23: Acts 1:1–11
23
Acts 1:1–11
The last of our treatments of the Gospel resurrection narratives involves the first eleven verses of the Book of Acts. Then we will present some thoughts on the Acts sermon summaries that most scholars think are present within these narratives. This last part, in particular, will be very helpful as we launch later into our study of the historicity of the resurrection appearances.
We ended the previous chapter by pointing out that there has been a comparative flurry of interest in the historicity of the Gospels during the past couple of decades. This trend is due to a number of factors, such as the predominant scholarly view that the Gospels resemble Greco-Roman bioi or the numerous studies on the early traditions that lie behind the Gospels. Of course, it cannot hurt that a few critical scholars have supported much earlier composition dates for the Synoptic Gospels, thus making them much closer to the time of Jesus. Or, it might have much to do with several research projects that have gone further in establishing the presence of eyewitness observations in the Gospels.
It would seem to follow that the outworking of any trends regarding the reliability of the Gospels would probably have ramifications for how the book of Acts is viewed. Just as with the Gospels, studies that support the historicity of Acts are very helpful in this sense. No doubt the best study of these aspects is Craig Keener’s four-volume behemoth on Acts (over 4,600 total pages)!1
Luke 1:1–4 in Light of the Reliability of the Acts 1:1–2
We have already discussed Luke’s introduction to his Gospel, especially his claim that he had investigated the events in the life of Jesus with the eyewitnesses and others who knew and had reported the historical events. Luke’s purpose was so that Theophilus could be assured of the certainty of these reports (Luke 1:1–4). With Donald Guthrie, we can agree that “it is a fair inference that the principles which apply to the gospel will apply equally to Acts.”2
We also saw that John had his own distinctive way of recording his notion of being a reliable witness. Rather than explain his research intentions, as Luke did, John more simply reported that he was an onlooker who was present at the cross and testified to what occurred there (John 19:35). Moreover, John’s Gospel closes with what most scholars conclude is a sort of signatory note of confirmation appended by a group of additional witnesses who endorsed his words (21:24).
The book of Acts begins by referring to Luke, both of which were addressed to a certain Theophilus. Acts 1:1 opens with “In the first book, Theophilus,” thereby earning Acts the moniker of “Luke, volume 2.” However, unlike the opening paragraph in the Gospel, there is no real effort here to repeat the earlier words regarding gathering competent sources and ascertaining accurate historical information concerning Jesus. In that sense, Luke’s approach in Acts has more in common with John’s comments.3
So how does Acts make statements regarding its own reliability? One major way consists of the “we passages” found in the second half of the book, where it appears that the author claims to have been present with Paul on many different occasions.4 If so, of course, the author could be considered as an eyewitness to a number of the events that occurred in the book. Some of the places where the “we passages” occur include Philippi (Acts 16:10–17), Troas (20:5–15), Jerusalem (21:1–18), as well as being with Paul on the ship that sank and later in the city of Rome (27:1–28:16). Joseph Fitzmyer thinks that it is quite possible that Luke used some personal records here, perhaps such as his own diary or some travel notes. Fitzmyer sees the end result as being positive regarding historicity.5
A crucial means of showing the reliability of Acts is the inclusion of the sermon summaries, chiefly in chapters 1–5, 10, 13, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, 17. A key theme throughout most of these passages is that the disciples were “witnesses” to the appearances of the risen Jesus (1:22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39, 41; 13:31).6 This idea of being a witness (martura, 1:22) or a group of apostles being “witnesses” (martures, 3:15) is reminiscent of John 19:35 and again has the sense of eyewitness testimony and being present for these all-important resurrection events.
These sermon summaries support the notion of textual reliability in these chapters because they indicate that the author was careful to research, preserve, and include the best indications that evidence his text. That involved intelligence, good research skills, and the sense to know which sermon summaries to utilize to support the particular points that are being made at each juncture.
Thus, the opening verses in Luke, the texts on being an eyewitness in John, along with the relevant passages in Acts are actually confirmed by more than just the words of the authors themselves. There are a number of individual details in each of these books concerning events, chronology, geography, local customs, political and legal details, and so on that indicate they really were being observed carefully, investigated well, and then recorded. We provided a list of some of these areas in the previous chapter, where this was true in the Gospel of John. Before that, we noted signs of historicity in Luke apropos to a couple of his resurrection appearance reports in terms of his preserving an early creedal tradition as well as a concise appearance report. Acts is just full of these areas of confirmation. It may even be unsurpassed among New Testament sources in terms of its external confirmation. We already saw one major category regarding the sermon summaries.
