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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
It is difficult to find a more vigorously debated topic in NT studies today than the issue of anti-Judaism in early Christian documents in general and in Luke–Acts in particular. In regard to Luke–Acts, the range of viewpoints to be found among scholars is truly bewildering. In order to set the context for explicating my own position, I will outline my understanding of the contributions of Jacob Jervell and Jack T. Sanders, whose approaches appear to stand at opposite poles from one another and establish the limits within which other scholars customarily work.
1 This is a slightly revised form of a paper that was presented in the Seminar on ‘Luke–Acts: Bericht und Neuschöpfung’ at the 47th General Meeting of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, Madrid, 29 July 1992. It was presented in the form of two lectures for the Sixth Annual Carmichael-Walling Lectureship in New Testament Language and Literature at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas, 29 October 1992.
2 See especially Jervell, Jacob, Luke and the People of God: A New Look at Luke–Acts (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1972).Google Scholar See also ‘The Acts of the Apostles and the History of Early Christianity’, ST 37 (1983) 378–92;Google ScholarThe Unknown Paul: Essays on Luke–Acts and Early Christian History (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984)Google Scholar; ‘The Church of Jews and Godfearers’, in Luke–Acts and the Jewish People: Eight Critical Perspectives (ed. by Tyson, Joseph B; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988) 11–20;Google Scholar‘God's Faithfulness to the Faithless People: Trends in Interpretation of Luke–Acts’, Word and World 12 (1992) 29–36.Google Scholar
3 ‘The Divided People of God: The Restoration of Israel and Salvation for the Gentiles’, in Luke and the People of God, 41–74.Google Scholar The essay first appeared in ST 19 (1965).
4 Jervell, ‘The Divided People’, 41.
5 See Conzelmann, Hans, The Theology of St Luke (New York: Harper and Bros., 1960);Google ScholarHaenchen, Ernst, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971);Google ScholarFranz, Overbeck, Kürze Erklärung der Apostelgeschichte (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1870);Google ScholarBaur, Ferdinand C., ‘Über Zweck und Veranlassung des Römerbriefs und die damit zusammenhängenden Verhältnisse der römischen Gemeinde’, Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie (1836) 59–178.Google Scholar
6 Jervell, ‘The Divided People’, 55.
7 Jervell, ‘The Divided People’, 64.
8 Jervell, ‘God's Faithfulness to the Faithless People’, 32.
9 Jervell, , ‘The Law in Luke–Acts’, in Luke and the People of God, 133–51.Google Scholar
10 Jervell, ‘The Law in Luke–Acts’, 144.
11 Jervell, ‘The Law in Luke–Acts’, 146.
12 See Sanders, Jack T., The Jews in Luke–Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).Google Scholar
13 Sanders, The Jews, 316Google Scholar.
14 Sanders, The Jews, 33. Sanders notes that the phrase ‘Jerusalem springtime’ was first used by Gerhard Lohfink, Die Sammlung Israels: Eine Untersuchung zur lukanischen Ekklesiologie (SANT 39; Munich: Kosel, 1975) 55.Google Scholar
15 Sanders, The Jews, 244Google Scholar.
16 Gaston, Lloyd, ‘Anti-Judaism and the Passion Narrative in Luke and Acts’, in Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity (ed. Richardson, Peter, Granskou, David, and Wilson, Stephen G.; Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University, 1986) 1.153.Google Scholar
17 See Jervell, , ‘The Mighty Minority’, in The Unknown Paul, 26–51.Google Scholar
18 Iser, Wolfgang, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1974) 34.Google Scholar See also, idem, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1974).
19 Iser, , Act of Reading, 37Google Scholar.
20 See Culpepper, R. Alan, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).Google Scholar See also Staley, Jeffrey Lloyd, The Print's First Kiss: A Rhetorical Investigation of the Implied Reader in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988)Google Scholar whose approach to the question of the implied reader is quite different from that of Culpepper.
21 Culpepper, , Anatomy, 212Google Scholar.
22 See Tyson, Joseph B., Images of Judaism in Luke–Acts (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1992).Google Scholar
23 On Godfearers, see Kraabel, A. Thomas, ‘The Disappearance of the “God-fearers”’, Numen 28 (1981) 113–26;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, ‘Greeks, Jews, and Lutherans in the Middle Half of Acts’, HTR 79 (1986) 147–57; Jervell, ‘The Church of Jews and Godfearers’; van der Horst, P. W., ‘Jews and Christians in Aphrodisias in the Light of Their Relations in Other Cities of Asia Minor’, NedTTs 43 (1989) 106–21.Google Scholar
24 It is important to emphasize their intratextual character. It would be methodologically invalid to identify the reader in the text with persons outside the text. But associations between the implied reader and other textual entities do not create confusion between the world of the text and the world outside the text.
