Dangers in Jerusalem (21:17–23:35)

Dangers in Jerusalem (21:17–23:35)

DANGERS IN JERUSALEM (21:17–23:35)

Prophecies en route have warned that Paul will face danger in Jerusalem (20:23; 21:4, 11), thereby building suspense. Now Paul, though welcomed by the leaders of the Jerusalem church, faces false accusations. See more fully the introduction to Paul’s defense speeches (the excursus at Acts 22, “The Defense Speeches of Acts 22–26, Especially 22:2–21”).

1. Concerns of the Jerusalem Church (21:17–26)

The Jerusalem church’s leaders accepted Paul (cf. Gal 2:9–10), but Luke acknowledges that not all in the church agreed (cf. Rom 3:8; 15:31). Luke emphasizes here Paul’s unity with the Jerusalem church and its heritage. If anyone charges that Paul stirs riots or preaches a new, non-Jewish religion, Luke emphasizes that, quite in contrast, Paul instead went out of his way to work for peace.

In this section, representatives of the Diaspora churches, with their many Gentile members, meet representatives of the Jerusalem church. Although the ideal hearer knows that the Jerusalem church would be virtually decimated in less than a decade, Luke shows that heritage and mission could be reconciled and that such reconciliation happened again among believers before Jerusalem’s destruction. The passage echoes Paul’s visit in Acts 15: Paul is welcomed (15:3–4) and recounts God’s acts (15:3–4, 12), some rejoice (cf. 15:3; 11:18), and the Jerusalem decree (15:20, 28–29) is reaffirmed in 21:25.[1]

a. Introduction

Some scholars think that Luke writes for Jewish Christians who accept the leadership of James yet must be persuaded that Paul’s Gentile converts are acceptable (as something like God-fearers).[2] Although I think that Luke’s audience includes more Gentiles,[3] it remains important for them to have the sanction of the mother church for their faith, as demonstrated repeatedly by Luke’s emphasis on continuity between heritage and the current mission churches.[4]

I. THE JERUSALEM CHURCH’S HOSTILITY?

Although many Jerusalemite believers were suspicious of Paul (21:21), Luke is at pains to show that the leaders and their representatives received him politely and hospitably (21:17–20a), though even Luke transitions quickly to Paul’s credibility problem there (21:20b–21).[5] Disagreement did not require hostility, nor does Luke’s perspective on unity require him to suppress disagreement. (Contrary to the nineteenth-century claim that Acts represents an early catholic synthesis of opposing forms of early Christianity, Luke is not covering up tensions. He does, however, naturally put the tensions in the best light, since these tensions were not as relevant after 70 C.E., when no church remained in Jerusalem).[6]

Whatever Luke’s Tendenz, he is probably right that James would have embraced Paul even if many in the Jerusalem church did not. Paul himself may imply tensions with the Jerusalem pillars years before (Gal 2:6; esp. 2:12–14), but this no more made Paul their irreconcilable enemy than it made him Barnabas’s (2:13; cf. 1 Cor 9:6; Gal 2:1, 9; Col 4:10). Paul’s meeting with these pillars concludes with an agreement that at least implies the collection’s (or collections’) acceptability (Gal 2:9–10). James appears elsewhere in Acts as an advocate of peaceful compromise (Acts 15:13–21), and material traditionally attributed to him emphasizes peace and not judging or speaking against others (Jas 1:19–20; 3:10–18; 4:11–12; 5:9). Finally, Luke’s “we” is present for this session (Acts 21:18); whatever his slant, his is an eyewitness report of the meeting and the only one available to us.

Some scholars argue for such hostility because Luke fails to mention the Jerusalem church’s support for Paul while he was in prison (contrasting 23:16–22; 24:23).[7] But this is an argument from silence, and one that is especially feeble in view of the lack of mention of even his coworkers’ (such as Luke’s) support during this period. Moreover, we cannot know that 24:23 excludes Jerusalemite believers (though it more likely would include local Caesarean ones) or that Paul’s nephew in 23:16–22 was not part of the church.[8]

II. REJECTING THE COLLECTION?

Some scholars think that the Jerusalem church rejected Paul’s collection and that Luke omits the collection to avoid reporting this embarrassment,[9] but this proposal is unlikely. Granted, even Luke shifts quickly to strategies to make Paul more acceptable to the church (21:22–26); relations were not ideal, but this limitation does not suggest a gesture of hostility, on the part of the leaders, as dramatic as refusal of the gift would entail.[10]

Although a few scholars may be too optimistic that all Paul’s goals for the collection were achieved,[11] several points indicate the historical likelihood that the gifts were accepted.[12] First, economic hardship had invited the collection to begin with (Rom 15:26; Gal 2:10); although a gift might be rejected out of principle, the church had economic incentive to accept it. Second, Jewish people had no theological reason to reject Gentile gifts offered in the name of their own God (cf. 1 Kgs 8:43; Ps 86:9; Isa 56:7), even if they regarded those Gentiles only as God-fearers rather than (with Paul) as full proselytes.

Third, even if Paul was not certain how his offering would be accepted by the saints (Rom 15:31), it is hardly conceivable that the “pillars” who had, in effect, initiated the collection or the practices that led to it (Gal 2:10) would reject it.[13] Finally, we should further consider what genuinely “rejecting” the offering would have entailed: sending it back with the Gentiles who brought it. Such an affront would have sealed a breach with Paul’s churches and likely elicited some comment in early Christian sources. In contrast to Luke’s usual silence about the collection (not merely about its reception), it seems that such a silence would be deafening.

Still, the Jerusalem church’s leadership may have politely accepted the collection without its members embracing Paul and his mission (given the hostility reported in Acts 21:21). In a context of growing nationalism and antipathy toward Gentiles, Jerusalem’s believers could not openly embrace Paul and his gift without appearing to be compromising, unless Paul could publicly demonstrate his loyalties to the temple (as in 21:22–26). As Witherington puts it, “Marching into Jerusalem with Gentiles from various parts of the empire at this xenophobic moment would hardly have produced a positive response from Jews in general, or from ardent Pharisaic Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.”[14]

In a letter written shortly before this fateful journey, Paul himself expressed concern about hostility in Jerusalem and whether the offering would find favor with the Jerusalem saints (Rom 15:31). Luke suggests that the original apostles no longer remained in Jerusalem (mentioning only James and the elders, Acts 21:18);[15] without Peter and John, James remained alone of the “pillars” in Jerusalem who had made an agreement with Paul (Gal 2:9), leading a church whose conservatism on some cross-cultural matters he may have himself encouraged (2:12). Even leaders in the Jerusalem church seem to have shifted to the right after the council (2:11–14).[16]

Luke may, however, omit the collection (except in Acts 24:17) not because it was an embarrassment or a failure but primarily because, in historical retrospect, Paul’s arrest proved a climax to the narrative very different from, and more important than, what Paul had hoped for.[17] Further, although the church’s leaders would hardly reject the offering (sending it back to the Gentiles), they would not likely publicize its association with Paul in Jerusalem after his arrest on the charge of desecrating the temple.

James and the elders might be convinced of Paul’s innocence and have even spoken in his defense; but many in Jerusalem would favor the other version of the story, and Jerusalemite believers who had not supported Paul before (21:21) would hardly start doing so now. Indeed, distancing themselves from Paul’s alleged deed would be more expedient for individuals’ or the church’s societal witness.[18] They remained a minority movement in a precarious situation (as James’s execution soon afterward, noted in Josephus, demonstrates); compromising their popular support simply to make a public point[19] must have seemed imprudent.

Most of the Gentile believers who had brought the offerings probably returned to their home cities with the news of Paul’s arrest[20] (which, again, made any hopes of bonding with the Jerusalem church anticlimactic), though at least a few seem to have stayed to wait with him (27:1; cf. 24:23).

b. Meeting the Jerusalem Church’s Leaders (21:17–19)

Believers in Jerusalem welcome the Gentile mission’s envoys hospitably (21:17), and the latter are granted an almost immediate interview with James and all the elders (21:18). As on previous occasions, Paul recounts God’s works among the Gentiles, confirming this mission’s validity (21:19; cf. 15:4, 12).

I. WELCOMED IN JERUSALEM (21:17)

A welcome reception in Jerusalem fits Luke’s summary descriptions showing the church’s unity everywhere (28:14–15), though his details will quickly qualify that unity. “The brothers” in Jerusalem also already had advance word of Paul’s coming, and Luke emphasizes the hospitable arrangements here in 21:17–18, comparable to those in Caesarea (21:10) and along the way (21:16).[21]

“The brothers” here does not, however, refer to the entire Jerusalem church; much of the church does not trust Paul (21:21)[22] and does not yet know of his arrival (21:22). “The brothers” may refer to the group’s designated hosts, probably with approval from the Jerusalem church’s leadership. Paul has not yet met with James and the elders (21:18), but they would likely know significantly in advance about his coming (and on the historical level, about the collection) and are party to this hospitality.

Although Gentiles had always been welcome to visit Jerusalem at festivals and traders would also have worked there, not all local Jewish believers would necessarily feel comfortable housing them (cf. 10:28; Luke 7:7), especially out of concern for their increasingly conservative neighbors’ opinions.[23] Thus hospitable housing was likely arranged in advance.

II. MEETING THE LEADERS (21:18)

That James (on whom see comment on Acts 12:17) and all the elders (on whom see comment on Acts 11:30) were gathered indicates that Paul was expected, not merely stopping by to pay his respects. Probably they did meet regularly, perhaps daily, in leading the Jerusalem church, but the presence of “all” the elders and the almost immediate interview do suggest advance knowledge.[24] The apparent absence of the “apostles,” present in 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4, or at least that of Peter, suggests that they were no longer there.[25] That Paul and his companions “went in” to James also suggests more than a random visit; Luke elsewhere employs the Greek verb only to designate entering the temple (3:3; 21:26),[26] and it could be employed for meeting a person of rank or entering a court.[27]

Although, in the period of Acts and the Pastorals, elders were “overseers” (ἐπίσκοποι; cf. Acts 20:17, 28; Titus 1:5–7),[28] the later idea of a presiding bishop in a single location is not incompatible with this practice.[29] James is set apart from the elders; from the advantage of hindsight, it is not surprising that later Christians viewed James as the bishop of Jerusalem.[30]

III. RECOUNTING GOD’S ATTESTATION (21:19)

Greetings were appropriate in all settings unless one was on hostile terms with a person (see comment on Acts 21:7). Greetings could include a hand gesture[31] and, more likely, clasped hands (see comment on Acts 23:19), firm shaking of right hands,[32] and (as with departures; see comment on Acts 20:37) embraces and kisses.[33]

Social inferiors and those who were younger were expected to defer to their superiors.[34] Normally, inferiors were to greet superiors first.[35] By affirming that Paul greeted (ἀσπασάμενος, singular) the Jerusalem leaders, Luke emphasizes that Paul demonstrates the appropriate signs of respect for the local leaders (who were probably not all among those who welcomed him the preceding day in Acts 21:17).[36]

Paul offers testimonies of God’s continuing work among the Gentiles, a strategy effective on a previous occasion (15:12).[37] Paul’s recounting the events “one by one” may be equivalent to the character of Peter’s narration in 11:4 (καθεξῆς)[38] and Luke’s own in Luke 1:3; this description suggests that Paul provided a thorough account, which Luke need not recite (since he has already provided much of this information in his own account). Luke’s purpose may resemble Paul’s: to confirm God’s blessings on the Diaspora movement and (for Luke) Paul’s ministry.[39] That Paul offers such evidences of God’s blessing on his mission may suggest that he knows that not everyone in the Jerusalem church necessarily approves (cf. Acts 21:21; Rom 15:16, 31). There is never any thought, however, that the church or its leaders will doubt the veracity of Paul’s testimony (Acts 15:4, 12; 21:19).[40]

c. Zealous Myriads (21:20)

Although ready to accept Paul’s testimonies (21:20a), the Jerusalem leaders also had to concern themselves with their own constituency. The Jesus movement was now flourishing in Jerusalem, and its members’ testimony was effective in part because they were known as law abiding (21:20). This statement about law-abiding myriads (μυριάδες) is key to the rest of the elders’ advice: given misrepresentations of Paul’s approach to the law (21:21), they had a strategy ready to help demonstrate that Paul did not oppose what the Jerusalem church stood for. On the historical level, such a strategy may have made it easier to publicly acknowledge the gift from the Pauline churches.