Other examples of external corroboration in Acts are not difficult to locate. If every last case of confirmation from Acts were counted, big and small alike, researchers would have to tally data as divergent as information concerning major and minor rulers, the names and locations of countries and colonies, as well as geography with regard to routes taken on Paul’s different missionary journeys. Further, there are also the proper titles of various rulers, legal proceedings in various courts and jurisdictions, especially those of Roman and Jewish law, and perhaps most of all, the confirmation on behalf of numerous historical events that Luke records in this book. Acts mentions literally scores of these and other details, and many of the facts were hardly available even in the first century except on inscriptions.7
Many of the statements in Acts obviously cannot be double-checked. But many other reports have been researched thoroughly and confirmed. Incredibly, Craig Keener even estimates that perhaps as many as 100 different items throughout Acts have been verified!8 As examples, Joseph Fitzmyer enumerates nine incidents established by other independent sources, followed by an additional half dozen rather obscure and often amazing facts that Luke likewise reports correctly.9
Arguably the best example here is the work of Sir William Ramsay, the famous archaeologist and professor at the universities of Oxford and Aberdeen at the turn of the twentieth century. Trained in nineteenth-century German liberalism at the University of Tübingen and holding to those views,10 he was a noted archaeologist and authority on the history of Asia Minor. Through his excavation of this region, and contrary to his own opinions on the New Testament, he began to change his views concerning Luke, Paul, and Acts. After decades of research in this area, expressed in several major books on these subjects, he had distinguished himself as perhaps the greatest authority of his day on these subjects. To sum up his research, Ramsay concluded, “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy . . . this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”11
Bringing Ramsay’s research closer to the present, another outstanding example was the work of former Oxford University ancient Roman history specialist A. N. Sherwin-White, who devoted most of an entire volume to the verification of legal and social matters in Acts. After checking many minutiae, he concluded, “For Acts, the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. . . . But any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.”12
Of course, not everything in Acts has been problem free. The two most serious historical challenges may be, first, the details in Acts 5:36–37, where the Pharisee and famous teacher Gamaliel was speaking to the Sanhedrin. The problem concerns the details regarding Jewish rebels Theudas and Judas the Galilean vis-à-vis Josephus’s treatment of a rebel named Theudas (Ant. 20.5.1), who came on the scene about ten years after the dating in Acts. Of course, there could be two such men named Theudas, and Josephus, who is not without historical issues of his own, could also be mistaken as well as Luke. The second issue is the seeming disagreement concerning various travel issues between Acts and Paul’s own writings. Perhaps best known is the question of how many trips Paul made to Jerusalem after his conversion.13
Fitzmyer adds that reports of miraculous events may be the most problematic areas for some scholars.14 Strangely enough, while expressing his generous praise for Luke as an historian as in the comment above, Ramsay also concedes that Luke’s sources are not always uniform: “It seems clear that the authorities on which Luke depended were not equally good,” thereby causing a few inconsistencies in Acts.15
To conclude this category, the overall point here is that there is something in common between Luke 1:1–4, a couple of “witness texts” in John, and a favorite theme of Luke’s regarding being a “witness” to the facts of the Christian gospel in Acts, with that message being carried through a number of passages throughout. Most obviously, they are all statements, and as such, they could be either true or false. It might be said that they are claims in search of good evidence.
Further, there are indeed indications in each of these three books that their authors produced the sort of veridical information that did indeed back up their assertions, especially regarding Jesus’s resurrection appearances, which has been the focus in these chapters. In Luke, the claim to have known eyewitnesses and to have done research so as to ascertain the truth of the gospel may have been what resulted in the citation of the creedal tradition in Luke 24:34 and what has been identified as a concise resurrection appearance account in 24:36–49.
The witness verse in John 19:35 included very crucial details concerning Jesus’s crucifixion. Though there is little immediate confirmation in the text itself, there is a certain surprise element here as John and the women unexpectedly witness a watery fluid coming from Jesus’s side wound along with the expected blood flow. However, as we point out in our discussion of crucifixion, there are some sources, including a Roman text, that back up the incident of imposing such a spear wound for the purpose of ensuring death. Further, John also included a concise appearance account in 21:19–2, along with a second narrative in 21:26–29 with concise characteristics that functions as a derivative to the previous concise text. This means that the second pericope does not stand entirely on its own, but is a derivative or “add-on” to the appearance in verses 19–21, yet while still manifesting concise characteristics. So John includes one very helpful crucifixion observation along with two accounts that speak to the issue of veridicality.
The Acts witness theme is by far the strongest and most veridical point from our three sources. Given the incredibly strong background historical data which provide general confirmation for large portions of Acts,16 this arguably makes it all the more likely that Luke was also careful in preserving both the data contained in the “we passages” as well as the many sermon summaries throughout this writing. If C. H. Dodd is correct that these “sermonettes” go back to the apostolic kerygma in the early Jerusalem church,17 and if Bart Ehrman is right that many of these creeds date from just one to two years after the cross and that some were derived from the apostles themselves,18 then this is a very strong evidential argument for the data of the gospel proclamation.
Here we have a powerful 1–2–3 punch then. In addition to the individually evidenced creedal traditions, we also have the likelihood that the “we passages” exhibit ensured eyewitness reports, with both being supported by the background of a generally confirmed historical setting for the book of Acts in which the creeds and “we passages” appear.
So the resurrection appearance material in both the Gospels and Acts is very helpful and adds further considerations that favor the historicity of these events. Guthrie understates nicely the value of Luke’s testimony in Acts: “The era has now passed when the historicity of Acts can with any plausibility be wholly discredited.”19
Acts 1:3: en pollois tekmēriois as the Degree of Evidence for Jesus’s Resurrection Appearances
After the introduction in the initial two verses of Acts, Luke presents a loaded verse 3. He reports that after Jesus’s suffering and crucifixion, he appeared often to his apostles and provided many powerful evidences that he was alive. Next, he explains that the appearances lasted over a period of forty days, the only New Testament reference that addresses the time sequence. Lastly, Luke identifies the chief topic for their discussions: the kingdom of God.
Regarding the evidences for these appearances, the old King James Version utilizes the well-known words “many infallible proofs,” which appears to overdo it somewhat, but perhaps not. Contemporary translations often render these words as “many convincing proofs” (NRSV, NASB, CSB) or simply “many proofs” (ESV). Luke uses a form of the Greek term tekmērion here, the only time that it is used in the New Testament.
