Acts: Life after Jesus

Sources: Raymond E. Brown, The New Testament: an Introduction (Doubleday, 1997); Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3d ed. (Oxford, 2004); I. Howard Marshall et al., Exploring the New Testament: A Guide to the Letters and Revelation (IVP, 2002), chapter 21.

I. Luke's Service to the Christian Tradition
What you've seen so far begs for a historical treatment:

What unites disparate documents, memories, discernible plot line, and challenges and hopes is a coherent narrative: a history.

Luke-Acts is a two-part history that was phenomenally successful in providing

an inspiring 'origin narrative' that links a given Christian's life to the church's life, Jesus', Israel's, creation's, and God's
regardless of that person's worldly identity or status.
Other writings and traditions attest to this, but Luke lays it out powerfully.
Our Christian year owes its shape to it.
Its vision has attracted Baptists, Pentecostals, and fans of long tradition.
Christianity's debt to Luke is incalculable.

II. What Is History?
A common conviction: History is "what really happened."

Common complications: Distance, subjectivity, selectivity, bias, limitations, politics, culture, power, agenda, etc. seem to inform the historical process.

A nuanced view: History is the purposeful narration of past events—like a cover song.

Christopher Nolan (dir. Memento): "narrative is a controlled release of information."
A cover song can imitate, be creatively faithful (Iz, Eva Cassidy), or subvert (Tom Waits, Sid Vicious).
History informs about genuine past events and considers their significance.

Historical criticism asks:

Why and how is the release of information being controlled (e.g., according to historical genre)?
Who is narrating? Where is the narrator located (e.g., which social community)? What is the narrator's rhetorical purpose?
Why and how is the reception of information being controlled?
Who is receiving the narrative? Where is the receiver located? What is the receiver's rhetorical purpose?

How responsible were ancient historians to the past they tell?

Lucian of Samosata, 39: "The sole task of the historian is to tell it just as it happened" (Brown, 318 n.94).
Polybius, Histories 2.56.10-12: "A historical author should ... simply record what really happened and what really was said" (Burge and Green, 308).

How free were ancient historians to tell it their way?

Lucian, How to Write History 58: "If some one has to be brought in to give a speech, above all let his language suit his person and his subject ... It is then, however, that you can exercise your rhetoric and show your eloquence."
Has Luke misdated an event? Theudas' rebellion was in 46-48 acc. to Josephus, versus before 37 in Acts 5:36-38.

Church history is the Christian community's faithful remembrance of its past.

A modern task: Find the events "behind" the text. (But what do we do when we can't?)
A more faithful task: Trust a trustworthy narrator. (And how do we gauge Luke's trustworthiness?)
Ancient Greco-Roman standards are reliable, but annoyingly imprecise by our standards.
Since Acts is a sequel, we can compare how Luke shapes Luke versus the other gospels.
Since Acts wrote about apostles, we can compare Luke’s Paul to Paul’s letters and so on.
In Luke-Acts we see willingness to relate embarrassing details, even obscure ones.

III. Acts' Authorial Artistry
Luke-Acts' two volumes bear similarities (Star Wars IV and VII?).
Its main characters are still Jesus (1:1), the Spirit (1:4-5), the Apostles (1:8), and the Kingdom's opponents (1:6-7).
Its author is a colleague of Paul's ("we" passages: 16:10-13, 20:5-15, 21:1-18, 27:1-28:16).

Luke the physician (Col 4:14) and longtime associate of Paul, even to Rome? (2 Tim 4:11, Acts 28:16)? a Greek (Col 4:11)? Early church tradition (Muratonian Fragment in ~170, Irenaeus ~180, etc.) linked them.
The author has access to a variety of traditions going back to the beginning (Luke 1:3),
and an impressive education and rhetorical training.

Luke is a master storyteller.

Situations are vivid, characters three-dimensional, dynamics exciting (e.g., 3:1-12).
Renewal movements throughout history have drawn from the font of Acts' primitive and romantic church (e.g., 2:38-47).

Acts chronicles several transformations with remarkable subtlety (which ancient historiography prized):

In Jerusalem — from Jesus to Peter (Luke 24-Acts 2).
Judea and Samaria — from Peter to others (chs. 6-8).
To the ends of the earth — from others to Saul/Paul (chs. 9-15).

IV. Acts' Major Themes
The church (ekklesia, 5:11, 8:1, 9:31) is apostolic Israel (ch. 1, Pentecost, cf. 3:25-26, 24:10-21, 26:1-23, Paul's farewell speech in 20:16-38).
The power of the church is the Spirit of Jesus (2:1-42 Pentecost, 3:1-10 healing, 8:4-17 signs/exorcisms, 8:18-24 and 19:1-20).
Its mission is God's mission, which is a time/season of witness (1:4-8).
Its good news is the apostles' preaching (sermons in 1:16-20, 2:14-39, 3:12-26, 4:8-12, 5:29-32, 10:34-43, 13:16-41 [and 4:24-30, 7:1-53, 17:22-31, 20:18-35?]) and interpretation (8:26-40), cf. Apostles' Creed.
The way of the cross is still the church's life and politics (4:1-31, 5:12-42, 6:8-8:3, 21:1-36, 22:22-26:32).
Christians stir controversy and opposition and threaten powers of darkness (16:16-24, 19:11-32), yet don't threaten Roman rule (19:35-41, 26:30-32).
The church is one, holy, universal fellowship:

one (2:41-46, 4:32-37, 6:1-7),
holy (5:1-11),
universal (regathering in 2, Samaritan mission in 8:4-17, Gentile inclusion in 10-11/13:13-52/17:16-34,
ramifications for all in 15:1-31/21:20-26),
fellowship (koinonia, 2:42).

The way transforms lives (Paul's conversion in 9:1-31, 14:8-20) and the world (16:16-40, 19:21-41, 28:1-10).
The mission continues (1:6-11, 28:14b-31's anticlimax).
All the change doesn't change the essence of the fellowship.

Are today's congregations the same primitive church?
Our divided churches have debated that for centuries, appealing to Luke-Acts to validate or correct themselves.

V. Exit Question: Is This Narrative Trustworthy?
What about ancient expectations compared to ours?

Our Internet age is closer to premodern rumor mills than we like to think.
Our histories are fiercely contested: 1619 Project and 1776 Project, Korea versus Japan on the twentieth century, etc.
Our historians may be more careful, but perhaps not more faithful nor insightful.
Luke won the church's trust; the Acts of Paul and Thecla and many other 'histories' did not.
These books overflow to us rather than being targeted at us, written for purposes we don't necessarily share.

What about historical discrepancies such as Theudas' rebellion?

Other writings in and out of the canon give us multiple data points for assessing Luke's historiography.
Do we have to adjust our expectations, and distinguish 'teaching' from means of teaching?
Do Jesus' different focus, concerns, and sources matter?

Is failure being minimized, or respected?