I. PRAISING GOD FOR HIS WORK AMONG GENTILES

As in the response to Peter’s report to Jerusalem about God saving Gentiles (11:18; cf. 15:3), the hearers glorified God, thereby implicitly approving the ministry that had been carried out.[41] That this response fits Luke’s purpose does not render it any less plausible historically. Even apart from Luke’s eyewitness claim (cf. 21:18), most Jews were happy about Gentiles acknowledging Israel’s God. Even if there was some theological tension, and even if they regarded Paul as subordinate to themselves, the Jerusalem church leaders “would certainly have praised God for its [the Gentile mission’s] success, as Luke depicts them doing (Acts 21:20).”[42]

Luke’s terse description, however, suggests that Paul’s agenda in sharing the testimonies was again to defend the Gentile mission. Then, again even in Luke’s terse account, it seems that the Jerusalem church leaders turned to their own primary agenda. To the church’s moral and intellectual leaders—who may have differentiated nuances better than did some of their followers[43]—the issue was not whether conditions for the Gentile mission had changed (21:25) but how to demonstrate Paul’s solidarity with law-abiding Judaism (21:21–24).[44] If they desired to welcome Paul openly as a brother and, still more, to affirm his mission, they had to do it in a way that would not alienate their growing, law-abiding church and its Jerusalem neighbors (21:20–24).

Again, Luke’s report is not implausible at this point. If Paul wanted to emphasize the unity of Jewish and Gentile churches (and historically, he did; Rom 15:26–27), it would take more than the collection; the Jerusalem leaders might suggest concrete steps to demonstrate that he did not oppose Jewish Christians continuing to observe their ancestral—indeed, biblical—customs.

Luke attributes the speech of Acts 21:20–25 to “them”—that is, James and the elders; such attributions of speech to groups appear also in Greek historians. The presence of group speech here indicates that Luke summarizes the group’s message (however many individuals spoke), not, of course, that they spoke in unison.[45]

II. MYRIADS OF BELIEVERS

By “Jews” here, James and the elders may mean specifically “Judeans,”[46] especially Jerusalemites, given their “you see.”[47] By “those who have believed,” Luke certainly refers to followers of Jesus (2:44; 4:32; 5:14; 11:17, 21; 16:34; 18:27; 19:18; 22:19), as in 21:25. More problematic is the number that Luke offers: μυριάδες, literally, “ten thousands.” Luke elsewhere expresses his expectation of a significant Judean church in this period before Jerusalem’s fall (Luke 21:21; presumably addressed to disciples, in view of Luke 20:45; 21:7–8). For Luke, the Jerusalem church already had thousands in Acts 2:41 and 4:4 (cf. 5:14; 6:7; 9:31); although the number declined significantly for a period (8:1), Luke now has his apologetic opportunity to reemphasize the message’s success in Israel.[48] Moreover, including in the count other Judean Christians would have increased the Jerusalem numbers considerably.[49] Some scholars thus believe that Luke means the number literally.[50]

Others argue that James or Luke uses the number hyperbolically for a very large number;[51] the point is simply, “You see how strong the Jewish-Christian community is.”[52] After all, even ten thousand is higher than some estimates for the total number of believers in Jesus in this period.[53] Luke certainly does employ hyperbole at times, especially in his use of “all” (including in this verse, where “all” of them are zealous); Luke can use an unspecified “myriads” simply to designate a great number (Luke 12:1).[54] Further, “tens of thousands” (and sometimes “thousands”) were employed in hyperbole, like our “millions” today (e.g., 1 Sam 18:8; 21:11; 29:5; Ps 3:6; 1 Cor 14:19).[55]

Although offhanded hyperbole is certainly possible and even likely (note many myriads; especially if Jerusalem alone is meant), the traditional reason for insisting on it is open to question. Munck, for instance, doubted the possibility of fifty thousand believers (the minimum he believed qualified for “many myriads”), given an estimate of twenty-five to thirty thousand inhabitants in Jerusalem and half a million for all Judea.[56] But newer estimates of Jerusalem’s population suggest that it may have doubled from as many as forty thousand in Herod the Great’s time to perhaps eighty thousand by the time of Agrippa II.[57] Others put the figure much higher (more than one hundred thousand) and suggest that the count (which could then include Judean pilgrims from outside Jerusalem) would be even higher at Pentecost.[58]

Could Jesus’s movement have grown quickly enough to reach such numbers? At least in principle, that striking growth rates are not incredible may be illustrated from more easily verifiable examples in modern times. When, in October 1771, Francis Asbury arrived in what became the United States, Methodist societies included about 300 persons; forty years later, when he died, they had one thousand times that many, 300,000.[59] Similarly, U.S. Methodists grew from twenty churches in 1770 to 19,883 in 1860, almost a thousand times their original number.[60] Such exponential growth is possible if the growth rate is sustained over time; thus, in 1780, they had 8,500 members; by 1790, they had more than 50,000.[61] Rates of growth fluctuated, rising during times of revival, with the largest numerical influx toward the end of this period. We may compare similar growth rates in some revival movements in the world today, such as the rapid spread of Christianity in tribal areas of northeast India, or the Filadelfia movement in north India,[62] or the growth of both Christianity and Islam in Africa over the course of the twentieth century.

It seems to me that the real problem with the large numbers is that Josephus (the one non-Christian source we might expect to mention such matters) does not mention this movement,[63] instead dividing his nation into three sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes; sometimes he adds Zealots), none of which have even ten thousand members (even though Josephus is prone to amplify figures).[64] Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that the Jewish Jesus movement provided mass martyrs in Neronian Rome (Tac. Ann. 15.44) yet (against Luke) proved completely marginal numerically in Judea and Galilee. There can be no doubt that churches existed in Judea (1 Thess 2:14; Gal 1:17–19, 22; Rom 15:25–26, 31), yet Josephus is silent about their existence altogether. For this reason, there seems something suspicious about Josephus’s silence.

There can hardly have been only three sects,[65] their total numbers constituting less than 0.5 percent of Palestinian Judaism[66] or of Josephus’s figures for Jerusalem’s Passover.[67] That is, Josephus’s “sects” do not account for the religious practice of most Judeans (who belonged to no sects or to movements less relevant to Josephus’s story or less useful for his apologetic, which he therefore does not emphasize). Perhaps Josephus found less reason to emphasize the apolitical Nazarenes, who had far less appeal to the elite than Sadducees or Pharisees and far less malleability for philosophic comparisons than the Essenes. (By comparison, the earliest Christian documents are completely silent about the Essenes.) Further, the Christian movement was known in Rome and hence could neither be idealized like Pharisees and Essenes nor made relevant to the war like Zealots.

Further, conflicts over the Christian movement in Rome in the time of Claudius (see comment on Acts 18:2), in addition to the outright persecution of Christians in Rome under Nero (Tac. Ann. 15.44), may have made them a liability to a Jewish apologist;[68] unlike the strictly Judean sects, the Christian movement was gathering strength throughout the empire. As one earlier writer suggests, it was difficult for Josephus to address the Christian movement “shorn of its Messianic element,” and so Josephus avoided the topic to avoid further incriminating Judaism with an unnecessarily “compromising connexion with a movement which was already hateful in the eyes of the ruling classes.”[69] Some scholars argue that Josephus toned down David’s revolutionary activity and ancestry for the Messiah out of concern for the same Roman audience.[70] Although Josephus admits Judas’s pursuit of kingship in Ant. 17.271–72, he tones this picture down to what could be construed as mere banditry in War 2.56.[71]

Josephus does mention Jesus’s brother James and likely does mention Jesus himself.[72] His silence about Jesus’s followers (except the possibly authentic “tribe of Christians” in Ant. 18.64; this is not typical Christian language) cannot be explained by ignorance, since he would have to know the significance attached to Jesus’s followers in the Diaspora (especially the events in Rome just noted). He portrays neither one as a revolutionary, in contrast to many popular leaders of whom he writes. However we explain Josephus’s silence, he paid less attention to the Jesus movement than we would expect, whatever its numbers were. Of course, either Luke or the Jerusalem church’s elders would also have reason to inflate the Nazarenes’ statistics as much as the other groups had reason to inflate theirs (and perhaps more so because their strength lay particularly in their populist support).

Historically, Luke’s view of the Jerusalem church is probably fairly accurate, even if there could be hyperbole in the “myriads.” Certainly, praise of the Jerusalem church (mixed with suspicion of Paul) is not a later Greek construct! Luke is clearly partial to Paul; but James, whom he would have met at least on this occasion (Acts 21:18), obviously made a favorable impression on him, and he seems to trust James’s motives even while writing in retrospect. Given the likelihood that Luke was one of Paul’s traveling companions, Luke’s positive view toward the leaders of the Jerusalem church is telling; whereas tensions existed (as Luke himself recognizes, esp. in 21:21), the old Tübingen school approach is excessive.

Following Jesus’s teaching, the Jerusalem Jesus movement members may have believed that the temple would eventually be destroyed, but they likely continued to worship there.[73] The early Christian movement rarely weakened Jewish believers’ practice of their faith; more often it brought interested Gentiles into a closer commitment to Jewish Scripture, ethics, and faith.[74] By the mid-second century C.E., however, the predominantly Gentile churches in the Diaspora defined their identity by themselves, forgetting their Jewish heritage. (Thus Justin affirms that Jewish people can be saved and practice the law so long as they do not compel Gentiles to obey it; but he notes that not all Christians agree [Dial. 47].)

III. ZEAL FOR THE LAW

James and the elders view the Jerusalem believers’ zeal for the law positively, and probably expect Paul to view it the same way. It poses a problem in the current situation only when conjoined with the slander that Paul is teaching Jewish people to abandon the law (Acts 21:21). Within the narrative world, Paul himself respects the law (e.g., 18:18), is sensitive to others’ respect for the law (16:3), is ready to identify with those zealous for the law (22:3), and has good experiences with other law-keeping Jewish Christians (22:12).