Both the philosopher Aristotle and much later the physician Galen distinguished between types and levels of evidence, such as tekmērion, meaning “proof,” and sēmeion, meaning a “sign.” But rather incredibly, when Aristotle draws his distinctions, the English terms used to translate tekmērion are “infallible” (a term he uses often) and a “complete proof.”20 Did that influence the KJV rendering above? Aristotle stated that “when people think that what they have said cannot be refuted,” then they are thinking in terms of “a complete proof.” Further, in matters involving a proof (tekmērion), this Greek philosopher stated that the issue has been settled already. “Signs” on the other hand, apparently can be stronger, approaching “proof,” or they can be weaker—as in making a decent point but still refutable. Then there is the term “probability” which is presumably a little lower still, the way Aristotle uses it.21
However, while the background in Aristotle provides an exciting jaunt, what this Greek philosopher meant by these terms does not necessarily help us to know the chief question: what did Luke mean when he employed these words? Many scholars have “weighed in” and offered their comments concerning the background and meaning of pollois tekmērion “many proofs.” The root word tekmar means a sign. The verb tekmairō indicates proving something by sure evidences.
Of course it is unknown whether Luke may have read Aristotle, but this question need not concern us here. The meaning of these Greek terms was known well enough from a plentiful variety of sources that Luke would have gathered this general sense anyway. For example, tekmērion was an old term used commonly in both ancient and Koine Greek; it appears three times in the Septuagint, once in the Old Testament Apocrypha, once again in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, and twice in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities. It regularly means “convincing evidences” or even “convincing proofs.”22
Moreover, beyond all these sources using the word at that time, first and foremost, this is just how Luke used the term anyway. Both Pheme Perkins and Craig Keener point out that, as the author of both books, Luke’s reference to tekmērion in Acts 1:3 refers back directly to the disciples’ own empirical experiences with their risen Lord in Luke 24:39–40, where the “proof” came from seeing Jesus up close, presumably touching him, and doing so as a group where they could always inquire of one of their colleagues later, “Am I right about this or that?” Further, just as the very next verses in Acts 1:4–5 refer to eating with Jesus and being charged by him not to leave Jerusalem until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit, this corresponds rather exactly to the next verses in Luke 24:41–43, 49.23 John Alsup refers to the tekmērion as “proofs of his reality” and mentions that there may be “a pre-lukan [sic] source” behind Acts 1:3–4.24
Regarding Jesus’s appearances occurring over forty days,25 besides that pertinent information being helpful by itself, another fascinating truth emerges from the Greek. Harris and Robertson both point out that the preposition dia in 1:3 means that Jesus appeared to his disciples “intermittently” or “at intervals” rather than “continuously” or “daily.” As Robertson adds, this is the same result we get when we consider the approximately one dozen appearances of Jesus over this forty-day period.26
The last phrase in Acts 1:3 informs us that Jesus’s chief topic of discussion with his disciples during the forty days of his intermittent appearances was the kingdom of God. This was their central theme and it remained incredibly consistent as the chief topic during Jesus’s earthly ministry (Mark 1:14–15; 9:42–49; Matt 6:33), the chief topic of the resurrected Jesus during his forty days of appearances (Acts 1:3), and the chief topic with which the glorified Jesus charged Paul on the way to Damascus, from which Paul never deviated, remaining true to this word until the end (Acts 28:23–24).
Acts 1:6–7: When Would Jesus Return?
At this point, the disciples interject with a question: would the coming of the Holy Spirit signal the time when Jesus would restore the kingdom of God? Jesus responded quickly that it was not for the disciples to know the time of the kingdom, which was a matter that the heavenly Father had “set by his own authority” (NRSV).
However, this does raise an important issue for us to address here briefly, since it has a major bearing on many of the items that come up later in our study. When this issue was discussed elsewhere, especially in the Synoptic Gospels, did Jesus seem to be mistaken regarding his thoughts on the time of his coming?27 In particular, did Jesus believe in the imminent coming of God’s kingdom and mistakenly hold the view that it would culminate very shortly, as per texts like Mark 9:1; 13:30; and Matt 10:23?
This objection must be addressed from different angles. Ben Witherington asserts repeatedly that none of these texts unequivocally teaches that the coming of either Jesus or the kingdom of God must be soon, or right around the corner. At most, these texts indicate that the kingdom could come at any time, or that it may even occur a long time hence.28 While it is impossible here to do more than make a few summarizing comments, it is obvious that many other scholars in recent decades agree with Witherington.
Perhaps even the most frequent contemporary scholarly response to Jesus’s remark in Mark 9:1 (cf. Matt 16:28; Luke 9:27) is that Jesus was referring either to his transfiguration, which follows immediately in each of these three narratives, or even to his resurrection.29 On the other hand, Rudolf Bultmann and those who follow him did not even think that Jesus said these words in the first place, but that it was rather something that the church placed in Jesus’s mouth to express their own hope!30
It is exceptionally difficult to take Mark 13:30 as Jesus’s comment that this present generation would definitely witness his return, since, just two verses later (13:32), Jesus specifically asserts that even he did not know when he would return! One of the most common views of this text is that Jesus was addressing two major questions at the outset of this discourse—the fall of Jerusalem and the temple and the issue of his return and the end of the age (Matt 24:1–3; but also in Mark 13 and Luke 21). According to what we might term the two-question model, the answer to the first question is that it will occur in the lifetime of this present generation (Mark 13:30), while the answer to the second question regarding Jesus’s coming is that he could not say, since he did not know that time (Mark 13:32).31
Regarding Matt 10:23, it is often noted that it would have been physically impossible for the disciples to have ministered in every city of Israel even during the remainder of Jesus’s earthly life, let alone before the end of this particular, brief missionary trip! Further, few knew better than Matthew that Jesus did not return again before the deaths of at least most of the apostles. If so, then why would Matthew have reproduced such a spurious report, and on an incisive topic? Since Matthew would have presumably not reported an obvious mistake by Jesus, it follows that this is simply what neither Jesus nor Matthew meant!
