Interpretation 66, 3 (2012) on the Book of Acts

The main essays in the July 2012 issue of Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, are devoted to the book of Acts.

Carl R. Holladay

Interpreting Acts

Interpreters of Acts face three recurrent questions: 1) What is its genre? 2) Why was it written? and 3) How is Scripture used? In deciding genre, readers must decide if Acts is history, and, if so, in what sense. Determining its literary or theological purpose can be done in terms of asking what Acts accomplishes.

C. Kavin Rowe

The Ecclesiology of Acts

This article examines the ecclesiology of Acts by considering the political shape of Acts vis-à-vis the wider Roman world. The discussion of three scenes in Acts shows that there is a profound and productive tension at the heart of Acts’ theological vision. This tension generates the distinctive Christian politics that is Acts’ ecclesiology: a public witness to Jesus Christ in a world that did not know him.

Robert C. Tannehill

Acts of the Apostles and Ethics

Acts provides ethical guidance through narrating the actions of persons who are models of good (or bad) behavior. Four topics are discussed from this perspective: ethics of witness, ethics of leadership, the mission and governing authorities, and ethics of possessions.

Loveday Alexander

Luke’s Political Vision

In order to understand Luke’s political vision, we have first to understand the complex political situation in which Acts is written. This becomes clear in the trial of Paul, where Paul stands before a Roman tribunal but addresses a dispute arising within the Jewish community. Despite his protestations of innocence under Roman law, Paul’s response embodies an inclusive political vision that is profoundly subversive of the imperial order.

Pamela Hedrick

Fewer Answers and Further Questions: Jews and Gentiles in Acts

The author of the Acts of the Apostles uses criteria commonly employed in his cultural context to legitimate the Jesus movement and the extension of the mission to the Gentiles as the divine plan. While these literary strategies result in material that can be employed uncritically and tragically to serve a bias against the Jewish people, a far more fruitful transposition of the Lukan strategies would raise intelligent questions about the ways of God in the world and the cooperation of humans with those ways.