In Luke’s larger picture, this “zeal” for the law (unlike the law itself) appears somewhat more ambivalent, like one of the positive Stoic adiaphora. Good in itself, it can be distorted to harmful ends, as it is here. Obedience to the law is positive: Jesus obeyed the law (e.g., Luke 5:14), as did his parents (2:22–24, 39), John’s parents (1:6), and Jesus’s earliest followers (23:56); he upheld it also in his teaching (10:26; 16:17; 24:44). More ambivalently, these “believers” should remember that they have a freedom that the law by itself could not give (Acts 13:39; cf. 15:10);[75] further, some of those “who had believed” had proved too strict regarding the law in 15:5 (though they were overruled by the consensus in 15:20–29). Negatively, Paul’s own experience explicitly demonstrated how zeal for the law, unless coupled with understanding of the gospel, could effect harm (22:3–4).[76] Since these were “believers” zealous for the law, the picture is mainly positive until coupled with misinformation in 21:21; but its coupling with misinformation foreshadows the dangers of others’ zeal without saving faith, expressed in nationalist zeal (21:28; 22:22).

If Luke writes for a politically informed audience after 70 C.E., he may assume his ideal audience’s knowledge of how Jewish “zeal” helped precipitate the revolt against Rome (so that some of the revolutionaries even bore the title “Zealots”;[77] see comment on Acts 22:3; also excursus at Acts 1:13).[78] This sets the tone for Luke’s final speech appealing to Jerusalem, to be rejected as Jesus’s appeal was (Luke 19:41–44) and followed soon after by the tragic demise of the holy city (21:20–24). The impending zealous aggression against Paul (Acts 21:30–31), requiring Roman intervention (21:31–32), foreshadows, in a small way, the coming war and implies that the Pauline Christian movement would not have participated in the revolt.[79]

There were different views of Gentiles in early Judaism, and not all were negative.[80] But some of these views were more extreme. In contrast to post-70 views in Josephus and the rabbis, at least some of the sectarian, wilderness Essenes apparently felt that Gentiles defiled the temple, committing idolatry in their hearts even when they professed to honor Israel’s God (4QMMT).[81]

Extrabiblical sources confirm that law-keeping Jerusalemites respected James and his movement as pious by standards of the law (Jos. Ant. 20.197–201); this behavior helps explain the latter’s numerical success suggested (even if hyperbolically) in Acts 21:20. The church appears no longer persecuted;[82] in the current climate, the cultural dividing line was not messianic views but fidelity to Israel. Judean believers thus were united with other Judeans against a common enemy, wicked Gentile oppression. The problem for Luke was not the law but, instead, zeal for the law transgressing unity between Jewish and Gentile believers (cf. 21:25, 28); in a current of rising nationalism, the temptation (especially for a minority movement numerically significant enough to cultivate local acceptance) would be to disown Gentiles unacceptable to their people.[83] Paul himself embraces cultural identification (21:26; 22:3–5, 12, 14) except where it would impinge on the same freedom for the gospel in other cultures (22:21–22).[84]

d. Rumors of Apostasy (21:21)

Whereas the Jerusalem leaders will not dishonor their promise of freedom to the Gentiles (21:25), the concern here is the rumor that Paul is violating the spirit of the Jerusalem decree. The spirit of this decree was that Gentiles were free to live as righteous Gentiles precisely because Jews would not be encouraged to abandon the law (15:21). If Paul was telling Jews to abandon the law, he was breaking the agreement.[85]

The leaders presumably understand the nuances of Paul’s position, but they would know that nuances are lost in popular discourse and partisan disputes;[86] they needed to prevent younger believers from stumbling (to use Paul’s language) and the church’s indigenous witness from being compromised—concerns that the historical Paul would undoubtedly have accommodated so long as it did not compromise Gentile believers’ equivalent freedom (1 Cor 9:20–21; Gal 2:7–9). Indeed, ethnicity studies suggest that if Paul defined his primary identity as in Christ, he could adapt some elements of his identity to relate to Gentiles while, under normal circumstances, maintaining his Jewish identity.[87]

I. THE PRACTICE OF SLANDER

It was customary to use invective to shame enemies,[88] and this practice often misrepresented them.[89] Rhetoricians could invent false reports if these suited their purpose.[90] By contrast, those who were accused would often counter with the charge that their enemies were malicious slanderers.[91] Storytellers warned of those who invented false reports to have their political enemies killed (e.g., Philost. Hrk. 31.5–6; 33.24), including for the charge of being a traitor (33.31). Sometimes entire philosophic sects felt that they were the object of slander (Epicurus in Diog. Laert. 10.131–32), and sometimes they believed that slanders led to their persecution (Iambl. V.P. 35.258–61).

Slander was common.[92] But both Jews[93] and Gentiles[94] regarded it negatively, and it occasionally appears in vice lists, both Jewish[95] and Gentile.[96] Sages opined that the virtuous would not commit slander;[97] Jewish people knew that the wicked spoke against the righteous.[98] Likewise, both Jewish[99] and Gentile[100] moralists despised gossip (which usually overlaps with slander). Indeed, libel and slander could be prosecuted if proven.[101] Recognizing that Paul is the object of slander here, Luke’s audience would view the accusations negatively.

II. SLANDERING PAUL

Paul made an easy target for slander. Paul was the outsider to the Jerusalem church who came to report on the Gentile mission (Acts 15:4, 12) whereas the church’s trusted leader James was able to present what then appeared to be a mediating position (15:13–21). Paul’s falling out with Barnabas (15:37–39), about whom the Jerusalem church retained positive memories (4:36–37), would not have gained him favor; his ministry alongside a more recent Jerusalem representative, Silas (15:32, 40), may have helped, but Silas, too, had probably long been gone from Jerusalem (at least as late as any of our sources indicate) and, presumably, was now also associated in their minds with Paul’s Gentile mission. When Caesar was away from Rome with his army, his enemies could seek to undermine him politically (albeit not militarily); Paul’s distance from Jerusalem had allowed opportunity for his enemies to misrepresent him.

Paul had once been an enemy of the church, undoubtedly generating ill opinion; although this opinion was reversed at his conversion (Gal 1:22–24), reports of his ministry among the Gentiles may have seemed like rebelling too far against his former law observance. This reputation would cut against both the Jerusalem believers’ own practice and that of their Jerusalem critics, the only critics who would matter in their day-to-day life (cf. Gal 5:11; 6:12).[102] Some of Paul’s opponents in Galatia had undoubtedly sent word back to their allies in Jerusalem about Paul’s polemic in Galatians.[103] Second-generation believers, by now no doubt a significant proportion of the church, also inherited formed traditions of what the Jesus movement and apostleship looked like, and the models they knew differed starkly from Paul.

In his own letters, Paul is aware of his unsavory reputation in Jerusalem, both with unbelievers and with fellow believers (Rom 15:31). The political climate in Jerusalem had shifted in a decidedly conservative direction, and the grounds for the church’s witness within its culture had naturally shifted with it (Acts 21:20). Historically, we know that Paul was the object of much slander (2 Cor 6:8), particularly concerning his approach to the law and righteousness (Rom 3:8). Although he can take the philosophic approach of not concerning himself with such opinions,[104] he does list them among his sufferings (cf. 2 Cor 6:8).

Readers of Acts understand that the charges are false; Paul circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3)[105] and kept vows (18:18). Ironically, he will be charged with opposing the law (21:28) precisely as he is in the process of fulfilling it (21:26). This irony prepares the reader to recognize that the charges at Paul’s trial (24:5–6) are false (24:13–21; 25:8).[106] Along with suspicion that Paul is a revolutionary (21:38; cf. 5:36–37), the misconception that he spreads apostasy in the Diaspora invites two themes in the later defense speeches: Paul as a faithful Pharisee and Paul as an innocent Roman citizen.[107]

Historically, the charges are in fact false (cf. Rom 3:19–21, 31; 7:12–16); as Johnson notes, Paul’s concern was Gentiles’ cultural freedom, and Paul’s letters never “advocated Jewish believers forsaking circumcision or their customs.”[108] Luke has reason to address the issue, however, because (at least in Paul’s day [Rom 3:8] and in later centuries) it was a live one.[109] Some early gnostics and some later Jewish Christians (e.g., in the Pseudo-Clementine literature) thought Paul virulently against the law.[110]

These readings of Paul reflect the ambiguities of some of his more polemical passages, isolated from their larger context in his theology (e.g., Gal 3:24–25; 4:3–5; 5:2–3).[111] It would also be easy to take out of context Paul’s rejection of mandatory circumcision for Gentiles (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:2–3, 6, 11; 6:15), as if he were insisting that Jews reject circumcision (though he in fact opposes making uncircumcision a standard as well [1 Cor 7:18–19; Gal 5:6; 6:15]). Within Acts’ narrative world, the accusation appears also plausible: by sometimes withdrawing Jewish believers from the cultural support system of Diaspora synagogues (Acts 18:6–8; most relevantly for 21:27–28, see 19:9), he created a new environment that might be seen as facilitating Jewish abandonment of circumcision.[112]

III. APOSTASY?

If it was thought that Paul encouraged Jewish people to abandon the law, some would view him as “a madiah, someone who leads Israelites into apostasy”—in principle, a capital crime (Deut 13:13; m. Sanh. 7:4).[113] (Though tolerant on most theological issues, even Pharisaism treated harshly apostasy from obedience to the law.[114] Paul may have been able to continue to speak in synagogues [see comment on Acts 13:5] precisely because he remained more obviously “orthodox” in personal praxis than in his theological or missiological perspectives.)[115] Literally, Paul is accused of teaching “apostasy from” (ἀποστασίαν . . . ἀπό) Moses, language appropriate to rebellion against (or defection from) the Lord (LXX Josh 22:22; 2 Chr 29:19; Jer 2:19; 1 Macc 2:15) or against (or from) a person (e.g., defection from Nero in Plut. Galba 1 [BDAG]).[116]

Some Jews had turned from Judaism over the centuries, inviting their people’s disdain (3 Macc 1:3; Jos. Ant. 18.141; 20.100); many had resisted persecution meant to force them to turn from Judaism (as exemplified, e.g., in food laws, 4 Macc 4:26), but some defectors were portrayed as outright hateful to their ancestral people and faith (Jos. War 7.47, 50–53). A genuine apostate left the ancestral faith (Ant. 20.100). Philo expresses disdain for those who reject their ancestral customs.[117]

Most cultures treated their ancestral customs as sacred (Cic. Resp. 5.1.2; see comment on Acts 6:14), and Luke and Paul themselves would affirm as sacred at least the Jewish traditions that were biblical (see Acts 7, e.g., 7:8a, 51; Rom 7:12, 16). (The phrase “walk according to the [ancestral] customs” [τοῖς ἔθεσιν περιπατεῖν] reflects a familiar Jewish expression,[118] also reflected in the Jewish notion of “halakah,” “walking” in God’s commandments.)[119]

The question of Paul’s “apostasy” would of course be defined differently by Paul, on the one hand, and his opponents, on the other. John Barclay offers some guidance in matters of definition here. He defines “assimilation” as integrating into society and abandoning minority customs;[120] “acculturation” as educational and other acquisitions of “the linguistic and literary heritage of the majority culture”;[121] and “accommodation” as how Jews “used the acculturation,” expressing their faith with the ideals of Hellenism or using Greek literary forms to reject Hellenism.[122] He then samples four “types” of Diaspora Jews that express such characteristics differently:[123] (1) the author of 4 Maccabees was highly acculturated but low in accommodation;[124] (2) Philo was extremely highly acculturated but not highly assimilated (he rejected allegorizers of customs);[125] (3) those who allegorized even Jewish customs, mentioned by Philo, were both highly acculturated and highly assimilated;[126] and (4) the author of Joseph and Aseneth displays a “not particularly high” acculturation and a very low accommodation.[127]

Having carefully established categories, Barclay explores where in each of these to place Paul.[128] He regards Paul as highly assimilated.[129] Even Antiochene Jewish Christians repudiated Paul’s policy of eating with Gentiles (Gal 2:13);[130] he regards nothing as unclean (Rom 14:14); he proves liberal on idol food (1 Cor 8–10); and he has social intercourse with Gentiles (9:19–21), including friends such as Titus. I believe that some of these points are overstated, since Paul’s allowances are for Gentiles and the mission to them,[131] and I am less convinced that 1 Cor 8–10 permits idol food in practice (see discussion at Acts 15:20).

