Recent Contributions
Recent Contributions
Recent study of the Acts has tended to focus on three areas: historicity, literary phenomena, and theological tendencies.
Historicity Acts is the New Testament book that most nearly resembles historical narration, and it is the only source for most of what it narrates. Scholars have therefore long debated its historical accuracy, some doubting whether we can learn much at all of "what really happened” from Acts, others insisting that Acts deserves to be considered as a serious and generally reliable historical source. 77 The same division of opinion is evident in contemporary scholarship. Gerd LQdemann, while by no means dismissing Acts as a historical source, is generally skeptical. 78He acknowledges the importance of the theological approach to Acts that has reigned supreme in recent studies but insists that the study of Acts as a historical source needs to be reopened. He attempts to distinguish Luke’s redactional touches from the traditions he has inherited, and from this basis to assess the historical reliability of Acts.
But LQdemann’s generally negative conclusions are more than balanced by the contributions of two scholars who are much more positive toward the historical accuracy of Acts. Martin Hengel, while finding historical errors in Acts, is critical of the tendency in modern scholarship to dismiss Luke as a serious historian. "The radical ‘redaction-critical’ approach so popular today, which sees Luke above all as a freely inventive theologian, mistakes his real purpose, namely that as a Christian ‘historian’ he sets out to report the events of the past that provided the foundation for the faith and its extension. He does not set out primarily to present his own ‘theology.” 79 Hengel concludes that Luke deserves to be considered as trustworthy as any ancient historian.
Far more detailed than Hengel is Colin Hemer’s The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, a magisterial and definitive defense of the historicity of Acts. Hemer compares Luke favorably with the highest standards of ancient historiography. He updates and expands the list of points at which Luke demonstrates his knowledge of, and accuracy about, first-century political, social, and geographic details. He also defends Luke at those points where he has been considered to be inaccurate and contests the scholars who think that Luke’s theological concerns must have overridden his historical reliablity. Hemer’s work puts the defense of Luke’s historical reliablity on firmer ground than ever before.