Acts and the third gospel must originally have been two parts of a book that today we should call 'a history of the rise of Christianity'. About 150 A.D., when Christians wanted the four gospels bound in one codex, these two parts were separated. The title 'Acts of the Apostles', which may have been given to the second part at this time, follows normal contemporary hellenistic usage as in, example, the 'Acts' of Hannibal and the 'Acts' of Alexander, etc.
That these two books of the New Testament were once closely associated is suggested - 1.- by their Prologues: both are addressed (cf. Luke 1:1-4) to someone called Theophilus and Acts 1:1, having referred to the gospel as an 'earlier work', goes on by way of introduction to say why the gospel as an 'earlier work', goes on by the way of introduction to say why the gospel was written and to summarise its closing incidents (appearances of the risen Christ, Ascension); - 2. - by their literary affinity: vocabulary, grammar and style are not only consistent all through Acts showing that it is a literary unity, but they are also characteristic of the third gospel, which makes it almost certain that both books are by the same author.
The only identification of the author ever suggested by Church writers is Saint/Apostle Luke, and no critics ancient or modern have ever seriously suggested anyone else. This identification was already known to the churches about the year 175 A.D. as shown by the Roman canon known as the Muratorian Fragment, by the Anti-Marcionite Prologue, by Saint Irenaeus, Saint Clement and Saint Origen in Alexandria and by Saint Tertullian, and it is supported by internal evidence: the author must have been a Christian of the apostolic age, either a thoroughly hellenised Jew or, more probably, a well educated Greek with some knowledge of medicine and extremely well acquainted with the LXX and Jewish things in general.
Lastly, and more significantly, he had accompanied Saint/Apostle Paul/Saul on his journeys judging from his use of the first person plural in Part 2 of Acts, and of all Saint/Apostle Paul's companions none is more strongly indicated than Saint/Apostle Luke. According to an ancient tradition Saint/Apostle Luke was a Syrian from Antioch, a doctor and of pagan origin, Colossians 4:14; Philemon 24; 2 Timothy 4:11. Saint/Apostle Luke probably accompanied Saint/Apostle Paul on the second (Acts 16:10f) and third (Acts 20:6f; cf. perhaps 2 Corinthians 8:18) missionary journeys, and the only reason he does not figure in lists like that of Acts 20:4 is because he probably compiled the lists himself.
There is no clear early tradition about either date or place of writing (Greece, after Paul's death? Rome, before the end of Paul's trial?) and we have to rely on internal evidence. Acts ends with Paul's Roman captivity in 61-63, with reference to which it mentions a period of two years, Acts 28:30+, and this happens to be legal interval after which a case was dismissed if no evidence had arrived to support the charge. It is possible, therefore, that these lines were written after Paul's release. This ties in with the date of 64 A.D. suggested for Saint/Apostle Mark Gospel, since Acts must be later than Saint/Apostle Mark Gospel. A date as late as 80-100 which has been suggested by some critics is possible, but (as in Saint/Apostle Luke Gospel) there are no positive indications in Acts of a date later than 70 A.D.
The precise date, however, becomes a secondary consideration once the book can establish its primary importance either as an author's eyewitness account for the events that fill a major section or as based on adequate sources at the author's disposal. Analysis of Acts confirms Luke 1:1-4 (meant as a prologue to the complete work) by suggesting that Saint/Apostle Luke must have collected a great deal of detailed evidence from a variety of sources because in spite of the way Saint/Apostle Luke has superimposed his own personality in reworking this material he has not succeeded in disguising the various sources he has used.
Not only does the flavour of the doctrinal content change according to the context so that in appropriate sections it seems convincingly primitive, but as well as that there is considerable variation in the literary style. In passages where Saint/Apostle Luke can control the style, when, for example, he is writing up his own travel notes, the Greek is excellent; but in his description of the early history of the Palestinian community we find that the language becomes full of semitisms, clumsy and even inaccurate. In some places this is only because he is trying to copy Old Testament LXX Greek, but mostly it is because he is reproducing his various Aramaic sources as closely as possible.
In Saint/Apostle Luke Gospel, this can be checked by comparing it with two of its sources (that is, Saint/Apostle Mark Gospel and the document common to Saint/Apostle Matthew Gospel and Saint/Apostle Luke Gospel) but unfortunately there are no texts with which to compare Acts; it is possible, however, to try to determine what kinds of sources were used. One suggestion was that the whole of 1-15:35 is based on a single Aramaic document, but this is far too sweeping as it does not account for all the editing that Saint/Apostle Luke has unmistakably done in these chapters.
Saint/Apostle Luke has obviously used not one long source but several short ones, many of which may not even have been written documents, though some probably were. Without being dogmatic about details, it is possible to classify the main kinds of traditions collected by Saint/Apostle Luke. ( 1 ) Those that relate to the primitive Jerusalem community, chapter 1-5. ( 2 ) Biographical notes about individuals: for example, Peter, 9:32-11:18; chapter 12, or Philip, 8:4-40; these details could have been supplied at first hand by people like Philip, the deacon Luke met at Caesarea, 21:8. ( 3 ) Details about the early days of the community in Antioch and its foundation by hellenistic Jews: these were obviously provided by that community, 6:1-8:3; 11:19-30; 13:1-3.