Second, Barclay argues, Paul was not highly acculturated.[132] He was not rhetorically proficient (2 Cor 11:6), and he does not seem very knowledgeable in “Greek literature or philosophy.”[133] Again, the matter of definitions arises; by the standards of the elite, whose literature is mostly preserved, Barclay’s comparison is valid, yet it has its limits.[134] On this point, though, Barclay is certainly more correct than not; Paul’s “canon” is Scripture, not Homer or Plato.

Finally, Barclay argues, Paul was not very accommodated.[135] Despite association with Gentiles, he still envisions the world as divided between Jews and Gentiles/Greeks[136] and views the Gentile world as sinful (Rom 1:18–32). He retains a Jewish conceptual map and language; he nowhere tries “to translate the traditional biblical language of covenant and election into the idiom of Graeco-Roman culture.”[137] Whereas other highly accommodated Jews undercut elements of “Jewish cultural distinctiveness,” as Paul did, they did so to fit into the culture whereas Paul’s approach and motivation differ.[138] Paul’s views on sexuality, idolatry, and the authority of Scripture are mainstream ancient Jewish views.

Having endeavored to position Paul within the range of options in Diaspora Judaism, Barclay now addresses the question of his apostasy. Apostasy, he observes, is not language of “social and cultural analysis” but (emphasis his) “a blatantly judgmental term employed by ‘insiders’ in excluding others.”[139] Deviance is defined not by one’s self-perception but “by the societal reaction which an individual evokes.”[140] The issue in such cases is not acculturation but assimilation;[141] Philo was highly acculturated but remained concerned about those who were assimilated and so abandoned ancestral customs. In my view, Paul would not have viewed himself as abandoning the customs; he allowed setting aside such customs (albeit not the moral heart of the law) for Gentile converts and perhaps for himself for strategic missiological purposes (cf. Acts 16:34) but did not personally reject law practice (1 Cor 9:20–21).

Barclay notes, however, that external perceptions are what count socially and contends that Jewish communities where Paul worked did consider him apostate.[142] Paul faced dangers among his own people (2 Cor 11:26);[143] yet the same passage mentions dangers among Gentiles as well. He faced thirty-nine lashes on multiple occasions (11:24);[144] in my view, Paul’s continuing to return to synagogues for such abuse shows that he considered himself Jewish,[145] and many synagogue leaders, though viewing him as worthy of discipline, need not have all viewed him as apostate thereby—they did not expel him (contrast Ezra 10:8; 1QS VI–VII; m. ʿEd. 5:6; Mid. 2:2). Perhaps most decisive is that Paul was “persecuted” for his view on circumcision (Gal 5:11).[146] Barclay concludes that Paul’s contemporaries called him “apostate” and hence the label remains useful historically “so long as one recognizes that the label is a label, applied as a form of repudiation, not a neutral description of Paul’s stance.”[147]

Probably, therefore, some of Paul’s contemporaries viewed him as an apostate; in the Diaspora, some others viewed him as compromising Judaism.[148] But this would have been only a view of some Jews about some others, given the many competing Jewish groups of the day;[149] indeed, Paul created a different community that would offer competing definitions of apostasy. Although many of Paul’s contemporaries viewed him as compromising Judaism, Paul and his partisans would have rejected this categorization,[150] maintaining his piety and simply a different interpretation of the law. Paul rejected neither his people (Rom 9:1–6; 10:1; 11:1–5, 25–32) nor the law (3:27, 31; 7:12, 22; 8:2; 9:4, 31; 1 Cor 9:9, 21), though he may have treated specific commandments such as food laws and holy days as adiaphora, at least for Gentiles (Rom 14). His own missionary accommodation undoubtedly went further than many in Jerusalem would countenance (cf. 1 Cor 9:20–21), but Luke seems to portray him as personally law observant (Acts 16:3; 18:18).[151] Most scholars today recognize Paul’s Jewish self-identity;[152] many would also argue that Paul fell within the range of diversity encountered in first-century Judaism, especially in the Diaspora.[153]

IV. REASONS FOR THEIR MALICE

Even if Jewish believers had viewed Paul positively, such charges against him would make him an “embarrassment,” raising “suspicions about their own loyalty to the Law and the Temple.”[154] In their environment, despite the conclusions of the leaders in 15:22–29,[155] open approval of even Gentile “converts” forgoing circumcision could arouse hostility against their movement. Paul’s own letters note that such external pressure affected some Judean missionaries (Gal 5:11; 6:12) and that some Judeans hostile to the Jesus movement opposed its taking its gospel to the Gentiles (1 Thess 2:16).

In an increasingly partisan environment where conservative rhetoric prevails, those who appear “soft” toward outsiders can appear as traitors themselves (e.g., Polyb. 1.80.3–10; see comment on Acts 15:5); the law of nature demanded loyalty to kin and country.[156] When some hearers wished to restrain a Greek rabble-rouser’s anti-Roman rhetoric (Polyb. 38.13.1), he responded that they were pro-Roman traitors, a worse danger than the Romans themselves (38.13.3); friends of the Roman ambassadors were thus easily accused of complicity with the enemy (38.13.4–5). Even for those who tolerated Paul’s mission, it seemed a potential liability for their own, and Paul knew it. For Luke’s probably post-70 C.E. audience, however, Paul’s bridging of ethnic barriers might appear, in retrospect, the very model that could have saved Jerusalem.

Although Luke respects the Jerusalem believers’ fidelity to the law (see comment on Acts 21:20, above), his report of their misunderstanding here in 21:21 does not commend them.[157] The charges here resemble those of Stephen’s accusers in 6:11–14 (cf. against Paul in 18:13) and, more ominously, charges to be repeated by Paul’s enemies several verses hence. Although there is no thought that these believers in Jesus, though misinformed regarding Paul’s mission, are a threat to his safety, their description foreshadows the slander of his Asian Jewish opponents that he preaches everywhere against the law (21:28), an accusation that summons (“Men of Israel,” 21:28) and arouses (21:30) local nationalist sentiment.

Theologically, Luke affirms the importance of leaders being of good reputation (see 6:3, and comment there; cf. 1 Tim 3:7) and hence the importance of Paul trying to counter the rumor (Acts 21:26). At the same time, he leads readers to expect ill-speaking as well (e.g., Luke 6:22–23, 26; 23:2). Historically, Paul was well aware of his ill repute in some circles (2 Cor 6:8), and he was even slandered as supporting antinomian, sinful behavior (Rom 3:8).[158] Historically, Paul shared the concern of many moralists[159] for guarding against being falsely accused (Rom 12:17; 14:16; 2 Cor 8:21; 1 Thess 5:22; cf. 1 Tim 3:2, 7).

On a narrative level, Paul’s poor reputation in his homeland (as he counted Judea in Acts 22:3) confirms Jesus’s words earlier in Luke-Acts, that prophets are not accepted in their own homeland (Luke 4:24; cf. John 4:44; Acts 7:52). This was a widely accepted principle; thus Jewish tradition long emphasized that Israel had rejected and persecuted its prophets, amplifying the biblical foundation for this principle (Jer 26:11, 23; 1 Kgs 18:4; 19:10; 2 Chr 36:15–16; Neh 9:26).[160] Likewise, Dio Chrysostom, after making his case from examples of philosophers and legendary heroes abused by their hometowns (Or. 47.2–5), summarizes that all philosophers believed life difficult in their homelands (47.6).

e. Strategy for Proving Piety (21:22–24)

Given the Jerusalem believers’ law piety (Acts 21:20), Paul’s desire to show the Gentile churches’ unity with Jerusalem, and the many rumors that Paul undermined law observance (21:21), it made sense to propose a strategy to demonstrate that Paul was, in fact, faithful to the law. The local leaders had prepared a strategy to help Paul’s gesture of reconciliation achieve its optimum effect, overcoming the prejudice against him and his mission.

I. NOTING THE NEED FOR A PLAN (21:22)

Word about matters could spread quickly in Jerusalem (Luke 24:18), as in other areas (see comment on Acts 19:10); Paul’s presence could not be kept a secret even if that feat were attempted. (That his presence was not already widely known, however, reminds us that, despite Luke’s focus, Paul was hardly the primary issue on Jerusalemites’ minds.)[161]

In view of the situation outlined in Acts 21:20–21,[162] the elders offer a rhetorical question, “What then is to be done?” (21:22). Against those who read the question as implying the leaders’ suspicion of Paul or that he is asked to compensate for the complication he has caused them,[163] “What then?” is a regular way of simply preparing the reader for an answer or explanation.[164] It could also be used to challenge an imaginary interlocutor in a diatribe, for example, in a series of rhetorical questions,[165] but this discussion is not a diatribe.[166] Even if we left the figure of speech aside, a rhetorician might appear to consult with his hearers in a short rhetorical question.[167] As Witherington notes, the question naturally follows the narratio (which describes the situation) and invites the deliberative advice that follows.[168]

II. THE REASON FOR A PLAN (21:22–24)

The solution that James and the elders propose (21:23–24) is, like that in 15:13–21, moderate[169] and a way of accommodating the local situation.[170] Everyone acknowledged the importance of keeping peace in a city or a movement (see comment on Acts 15:25). In the six or eight years before Paul’s arrival, revolutionary activity, including assassinations in the temple (see comment on Acts 21:38), had been on the rise. Nationalist sentiment, perhaps drawing on the zeal of the older Maccabean tradition, proved increasingly hostile to accommodation of foreigners. Gaius Caligula’s threat to the temple had provoked resistance, and his death and Agrippa I’s brief reign had solidified nationalist commitment (see discussion at Acts 12:1). A succession of corrupt and inefficient administrators had stirred the national tide further.[171]

The local leaders rightly gauged the hostile situation even if their well-intentioned measures to defuse it proved insufficient.[172] The question in the church seems to be not Gentile converts’ eternal destiny (Acts 15:1, 11; cf. Gal 2:9) but the conditions for table fellowship with them (Acts 15:20, 29; Gal 2:12). Paul’s prophetic vision of reconciliation with Gentiles in Israel’s Messiah was the long-term goal for the future, and such a vision might have averted the tragedy of the coming war. But from a pragmatic, pastoral perspective in Jerusalem several years before the war, such a message would not have appeared realistic—not likely to be embraced even by the church, not conducive to the church’s growth, and indeed inimical to the church’s witness within a polarized society.