By far the most common scholarly interpretation of this passage is that Jesus’s words refer not simply to his immediate disciples and this particular missionary trip, but that these teachings extended far beyond this occasion and into the future, ongoing spread of the gospel message all the way until Jesus’s return.32 In a sense, it might even have been viewed as a prophecy that extended to the future Christian missionary work of the church. The view that Jesus was mistaken simply does not fit the chronology here even one little bit.33
At least four additional considerations make it highly unlikely that Jesus taught that the future aspect of God’s kingdom must come shortly. These four considerations appear strong enough to trump any of the exegetical considerations above, in the sense of pushing the interpretation to one of the other, nonimminent, options.
First, there are also many Gospel texts that clearly indicate that these events would not occur quickly but at a much later time. For a few examples, some of the disciples would die for their faith (Matt 24:9; Luke 21:16; John 16:2), the gospel message would be preached first to the entire world (Mark 13:10; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8), Jerusalem would be under the control of the Gentiles for an unspecified amount of time, and the Jewish people would be dispersed throughout the world (Luke 21:24). Items such as these do not take place between Jesus’s death and the writing of the Gospels!34 Obviously then, most of these items could not have taken place in such a short time span and some of them easily could have stretched out for hundreds of years each (such as Jerusalem being occupied until its time was up, the Jews being dispersed throughout the world, or the gospel message reaching the ends of the earth).
Moreover, in more than one parable, we are also told that the master delayed his coming for a lengthy time (Matt 24:48; 25:19). Another intriguing saying reports both that there was more than one day of the Son of Man, and that, while the disciples would long to experience one of these days, they would in fact not do so (Luke 17:22). Significantly, Jesus taught another parable because some people thought that the kingdom of God was going to arrive right away (Luke 19:11–27). So we have alternative meanings of the texts in question. Further, other passages make it very difficult to conclude that Jesus could only have meant that the kingdom would necessarily come immediately.
Second, even highly skeptical scholars have generally held that especially Luke historicized Mark’s interpretation and placed Jesus’s coming way ahead in the indefinite future. Recall that Luke is the one who reported that the gospel would be heard first around the entire world, that Jerusalem would be captured by the Gentiles and remain under their control, and that the Jewish people would be scattered throughout the world.35
Here is the principal point: Luke certainly did not interpret these same texts (including the ones that he also wrote himself!) to mean that Jesus had predicted an imminent coming of the future kingdom.36 For if he had done so, he would not have historicized Jesus’s teachings. But if Luke never felt inclined to take these passages in this imminent manner, why should we? In short, if these texts can be taken fairly in alternative ways, like Luke did, especially when there are strong reasons to take them in those other ways, then why do today’s interpreters feel any pressure taking an alternate route themselves?
Third and perhaps most crucially of all, according to the dating of the vast majority of critical scholars, both Matthew and Luke were written about five decades or so after Jesus’s proclamations concerning the time of the future kingdom. On the interpretation that Jesus had predicted his pending return, it certainly should have happened at least between his death and the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, especially since these two events are linked (Matt 24:1–3; Luke 21:20–32). Given that the future kingdom of God never arrived, and that Matthew and Luke were writing perhaps even ten years or so beyond that, it would be safe to say that, on the imminent interpretation, Jesus had been mistaken. And the Gospel writers who took the imminent view would have been sadly mistaken too.37
The enormous problem in this case would be that at least Matthew and even Mark to a slightly lesser extent (though Luke is now exempt, since this was not his view) would obviously have knowingly and repeatedly declared that the Lord Jesus had been badly mistaken. This is an exceedingly problematic position, especially given the prominence that the future kingdom occupies in their Gospels.38 So here’s this critical question: did both of these Synoptic authors knowingly report Jesus’s false prophecies over and over (making Jesus a false prophet according to Deut 18:17–22)? Or did Jesus, Matthew, and Mark mean something entirely different by these teachings? The latter answer seems too obvious to even debate.
Fourth, since Jesus specifically declared more than once that he did not know when he would return or when the future kingdom would begin (Mark 13:32; cf. Acts 1:6–7),39 the precise time factor could not be the crucial portion of his message. Something we do not know can hardly be our central message! Rather, it is the nature of the kingdom that occupies this central position. In short, it was the content of Jesus’s kingdom message that was central, not the specific time factor, given that Jesus carefully taught that he did not know that information.
Critical scholars have agreed with this last argument. As Wolfhart Pannenberg explains:
Neither the two-thousand-year interval from the time of Jesus’ earthly appearance nor its continuing quantitative growth is sufficient in itself to let the connection between the activity and fate of Jesus and the expected end of all things discovered then to become untenable. . . . The question as to how much time might elapse between the appearance of Jesus and the coming of the Son of Man is completely irrelevant. The important thing in it is the material correspondence of the coming judgment with the present attitude of men toward Jesus. . . . The delay of the end events, which now amounts to almost two thousand years, is not a refutation of the Christian hope and of the Christian perception of revelation as long as the unity between what happened in Jesus and the eschatological future is maintained.40
This unity between Jesus and the future is primarily represented by the “divine confirmation of Jesus” as seen in his resurrection.41
Thomas Torrance adds that, due to misunderstanding both the notion of imminence as well as the truth of both the present and future aspects of the kingdom, this entire issue “looks rather like a legend of the critics!”42 N. T. Wright adds, “The old scholarly warhorse of the ‘delay of the parousia’ has had its day at last, and can be put out to grass once and for all.”43 It is no surprise that G. R. Beasley-Murray declares that even most historical Jesus scholars “are not greatly concerned with the question of whether Jesus was mistaken regarding the time of the end.”44
In sum, every passage that critics cite to show that Jesus was mistaken regarding the time of his return or setting up God’s kingdom is exceptionally problematic. This applies especially to the three major texts that were viewed here. But even after all the exegetical work is finished, the four additional considerations pointed out above do appear to nullify any angle that would make Jesus mistaken.
