Luke-Acts

This essay offers insight into Luke's concept of God by analysing three sections in which God is explicitly a topic of discussion. These sections are Stephen's apology (Acts 7:2-53), the account of Paul's and Barnabas' mission in Lystra (Acts 14:8-18), and the Areopagus speech (Acts 17:22-31). Because these texts share similar motifs, they can be said to constitute an argumentative series. In these sections, Luke provides a coherent concept of God comprised of many motifs from Luke-Acts. The central motif is that God created the world, which results in God's self-sufficiency. Therefore, a worship with neither sacrifices nor temple is the appropriate response to God as a self-sufficient, transcendent, spiritual, and perfect being that is completely different from every mortal being on earth.

I presented my paper, "THE REDISCOVERY OF CODEX BEZAE CANTABRIGIENSIS AND ITS SUBSEQUENT EFFECT ON THE RECEPTION OF LUKE 16:19-31" in room Central 214 of the Pontifical Gregorian University on Friday, July 05. My lecture was part of the Synoptic Gospels program unit (chairs: J. R. C. Cousland and John P. Harrison), which met for presentation at the 2019 International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in Rome, Italy (July 01-05, 2019). The Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Gregorian University were the host institutions.

Description:
The Synoptic Gospels, which have formed a coherent unit since antiquity, have played an important role in modern scholarship. This section provides an open forum for the presentation of papers, from a variety of perspectives and using a variety of methods, on these seminal religious texts.

Call for papers:
This year’s primary focus will be on the parables in the Synoptic tradition. The Synoptic Gospels Section will have three sessions: i) a session for invited papers only on the parables; ii) a general invitation for papers related to the parables in the synoptic tradition, with particular focus on matters of material culture and methodologies; and iii), a general invitation for papers on the Synoptic Gospels. There are plans to publish a selection of studies on the parables.

Ph.D. Thesis.  A work of homiletic theology, the thesis argues that Luke's account of Mary's labor in bearing the Christ child is a performative metaphor for the relationship between Spirit, Word and bodily performance for pulpit.  The thesis draws on insights from performance theory, feminist critiques of rhetorical models and a sacramental theology of the proclaimed Word.

Convocation Address at Bethel University, August 29, 2016 about recent troubles in Minnesota, particularly the shooting of Philando Castille, and our responsibility as followers of the Gospel. There is an audio link also available. After you click the link, it's the first one in the queue; fast-forward to 15:00:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/2016-2017-chapel-college-arts/id1148681753?mt=10

Spencer serves as professor of New Testament and biblical interpretation at Baptist Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia. His monograph Salty Wives, Spirited Mothers, and Savvy Widows: Capable Women of Purpose and Persistence in Luke's Gospel (Eerdmans, 2012). He has also contributed a commentary on Acts in the Readings series (Bloomsbury1999), a volume on Luke and Acts in Abingdon’s Interpreting Biblical Texts Series (2011), Journeying through Acts: A Literary-Cultural Reading (Baker Academic, 2014) and the Song of Songs volume in the Song of Songs in the Wisdom Commentary Series (Michael Glazier, 2017). 

The book begins with twenty pages introduction defining Spencer’s methodology for the commentary and a brief introduction to his view of theological interpretation. Spencer is not interested in writing a compendium of previous work on Luke. He avoids the tedious repetition other commentaries. He strives toward a “rigorously sequential development, mindful of interpretive journey” (5). The commentary has very little interest in redaction criticism. Spencer is not concerned with how Luke handled his sources, rather he wants to let “Luke be Luke on his own terms” (6).

This theme could be said to cover all aspects of life and Al Tizon’s two articles, which lead off this edition, fit within that framework. However, the application of his two articles merges with the focus of the remaining four articles in that they have strong ramifications for ministry among the poor, oppressed and disenfranchised of today’s world—the segments of society from which the vast majority of Pentecostals and Charismatics are drawn.