The future necessarily lay with Paul’s initially smaller movement,[173] as Luke and his audience are now aware; but the leaders of the Jerusalem church could not have known this, and from a practical standpoint, they probably could not have changed much of the situation if they had. In fact, given the local slanders that Paul was anti-Jewish, his message of his vision for embracing Gentile converts could gain a hearing more widely only once Paul had demonstrated his fidelity to Judaism and thus shown that embracing Gentile converts was not incompatible with the Jerusalem believers’ zeal for the law.

III. A TRAP?

Some scholars think that James and the elders helped lure Paul into, or at least did not warn him against, a trap. The timing of the Nazirites’ vow was not, they argue, coincidental.[174] But why could the timing not have been coincidental? Given the poverty, piety, and population of the Jerusalem church (even accounting for hyperbole in Acts 21:20), would Nazirites seeking sponsors have been a rare occasion?[175] Perhaps the Nazirites had also timed their vows so that they would be ready for Pentecost.

Further, we lack a plausible motive for this charge. Why would these leaders consent to trap Paul (even if Luke purely invented the conciliatory decree in Acts 15, which Gal 2:7–10 suggests he did not)?[176] If they thought him suspect, surely his cooperation in demonstrating his law observance would begin to allay their suspicions. Sponsoring a situation (in Luke’s view, in cooperation with Asian Jews who rejected their movement, Acts 21:27!) that led to a public outcry would only further raise public attention to the claims of a Christian’s alleged antinomianism without clearing them from public suspicion of involvement with him (especially if he retaliated by implicating them).

Some scholars complain that James and the elders abandon Paul after his arrest, but (as noted in the introduction, above, to Acts 21:17–26) this complaint “concludes far too much from Luke’s silence. James and his colleagues had no influence with either the chief priests or the Romans,”[177] whatever their influence among the masses.

Treachery and betrayal were considered among the most despicable of evils[178] and deserving of death (e.g., Val. Max. 9.6); to betray a guest or host with whom one (or one’s colleagues) had shared table fellowship was a heinous offense.[179] Dissemblers who feign friendship to others while treating them as an enemy behind their back were appropriate objects of reproach (Theophr. Char. 1.2).[180] Would James, whose piety is reported even in Josephus, have felt comfortable with such an offense? They had even greeted Paul as “brother” (Acts 21:20; see comment on Acts 9:17). It was considered appropriate to trust friends with one’s life, rejecting false accusations about them (Val. Max. 3.8.ext. 5–6);[181] Paul does so here, and Luke offers no indication that he was betrayed.

Far from James and the elders being party to a plot to have Paul killed (Luke knew quite well how to express such dangers, Acts 23:12–13), James suggested a compromise the result of which he could not have foreseen.[182] (Ancient lawyers and statesmen exploited a point often forgotten during political crises—namely, that leaders could not be responsible for genuinely unforeseen consequences.)[183] Had the plan succeeded, it would have defused, rather than escalated, tension, but the elders had not counted on the hostility of some Asian Jews from Paul’s “past.”

Paul, after all, was the “rash” one who came despite numerous warnings (20:23; 21:4, 11) and had been rescued from responses to his own preaching by local leaders before (9:29–30; cf. 17:10, 14; 19:30–31). (The Jerusalem church leaders were less prone than Paul and his model Stephen to provocative preaching, but 21:20 shows that they had not done badly in evangelism.) Had he not been sighted in the temple in connection with the four Nazirites, might he not have been sighted by enemies as easily somewhere else in Jerusalem (cf. 9:29) or after prayer in the temple itself (cf. 22:17)?

Luke’s point is not to “subtly” condemn James; his point is that Paul’s arrest occurred not because of the church’s carelessness but in spite of its every possible precaution. It stemmed purely from the hostility of Asian (mostly Ephesian) Jews who exploited the local situation to attack one whose message they had rejected—and from the plan of God. In fact, given James’s own execution by a high priest soon after Paul’s transition from a lengthy custody in Judea (Jos. Ant. 20.200), some later detractors of Paul (perhaps obliquely answered by Luke) might have accused Paul of a foolhardy trip to Jerusalem that disturbed the local believers’ fragile relationship with the municipal aristocracy.[184] Luke’s emphasis that the gambit was the Jerusalem leaders’ own idea could help protect Paul against charges of lethal insensitivity to the local situation.

IV. SPONSORING FOUR UNDER A VOW (21:23–24)

Within the framework of Luke-Acts, the Nazirite vow cannot be a negative portrayal of law keeping; it connects Paul and his new comrades with John (Luke 1:15)[185] as well as with Paul’s own earlier vow in Acts 18:18.[186] A pious act, it contrasts with the religiously motivated yet impious oath of Paul’s enemies in 23:12.

That Paul can be assumed to have sufficient funds to pay for the Nazirites in 21:24 (or for a bribe in 24:26) is curious,[187] and Luke never clarifies the source of his funds. Perhaps it comes from his own savings (20:33–35); perhaps (more likely) the elders expect him to use a small part of the conciliatory collection[188] (which Luke himself barely mentions, 24:17) on what they consider a conciliatory and particularly concrete expression of unity. Sponsoring Nazirites was considered an act of piety, an activity also attributed to Agrippa I (Jos. Ant. 19.293–94, esp. 294).[189]

In addition to whatever the Nazirites vowed (for which they would, presumably, be responsible), their offerings included lambs and rams (Num 6:14, 17; m. Naz. 8–11), which, though cheaper than bulls, were not the offerings most easily obtained by the poor (cf. Luke 2:24; Lev 5:7, 11; 12:8).[190] Apparently, some of the funds that Paul brought were for the express purpose of offerings (Acts 24:17; the term προσφορά, used there, appears elsewhere in Luke-Acts only at 21:26, where Paul makes the offering).

Could Paul have been completing his own earlier vow (18:18) as well? Historically, the short temporal notice would have made this difficult,[191] at least if Paul was following the strict prescriptions preserved for us in later Jewish texts. Moreover, perhaps two years had passed since 18:18 (see 19:8–10), and he may have completed this vow in Jerusalem earlier (cf. 18:22 and comment there).

More likely, this is a new vow; Scripture did not specify the duration of a Nazirite vow (only that a Nazirite defiled by a corpse made offerings on the seventh day and then started the Nazirite vow over again, Num 6:9–12).[192] Scholars, however, point to Mishnaic rules, which assume thirty days as a conventional duration for such vows (e.g., m.Naz. 3:1–5). Thirty days is specified if no “fixed duration” is vowed (1:3); but many were longer than thirty days (1:4–7), and this seems to be the minimum acceptable (2:10). Further, if Paul had started a Nazirite vow elsewhere (Acts 18:18), then come to the holy land, first-century Pharisees would have required him to fulfill thirty more days (Shammaites) or the entire period of his vow (Hillelites).[193]

One could argue that the Mishnaic practice may be later or specific to one stream (or a few streams) of early Judaism.[194] But Josephus reveals that thirty days of preparation was the standard practice for all pious people in his day (War 2.313).[195] One could also argue that early Christians may have felt comfortable following biblical rules (or their own interpretation of biblical rules) only. Thus Paul and the others were purified “the next day” (Acts 21:26) and nearly completed the seven-day period (21:27; 24:1, 11). But the days might refer only to the purification period, since the men were already under a vow when Paul learned of them (21:23). Moreover, the Jerusalem church identifies with its culture strongly and would probably not select a less stringent expression of law keeping than other Jerusalemites.

One could argue that their seven days (21:27) were already well under way when Paul joined them (though cf. 24:1, 11)[196] and that their “shaving” is reserved for the completion of the period (Num 6:18–19). In this case the purificatory rite would simply be that required of anyone in the temple (whether Paul or the Nazirites), not specifically connected to a stage in their vow. Paul would not then need to be understood as undertaking a vow here, but only as being purified alongside those who had taken one (see comment below).

One could also argue that Paul, like the Nazirites, had been rendered impure by contact with a corpse and hence had to undergo seven days of purification (Num 6:9–12; 19:11–12)[197] and begin the vow again afterward; but this is implausible because only his companions (for whom the defilement hypothesis is much more plausible) need to shave their heads (Acts 21:24; Num 6:9).[198]

Given the apparent problems with a Nazirite vow, some prefer as an explanation here purification from the uncleanness of foreign lands;[199] this process would take seven days, and at the end of the period, Paul could pay for their sacrifices.[200] Some believe that he could also conclude his own vow,[201] though not, of course, according to strict Pharisaic standards.

Against this view, some object that the evidence that travel to a foreign land defiled Jewish people is insufficient;[202] although there is evidence for this perspective (see comment on Acts 13:51), it probably reflects an especially strict pietist view rather than a universally held practice.[203] Such an Israel-centered perspective might well fit the period that Luke depicts (on the land, see also comment on Acts 7). But also problematic for this view is Luke’s claim that Paul purified himself “with them” (Acts 21:24, 26): had they also traveled abroad? (The elders’ claim that “we have four men” suggests that they were from the Jerusalem church.) The coincidence of four men completing a vow near Pentecost is not, as suggested above, difficult to believe, but the coincidence of all four also having traveled abroad and now returning is more difficult. They could, of course, be purified for different reasons than Paul, and so this objection is not insurmountable.[204]

In the final analysis, all that Luke clearly says, and perhaps all that he means, is that Paul joined in purification and paid their expenses; this need not involve him in their vow.[205] Paul could thus accompany the four in their ritual, even though the haste to prove him to the church might not have allowed him sufficient time to use this opportunity to conclude his own vow.[206] But Paul might have completed his vow historically in 18:22 (if it implies a Jerusalem trip that Luke does not mention), and on the level of Luke’s narrative, much of his Diaspora audience might be unaware of (or disagree with) the need to complete the vow in Jerusalem. It is thus possible that 18:18 may be omitted from consideration of Paul’s purification here except insofar as it informs the reader that Paul’s cooperation here did not compromise his own convictions but suited his own piety.

Others object that on the view that Paul was not concluding a vow, it is difficult to explain Paul’s participation in the purification ritual (21:24, 26).[207] But he might need to be purified in some form, in any case, to be active with them in the temple (cf. John 11:55), even if he was not sharing a Nazirite purification. Purification was probably normal before activity in the temple.[208] Some might arrive even a week early for purification if they had corpse contamination (cf. Num 19:11–12).[209] (Touching dead Eutychus [Acts 20:10] might not count, at least for believers, given the youth’s resuscitation thereby.)