Acts 1:8: Take the Gospel to the Entire World
As stated earlier, if we count the longer ending that was written after Mark’s Gospel (which is usually dated to the second century and therefore may not be very late anyway) as an appropriate “stand-in” (especially in the case that the original ending of that Gospel may have been lost), then all four of the Gospels pay special attention to the application of the resurrection message. Thus, defending Christianity and proclaiming the gospel’s salvation message, while of absolutely central import, are not the entire proclamation. The resurrection message also extends to relationships with theological truths and practical ministry applications as well.
To refer once again to a dialogue on the subject of Jesus’s resurrection between N. T. Wright and John Dominic Crossan, both speakers emphasize this last category of ministry. In his opening statement, Wright notes that resurrection ministry does not consist merely of knowing that the Easter message is true and then relaxing, rejoicing, and waiting for our place to open up in heaven. Rather, Wright emphasizes Scripture’s message that “Jesus is raised, therefore God’s new creation has begun and we’ve got a job to do.”45
Then in his own opening statement, Crossan returns to this same theme. Likening Jesus’s resurrection and the final resurrection of the dead to the two “transcendental bookends” and picturing someone asking what is their job right now in this life, Crossan states that some Christians might answer, “Be very quiet, stay very holy, and pray—and wait.” But Crossan, like Wright, thinks strongly that this is a common but mistaken view, because, as Wright had already said, “You have a job to do.”46
All four Gospels share one of these key ministry applications in common. In each of these volumes, Jesus tells his disciples to go to the entire world and preach the gospel message. Even without resorting to the longer ending in Mark, Jesus still taught his disciples in various ways throughout that text that they must carry on his message and especially the preaching of the Gospel (as in Mark 13:9–10). We have already mentioned this theme in the Gospels, but the statement in Acts 1:8 may be the best known statement of this sort among them, with Jesus telling them to branch out from where they were, Jerusalem, into ever-widening areas into Judea, Samaria, and to the rest of the world.
Kenneth Gangel mentions the intriguing comment heard sometimes that Acts 1:8 could serve as an accurate outline for the remainder of Acts. On this idea, the gospel went out to Jerusalem (Acts 2:42–8:3),47 then to Judea and Samaria (8:4–12:24), and on to the ends of the earth (12:25–28:31).48
However, preaching the gospel was not the only additional job mentioned in the four Gospels and the first chapter in Acts. For example, after Jesus’s ascension, Peter immediately goes to work doing what the Lord had commanded them. He preaches the first Christian sermon after Jesus ascended (Acts 2:14–41). When he was finished, we are told that the believers’ numbers had grown to approximately 3,000 people.49 But after this sermon, the disciples’ ministry immediately branches out to multiple other jobs: teaching the new converts, sharing both the Lord’s Supper as well as ordinary meals, praying together with the apostles healing the sick and performing other miracles, as well as the believers sharing all of their goods with each other so that no one was in any need whatsoever (2:42–47). Very quickly, everyone indeed had new jobs to do!
As David Gooding reminds his readers, the early Christian preaching and teaching was inaugurated upon the foundation of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and fired up by the coming of the Holy Spirit. It then expanded to the entire world through “missionary and pastoral efforts.”50
Acts 1:9–11: Jesus’s Ascension
We have already addressed the topic of Jesus’s ascension in a fair amount of detail in the chapter on Luke, including addressing several critical objections and other critical responses. Here we will settle for a few additional comments.
Murray Harris notes some differences between the Acts 1 ascension account and the description of the ascension found in Luke 24. The first group of several items is found only in the Acts account: the identification of the forty-day time sequence for Jesus’s resurrection appearances (which presumably include the ascension not occurring on the initial Easter Sunday, as seemed to be the case in Luke); the relation between Jesus’s departing and the coming of the Holy Spirit; the description of the ascension being more detailed in Acts; and the link between the ascension and Jesus’s later return.51 To Harris’s list might also be added that at the ascension in Acts, two angels were present (Acts 1:10, “two men in white robes,” NRSV; cf. Luke 24:4, “two men in dazzling clothes” at the tomb, NRSV).
Harris lists some features in common between the two Lukan accounts too: Jesus did not simply ascend aimlessly into the sky, but went to heaven; the Jesus who rose is the same Jesus who ascended. Both texts mention that Jesus rose in the air rather slowly (anephereto in Luke 24:51; blepontōn autōn, “time to stare,” in Acts 1:9), as opposed to the immediate appearing and disappearing after the crucifixion (such as Luke 24:31b). In both cases, the ascension denotes physical separation of Jesus from his disciples. Lastly, the verbs for Jesus’s actual departure in both cases are passive, meaning that Jesus was acted upon and so participated in his Father’s revelation rather than simply left.52
As we remarked on the Gospel of Luke, the ascension was not simply a rather awkward or embarrassed way for Jesus to get out of the story, as critics sometimes assert. After all, Jesus could have simply notified the disciples on one of his visits that he would not be appearing again. Rather, as we have just seen, the ascension was an orderly, planned, and revelatory event. From first to last, it was deliberate and intentional.
