2.49.1; 2.65.3; 2.96.2; 2.101.3; 2.104.2; 2.113.1; 2.130.4). Hermog. Inv. 3.1.126 offers one in his third book but not the first two.

Dion. Hal. Demosth. 58; Jos. Life 430; Ant. 20.266; Ag. Ap. 2.296; Plut. Demosth. 1.1; 31.4.

Often writers claimed that the task of writing was difficult but undertaken out of duty to fulfill the dedicatee’s request (Citroni, “Dedications,” 438, mentions Rhetorica ad Herennium and some of Cicero’s works on rhetoric as examples).

Dion. Hal. 2 Amm. 1; Cic. Or. Brut. 1.1 (who also emphasizes his affection for Brutus, his dedicatee); Quint. Inst. 6.pref. 1.

Connections between the dedicatee and the work’s content may be minimal in genres such as satire and elegy (Citroni, “Dedications,” 439).

Cf., e.g., in Fronto Ad M. Caes. 2.3.1, in Latin.

See discussion in Robbins, “Location,” 321–22. Some scholars think that it could mark Theophilus as an equestrian, though acknowledging that it could also function as a courtesy title (as with Felix in Acts 23:26; so, e.g., Bruce, Message, 51n1); Danker, New Age, 4, suggests a Roman official (believer or not); Montefiore, Gospels, 2:362, more simply concludes “that he was in a high station.” Citing more general usage in this period, Wallace and Williams, Acts, 32, suggest that we can claim him only of higher status than Luke. Ramsay’s guess (Bethlehem, 64–65) that he was a Roman citizen is plausible, but his arguments are not at all compelling. The wide Greek usage does not necessitate anything more than a polite address (see BDAG, noting its frequency in dedications), but Luke’s own usage elsewhere probably does imply status here.

If his addressee is Maximus of Tyre, the latter is indeed a famous orator. See also (more realistically) Statius Silv. 2.pref.; 2.2.

Similarly Avianus Fables, introductory letter, line 1 (“most excellent Theodosius”).

Marcellus was the “truest of friends” (LCL), a relationship that would establish a household relationship between the two families regardless of patronal connections; see comments on guest friendship in Keener, John, 913 (esp. Hom. Il. 6.212–31; Cic. Fam. 13.34.1).

E.g., Mart. Epig. 10.19, praising Pliny and quoted by the latter on the former’s death in Pliny Ep. 3.21.5. Some question the ideal friendship suggested in Cicero’s dedication in Amic. (Marchetti, “Words”).

Aune, Environment, 77; Witherington, Acts, 13–14 (arguing that “most excellent” functions this way in Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.1; cf. 2.1); more tentatively, Fitzmyer, Acts, 195; Barrett, Acts, 65. The hypothesis that he was a Roman official for whom Luke was arguing Paul’s case (Mauck, Trial, 22), connected with taking Acts as a trial brief, is rarer and more difficult.

Aune, Environment, 77; Witherington, Acts, 55. For patronage of poets, see Schmidt, “Circles, literary.”

Besides the sources above, see Horace’s dedications to Maecenas (Ep. 1.1.1–3; Sat. 1.1.1–3; Odes 1.1).

Richards, Letter Writing, 170, suggests that a patron’s sponsorship would have aided Luke considerably in view of the substantial cost of producing even the first copy of Luke-Acts (which he would estimate as more than $4,000 in today’s currency; cf. 167–69).

See Dunn, Acts, xi; cf. the discussion of publication methods in Scholer, “Writing,” 1283 (following Gamble, Books and Readers); also of our introduction, above.

See of our introduction, our initial chapter on publication.

E.g., Pliny Ep. 8.12.1–2 (though the noteworthiness of this example suggests that it was not common).

Tannehill, Acts, 9; Creech, “Narratee,” 110–11; “the ideal reader” in Klauck, Magic, 4.

Cadbury, Acts in History, 138, notes that Luke wrote for a wider circulation than Theophilus and that his work’s “effect on Theophilus himself was not the main concern of the author.”

It could serve an apologetic function; some outsiders may have shared Celsus’s later disdain for Christians’ effective appeal to “the socially objectionable classes” (Cook, Interpretation, 84–85). Cultic groups could achieve mainstream status through the help of patrons (White, Origins of Architecture, 1:58–59).

For a survey of some views regarding the wealth of Luke’s audience, see Donahue, “Decades on Rich and Poor.”

Mason, Josephus and New Testament, 198, notes that Josephus is explicit on this matter.

On Luke’s likely wide audience, see further Ferguson, Backgrounds, 94.

E.g., Klauck, Magic, 4 (although he accepts Theophilus as both a historical person and “the ideal reader,” whose name fortuitously has symbolic value). Usually we lack external means to identify the named recipients of ancient letters (e.g., Dillon and Polleichtner, Iamblichus, xvii).

Origen Hom. Luke 1.6 (Just, Luke, 4); Bede Comm. Acts 1.1 (trans. L. Martin, 9; Martin, Acts, 2).

Many other texts likewise apply this to a blessed state of favor with the gods (e.g., Men. Rhet. 1.3, 361.17–22; Philost. Hrk. 58.1); cf. application to a city in Libanius Encomium 5.2. For cognate terms in Philo, see Bekken, Word, 102–6.

In contrast to the common character of the name, symbolic dedications are not well attested (Alexander, Preface, 132–33, 188; Gaventa, Acts, 50, 62–63).

Fellows, personal correspondence, June 5, 2007. Marx, “New Theophilus,” even suggests that it is Agrippa II (Acts 25–26), with Luke hoping to convert him (Acts 26:28). Although Josephus addresses such prestigious patrons, Luke’s literary level might not appear sufficient for one of this rank.

Barrett, Acts, 65–66; Alexander, Preface, 188; Marshall, Acts, 55–56; Morris, Luke, 66; Bock, Acts, 52. Luke’s simple designation (like that of many dedications in antiquity) is adequate, since Theophilus’s circle would know his identity.

“Theophilus” appears as the name of a gymnasiarch in Ephesus (I. Eph. 1944), but it appears across the social spectrum. Marcus Antonius Theophilus was one of two duumvirs in Corinth in (apparently) 29/28 B.C.E. (Kent, Inscriptions, 24); Q. Cispuleius Q. f. Theophilus received an honorary aedileship there under Tiberius (28). “Theophilos” was also a wise Alexandrian, apparently a philosopher, in Dio Chrys. 32.97.

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