( 4 ) Saint/Apostle Paul's conversion and missionary journeys:these were things Saint/Apostle Paul himself could have told Saint/Apostle Luke, 9:1-30; 13:4-14:28; 15:36f. ( 5 ) For Saint/Apostle Paul's later journeys Saint/Apostle Luke would probably have had his own notes and these he seems to use in the 'we' passages which are precisely the sections where the peculiarities of Saint/Apostle Luke's own style are most concentrated, 11:28; 16:10-17; 20:5-21:18; 27:1-28:16. Saint /Apostle Luke managed to organise all this material into a single book by sorting it out chronologically as best he could and linking the episodes together with frequent editorial formulae, for example, 6:7; 9:31; 12:24; etc.
The unsophisticated nature of this material and the respect with which Saint/Apostle Luke treats it guarantee the historical worth of Acts. It was not easy to put all these sources together, and obviously a certain amount of anticipation, repetition and fusion was unavoidable; thus the events of chapter 12 should come before the visit of Barnabas and Saul/Paul to Jerusalem mentioned in 11:30; 12:25, unless this visit is to be identified with that of chapter 15; though the account of the 'council of Jerusalem' (chapter 15) may itself be a conflation of two quite distinct debates (cf. notes).
Slight adjustments like this do not affect the basic reliability of the work, as may be seen for example by checking how closely Saint/Apostle Luke's account of Saint/Apostle Paul's missionary activities agrees with Saint/Apostle Paul's epistles, which were quite certainly not among the sources Saint/Apostle Luke used for Acts. This is even true of Galatians if we make allowances for the conflations in Acts. The earlier events, of course, cannot be checked in this way, but may seem reasonable enough in themselves, and Saint/Apostle Luke seems to have treated the sources for his account with considerable respect, if we may judge by all the realistic and life-like details he has left in.
Considerable suspicion, however, is aroused by the speeches in Acts since it is maintained that Saint/Apostle Luke has done what all classical historians did and put his own free compositions into the mouth of his characters. On the other hand it is hard to believe that anyone, however gifted, but least of all a person of Greek culture like Saint/Apostle Luke, could reproduce so convincingly, after forty years, the archaisms and semitisms of, for example, the speeches by Saint/Apostle Peter and Saint/Apostle Stephen. Saint/Apostle Luke must have had access to records in the sense that the earliest preaching made use of only a very few main themes and supported these with stereotyped arguments set out in standard ways and learnt by heart.
Christian Jews had anthologies of scriptural texts; non-Jewish Christians had collections of tags from the accepted philosophers, while both had the essential kerygma (proclamation) of the Messiah who was killed and rose again, together with his invitation to conversion and baptism. Saint/Apostle Luke must first have come across these outlines of Christian preaching as sermons and from his own researches have been able later on, through his acute sense of psychology, to fill them out authentically with the most important Christian teaching.
Whether Acts is .......
"IT IS TRUE, GOD SENT HIS WORD TO THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, AND IT WAS TO THEM THAT THE GOOD NEWS OF PEACE WAS BROUGHT BY JESUS CHRIST - BUT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD OF ALL MEN.
YOU MUST HAVE HEARD ABOUT THE RECENT HAPPENINGS IN JUDAEA; ABOUT JESUS OF NAZARETH AND HOW HE BEGAN IN GALILEE, AFTER JOHN THE BAPTIST HAD BEEN PREACHING BAPTISM. GOD HAD ANOINTED HIM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT AND WITH POWER, AND BECAUSE GOD WAS WITH HIM, JESUS WENT ABOUT DOING GOOD AND CURING ALL WHO HAD FALLEN INTO THE POWER OF THE DEVIL.
NOW I, ( SIMON PETER / PETER ) AND THOSE WITH ME, CAN WITNESS TO EVERYTHING JESUS DID THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRYSIDE OF JUDAEA AND IN JERUSALEM ITSELF; AND ALSO TO THE FACT THAT THEY KILLED HIM BY HANGING HIM ON A TREE, YET THREE DAYS AFTERWARDS GOD RAISED HIM TO LIFE AND ALLOWED HIM TO BE SEEN, NOT BY THE WHOLE PEOPLE BUT ONLY BY CERTAIN WITNESSES GOD HAD CHOSEN BEFOREHAND.
NOW WE ARE THOSE WITNESSES - WE HAVE EATEN AND DRUNK WITH HIM AFTER HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD - AND JESUS CHRIST HAS ORDERED US TO PROCLAIM THIS TO HIS PEOPLE AND TO TELL THEM THAT GOD HAS APPOINTED HIM TO JUDGE EVERYONE, ALIVE AND DEAD.
IT IS TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST THAT ALL THE PROPHETS BEAR THIS WITNESS: THAT ALL WHO BELIEVE IN JESUS WILL HAVE THEIR SINS FORGIVEN THROUGH HIS NAME." - ACTS 10:36-43 -
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Faith . Hope . Love - Welcome donation. Thank You. God bless.
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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