Conclusion
The book of Acts is truly a gem that encompasses many separate facets. The initial eleven verses comprise the end of Jesus’s appearances and some key items are taught there. These include the period of the appearances lasting forty days plus that Jesus’s major message after his resurrection was the kingdom of God, which was the same central proclamation that he taught before these last events (both in Acts 1:3).
The presence of the Acts sermon summaries stands out especially in chapters 1–5, 10, and 13, although scholars locate these snippets elsewhere in this book as well. Due largely to these synopses almost always treating Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, these passages preserve remarkably early, compact, and authoritative teachings.53 Ehrman thinks that these and other early creedal traditions probably came from Jerusalem and at least some of them may even have been authored by the apostles.54
Beyond the strength of these sermon summaries, the additional combination of reliable reporting depicted in Luke 1:1–4 and Acts 1:1–2, the nature of the Gospels as Greco-Roman bioi, additional aspects of ancient historiography, the “we passages” in Acts, plus supplementary backup data from helpful archaeological finds, makes the first five volumes of the canonical New Testament valuable sources for the historicity of Jesus. The creedal traditions in particular are most helpful regarding the reported resurrection appearances. Luke reports the presence of evidence here (en pollois tekmēriois, Acts 1:3). The valuable stories and lessons primarily from Peter and Paul all combine for a useful and even exciting read.
But the historical Jesus and his death, resurrection, and ascension in Acts do not represent the end of the story in Acts or the rest of the New Testament. Throughout the Gospels, the remainder of Acts, and the Epistles, this gospel message had to be translated into ministry, preached to others, and employed to help heal a hurting world. It was a holistic message, beginning with Jesus and his gospel and then reaching out to others, as Jesus taught in the account that culminated with the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:25–37.
Notes
1 Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012). Keener’s first volume of this commentary is 1,100 pages long and includes five chapters on historiography, two chapters on genre, one chapter on the historicity and accuracy of the Acts speeches, one chapter on the authorship of Acts, and another chapter on the date of composition for Acts. Another noteworthy volume on related themes is Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989). Almost 500 pages in length, Hemer concentrates primarily on the question of the book of Acts and historiography in the ancient Greco-Roman world. These two volumes provide thousands of cross-references to ancient non-Christian literature.
2 Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 385 (see chap. 10, n. 134).
3 Note that the use of “Luke” here reflects the name of the traditional author rather than attempting to decide the issue by fiat.
4 For a brief outline of some interpretations here, see Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 378–89; cf. 837–38.
5 Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles, Anchor Bible 31 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1998),
6 An important caution needs to be issued here. Many (and perhaps even most) critical scholars think that the term witnesses as used by Luke in these particular contexts is a Lukan propensity—a term that Luke likes to use regularly. Two examples of scholars holding this position are Perkins, Resurrection, 167, 207 (see excursus 2, n. 111); and Lüdemann, Early Christianity, 33, 51 (see chap. 10, n. 70). However, whether or not the term witness is a Lukan word is not at all the major point. There is absolutely no problem if this or that word or phrase in the Acts speeches derives from Luke’s personal vocabulary. Rather, the primary issue here concerns whether or not Luke accurately summarizes the person’s speech. In other words, what difference does it make, as long as Luke is recording accurately the words of an early sermon summary, if he paraphrases or uses some of his own vocabulary here and there? Does not something similar happen many times over when more than one Gospel records a parallel saying by Jesus in slightly different words, which could even sound opposed to each other at points (cf. Luke 14:26 with Matt 10:37, along with many other texts)? The evidential issue in each case concerns whether or not the speaker’s words are fairly and accurately represented. As Guthrie states succinctly, “The content is historically true, but the words are Luke’s own”; see New Testament Introduction, 381. Classicist Colin Hemer makes this point extraordinarily well with regard to the Acts sermon summaries in Book of Acts, 419–21. As Hemer adds, the truth of the issue here is still “the evident primitive quality of much of the material” (422). Dodd agrees wholeheartedly with the assertion that many of these Acts sermon summaries are both exceptionally early as well as accurately recorded, though the Lukan qualities may often prevail over the Petrine or Pauline words. See Dodd, Apostolic Preaching, 16–26 (see chap. 8, n. 70). While Joseph Fitzmyer is not quite as positive as Dodd, his words are similar in Acts of the Apostles, 124–25.
7 Fitzmyer, Acts of the Apostles, 126; cf. Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 372.
8 Personal correspondence from Craig Keener, dated February 3, 2017.
9 Fitzmyer, Acts of the Apostles, 126–27.
10 William M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, 3rd ed. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1962), 7–8. Ramsay shares other biographical information and reasons for his changes of view in his volume, The Cities of St. Paul: Their Influence on His Life and Thought (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1907; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1960), 17–30.
11 William M. Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 4th ed. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1920), 222. Ramsay presents some additional thoughts on the trustworthiness of Acts and related ideas in St. Paul the Traveller, 1–10, 249–53, and 363–82, with the latter material devoted to Acts 1–4.
12 Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law, 189 (see chap. 8, n. 67). Guthrie also includes a brief section on Luke’s political knowledge in New Testament Introduction, 371–73.