This paper argues for the essential historical reliability of the account of the community of goods amongst the early believers in Jesus in Jerusalem given in the Acts of the Apostles (2:42–27, 4:32–5:17 and 6:1–6). It summarises some of the exegetical and historical research of the author's doctoral dissertation (PANTA KOINA: Early Christian Community of Goods in its ancient Jewish and hellenistic contexts, PhD, Cambridge University, 1986). It argues that, while Utopian stylising is evident in Acts 2:44 and 4:32/34, there is clear evidence on an early tradition which used the vocabulary of the Essene yachadh community form known from the Rule of the Community from Qumran Cave 1. The paper also argues that the phased entrance procedure to the yachadh community form was employed in the earliest Jerusalem community of believers in Jesus. It is especially argued that Peter's words in Acts 5:4, 'Is it not the case that while it remained, it remained yours, and sold/handed over it remained in your power' reflect the 'blocked account' of 1QS VI:20. It is further argued that the probable presence of an Essene community near both the 'Gate of the Essenes' on the south west hill of Jerusalem and the traditional site of the 'upper room' (the 'Cenacle' of Christian tradition, part of the fourth century church of Hagia Sion), location of the events of Pentecost and the community of property amongst Jesus' post-Easter followers, explains the passage into the community of Essene language and legal forms relating to the community of goods, and with other evidence suggests the probable presence amongst the many converts to the Jesus movement at this time of Essenes who were already participating in community of goods arrangements and of others from the Essene movement who were intending to enter upon this form of religious social life.

This paper seeks to completely remodel the way in which we think of Luke’s characterization of the rich and poor. I will argue that both the methodology and the data-set need updating or, in some cases, to be abandoned. I will argue that our methodology needs to move past using solely lexical studies and should incorporate tools like economic scaling in our exegetical work. I will demonstrate what an updated data-set might look like by looking to material culture. To demonstrate how we might use my proposed model, I will calculate the cost of the Good Samaritan’s possessions and behaviors. Finally, I will view these calculations from the perspective of Luke’s audience members to show how being a “neighbor” might differ depending on one’s socio-economic status in the first-century. I will conclude with some exegetical benefits of this reading.

Ben Witherington discovered the hand-written manuscript of this long-forgotten commentary on Acts by J. B. Lightfoot in the spring of 2013. The introduction to the commentary explains how Witherington had an opportunity to examine Lightfoot’s papers during a sabbatical visit at St. John’s College at Durham University. (See also Witherington’s “Text Archaeology: The Finding of Lightfoot’s Lost Manuscripts,” Biblical Archaeology Review 40.2 [March/April 2014]). This volume contains 6 black and white glossy pages of photographs illustrating the original pages discovered at Durham. According to IVP Academic, there are two more volumes planned in this series, one on the Gospel of John and another on 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter.

In his introduction, Osvaldo Padilla says his intention is to do for the present generation of Acts students what I. Howard Marshall’s Luke: Historian and Theologian is for the previous generation. The third edition of Marshall’s classic study was published in 1998, but the original was written in 1970. Much has changed in Luke-Acts studies in the more than forty-five years since Marshall’s book was first published. One major issue cited by Padilla is the postmodern conception of history has changed the way scholars approach a book like Acts. It is necessary to engage “broader philosophical and theological questions” before approaching some of the basic matters of introduction (14).