Even recent pagan converts in Luke’s audience would recognize that many temples required purification ablutions before entrance.[210] Finally, some sects had distinctive purification rituals; the Essenes sent sacrifices to the temple, but they used different forms of purification (ἁγνειῶν) than others and hence had to go to a different part of the temple than everyone else (Jos. Ant. 18.19).[211] If Jewish followers of Jesus had distinctive rituals, they might still be able to practice them in the ecumenical environment of Jerusalem’s temple.

In any case, on the level of Luke’s narrative, “purification” for the law recalls the piety of Jesus’s parents (Luke 2:22), although Luke’s greater interest lies in spiritual purification (Acts 10:15; 11:9; 15:9), purity (Luke 11:39–41; Acts 18:6; 20:26), and consecration (20:32; 26:18). Participation in temple purification also demonstrates Paul’s solidarity with the temple, even if only at a symbolic level (i.e., whether or not it literally completes his own vow). When James says, “you walk [or “live”] uprightly” (στοιχεῖς), he may be responding, in different words, to the concern that Paul has been teaching Diaspora Jews not to “walk” according to the customs (Acts 21:21).[212]

V. JAMES’S OWN FATE

Against scholars who think that James and his colleagues sent Paul into a trap, these leaders themselves held a precarious position vis-à-vis their enemies, although insecure for reasons other than those affecting Paul. Apparently, James and the Judean Jesus movement were well liked by many of the people (cf. Acts 2:47; Jos. Ant. 20.201), but they also had to remain sensitive, since they had some high-placed enemies who could make their situation tenuous (cf. Jos. Ant. 20.200).[213]

According to later tradition, James himself followed Nazirite piety.[214] James was probably martyred close to 62 C.E.,[215] hence perhaps shortly after Paul was sent to Rome; this datum suggests that James and his colleagues leading the Jerusalem church had significant political concerns that Paul, who did not live in Jerusalem, did not have to contend with in the same way. The high priest Ananus made use of the interregnum after Festus’s death[216] to eliminate some of his enemies, including James; those most devout in the law (probably leading Pharisees) denounced Ananus’s action, leading to his reproof by the new Roman governor and deposition by Agrippa II.[217] Given the outcry over his death, James had apparently become a well-loved figure among the pious in Jerusalem, probably partly as the leading representative of a pious movement engaging in charitable projects throughout the city. Some scholars take Josephus’s report as emphasizing the rivalry between competing Jewish groups just before Jerusalem’s fall.[218]

Although Josephus mentions James’s death by stoning (Ant. 20.200), Christian tradition adds (probably fictitiously) that he was thrown from the temple before being stoned.[219] Since James was said to survive the fall, tradition would not assume his bones shattered beyond recovery; tradition thus also reports his burial.[220]

In recent history, initial enthusiasm at the discovery of an ossuary thought to be that of James was afterward tempered by an Israeli investigation team’s conclusion that the inscription was a forgery, a conclusion that has been widely (but, for some continuing reasons, not universally) accepted. At the time of this commentary’s writing, the James ossuary has had many notable defenders[221] and detractors.[222] James would have been well enough known not to need to be identified with his brother’s name,[223] but as a Nazarene, he might have wished to be identified by his brother’s name in death; identification by a brother’s name (if original) is unusual. A major problem with affirming the ossuary inscription’s authenticity is the patina; although this can be plausibly explained as the result of damage by modern cleaning agents,[224] it means that modern tampering has probably removed the possibility of fully proving the inscription’s authenticity.[225] Even if it is authentic, it is not absolutely certain that the ossuary belonged to the same James (though, if it is authentic, a case can be made for it, given the rareness of specifying a brother).[226] It cannot currently be counted, in other words, as certain evidence. Even if it could, however, it would not add anything new to our knowledge of James not already available in Josephus and first-century Christian sources (unless it had specified something disputed, such as “friend of Paul”).

f. Allowance for the Gentiles (21:25)

James’s reminder of the apostolic decree of Acts 15:29 is probably a reassurance. Fueled by modern scholars’ suspicion that the decree does not appear explicitly in Paul’s letters, we could read the reminder as implying that Paul was not honoring such requirements. This suspicion, however, presses too much into occasional documents, especially documents the knowledge of which Luke cannot presuppose for his audience. The elder’s words in 21:25, then, are meant positively.

As persons of honor, James and the elders will not go back on their word about the Gentile mission, an agreement offered in more conciliatory times.[227] Their concern is simply that Paul help them to keep unity (on the importance of concord, see comment on Acts 15:25). Their approach may require Paul to accommodate the local situation (an approach the epistolary Paul embraces, 1 Cor 9:20) but does not require anything of his Gentile converts—a key to his cooperation.[228] Just as the Jerusalem Council reached compromise on matters of practice (and not principle) to keep unity, the more conservative situation in Jerusalem now invites Paul to a similar accommodation for unity’s sake. Paul’s driving vision is the Gentile mission; that of James and the elders is the Jerusalem church’s stability.[229] Both agendas, reflecting different callings (cf. Gal 2:8–9), are legitimate, and so the ideal practical solution would be to accommodate both rather than debate the priority of each.

Some scholars view the first person plural in Acts 21:25 as implying the elders’ mistrust in Paul, speaking as if Paul had not participated in the decree (contrasting 16:4).[230] By contrast, this first person plural probably serves a more positive purpose. Assuming (as is likely) that it is an exclusive “we” (i.e., not including Paul but the voice of the Jerusalem church), it reflects the language of Acts 15 (15:20, 22, 24–27); “apostles” in 16:4 probably bears its usual Lukan sense of the Twelve. (“Having judged” [κρίναντες] may reflect James’s own “judgment” at 15:19 as well as what had been decided [τὰ κεκριμένα] by Jerusalem’s apostles and elders according to 16:4.) It is the elders’ way of assuring Paul that they will keep their word.

g. Paul Accommodates Concerns (21:26)

Although Luke does not conceal conflicts in the early church (e.g., 15:39–40), he does portray the leaders as remaining in fellowship and working for reconciliation between culturally distinct segments of early Christianity.[231] (This is not to say, with the old Tübingen school, that Luke simply invents this portrait; Paul’s letters present Paul going out of his way with the collection to achieve the same conciliatory purpose, yet Luke virtually omits the collection.) Although Luke portrays Paul’s uncompromising commitment to his divine mission (21:24; 26:19), he also portrays Paul as accommodating the insights or insistence of his allies (e.g., 19:30–31).

I. WOULD PAUL HAVE ACCOMMODATED CONCERNS?

Just as Peter and James vindicate the Gentile mission (11:17–18; 15:13–21), Paul affirms the right of Jews (including himself) to observe the law.[232] Rhetorically, this was an effective use of characters to advance a point. At the same time, it would have been rhetorically effective for the historical Paul as well: in a court, one would refute a charge by showing it to be out of character with one’s behavior (Rhet. Alex. 7.1428b.34–36); Paul here agrees to do the opposite of the false accusations to allay suspicions—suspicions that Luke did not simply invent (Rom 15:31).

Some scholars deny the historical plausibility of Acts 21:26, arguing that Paul would have regarded it as capitulation to his opponents.[233] This skepticism misreads the epistolary Paul, however.[234] The entire mission that brought the epistolary Paul to Jerusalem on this occasion (cf. Rom 15:25) stemmed from an analogous agreement with James and his colleagues, under what appear to be strained conditions (Gal 2:10). The context of their request for the collection seems to have been their agreement to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles (2:9); Paul viewed the collection as appropriate rather than a reluctant concession (2:10), but the same would be the case with a much smaller and simpler request to identify with his own culture, a request that did not place Gentiles under the law.

Granted, the historical Paul certainly would not compromise the Gentile mission’s freedom simply to avoid opposition in Jerusalem (5:11; 6:12), but nothing of the sort is at stake here. Paul resisted Peter’s accommodation to Jerusalemite claims where it broke fellowship with Gentiles, but the compromise requested here (Acts 21:22–24), by contrast, does not concern Gentiles (21:25). Instead, it concerns the Jerusalem church’s indigenous Jewish witness.[235]

Although many in Jerusalem might not understand the difference, Paul and the elders understand that he is affirming Jewish believers rather than repudiating Gentile believers. The question here is whether law observance is acceptable for Jews, a practice Paul explicitly approves in his letters (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; 6:15).[236] He himself embraces these practices even for ministry accommodation (1 Cor 9:20) and, with a different interpretation than most, from his own personal conviction as well (9:21).[237] (See discussion at Acts 16:3; 18:18.) Paul is countering slanders (Rom 3:8), not circumcising his Gentile coworkers here (cf. Gal 2:3).

Luke even portrays Paul as valuing his ancestral customs (Acts 18:18). This portrayal supports Luke’s emphasis on continuity between the Israel’s heritage and remnant, on the one hand, and the mixed church of his day, on the other.[238] The epistolary Paul views some ancestral practices (even those in Scripture) as morally indifferent for the followers to whom he addresses his letters (1 Cor 7:18–19), but as F. J. A. Hort put it in the nineteenth century, his letters betray no sign “that he took advantage for himself of the kind of liberty which he so passionately claimed for Gentile Christians.”[239]

The idea that defending Gentiles’ freedom from law observance would by necessity strip him of his own ancestral practices in private devotion, much less his continuing cultural identification, contradicts not only Paul’s missionary practice in 1 Cor 9 but also common sense. It underestimates Paul’s own cultural and ethnic identity (cf. Rom 9:1–5). Even today those acculturating or assimilating to host cultures may react against their culture of origin, but usually they eventually are able to become conversant in both cultures.[240] Unless Paul went to Jerusalem to deliberately provoke conflict—quite the opposite of what his letters suggest (Rom 15:25–31)—his journey indicates that he retained love for his people and would at the least tolerate customs that need not be imposed on Gentiles.

II. LUKE’S APPROACH

Although Paul is willing to accommodate the Jerusalem leaders’ request, Luke portrays Paul’s response to them as different from that to his Ephesian benefactors. Whereas, at the insistence of his benefactors, he backed down from addressing the citizens of Ephesus (Acts 19:31), he would preach the truth to an assembly in Jerusalem (22:1–21, esp. 22:21) even if it risked embarrassing his hosts (in addition, of course, to risking getting himself killed).

Although Paul affirms the church’s identification with its Judean culture in most respects, he preaches God’s concern for the Gentiles even at the risk of publicizing an issue that most of the Jerusalem church, accommodating its culture’s growing antipathy toward Gentiles, presumably wished to ignore or, in some cases, repudiate. For Paul, ethnocentrism and division from believers of other cultures violated his gospel, and hence passed the limits of acceptable cultural identification. This remained true even though historically he cannot have been unaware that the Roman administration had provoked much of Jerusalem’s hostility.

