The First Christian Historian: Writing the 'Acts of the Apostles'

by Daniel Marguerat , Translated by Ken McKinney , Gregory J. Laughery , Richard Bauckham

• ISBN13: 9780521816502
• ISBN10: 0521816505
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-10-07
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

As the first historian of Christianity, Luke's reliability is vigorously disputed among scholars. The author of the Acts is often accused of being a biased, imprecise, and anti-Jewish historian who created a distorted portrait of Paul. Daniel Marguerat tries to avoid being caught in this true/false quagmire when examining Luke's interpretation of history. Instead he combines different tools - reflection upon historiography, the rules of ancient historians and narrative criticism - to analyse the Acts and gauge the historiographical aims of their author. Marguerat examines the construction of the narrative, the framing of the plot and the characterization, and places his evaluation firmly in the framework of ancient historiography, where history reflects tradition and not documentation. This is a fresh and original approach to the classic themes of Lucan theology: Christianity between Jerusalem and Rome, the image of God, the work of the Spirit, the unity of Luke and the Acts.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
How Luke wrote history	1	(25)
How does one write history?	2	(11)
Luke: the position of a historian	13	(12)
Conclusion: Luke at the crossroads of two historiographies	25	(1)
A narrative of beginnings	26	(17)
Seeking a literary genre	26	(8)
The point of view of Luke the historian	34	(6)
Conclusion: the Gospel and the apostle	40	(3)
The unity of Luke--Acts: the task of reading	43	(22)
Luke--Acts, a narrative entity	47	(2)
Three unifying procedures	49	(10)
Permanence and suspension of the Law	59	(4)
Conclusion: Luke--Acts, a diptych	63	(2)
A Christianity between Jerusalem and Rome	65	(20)
Paul, Barnabas, Timothy and others	66	(2)
Semantic ambivalence: a Lucan rhetorical device	68	(7)
A theological programme of integration	75	(7)
Conclusion: integration of the opposing poles	82	(3)
The God of Acts	85	(24)
Two languages to speak of 'God'	86	(6)
How are the history of God and human history articulated?	92	(15)
Conclusion: the God of Luke	107	(2)
The work of the Spirit	109	(20)
The Church between fire and the Word	110	(3)
The Spirit builds the Church	113	(5)
`They spoke the Word of God with boldness'	118	(3)
The Spirit and unity	121	(3)
Free or captive Spirit?	124	(4)
Conclusion: a pragmatic of the Spirit	128	(1)
Jews and Christians in conflict	129	(26)
Israel, a two-sided face	130	(6)
A prophetic model of rupture	136	(5)
The turning-point of history	141	(6)
Openness and closure (Acts 21--28)	147	(4)
Conclusion: continuity and rupture	151	(4)
Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5. 1--11): the original sin	155	(24)
Five readings of the text	156	(2)
The narrative structure of Acts 2--5	158	(6)
The community, the Spirit and the Word	164	(8)
An original sin	172	(4)
An ethic of sharing	176	(1)
Conclusion: an original sin in the Church	177	(2)
Saul's conversion (Acts 9; 22; 26)	179	(26)
A series of three narratives	183	(8)
What is specific to each narrative	191	(12)
Conclusion: an enlightening role in Acts	203	(2)
The enigma of the end of Acts (28. 16--31)	205	(26)
The problematic of the ending of Acts	206	(4)
A rhetoric of silence	210	(6)
Acts 27--28 and the displacement of the reader's expectation	216	(5)
The last theological disputation (28. 17--28)	221	(5)
Paul the exemplary pastor (28. 30--31)	226	(3)
Conclusion: the power of the end	229	(2)
Travels and travellers	231	(26)
The narrative function of travel in the book of Acts	236	(3)
Images of travel in Graeco-Roman culture	239	(7)
The semantics of the journey in the book of Acts	246	(10)
Conclusion: the memory of a time when the Work travelled	256	(1)
Bibliography	257	(25)
Index of passages	282