13 These two examples along with other thoughts on this topic are found in Carson, Moo, and Morris, Introduction to the New Testament, 208–9 (see chap. 10, n. 20). To the reader who is wondering why the infamous issue of Governor Quirinius and the Roman census of Luke 2 was not mentioned as a problem, we are of course only concerned in this discussion with the book of Acts. For details on the differences between Paul and Acts regarding Paul’s trips to Jerusalem, see the discussion in Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 373–76. Incidentally, Keener also agrees that there are presently only two or three items in Acts “that look disconfirmed” (personal correspondence from Craig Keener, dated February 3, 2017).
14 Fitzmyer, Acts of the Apostles, 125–26.
15 Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 367–73, quotation on 367.
16 We reported above the comment by Craig Keener, the author of the most detailed Acts study volumes of all time, where he approximates that there are perhaps 100 or so already-confirmed historical, chronological, political, social, legal, geographical, or customs reports in Acts. In contrast, Keener and other scholars list less than five potentially disconfirmed details in Acts. If he is anywhere near correct, this would seem to place Acts in the overall group of documents that is vying for the best-established writing in the ancient world!
17 Dodd, Apostolic Preaching, 16–26.
18 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 109–13, 141, 172, 232, 261–62 (see chap. 2, n. 15).
19 Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 371. However, to complete the remainder of the citation above, Guthrie also notes: “but nevertheless many scholars find difficulty in some of Luke’s details.” We have already noted several examples of this earlier in this chapter.
20 Notice that we are speaking here of the English words used to translate Aristotle rather than the original Greek, and, of course, someone could always take issue with the translation.
21 The Works of Aristotle: Translated into English under the Editorship of W. D. Ross, M.A. vol. 9, Rhet., ed. W. Rhys Roberts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1924), 1356b–1357b. The quotations are from 1357b.
22 Some of these instances include the Wis. 5:11; 3 Macc. 3:24; and Josephus, J.W. 5.39; 17.128. See also Green, “Witnesses of His Resurrection,” 229–30 (see chap. 22, n. 66); A. T. Robertson, “The Acts of the Apostles,” in Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman, 1930), 3:6.
23 Perkins, Resurrection, 169; Keener, Gospel of John, 2:1186 (see chap. 9, n. 111); Lüdemann seems to agree as well in Early Christianity, 25.
24 Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories (see excursus 2, n. 111). The two quotations are found on 70 and 80, respectively.
25 Some commentators such as Moltmann, Way of Jesus Christ, 218 (see chap. 15, n. 28) and Brown, “Resurrection of Jesus,” 1377 (see chap. 19, n. 29), think that the forty-day period is meant symbolically. Thomas Oden treats the forty-day period as the literal time length of Jesus’s resurrection appearances; Word of Life, 2:503 (see chap. 12, n. 34). Alsup mentions the time frame but does not comment on it much, except that it introduces “a new element” that had not been introduced before; see Alsup, Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories, 69–70.
26 Harris, Raised Immortal, 50 (see chap. 8, n. 17); Robertson, “Acts of the Apostles,” 3:6.
27 The following is a significantly expanded treatment from my volume Risen Jesus and Future Hope, 129–32 (see chap. 2, n. 33).
28 Witherington, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), 36, 44, 48.
29 For just a small sampling, see France, Gospel of Mark, who lists these two plus at least five additional possible events on 343–46 (see chap. 10, n. 87); Hurtado, Mark, 139–40; 142–43 (see chap. 13, n. 1); Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 264 (see excursus 1, n. 95); Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 436–40 (see chap. 20, n. 10); Keener, Matthew, 278 (see chap. 16, n. 73); Witherington, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World, 37–39; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke, Anchor Bible 28–28A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 786–90; Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 365 (see excursus 1, n. 65); Evans, Luke, 149–51, 153 (see chap. 17, n. 100); George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 323; William Foxwell Albright and C. S. Mann, Matthew, Anchor Bible 26 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), 201; G. B. Caird, Saint Luke (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 130; Darrell L. Bock with Benjamin I. Simpson, Jesus the God-Man: The Unity and Diversity of the Gospel Portrayals (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 27; Mounce, Matthew, 165 (see chap. 16, n. 73). Mounce also includes the growth of the church as another option; A. R. C. Leaney, The Gospel according to St. Luke (London: Black, 1966), 166; E. J. Tinsley, The Gospel according to Luke, Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 102; C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, rev. ed. (London: Nisbet, 1936) 53–54; Gerard S. Sloyan, The Gospel of Saint Mark (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1960), 68–69.
30 Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, 14 (see chap. 15, n. 4).
31 Favoring this response are scholars like France, Gospel of Mark, 500–503; Hurtado, Mark, 211–12, 218, 222–24; Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 559–64, particularly 563; Keener, Matthew, 342–43; Caird, Saint Luke, 198–200; Cranfield, The Gospel according to St. Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 409; William Lane, The Gospel according to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 479–82; Ladd, Presence of the Future, 310–11; F. F. Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1983), 225–30; Witherington, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World, 42; Caird, New Testament Theology, 255–56 (see chap. 11, n. 17); Bock and Simpson, Jesus the God-Man, 27; cf. also Evans, Luke, 307, 310, where Evans appears to move somewhat away from the two-question scenario, only to seemingly embrace it in the end; Mounce, Matthew, 221–22, 226–29, who provides at least six potential explanations, but spends most of his words on the “two-question” scenario mentioned here; Wright also takes a modified view on this, in Jesus and the Victory of God, 346.