That the days were “nearly” over emphasizes for the reader that Paul’s accusers prevented him from completing his pious and law-honoring act. This provides an ironic contrast to their false charge of opposing the law in 21:28. The fulfilling of days may be the remaining (or the requisite biblical) days of the four men’s Nazirite vows (cf. “days” in Num 6:4–13 passim; for their “fulfillment,” 6:5, 13; 1 Macc 3:49).[241] His enemies, of course, may have believed his sacrifice unacceptable or insincere: unacceptable if he was counted ungodly (Prov 15:8; 21:27);[242] perhaps insincere because even sacrifices could be used as a cover for something else.[243] Those entering the temple would probably wear white (see comment on Acts 1:10), though this is only certain for the priests, since not everyone could afford additional clothes.

2. Ephesian Jews Stir Riot against Paul (21:27–30)

Like Stephen before him, Paul is falsely charged with dishonoring the temple. Paul’s friendship with a Gentile ironically lands him in Roman custody, but this Roman arrest also fortuitously delivers him from a Stephen-like lynching.

Luke offers an apologetic for Paul that counters conventional assumptions about a detainee’s guilt (and in the process implicitly offers a more realistic perspective—and hence, in one sense, an oblique critique—of the legal justice available in his milieu). Paul finally finds himself in Roman custody not because he stirred a riot but because, rather, his opponents did (returning charges was standard rhetorical practice among Luke’s contemporaries, a practice on which Luke capitalizes). Roman authorities initially detained Paul by mistake, through false (but conflicting and hence inadmissible) claims against him (Acts 21:34); part of his custody was, in fact, protective, and it was prolonged because of political pressure from influential opponents. Paul was, in fact, the victim of elements of unrest throughout his Jerusalem captivity (including from Judean would-be assassins), never the perpetrator.

That Jewish opposition leads to Paul’s detention by Romans in Jerusalem fits Luke’s narrative pattern,[244] but it is also historically likely.[245] Paul expected opposition in Jerusalem (Rom 15:31), and we have very good reason to believe that he was detained by Romans sometime after this (see Phil 1:7, 13, 14, 17; Col 4:3, 18). Paul had faced opposition elsewhere (1 Thess 2:2; 1 Cor 16:9), but we lack such clear evidence for extended Roman detention earlier (though Paul clearly faced some detentions earlier, 2 Cor 11:23). Why would Romans just happen to detain Paul in Judea, especially given their stronger economic ties with Asia and Achaia? It is most likely that, as Paul expected, he faced conflicts with his fellow Judeans there (Rom 15:31; cf. 1 Thess 2:14; 2 Cor 11:26).[246] As to the plausibility of legal corruption, ancient reports abound with it (see, e.g., comment on Acts 24:26), and legal “justice” functions this way against the politically weak in many parts of the world today. Although prejudice in a stable society would favor the government (cf. 1 Sam 25:10), only extreme naiveté about our world ignores the widespread abuse of power.[247]

a. The Accusation (21:27–29)

Accusers already hostile to Paul falsely charge that Paul has committed the capital offense of desecrating God’s temple. This accusation and its aftermath, involving many of Jerusalem’s elite leaders, escalate Acts’ movement “from Jerusalem to Rome,” just as Jewish rejection in some particular cities has further justified the Gentile mission (13:45–47; 18:6; cf. 28:28). The rest of the book heightens this movement as Paul proceeds to Rome after being dramatically and repeatedly rejected in Jerusalem (Acts 21–28).

I. PAUL’S ACCUSERS (21:27)

In an earlier generation, a prophet might be received honorably in the temple (Luke 1:22; 2:27, 36–37), but the situation has changed (cf. 13:33–34; 18:31). The mention of Asian Jews is significant.[248] Having escaped before Passover a plot from members of a Corinthian synagogue he split, Paul now faces members of another synagogue he split in Asia Minor (19:9). Although Asia was an entire province, those who knew Paul by sight would have encountered him in Ephesus (Acts 19:1, 10). This is often how Luke means “Asia” (19:22; 20:16), including in the earlier mention of Trophimus (20:4; 21:29).[249] Many people knew about Paul and hated him, but with tens of thousands of people passing through the temple courts, only recent years’ acquaintances might recognize him. More specifically, only those from Ephesus might know that the Ephesian Trophimus (21:29) was a Gentile.[250]

Paul had not only incurred the anger of these accusers by splitting their synagogue (19:8–9);[251] his ministry also led to the pagan riot for which they received blame (19:26, 33–34). Luke may have viewed their trouble in that situation as an ironic reversal of the times when synagogue communities stirred mobs against Paul (13:5; 14:2, 19; 17:5), but here they again fit Luke’s pattern of stirring a mob against Paul. This pattern later invites the reader to indignation at Tertullus’s audacious accusation that Paul stirs riots everywhere (24:5).

The danger of riots over scandals regarding Gentiles in the temple area was a real one. When a Roman soldier exposed himself lewdly there, Josephus reports estimates (probably high) of ten thousand trampled in the ensuing riot (War 2.224–27).[252] Tensions regarding Gentiles had also been building for some time (e.g., 2.266–68, 284–92), culminating in massive interethnic slaughter in Syro-Palestine not many years after Paul left for Rome (2.457–568; Life 25). Although Roman misadministration was a leading factor in radicalizing the resistance, the different lifestyles of Jews and Gentiles in the region probably contributed as well.[253]

II. THEIR CHARGES (21:28)

The accusers’ plea for hearers to come to their aid reflects the expectation that Jews were morally obligated to aid those defending the laws (Jos. Ant. 18.347). But ironically, if (as is the case) Paul has not desecrated the temple he should be able to find asylum there, of all places.[254] More important, from the standpoint of Luke’s larger narrative and apologetic, is that these were Asian Jews who would have heard the Ephesian official’s warning against riots in Acts 19:40 (cf. 19:33–34), underlining all the more their riotous behavior here and its character of disloyalty to Rome. Whereas the legal charges against Paul include sedition (24:5), Luke emphasizes (in accord with the ancient practice of returning the charges, though likely accurately in this case) that it is instead Paul’s accusers who are guilty of this crime.

The charge that Paul preaches against the law is overt, obvious irony in view of the fact that Paul is in the temple precisely to show that he observes the law, as the immediately preceding context indicates (21:24)![255] Moreover, a local government representative had indicated that Paul’s group neither defiled the Artemis temple nor spoke against Artemis (19:37); how much less plausible should it be that Paul has defiled the true God’s temple and spoken against what is holy to him?[256] They repeated against Paul charges dismissed with respect even to paganism; but while they knew that he disrespected “gods made with hands” (19:26), they presumably also knew that he had little use for “temples made with hands” (17:24) as well.

Paul’s Diaspora Jewish accusers had not had good fortune with Roman courts, which were no more inclined to favor them than the Roman citizen they accused (18:14–17). Some Ephesian Jews had, however, perhaps learned a lesson from observing the results of mob action in Ephesus: what officials were unwilling to do (19:37), a mob apparently achieved, for Paul departed soon after the riot (cf. 19:21; 20:1). Though undoubtedly selecting genuine information (cf. Rom 15:31), Luke’s narrative also is rhetorically effective in inverting the charges raised against Paul (24:5): it is his accusers who started the riot, like Demetrius had!

Although their speech is too short for genuine rhetorical classification, its character is clearly judicial in that it levels charges.[257] According to Luke, however, these Asian Jews heard Paul for up to three months in their synagogue (19:8) and hence should know that the charges they raise are false, slanderous exaggerations of their own interpretation of Paul’s teaching. Since, in Luke’s view, the Christian story is grounded in and develops Israel’s ancient story, Luke appears to paint Paul’s accusers as fabricating charges only loosely related to the truth.[258] They recognized one Greek with him elsewhere in the city (21:29), yet now they cry out that Greeks (plural) are with him.[259] Although irrelevant from the strict standpoint of purity, the specific mention of “Greeks” rather than generic Gentiles may heighten the charge’s rhetorical intensity. Greeks’ hostility to Jewish rights in nearby Alexandria was well known (see comment on Acts 18:24). Diaspora Jews from Ephesus may have had more-positive relations with Greeks there, but mention of Greeks would strengthen the charge for their audience.[260]

Like Paul’s implied accusers in 21:21 and Rom 3:8, the accusers here caricature Paul’s real position, deliberately making him appear more threatening. This is precisely how Paul’s pagan accusers acted in their own city (Acts 19:27). For Luke, Paul is not against his people (13:26; 28:19),[261] against the law (13:27; 22:12; 23:3; 24:14; 26:22; 28:23),[262] or even—as the present context is at pains to emphasize—against the temple (21:26; 22:17).[263] He is merely unwilling to treat converted Gentiles as impure—and even that treatment was practiced outside the temple. Yet their knowledge of this commitment fuels their suspicion of him now. Polybius opined that falsehood appeared more credible if mixed with some truth (Polyb. 34.2.2–3).

From Luke’s perspective, however, there was nothing really impure about Gentiles even entering the temple (for Jewish Scripture on this issue, cf. the next subsection). Luke uses the term for “defile” (κοινόω) in 21:28 two times before 21:28: both declare that God’s people should not reject as defiled those Gentiles he has “cleansed” (10:15; 11:9). Luke, who notes Jesus’s challenging true impurity in the temple (Luke 19:45–46), likely affirms a more important spiritual temple (see comment below).

Loyalty to the temple was closely tied to patriotism and Jewish nationalism. Just as veneration of Artemis was tied to the local economy of Ephesus (Acts 19:25–27), much of Jerusalem’s economy depended on the temple.[264] The Temple Mount constituted the entire northeast side of the city; teachers used the porticoes, and on the western side lay the temple buildings proper.[265] An attack on the temple was an attack on Judaism[266] no less than Paul’s supposed threat to the Artemis temple was an attack on the heritage and tradition of Ephesus.

III. PAST THE BOUNDARY (21:28)

Gentile influence was clear in the temple’s architecture. Despite fear of Gentile contamination, the architecture of both the tabernacle[267] and Solomon’s temple[268] betrays clear Gentile influences; Herod’s temple was no exception, including both Hellenistic and Roman adaptations.[269] Other elements of the city rely on clearly Hellenistic features:[270] the city’s Hellenistic grid;[271] the theater near the Temple Mount;[272] and the probable hippodrome and amphitheater.[273]

The issue was not Hellenistic culture in general but Hellenistic religion (i.e., idolatry). None of Paul’s traveling companions was an idolater, but neither had those who were fully Gentiles been circumcised. They could not, therefore, go past the Court of the Gentiles, the massive outer court, as Paul’s companion Trophimus was wrongly accused of doing.

This prohibition against Gentiles entering the rest of the temple did not stem directly from Scripture itself. The earlier temple had never excluded Gentiles from the outer court, where all laity were welcome (1 Kgs 8:41–43; 2 Chr 6:32–33), though the unclean could not enter (2 Chr 23:19).[274] Conversely, even Israelite laity were executed if they transgressed beyond the outer court (Num 1:51; 3:10, 38; 16:40; 18:4, 7).[275]

By Paul’s day, however, attempts to respect a stricter understanding of biblical purity codes (cf. Eph 2:14–15)[276] led to the biblical outer court being divided into three sections.[277] Unable to change biblical prescriptions for the dimensions of the temple proper, Herod expanded instead the temenos, making it antiquity’s largest. The platform now contained 172,000 square yards (67,000 sq. m.), and several courts.[278] The innermost and highest of these, preceding the priestly sanctuary, was for Jewish men. Outside this, on a lower level, was the court for Jewish women (Jos. War 5.198–99; Ag. Ap. 2.102–5),[279] to avoid any risk of defiling the interior court with menstrual impurity.[280]

A stone balustrade about four feet in height separated the Court of Women from the current, massive outer court. Unconverted Gentile visitors could not proceed past this balustrade, since their assumed association with idols rendered them impure for stricter Jews (for discussions of their impurity, see comment on Acts 10:28).[281] Foreigners sometimes traveled from distant lands (even four-month journeys) yet could not enter the temple or eat of their offerings.[282] Informed Romans also knew the rules that Gentiles could not approach the temple and that only the priests could enter the sanctuary (Tac. Hist. 5.8).