The second feminist wave has led to a large scale search for traces of women's authorship, traditions, and leadership in ancient society. The aim was to reclaim women's past as a heritage, in order to support and motivate the struggle for women's liberation in modern society. This is especially true for the field of biblical exegesis and patristic studies, as the continued exclusion of women from church leadership had been motivated by the idea that women did not have any significant position in early Christianity. Although the search the presence of women in early Christianity was put on the agenda by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (1983), it must be remembered that this search actually started during the first feminist wave, with a group of scholars in the German 'History of Religions School' assembled by Adolf Harnack  in the famous Kirchenväterkommission. In his book Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (1902), Harnack was able to establish a decisive role played by women in early Christian mission. But then, Harnack was a liberal protestant scholar who felt less restraint than his Roman Catholic counterpart Alfred Loisy, who kept relegating mainly domestic roles to women in the ancient world. In all of this, the Gospel of Luke seems to have been the eye of the storm, as this gospel does pay much attention to women, but in a rather ambiguous or paradoxical way.
While it is clear that the search for gender roles in Antiquity has from the outset been motivated by a liberal protestant wish for freedom on the one hand, versus a staunch catholic defence of established positions on the other, it is also clear that the concept of gender itself remained unquestioned, and was applied in an anachronistic, even parontocentric way. Gender remained a concept stemming from modernity, primarily based on biological sex. New Testament scholars, e.g. Conway (2008) have become increasingly uneasy about this and have attempted to describe the construction of gender in Antiquity in terms of virtuous behaviour, rather than sex. Following contemporary research in the field of classical studies, they have proposed a bipolar gradual scale between virtuous masculinity on the one hand and femininity on the other.
In my paper, I will argue that this behaviour based model falls short in giving account of the ambiguity described for Luke's Gospel. I will propose a far more nuanced model to describe the construction of gender in Antiquity, at least during early imperial rule. My model is based on Vitruvius, in which interpretation encountered the same problem as in the case of Luke, that is, a gender paradox, oscillating between 'hypermasculinity' (Milnor 2005) and 'low gender rhetoricity' (Williams 2016). I will argue that a close reading of Vitruvius is not only helpful to delineate the outlines of an ancient gender paradigm 'under construction,' but also helps to highlight a particular development within the construction of gender in which Luke takes part. Thus, I hope to demonstrate that a new heuristic model for gender in Antiquity suddenly and unexpectedly brings to the fore a development in the dealing with gender hitherto not clearly acknowledged, which helps to explain in its turn both the paradox described for Vitruvius and the ambiguity in Luke's Gospel.

The account of Eutychus’ fall in Acts 20,9 poses both translation and archaeological challenges. “Third floor” is the preferable translation for τρίστεγος in the British system, “fourth floor” in the American system. A multi-storeyed insula was the likely building in which the believers met in Troas. While insulae dating to the early second century CE can be found in Rome and Ostia, none have yet found in the archaeological record in the Greek East. Since poorer people lived on the upper floors of insulae, the ekklēsia in Troas was largely comprised of individuals from a lower socio-economic class.

In this presidential address, I outline a history of pentecostal/charismatic reception. I explore different ways that pentecostal/charismatic believers have received, appropriated, and used Acts 8 throughout our history. I propose that a reception of more than one hundred years of pentecostal musings over Acts 8 provides a snapshot of our extended pentecostal family. I suggest up front that this family history exposes pentecostal/ charismatic notions about the nature of biblical interpretation. I conclude with general observations from my research and suggest further implications for students and scholars interested in reception history.

Introduction to Messianic Judaism provides a description of what the Messianic Jewish community looks like today at its center and on its margins. The first section of the book traces the ecclesial contours of the community, providing a socio-historical and theological snapshot of the community's origins, where it is presently and where it is heading. Alongside these chapters, the book also includes a number of essays on biblical and theological issues central to the identity of Messianic Judaism. The twelve contributors to the first part of the book are recognized leaders in the Messianic Jewish community. They work with various organizations, including the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues, the Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council, Tikkun International, Chosen People Ministries, Messianic Jewish Theological Institute, Israel College of the Bible and the New School for Jewish Studies. Fourteen scholars from a wide spectrum of Christian backgrounds have written essays for the second part of the book. Their participation signals a growing academic and ecclesial interest in Messianic Judaism. Since the 1970s, a sea change has taken place in New Testament studies that has far-reaching implications for how the church evaluates Messianic Judaism. A broad reassessment of the New Testament writers’ view of Judaism has occurred since the publication of E. P. Sanders’s seminal work Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977), and this reevaluation continues unabated. The contributors to the second part of Introduction to Messianic Judaism draw from this recent scholarship and demonstrate how post-supersessionist interpretation of the New Testament results in readings of the biblical text that are consistent with Messianic Judaism. The final section of the book is written by Joel Willitts who provides a summary and synthesis of the essays, explaining how they shed light on the ecclesial context and biblical foundations of Messianic Judaism.