25 David P. Moessner has questioned the credibility of some characters in Luke 1–2. In particular, he observes that Zechariah's credentials are discredited when he is struck dumb for unbelief (Luke 1.20). Moessner claims that the fulfilment of the predictions in Luke 1–2 was not intended by the author to be taken literally but ironically, and he makes this judgment by comparing the predictive statements with fulfilments or nonfulfilments as cited in later parts of Luke–Acts. Moessner's argument is impressive but does not affect the interpretation of the predictive statements as representations of individual Jewish piety. See Moessner, , ‘The Ironic Fulfillment of Israel's Glory’, in Luke–Acts and the Jewish People, 35–50.Google Scholar
26 Peter's proposal to build three booths is, as Marshall, I. Howard says, ‘perhaps the most obscure [idea] in the whole story’ (The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1980], 386).Google Scholar Joseph Fitzmyer is probably close to being correct when he relates the proposal to the Festival of Booths and says, ‘Peter seems to liken his experience on the mountain with Jesus transfigured to the joy of this festival’ (The Gospel according to Luke (I–IX) [Garden City: Doubleday, 1981] 801).Google Scholar
27 In reference to the narrative of Paul at Pisidian Antioch, Ernst Haenchen says, ‘The whole Pauline mission – as Luke and his age saw it – is compressed and epitomized in this scene’ (Acts, p. 417). See also Radl, Walter, Paulas und Jesus im lukanischen Doppelwerk: Untersuchungen zu Parallelmotiven im Lukasevangelium und in der Apostelgeschichte (Bern: Herbert Lang, 1975) 82–100.Google Scholar Radl provides a detailed analysis of the parallelism between Acts 13.14–52 and Luke 4.16–30.
28 See Tyson, Joseph B., ‘The Jewish Public in Luke–Acts’, NTS, 30 (1984) 574–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29 See, e.g., PsSol 7.8; 17.32; and citations in Str-B 1.608–10.
30 But see Nolland, J. L., ‘A Fresh Look at Acts 15.10’, NTS 27 (1980) 105–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Nolland argues that Acts 15.10, read within the context of 15.7–11, reflects a Rabbinic view that Israel has failed to carry the yoke of the law but does not characterize the burden of the law as intolerable. Nolland argues that Luke has already pictured the Jerusalem apostles as observing Torah, so he cannot here be saying that its fulfilment is impossible. Peter is, therefore, speaking for the nation as a whole and not for the apostles when he characterizes Torah as a yoke ‘which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear’ (15.10). Despite Nolland's argument, it seems difficult to avoid the impression that the historic inability of Israel to carry the yoke of Torah finally means that the burden is intolerable.
31 See Haenchen, Acts, 729.
32 Haacker, Klaus, ‘Das Bekenntnis des Paulus zur Hoffnung Israels nach der Apostelgeschichte des Lukas’, NTS 31 (1985) 437–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows that the Pharisaic and Pauline belief in resurrection cannot be separated from political eschatological expectation.
33 But Bruce, F. F., The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1951) 479Google Scholar, notes that ‘the imperf. does not necessarily imply that they were actually persuaded’. He translates πείθοντο as ‘gave heed’ (p. 479). Tannehill, Robert C., The Narrative Unity of Luke–Acts: A Literary Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1990) 2.347Google Scholar, understands the verb to mean that some of Paul's hearers ‘were in process of being persuaded but had made no lasting decision’.
34 See Jervell, ‘The Divided People’, esp. 63–9.
35 See also Evans, Craig A., To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah 6.9–10 in Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation (JSOTSup 64; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989).Google ScholarPubMed Evans regards the use of the quotation from Isaiah in Acts as an example of intra-Jewish polemic, and he thus discounts the anti-Jewish character of its use here.
36 See Tannehill, , ‘Rejection by Jews and Turning to Gentiles: The Pattern of Paul's Mission in Acts’, in Luke–Acts and the Jewish People, 83–101.Google Scholar See also idem, ‘Israel in Luke–Acts: A Tragic Story’, JBL 104 (1985) 69–85; idem, Narrative Unity 2.344–57. For similar approaches, see Chance, J. Bradley, Jerusalem, the Temple, and the New Age in Luke–Acts (Macon: Mercer University, 1988)Google Scholar; Moessner, David P., ‘Paul in Acts: Preacher of Eschatological Repentance to Israel’, NTS 34 (1988) 96–104;CrossRefGoogle ScholarTiede, David L., ‘“Glory to Thy People Israel”: Luke–Acts and the Jews’, in Luke–Acts and the Jewish People, 21–34.Google Scholar
37 See Ernst, Haenchen, ‘Judentum und Christentum in der Apostelgeschichte’, ZNW 54 (1963) 155–87Google Scholar; see also Haenchen, , Acts, 721–32Google Scholar; Conzelmann, , Acts, 227–8Google Scholar. A similar position has been maintained by Wilson, Stephen G., The Gentiles and the Gentile Mission in Luke–Acts (SNTSMS 23; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1973) 219–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also idem, ‘The Jews and the Death of Jesus in Acts’, in Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity 1.155–64. See also Lloyd Gaston, ‘Anti-Judaism and the Passion Narrative in Luke and Acts’, in Ibid., 1.127–53. See also Sanders, Jack T., ‘The Salvation of the Jews in Luke–Acts’, in Luke–Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar (ed. by Talbert, Charles H.; New York: Crossroad, 1984) 104–28Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Jewish People in Luke–Acts’, in Luke–Acts and the Jewish People, 51–75; idem, The Jews in Luke–Acts, especially 296–9; Maddox, Robert L., The Purpose of Luke–Acts (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982)Google Scholar, especially 31–65. Brawley, Robert L. takes a mediating position in ‘Paul in Acts: Lucan Apology and Conciliation’, in Luke–Acts: New Perspectives, 129–47.Google Scholar See also idem, Luke–Acts and the Jews: Conflict, Apology, and Conciliation (SBLMS 33; Atlanta: Scholars, 1987).
38 See Haenchen, Acts, 721–32, for an analysis of other exegetical problems in Acts 28.17–28.
39 See Nils, Dahl, ‘A People for His Name’, NTS 4 (1958) 319–27.Google Scholar Dahl lists only two exceptions: Acts 15.14; 18.10.
