Introduces literary, historical,
and theological issues of Luke and Acts.
Biblical texts create worlds of meaning, and invite readers to enter them. When readers enter such textual worlds, which are often strange and complex, they are confronted with theological claims. With this in mind, the purpose of the Interpreting Biblical
Texts series is to help serious readers in their experience of reading and interpreting by providing guides for their journeys into textual worlds. The controlling perspective is expressed in the operative word of the title--interpreting. The primary focus of the series is not so much on the world behind the texts or out of which the texts have arisen as on the worlds created by the texts in their engagement with readers.
In keeping with the goals of the series, this volume provides an introductory guide to readers of the
New Testament books of Luke and Acts. It focuses on both the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of the literature in an effort to acquaint readers with literary, historical, and theological issues that will facilitate interpretation of these important books.
F. Scott Spencer is Professor of New
Testament at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond.
Newsflash—Luke and Acts are works of literature! Seems more like a flicker than a flash, but being reminded that Luke's contributions to early Christianity come to us as literature establishes key parameters for interpretation. Fundamentally, we read, hear, and process Luke and Acts as literary works, similar in some, but not all, respects to how we "read" other art forms. Although Luke's scenes have inspired artistic masterpieces, Luke and Acts are not paintings. Although portions of Luke's birth narrative, like the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), resemble the psalter and have inspired Christian hymns, Luke and Acts are not musical scores. Although they may borrow popular conventions from Greek or Roman epic poets (Homer; Virgil) or comic playwrights (Terence; Plautus), Luke and Acts are neither poetic sagas nor dramatic comedies. And although they feature numerous cities, regions, and other territories organized around various "journey" schemes, Luke and Acts are neither geographical textbooks (Strabo), nor cartographical sketches (Rand McNally), nor travel guides (Fodor's).
So we need to appreciate Luke and Acts as literature. But accepting that desideratum raises a host of attendant questions about Luke's literary project: How did Luke go about writing it? What structural and stylistic elements does it display? What kind of literature is it? Starting with a broad answer to this last question and stating the obvious (but not always the most observed by scholars), Luke and Acts are principally works of religious or sacred literature. Luke probably had no clue his writings would wind up in a canon of Christian Scripture, alongside the Old Testament; but the fact that they did, and have been so preserved in the Church for centuries, demonstrates their dominant religious tenor. I will make much of this religious (theological) dimension throughout this study.
But the ultimate fate of Luke and Acts as Holy Writ does not demand that these books were originally penned within a hermetically sealed chamber in an esoteric dialect of "Holy Ghost Greek," as some older scholars quaintly opined. Luke's Greek is quite good, but not that good. Like all New Testament books, Luke and Acts reflect the common (koine) Greek vernacular of the first century, even as they betray their own peculiar styles and patterns. Accounting, as we may, for a measure of spiritual guidance and prayerful insight (Luke makes much of both the Spirit and prayer), Luke's writings still emerged, like any other publications, out of creative human processes of gathering and forging thoughts and materials into a coherent literary composition. Understanding something of this scribal procedure promises to enhance our understanding of the final product.
Fortunately, we find a few hints of Luke's literary method in the prefaces to each volume.
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. (Luke 1:1-4) In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. (Acts 1:1-2)
These personal disclosures—the only "I" references from the Lukan author or narrator—introduce four issues concerning the composition of Luke and Acts:
Two Volumes. Acts' reference to "the first book" (or "first word," proton logon) addressed to Theophilus about Jesus' ministry points back to Luke's Gospel as the preceding work of a two-volume "set." But how is this "set" configured? Should we view Acts as a seamless continuation of Luke's story; a supplemental appendix, update, or revision of Luke; or a different book altogether? Many Sources. As any good writer in antiquity, Luke depends upon "many" (polloi) preceding documents and eyewitness reports. Although Luke "decided" (lit. "it seemed good to me") to offer his own account, he began by "investigating everything carefully" that others had reported and written. Accurate accounts of the past must be grounded in rigorous research. So what were Luke's primary sources, and how did he use them? Unfortunately, we have no footnotes or bibliography to check. We have similar, "Synoptic" Gospels, Mark and Matthew, that Luke might have examined for his first volume and possible parallels from Paul's letters informing Acts. But theories of literary dependence must be "carefully" sifted on a case-by-case basis. Broad Patterns. The NRSV designates both his predecessors' projects and Luke's own as "orderly," rendering two different Greek terms. The first, a verbal form of anatassomai used only here in the New Testament, generally means, "to organize a series of items," and, more specifically in Luke, "to organize (a report), to arrange, to compile, to put together." The second term, the adverb kathexes used five times in the New Testament (all in Luke and Acts), denotes "successively" or "sequentially" in relation to time (chronology, Acts 3:24), place (itinerary, Luke 8:1; Acts 18:23), or plot (narrating "step by step," Acts 11:4). Following Luke's cue, we seek to discover the main "orderly" sequences and patterns structuring his writings. Various Genres. Literary works, ancient and modern, typically appropriate one or more established generic templates, not as straitjackets stifling new developments, but as starter kits stimulating imaginative thought. The closest we come to a genre designation in the Lukan prefaces is diegesis, denoting "account" or, better, "narrated account" or just "narrative" (Luke 1:1). As a literary narrative, Luke's Gospel is distinguished from other written discourses, such as a public inscription, personal diary, business letter, philosophical essay, technical manual, or medical journal. But the wide "narrative" classification still begs several questions. What specific type(s) of narrative(s) did Luke produce? Do Luke and Acts share the same diegesis genre or subgenre (the term is not repeated in the Acts preface)? What particular narrative forms or models do they follow? Has Luke composed, singly or as a set, a succession narrative, biographical narrative, historical narrative, fictional narrative, or a mixture of these (and other) genres?
