Reviews of Some Acts-focused Works
23
Reviews of Some Acts-focused Works
Ancient Literary Setting. Edited by Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke. Volume 1 of The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting. 6 volumes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1993.¹⁸⁷⁴
Lake and Cadbury’s The Beginnings of Christianity remain a useful resource for the study of Acts, but are now quite out of date in the scope of issues they address as well as (frequently) in the information they include. Increasing knowledge of epigraphy and papyri have greatly expanded our horizons, current discussions of literary genre are more nuanced, our perspectives on early Judaism have been radically reconfigured, and we recognize more of the influence of Lukan literary and theological concerns on the way he reports his history. The time has long been ripe for an entirely new work.
This new series by Paternoster and Eerdmans promises to take us into the world of Acts in a more complete way than any of its predecessors, including Beginnings. Employing the expertise of classicists rather than only New Testament scholars, these works will contribute substantially to relevant discussion in our field. The writers of this first volume are conversant in scholarship in their respective areas of research; New Testament scholars, unlikely to be able to keep up with all the secondary literature in classics, will find this book essential for research on Acts. This work does, however, presuppose a knowledge of or at least significant interest in Greco-Roman antiquity; the editors have thus wisely seen to it that each chapter includes an introductory summary, making the work’s conclusions more accessible to those more inclined to sample than study in detail the contents of each essay.
Volume one addresses especially the historical context of the genre of Acts and its constituent elements. It advances us considerably beyond earlier discussions of the genre of Acts not only in its opportunity to draw on the insights of earlier research but by providing a variety of perspectives from specialists, many of whom have published dissertations or monographs in areas relevant to their chapters. The breadth of perspectives may be illustrated by the inclusion of the work both of Dr. Loveday Alexander and of Darryl Palmer, who critiques her approach.
Placing Palmer’s essay on genre first was a prudent editorial decision. Palmer carries forward the arguments of Aune and others for ancient “history” as the genre of Acts, setting it more precisely in the context of an historical monograph. He refutes Pervo’s view of Acts as a romance (a genre into which the Acts of Paul and Thecla fit much better) as well as the view that it is merely a technical treatise. Other genres subsequent essayists mention (such as biography and biblical history) advance further elements of Acts that augment this basic genre. In a more detailed response to Pervo later in the book, Richard Bauckham contends that, rather than the later Acts of Paul defining the canonical Acts’ genre as novelistic biography, Acts of Paul is modeled on Acts and other earlier sources which it develops in novelistic fashion.
Once we have asked the question of Acts and history, we must ask how Acts relates to our other historical source for Paul’s life, namely, his letters. Demonstrating an excellent firsthand knowledge of the sources, Hillard, Nobbs, and Winter (ch. 8) advance our understanding on an important question: How do we relate Acts’ portrayal of Paul with his own letters, taking into account the distinctive purposes of each? They find that biographers and letter-writers generally had distinctive purposes and biographers varied in reliability; their data suggest that Luke is a reliable biographer if he actually traveled with Paul. David Wenham examines the parallels between Paul’s writings and Acts. Although I doubt his identification of Gal 2:1–10 with the visit of Acts 11:30, Wenham carefully surveys evidence for all the positions, both on this issue and others, and remains thorough and fair in his judgments.
The work also investigates the literary genres and forms contained in Acts. Conrad Gempf shows that the historians Thucydides and Polybius (in contrast to writers like Isocrates and Josephus) sought to report faithfully the substance of speeches. He concludes that the variety of accuracy in ancient authors shows that an ancient “standard” cannot predict Luke’s accuracy or inaccuracy in the speeches (pace Dibelius et al.) The chapter is so well-done that one wishes that Gempf would publish his dissertation which he cites in a later footnote. Also extremely helpful are Bruce Winter’s comparison of reports in Acts 24–26 with official legal proceedings, incorporating most of the primary evidence available (legal papyri). These papyri were summaries, as in Acts, but were regarded as accurate transcriptions of the speeches given. The structure of forensic speeches in general sheds considerable light on those in Acts.
Other parts of the book provide many helpful insights, even where some points may be questionable (e.g., Alexander’s brief appeal to technical treatises or overemphasis on Socrates; her work on Diogenes Laertius is, however, quite good) or may be more familiar to New Testament scholars (e.g., Marshall’s excellent defense of the literary unity of Luke-Acts; Brian Rosner’s insightful treatment of Old Testament literary techniques, models and motifs in Acts; David Peterson’s treatment of how Acts’ fulfillment motif would have been heard in both Jewish and broader Greco-Roman contexts; Peter Head reaffirms the secondary character of the Western text). In line with the book’s title, F. Scott Spencer helpfully presents modern literary criticism in a clear way and traces major applications of these approaches in Luke-Acts.
This volume will surely become an indispensable resource in the study of Acts and its world.