Only a select few scholars in the history of New Testament research have achieved the level of stature that Adolf Harnack enjoyed in the eyes of the academic guild of his day. Harnack's importance is often measured with regard to his historical-theological works on church history, the history of doctrine, and the essence of Christianity as defined within the paradigm of classical liberalism. The impact of his scholarship, however, was not limited to these areas of focus. He also made substantial contributions to New Testament research, not least to Lukan studies. In the first half of this essay, I describe the various areas of Harnack's scholarly endeavors within the context of his life, major influences, and academic career. This sets the stage for the second half of this essay where, having situated Harnack's contributions to Lukan scholarship within the context of his life and intellectual environment, I will present the content and arguments in his major works on the Third Gospel and book of Acts to critically assess their strengths and weaknesses and gauge their enduring value.

Los tres primeros evangelios (según Mateo, Marcos y Lucas), comúnmente llamados “sinópticos” por sus muchos rasgos en común, presentan la misión de Jesús centrada en la proclamación del reino de Dios. Aparecen por tanto como tres testimonios de la realización por medio de Jesús de ese reinado escatológico del Señor, que así cumple, desbordándolas, las promesas hechas a Israel. El tema está también presente en los Hechos de los Apóstoles, continuación del tercer evangelio y parte integrante de la obra de Lucas.
El presente volumen aúna el estudio crítico y teológico, exponiendo el estado actual de la investigación en sus diversos aspectos (históricos y literarios) y explicando cada libro en sus características propias; las referencias bibliográficas permitirán profundizar en aquellas cuestiones que un manual no puede tratar con detalle. Al mostrar la peculiaridad literaria, histórica y teológica de cada libro, queda también patente la unidad que subyace a todos ellos. Esto es posible por la perspectiva hermenéutica del testimonio; sin minusvalorar la originalidad de cada escrito (que por el contrario queda claramente manifestada), los libros son comprendidos como testimonios diversos de una misma realidad, de un mismo acontecimiento: la plenitud de la revelación en Cristo Jesús. De este modo, las diferencias entre los sinópticos —que aparecen claras— quedan integradas en un horizonte más amplio. Todo ello confiere al libro, pese a estar compuesto por partes diferentes, una “unidad argumental” que facilita su lectura y estudio; en esta conjunción de diversidad y unidad radica su principal aportación.
Está dirigido a estudiantes de Teología en seminarios, facultades de Teología e institutos de Ciencias Religiosas; pero también a religiosos, catequistas y grupos de iniciación bíblica, así como a personas con una cultura media deseosas de iniciarse en el conocimiento de los evangelios.

James Edwards previously contributed the volume on Mark to the Pillar New Testament Commentary. It is unusual for a commentary series to assigned two Synoptic Gospels to a single scholar. What is more, Edwards did not write the Acts commentary in the series, David G. Peterson did in 2009. This allows Edwards to read Luke without having a second commentary on Acts in mind. As a result, Luke nor Luke is not merely a prologue for Acts.

Christian.1 He bases his claim on two main factors: (1) his exegetical claim that conversion/initiation = gift of the Spirit = receiving the Spirit, and (2) on the basis of Rom. 8:9 a person cannot be a Christian without having the Spirit, so one must receive the Spirit in order to be a Christian.2 Howard Ervin has aptly refuted Dunn's conversion/initiation hypothesis through his extensive critique of Dunn.3 Ervin has pointed out that Luke's pneumatology is functional or phenomenological as opposed to ontological, that Luke's receiving the Spirit" does not mean "receiving the Spirit within."4 Study of Luke's usage of the phrase will bear this out.