TWO VOLUMES
In 1927 Henry Cadbury launched a new nomenclature for Luke's two-volume work: Luke-Acts. Acknowledging that the hyphenated label was "not typographically beautiful or altogether congenial to the English language," Cadbury suggested that the sacrifice in English style was worth gaining a convenient handle highlighting the "historic unity" of the two books. However, in literature, no less than religion or politics, unity is a multifaceted ideal difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Without selling our souls to a full-blown postmodern or deconstructive agenda, we can still acknowledge that no text exhibits perfect coherence; that awkward gaps, loose threads, and nagging inconsistencies complicate any narrative; and that readers' perceptions of unity and tension vary greatly across time, culture, and ideology.
Concerning the unity of Luke and Acts in particular, apart from likely disjunctions and digressions within each book (counter-pointing order and design), the fact that both volumes never circulated together or appeared adjacently in any canonical list, as far as we know, should give us pause. If Theophilus shelved the original Luke and Acts side by side in his library, he may have been the only one to keep them together! They were likely never copied and sold as a double-set (with or without a box). Moreover, as Mikeal Parsons and Richard Pervo have observed, Luke's Gospel nicely wraps up Jesus' career with his ascension and discloses no plans for a sequel, as we find at the end of first installments of two-volume treatises by Josephus (Against Apion) and Philo (Life of Moses). Finally, even a cursory comparison of the lengthy "travel narratives" in Luke 9–19 and Acts 13–28—the former, a loosely connected, vaguely situated string of episodes; the latter, a tightly linked, precisely mapped series of expeditions—demonstrates that Luke and Acts vary at points in their modes of presentation. More than grammatical infelicity strains the Cadbury hyphen.
But despite disruptions in the stylistic, canonical, and generic unity of Luke and Acts, the two works still enjoy authorial (though anonymous) unity and a close (not cloned) association in other areas: though free to shift styles between writings, Luke shows a preference for select vocabulary ("repentance," "salvation"), characters (Jesus, Peter), sources (Old Testament), and patterns (male/female pairings) in both volumes; though not directly paired in the New Testament, Luke and Acts still made the same scriptural canon (a rather exclusive club), separated by only one book (John); and although not identical generic twins, they bear more than a passing family resemblance as extended "narratives." Such observations (discussed further below) suggest that we may profitably interpret Luke and Acts as a "double work" by appreciating intertextual links between the two narratives while respecting the integrity and individuality of each. We may expect to find numerous unifying elements, even as we take care not to force them.
Although Luke may not have anticipated a companion volume to his Gospel, he clearly built upon it when composing Acts. Casting more than a perfunctory glance back to his "first book" for Theophilus, Luke picks up several strands from that work for further development in Acts 1. First, he succinctly summarizes the Gospel's contents: "I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven" (Acts 1:1b-2a). Excepting the birth narratives in Luke 1–2, this statement epitomizes Jesus' entire career from the beginning of his public ministry—in deed and word—to his heavenly ascension. (Christian belief in Jesus' ascension [cf. Apostles' Creed] derives almost exclusively from Luke and Acts.) The NRSV translation, "all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning," may also be rendered, "all that Jesus began (erxato) to do and teach." This reading may offer a subtle clue to the contents of Acts: as the Gospel (Volume 1) tracked what Jesus began to accomplish on earth, this book (Volume 2) will track what the living Jesus continues to do and teach from his heavenly post. Indeed, Acts repeatedly shows Jesus' continued involvement in earthly affairs, albeit in Spirit and epiphany rather than body and ministry (2:33; 7:55-56; 9:3-6; 16:17; 18:9-10; 22:17-21). The ascended Lord is no absentee Lord. Comparing Jesus' words and works in Luke's two volumes opens up fruitful avenues for interpretation.
Second, Acts 1 flashes back to Jesus' post-resurrection appearances in Luke: "After his suffering (pascho) he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3). Luke's last chapter features two "convincing" (eventually) appearances of the risen Jesus to his followers (24:13-32, 36-53; cf. v. 34), in which he affirms the necessity of his "suffering" or "passion" (pascho) in God's plan (24:26, 46). Acts adds extra temporal (forty days) and topical (kingdom of God) items to the Gospel appearance scenes, but such accoutrements coordinate well with other material in Luke: a forty-day period of instruction recalls Jesus' forty-day ordeal of "temptation" (Luke 4:2), and announcing the kingdom of God follows the prime directive of Jesus' mission: "I must (dei) proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God ... for I was sent for this purpose" (4:43).
Third, the risen Lord's parting mandate in Acts 1:4-5, 8 that his apostles wait to "be baptized with the Holy Spirit" and empowered for witness echoes both the commencement and denouement of Jesus' mission in Luke.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Interpreting Biblical Texts - The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles by F. Scott Spencer Copyright © 2008 by The United Methodist Publishing House. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Overview
Introduces literary, historical,
and theological issues of Luke and Acts.
Biblical texts create worlds of meaning, and invite readers to enter them. When readers enter such textual worlds, which are often strange and complex, they are confronted with theological claims. With this in mind, the purpose of the Interpreting Biblical
Texts series is to help serious readers in their experience of reading and ...