The Book of Acts as Story

A Narrative-Critical Study

Bauer, David R.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781493429028
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

A senior New Testament scholar and teacher helps students understand the historical, literary, and theological issues of the book of Acts and introduces key concepts in the field of narrative criticism. This volume captures the message of the book of Acts by taking seriously the book's essential character as a powerful story through which Luke communicates profound theological truth. While giving attention to historical background, its purpose is to lead readers through a close reading that yields fresh insights into passages throughout Acts.

1
Approaching Acts

Any robust and effective reading of Acts assumes at least a basic orientation to the book and thoughtful consideration as to how we might effectively examine such a book. This kind of orientation does not involve bringing extraneous information to bear in such a way as to “read it into” the text, but rather acquiring the level of knowledge and the kind of perspective that the author assumed his1 intended readers would have and would bring to the reading experience. Thus, in this chapter I address the character of the book of Acts and present a methodological approach that is well suited to a book of this nature.

Relation of the Book of Acts to the Gospel of Luke

The fact that the book of Acts is separated canonically from the Gospel of Luke by the insertion of John’s Gospel between these two writings has naturally tended to lead readers to approach these two books separately, in spite of the consideration that a comparison between the “prologue” to Luke’s Gospel and that of Acts (cf. Luke 1:1–4; Acts 1:1–3) makes it clear that these two books were produced by the same author2 and that they belong in some sense together. A turning point occurred in 1927 with the publication of The Making of Luke-Acts by the Harvard professor Henry J. Cadbury.3 After the appearance of that volume the hyphenated designation became virtually ubiquitous. Subsequently, almost all scholars have insisted that the two volumes must be understood in light of each other.

Yet, a difference of opinion exists regarding the nature and extent of that relationship. On the one hand, scholars such as Charles H. Talbert and F. F. Bruce contend that Luke wrote the two to be read as one continuous narrative, thus constituting a single book.4 At the other extreme are scholars such as Mikeal Parsons and Richard Pervo,5 who maintain that although the Gospel and Acts were written by a single person, their differences in genre, narrative features, and theology require that we consider them as two separate books.6

Actually, problems exist for both of these positions. On the one hand, we have no evidence that the Gospel and Acts ever circulated together as a single volume.7 Moreover, in Acts 1:1 Luke himself differentiates Acts from the Gospel when he refers to the Gospel as “the first book” (τὸν πρῶτον λόγον). On the other hand, the claim that the two books express significant theological differences is doubtful; most of the points of alleged discontinuity can be accounted for on the basis of the distinct subject matter and the salvation-historical progression from the Gospel to the Acts (earthly Jesus / period of the early Church).8

As my tracing of the plot of Acts will demonstrate, a dialectical relationship exists between the Gospel and Acts. There we will see that Luke constantly assumes that the reader of Acts knows the Gospel of Luke and will construe details in Acts in light of statements made in the Gospel. Although Talbert at points overstates the “structural unity” between the two books, the number and character of the parallels between the Gospel and Acts and the thematic connections that join these two books require that we consider them as a single overarching literary production. Nevertheless, the book of Acts has its own distinct structural coherence and is arguably of a different genre than the Gospel. Consequently, we should conclude that Acts is the second volume of a two-volume work, which on the one hand has its own message to convey, but on the other hand cannot be fully or even adequately understood without reference to the Gospel.9

The Genre of Acts

It is impossible to communicate, especially in writing, without genre. Every book, therefore, represents a genre, and some books seem to reflect a mix of genres. We might define genre as a repeated and consequently familiar combination of content and arrangement of that content. In every culture certain genres are recognized and their characteristics are familiar. This issue of recognizability is critical, for if a genre is to fulfill its proper function of facilitating interaction, it is necessary that both the writer and the reader know that the genre exists and are aware of the characteristics of that genre, so that the writer can assume that the reader will construe the writing in accord with the nature of the genre. In fact, a genre functions as a kind of agreement between writers and readers.

Thus, a genre is an implicit code by which the writer guides the audience to adopt reading strategies appropriate to that genre and to discourage those strategies unsuitable to the genre being employed. It follows, then, that the book of Acts belongs to a genre and should properly be read according to that genre, even by those who live in a different cultural environment than the ancient biblical world and who may be unacquainted with the genres that were familiar in that world.10

Although for many years no consensus existed regarding the genre of the Gospels, since the publication of What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, by Richard Burridge, almost all scholars agree that our Gospels, including the Gospel of Luke, are in the form of ancient biography.11 The connection noted above between the Gospel of Luke and Acts, along with the sustained presentation of Peter and Paul in Acts, has led some scholars to insist that Acts belongs to the same genre.12 Yet the focus of the book of Acts is upon events and geographical expansion more than personages; accordingly, Acts ends without any indication of what will happen to Paul when he finally makes his appeal to Caesar.13 The primary concern is to show, through the plotting of Acts, how the gospel is finally effectively proclaimed as far as Rome and announced in an unhindered fashion at Rome itself.14 Moreover, because Acts is manifestly a well-told story, with adventures and suspense, others have considered that it belongs to the genre of novel,15 especially since ancient novels often featured stories of historical personages, similar in some ways to our historical novels. Yet, unlike ancient novelists, Luke makes mention of employment of sources (Luke 1:1–4), and ancient novels do not contain the concerns for truth claims that we find in Acts.16

In fact, almost all scholars insist that Acts belongs to the genre of ancient historiography.17 The debate involves only whether one can rightly identify a more specific form of ancient historiography. Because Acts is a single-volume history, over against the multivolume histories that were prevalent in antiquity, and because it focuses upon a relatively narrow period of time, the tendency among recent scholars is to consider it a “historical monograph.”18

Understandably, scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to the nature of ancient historiography. A consensus has emerged that the following are characteristics of the genre:19

• focus on events rather than persons as such, though of course persons are necessarily important in the course of describing events
• connected, logically developing plot line, over against annals or chronicles that offer basically a list or mere sequence of happenings
• use of rhetorical devices that were at home in the literature of classical antiquity, employed for the sake of persuasion, thoug...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Approaching Acts
• 2. Narrative Criticism and Acts
• 3. Literary Structure of Acts
• 4. The Promise and the Preparation
• 5. The Witness to Jerusalem
• 6. The Witness to All Judea and Samaria as Far as Antioch
• 7. The Witness to the End of the Earth
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Scripture and Ancient Sources Index
• Back Cover