Josephus reports the warning inscription that separated the outer court from the Court of Women: any Gentile who proceeded through the gates between would be executed (Ant. 15.417; War 6.125–26). He reports that the sign appeared in both Greek and Latin lest any Gentiles plead ignorance (War 5.194).[283] Archaeology has remarkably confirmed Josephus’s claim for the Greek[284] inscription: C. S. Clermont-Ganneau discovered a copy in 1871 (now in a museum in Istanbul), with the fragment of another coming to light in 1935 (OGIS 598; CIJ 1400),[285] as both archaeological[286] and textual[287] commentators regularly point out.

Diaspora Jews were also well aware of the custom; Philo emphasizes that Roman officials in the region knew and accepted this policy of death for any foreigner who enters the temple (Embassy 212). (Some Jewish opinions, such as those of the Essenes, might appear even stricter,[288] but they would exercise no influence on temple policies.)[289] Against possible Essene views, the temple establishment certainly would not have excluded proselytes,[290] but unless Trophimus was circumcised (Acts mentions this concession only for Timothy, whose mother was Jewish), few people in Jerusalem—including in the Jerusalem church—would have considered him a proselyte.

IV. DESECRATIONS PUNISHED

Jews were not the only people to underline the sanctity of their temple with such rules.[291] Some cults simply required abstention from intercourse beforehand or requisite purifications;[292] one teacher who ate garlic before entering a temple where that was prohibited invited merely a rebuke from the deity (Athen. Deipn. 10.422D). Other violations were considered more serious: those who touched a certain altar of Apollo were hurled to their deaths (Strabo 14.6.3); entering a prohibited sacred precinct of Zeus normally warranted death (Hesiod Astron. frg. 3). Greeks agreed that desecrating temples merited death.[293]

Just as the Jewish custom reflects wider usage, the Romans’ accession to local custom in this matter fits their policy of religious toleration elsewhere.[294] Thus, for example, when Rome prepared to punish the tribal rulers of the Bletonesii for human sacrifice, it acquitted them once it learned that this was local law, although it demanded that the custom be altered for the future (Plut. Rom. Q. 83, Mor. 283F). Closer to the Jerusalem example, Rome granted the guardian of the ancient sanctuary of Eleusis near Athens the right to execute uninitiated intruders.[295]

Although Romans in all other matters reserved for themselves the sole right of execution, they may have allowed priests to, in effect, lynch an intruder on the spot.[296] Josephus claims that the Romans benevolently allowed Jews to execute even Roman citizens who violated the temple (War 6.126).[297] They may still have normally required Roman approval first,[298] but if so, Rome had already promised the outcome for one clearly guilty of this offense. To appease the wrath of the Jewish people, a governor publicly executed a Roman soldier who burned a Torah scroll (2.229–31).[299] The Romans’ tolerance of the execution of even Roman citizens on this charge, apparently without Roman interference, removes the one ground that would have granted Paul immunity from other frivolous charges (cf. Acts 16:37; 22:25–28).

Paul’s case, however, is more complex. He is a Jewish Roman citizen and so could not be accused of profaning the temple by his own presence.[300] Facilitating its profanation by bringing in a Gentile would certainly warrant punishment under Jewish law,[301] though normally only Romans could legally execute the death sentence.[302] (For further discussion of capital authority, see comment in the introduction to “Stephen Follows His Martyred Lord [7:54–8:1a].”)[303] Paul’s “unanticipated” death in mob violence, of course, would obviate the niceties of any such legal transfer to Roman authority. It is not likely that Mishnah Sanhedrin represents first-century practice in the temple, but it remains interesting that if even an unclean priest profaned the temple, later rabbis believed that his fellow priests should drag him out and beat him to death (m. Sanh. 9:6).[304]

Excursus: Hostility to Paul’s Temple Theology?

Although Luke nowhere reports Paul’s views on the new temple, views about this new temple may have been widespread in early Christianity, especially after 70 C.E. (outside Pauline literature, cf. 1 Pet 2:5; Rev 3:12). Luke’s audience may also be aware of some of the intellectual currents that helped make such a reenvisioning of the temple’s meaning plausible.

Thus the concerns of some Asian Jews familiar with Paul’s teaching that his teaching would lead some fellow Diaspora Jews to abandon the temple were reasonable, and their suspicion of his activity in the temple is historically plausible. What would surely not be lost on Luke’s audience, however (assuming a post-70 date for Acts in its present stage), is that the basis for their objection would quickly prove inconsequential.

1. Spiritual Sacrifices

Some Jews writing for Diaspora audiences accommodated Hellenistic philosophy by rejecting animal sacrifices (Sib. Or. 4.29–30). Philo so portrays the Essenes (Good Person 75), though Josephus said that they offered sacrifices on their own, apart from the temple (Ant. 18.19). Less hellenized Essene sources (on the likelihood that most of the Qumran scrolls are Essene) were at least alienated from the temple establishment and viewed their own community as a spiritual temple. On spiritual sacrifices, see further comment on Acts 10:4.

That Paul joins other early Christians (Heb 13:15–16; 1 Pet 2:5; Rev 5:8; 8:5) in speaking of spiritual sacrifices (Rom 12:1; 2 Cor 2:14; Phil 2:17; 4:18; cf. Rom 15:16; Eph 5:2; 2 Tim 4:6) is not surprising. (Likewise, he speaks of a spiritual priesthood [Rom 15:16; cf. 1 Pet 2:9].)

2. Critiques of the Temple

Other Jewish thinkers criticized the earthly temple and expected a new one.[305] Except for the most radical voices, however, most critics, like the community of believers in Jerusalem, kept worshiping there. It is also noteworthy that critiques of the temple seem to have predominated especially in Judea and its environs whereas, in general, Diaspora Jews before the temple’s destruction treated the temple as something of a rallying point for ethnic pride. Luke affirms the temple in his Gospel but also recognizes its imminent destruction because of moral defilement (Luke 19:42–46; 21:6, 22). Paul’s letters do not reveal specific loyalty to the old ways of the temple (even if he mourns its coming desecration, 2 Thess 2:4), but neither do they reveal specific antipathy against it (cf. 1 Cor 9:20). Paul is far more concerned with the believing community as the house where God dwells (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16; cf. 1 Cor 6:19; Eph 2:19–22).

3. Luke, Paul, and the Spiritual Temple

Luke himself probably uses the motif of stones (cf. Luke 3:8//Matt 3:9) to suggest a spiritual-temple ideology (Luke 19:40 in view of 19:44–46; 20:17–18 in view of 21:6 and Ps 118:22–27; Acts 4:11), as probably elsewhere in early Christianity (Rom 9:32–33; more explicitly 1 Pet 2:4–8).[306] Paul is, as already noted, more explicit about the church as a spiritual temple (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16).[307]

Luke’s report of the temple charge, while part of a larger pattern in Acts, also dovetails well with tradition independently preserved in Ephesians (although many scholars attribute Ephesians to one of Paul’s disciples rather than to the apostle himself). Whether fictitious or not (I am inclined to think not), the implied author Paul writes from detention (Eph 3:1; 6:20), reminding Asian Christians of the unity of Jewish and Gentile believers[308] in 2:11–13; 3:1–8.[309]

Most relevant, Ephesians’ Paul emphasizes the unity of Jew and Gentile through the image of a new temple (2:19–22), with a shattered dividing barrier (2:14).[310] Paul is a prisoner for the sake of the Gentiles (3:1, 13), who are part of this new temple (2:19–22).[311] If Luke’s account is, as I would suggest, accurate in its essentials, the Christians of Asia would know from their agents (Acts 21:29; cf. 20:4) and perhaps also from their enemies (21:27) why Paul ended up in detention, making the use of the temple and dividing barrier in Paul’s letter for the Ephesian region all the more meaningful.

Even in the anticipated eschatological sanctuary, foreigners entering uncircumcised in heart and flesh would profane it (Ezek 44:7, 9). Paul may have believed that spiritual circumcision was sufficient to address this problem (cf. Isa 56:4–5), or felt that a current spiritual temple required only spiritual circumcision (Rom 2:29; cf. Eph 2:11–22).

V. IN THE CONTEXT OF LUKE-ACTS

In addition to the irony of the immediate context, the charge that Paul defiled the temple is ironic from the standpoint of Luke’s larger narrative: Luke’s audience knows that even at the beginning of his narrative, God sent an angel to the temple to declare the birth of John (Luke 1:8–17), who prepared the way for the one who would bring salvation for all flesh (3:6). The temple belonged not to the priestly aristocracy but to the God of Jesus the Messiah, whose first followers faithfully worshiped there (e.g., Acts 2:46–3:1; 5:20–21, 42). The bringer of Israel’s salvation challenged defiling practices in the temple (Luke 19:45–46); some might recognize that one of the texts Jesus quoted (Isa 56:7 in Luke 19:46) supported welcoming Gentiles there (as in Mark 11:17).[312]

The charges against Paul may thus partly recall Jesus’s confrontation with the authorities in the temple; at the least, supposed misbehavior in the temple arouses hostility against both Jesus and Paul. Although Luke omits Mark’s temple charge at Jesus’s trial (Mark 14:58; 15:29),[313] he also agrees that Jesus’s symbolic assault on the temple (Luke 19:45–46) was critical to his execution (cf. 19:47–20:2).[314] Perhaps Luke thinks of Jesus’s actively challenging the segregation of Gentiles in the temple, since he quotes Isa 56:7. Curiously, however, he omits in Luke 19:46 the key words that in Mark 11:17 emphasize the Gentiles (“for all the nations”).[315] Since Gentiles do not figure prominently in the Gospel (though they do appear),[316] Luke may be reserving this emphasis for Paul’s ministry instead of offering what seems an obvious parallel; or perhaps the parallel would have seemed to support the truth, rather than the falsehood, of the charge that Paul transgressed the temple law. For whatever reason, Luke, like Matthew (Matt 21:13), omits these words from Mark’s quotation of Isaiah.

From the theological standpoint of Luke’s narrative, what is most significant is that the Ephesian accusers in Acts 21:28 repeat the basic charges against Stephen, though amplifying them.[317]

Charges in Acts 6:11–14

Charges in Acts 21:28

Speech against Moses, law and customs, and God (6:11, 13–14)

Speech against the law

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Speech against the people

Speech against the temple, “this holy place” (6:13–14)

Speech against the temple, “this holy place”

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Desecrating the temple

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