The Acts of the Apostles Luke s Part II

The Acts of the Apostles: Luke’s “Part II” The narrative bridge from Jerusalem to Rome

“Thinking with narrative” • Essay by Porter Abbott (in reader) spoke of thinking with narrative, “narrative negotiation. ” • Narrative involves the negotiation of conflict, frequently of opposing perspectives. • Oppositions are spread over a temporal grid; narrative moves between them. • A kind of “thinking through” oppositions, conflicts. • A useful way of approaching Luke/Acts, which can be described as a “narrative bridge” constructed between the early 1 st cent. Galilean/Judean world of Jesus and the late 1 st cent. world of Gentile Christianity.

The implicit oppositions in Luke/Acts • • • “The Way” is a Jewish thing. Jesus born into Judaism. His life is rooted deeply in Israel’s history. Its language is Aramaic. Concepts of movement are Jewish: Davidic messiahship, “kingdom of God, ” coming judgment, etc. • Teaching was in the context of Palestinian Judaism: parables, law. • All of his followers were Jewish. • Thought structures don’t really engage the patterns of the Hellenistic world.

But. . . • By mid 80 s C. E. “the Way” is a gentile thing. • Spread throughout the cities of the Mediterranean world. • A majority of its followers now are gentiles. • Its language is now Greek. • Jerusalem and the Temple have been destroyed. • All of Jesus’ original followers are dead. • His brother James no longer leads the movement. • Israel’s Law (and circumcision) no longer bind its followers. • Judaism now irrelevant?

Which is true? • Was Paul too successful? • The issue is identity. • Which makes it seemingly impossible to have it both ways. • Luke/Acts extends the question over its narrative grid. • Many episodes of Acts contain narrative elements that express one or the other, or both, perspectives. • Attempting to “resolve” these issues. • But many are incompatible or not easily resolved. • And so extended over the narrative grid and given alternating validity? • A narrative of conflicting Christianities that works to validate both understandings.

End of Luke/beginning of Acts • Gospel ends with Jesus’ “ascension, ” his prediction that the “repentance and forgiveness of sins” is to be proclaimed “to all nations. ” • “Beginning from Jerusalem. ” • And disciples return to Jerusalem, “continually in the Temple blessing God. ” • Acts seems to begin with the same, or similar, event. • A promise of “baptism of the Holy Spirit, ” Jesus ascending, and his prediction that they will be witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. ” • And, again, the disciples return to Jerusalem.

Pentecost and prolepsis • Prolepsis = narrative anticipation. • “The Holy Spirit” a Lukan theme. • (Still two and a half centuries away from Trinitarian definition; here it means something like the “spirit of God. ”) • The role call of ethnicities anticipates the spread of the way: 2: 7 -11). • “All devout Jews” – these are Jews of the diaspora. • Simultaneous translation! • Apostles not drunk – it’s only nine in the morning! • Peter now plays the interpretive role that Jesus had played in the Emmaus episode, interpreting Scriptures. • Prophecy from Joel – “in the last days” a pouring out of Spirit. • Davidic messiahship – and resurrection. • 3, 000 persons join the movement. • The ideal community of 2: 43 -47. See also 4: 32 ff. • Ananias and Sapphira story the obverse?

Recapitulation • Again and again episodes in Acts seem to recapitulate events in the Gospel of Luke. • E. g. , the question to Peter at 2: 37 repeats the question to John the Baptist at Luke 3: 10, and Peter’s reply is similar: “repent and be baptized. ” • Peter recapitulates Jesus’ healing of the cripple at the Gate of the Temple; see Luke 5: 17 -26. • In chapter 5, people bring the sick out so Peter’s shadow can fall on them – as the crowds had touched Jesus. • In Chapter 9, Peter cures a paralytic named Aeneas, a disciple named Tabitha (Gk. Dorcas) – as Jesus had healed the widow’s son at Nain (which in turn recalled a miracle of Elijah). • Later, Paul will raise the boy Eutychus from apparent death. • A kind of concatenation of healers: Jesus > Peter > Paul. Connected by the “spirit” that Luke sees working.

Beginning from Jerusalem • The first seven chapters, first quarter of Acts, details this part of the history. • Peter appears to be the leader of the community at this point. • Arrest, release, re-arrest, release by an angel (5: 19), threat of execution. • But saved by Pharisee Gamaliel (5: 34). • Everything centered on Temple (5: 42). • Thematically: a sense of inexorable, spiritdirected spread of the movement. • Tension between “Hellenists” (i. e. , Greekspeaking Jews) and “Hebrews” (Aramaicspeakers) quickly resolved.

Stephen – a recapitulation of Jesus? • Similar charges against Stephen: he preaches against Temple and Law. • Retells in summary the Hebrew Scriptures, esp. relating to Law and Temple. • Probably the high priest has heard this story before? ? !! • But this must be the story that the gospel had represented Jesus telling the disciples going to Emmaus (Luke 24: 27). • Stephen’s conclusion becomes the breaking point with Jerusalem and Temple. • Stephen sees Jesus at right hand of God (recapitulates the Transfiguration in gospel? ). • And dies with a version of Jesus’ dying words: “Lord Jesus receive my spirit” and “Lord, do not hold this against them. ” • And “all” – except apostles – are scattered through Judea and Samaria. • (Historically, the church remained in Jerusalem until the mid 60 s. James, Jesus’ brother, was executed in 62. )

The next turning point -- Saul • Luke makes the story very dramatic (Saul/Paul never tells the story this way). • (Alas, no horse, as Caravaggio had painted. ) • But a light from heaven, a voice, blindness. • Analogous to Zechariah’s muteness at beginning of Luke? • Now the instrument “to bring my name before gentiles and kings. ” • “Confounds” the Jews of Damascus. • But no street cred! He must be a double agent? • The summary of 9: 31. Another marker.