32 Scholars sometimes label this literary compositional device “conflation,” which occurs “when an author combines elements from two or more events or people and narrates them as one.” See Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?, particularly 20 (see chap. 4, n. 43). Perhaps think of it this way: What happened in Matt 10 might be similar to our attending two different baseball games and attempting to provide some details later for friends. Maybe due to being rushed for time, when we retold two similar events, one from each game (such as two home runs where the outfielder barely missed the ball as it cleared the fence on both occasions), we lumped them into one ongoing account. We never misrepresented the facts at all, such as if we reported that both incidents happened in a single game when they did not do so, but we did tell the stories together because of their similarities.
33 For a few examples of those who take these approaches, see Albright and Mann, Matthew, 125; Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 324–25; Keener, Matthew, 199, 208; George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, rev. ed., ed. Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 200; Bock and Simpson, Jesus the God-Man, 27; Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 194; Mounce, Matthew, 95–96; Bruce, Hard Sayings of Jesus, 109; T. W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 182; R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel according to St. Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 103, 108; A. W. Argyle, The Gospel according to Matthew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 81.
34 Bart Ehrman even makes a similar comment, speaking about Luke’s eschatology in New Testament, 119 (see chap. 4, n. 34).
35 Especially Ehrman, New Testament, 119–20; Hans Conzelmann, The Theology of Luke, trans. Geoffrey Buswell (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), 105; Willi Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist: Studies on the Redaction History of the Gospel, trans. James Boyce, Donald Juel, William Poehlmann, with Roy A. Harrisville (Nashville: Abingdon, 1969); cf. Theissen, Fortress Introduction to the New Testament, 109 (see chap. 10, n. 20). More moderate and conservative scholars also hold that Luke historicized Mark’s texts. See Evans, Luke, 307–8, 310; Leaney, Gospel according to St. Luke, 166, 263; Tinsley, Gospel according to Luke, 185–86; O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 87 (see chap. 1, n. 19).
36 This helps to solve an additional troublesome problem as well. Mark 13:30 (cf. Matt 24:34; Luke 21:32) records Jesus’s assertion that this “generation” (genea) will not pass until “all these things” (tauta panta) have occurred. There has been much discussion concerning this word genea, including that it also can be rendered as “race,” “people,” “age,” or other similar notions. This of course could be the case. After all, even the famous Greek scholar F. Wilbur Gingrich translated the term as “nation” in Mark 13:30. See Gingrich, Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 41. However, as noted by another Greek scholar, Friedrich Büchsel, genea is “mostly” translated as “generation,” though some of these other definitions are indicated in his volume too, both in the New Testament and elsewhere. Hence a bit of a problem could remain in Mark 13:32. See Friedrich Büchsel, “γενεά,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1:662–65 (see chap. 7, n. 61). So there is indeed some room here for an alternate translation of genea in Mark 13:32, just as Gingrich renders it “nation.” But now, the point above concerning Luke’s historicizing of Mark makes the point much stronger. Luke, who knew Greek exceptionally well judging from the caliber of his grammar and his writing style as a whole, apparently gave no thought to employing the same word as Mark in 13:32 without changing it. How do we know that Luke was fine with the term? Well, Luke did not hesitate to use genea himself in 21:32! Moreover, unless it was due to simple inconsistency, historicizing Mark indicates that Luke was not at all troubled by the normal definition of genea. Hence, the implication here is that he probably preferred another of Gingrich’s or Büchsel’s options above.
37 Hurtado agrees, Mark, 139.
38 Even on the thesis supported by some scholars that Matthew and Luke were composed in the 60s, we would still have some serious problems here. These writings would be at (or very nearly at) the end of the generation to whom Jesus preached, without Jesus having returned (Matt 24:34; Luke 21:32). As the disciples began dying, it would seem these Gospel authors would be even more apprehensive about repeating such teachings. But worse, on the earlier date, why would Luke (as in 21:12–24) need to historicize Mark at all (see the next note) if the events in question had not even occurred yet? Then there would be a real conflict here between Luke not feeling any pressure from coming to the end of the generation, as indicated by 21:32, but still historicizing Jesus’s teachings anyway, and both in the very same text!
39 Even Gerd Lüdemann agrees with this interpretation of Acts 1:6–7; Early Christianity, 26.
40 Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, 107–8 (see chap. 1, n. 19).
41 Pannenberg, 108.
42 Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection, 154 (see chap. 15, n. 109).
43 Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 462–63 (see chap. 1, n. 15). The quotation is on 462.
44 Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 190. Cf. also Moule, Birth of the New Testament, 143–45 (see chap. 4, n. 46); Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 463.
45 Wright, “Opening Statement,” 21 (see chap. 18, n. 1).
46 Crossan, “Opening Statement,” 27 (see chap. 10, n. 94).
47 One might wonder here why the message to Jerusalem should at least begin with Acts 2:14 or even earlier, rather than with 2:42.
48 Kenneth O. Gangel, Acts, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville: Holman Reference, 1998), 10.
49 If this total reflected the count of the men only, as Acts 4:4 reports after Peter’s next message, this initial number could have been much larger than 3,000.
50 David Gooding, True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and Defending the Gospel (Coleraine, UK: Myrtlefield, 2013), 43–44.
51 Harris, Raised Immortal, 87.
52 Harris, 87–88.
53 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 109–13, 141, 172–73, 232–33, 251, 261–62; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 855, cf. 864 (see chap. 1, n. 3); Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 87–98, 190 (see chap. 10, n. 17); Dodd, Apostolic Preaching, 16–31; Wilcox, Semitisms of Acts, 79–80, 165–67, 171 (see chap. 9, n. 12).
54 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 131, 144–46, 261; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 138 (see chap. 6, n. 173).