With the present volume alongside his previous Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke (Baker Academic, 2009), C. Kavin Rowe has emerged as an important and self-consciously interdisciplinary contributor to ongoing conversations in Luke-Acts. Where Early Narrative Christology employed narrative criticism to track the meaning and usage of kyrios in Luke’s Gospel, in World Upside Down, Rowe blends traditional biblical exegesis, narrative criticism, political theory, and constructive theology to marshal an argument about the theo-political logic of Acts (7)

Περίληψη: Η παρούσα εργασίας έχει ως στόχο να σκιαγραφήσει κάποιες πτυχές της πολυσύνθετης προσωπικότητας του Ευαγγελιστή Λουκά, ως συγγραφέα και θεολόγου, καθώς και να αναδείξει το περιεχόμενο του ιστορικού βιβλίου των Πράξεων των Αποστόλων.

Abstract: This work is an attempt to outline the personality of the Evangelist and physician Luke, the only Gentile writer in the New Testament, as well as to highlight the content of the historical book of Acts, which we will analyze in terms of content, sources, time frame, the purpose of writing, and recipients.

The present study explores the dynamic of persuasion and force in Acts within the context of Greco- Roman and Jewish political thought, with special reference to 4 Maccabees. It also constitutes a response to C. Kavin Rowe’s argument for two closely related points, namely, that Acts rejects statecraft and and that it leaves no room for coercion, which conflicts with the nature of Jesus as Lord. After first clarifying what is at stake for Rowe theologically (§1), I survey the themes of persuasion and force in Acts, arguing that the early Christian community is portrayed in terms of the ideal polity. A fundamental element of this portrayal is the fact that Acts shows the early Christian leaders to be extremely persuasive, divinely inspired, while Jewish, Greek and Roman leaders resort to force in an effort to stop the expansion of the gospel (§2.1). This is supplemented by a brief discussion of 4 Maccabees (§2.2). Finally, I demonstrate that Acts preserves a place for force within the context of the Christian community in the elements of divinely initiated force evident in the death of Ananias and Sapphira, among other events (§3). I conclude that the dynamic of persuasion and force, along with other civic themes, belies Rowe’s argument that Acts rejects “statecraft” and coercion, showing that both points are problematized rather than proven by the narrative Acts in its ancient context of Greco-Roman political thought.

The attached file shows the commentary on the Book of Acts as in the Contemporary Arabic Commentary. This book is the first of its kind in the Middle East, written in Arabic, by Arabic Christian scholars. It offers Arab theological thinking with a great deal of diversity and pluralism to interpreters. This work results from an effort over many years, with 48 writers from six Arab countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, and Kuwait.
http://www.langhamcatalogue.org/OurPublications/OneVolumeCommentaries/tabid/196/CategoryID/75/ProductID/7295/language/en-US/Default.aspx

Professor Emerita at Columbia Theological Seminary, Justo González is known for his popular two-volume The Story of Christianity (1984) and three-volume A History of Christian Thought (Abingdon, 1987). In this short meditation on Luke’s Gospel, he offers a historian’s view of the theology of Luke/Acts. There is very little on authorship issues or whether the two books should be read together. Regardless of origin, González assumes the two books are to be read as a unit and his theological observations cover both books. González does not interact with other monographs on Luke’s theology nor is he particularly interested in exegetical details. There are no footnotes or references in these short reflections.

There has been a renewed interest in the language of faith (pistis) in recent years, but few studies have focused exclusively on the way that such language is understood and utilized in Luke-Acts. This article explores the nuance and development of faith-language in appropriated and unique Lukan passages, focusing on the faith of Jesus's disciples. The analysis then turns to how this develops throughout the narrative into Acts, with a focus toward illustrating how Luke uniquely highlights the disciples' pistis to show that a problem to be remedied in the era of Acts is their lack of faith.

The “We-Passages”  of Acts (16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28: 16) have long been considered both a clue to the identity of the author of the work and a literary problem. In this study. it is argued that the identity of the author is the same as the 'I' of the Lucan Prologue and the Preface of Acts. It is noted that scholarship has been fixed on imagining the identity of the companion as male, when this person was credibly a female travelling companion of Paul who was also literate. The female authorship may explain also why Luke-Acts was  preserved as an anonymous work. As to precise identity, the elusive character of Thecla is explored as a possibility, by reference to the sarcophagus lid of the so-called 'Thecla ship', which in fact represents a shipwreck.