Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- 1 Reading Acts in the second century: reflections on method, history, and desire
- 2 Jerusalem destroyed: the setting of Acts
- 3 Acts and the apostles: issues of leadership in the second century
- 4 Spec(tac)ular sights: mirroring in/of Acts
- 5 Acts of ascension: history, exaltation, and ideological legitimation
- 6 Time and space travel in Luke-Acts
- 7 The complexity of pairing: reading Acts 16 with Plutarch's Parallel Lives
- 8 Constructing Paul as a Christian in the Acts of the Apostles
- 9 Bold speech, opposition, and philosophical imagery in Acts
- 10 Among the apologists? Reading Acts with Justin Martyr
- 11 The Second Sophistic and the cultural idealization of Paul in Acts
- 12 Reading Luke-Acts in second-century Alexandria: from Clement to the Shadow of Apollos
- Bibliography
- Index of primary sources
- Index of authors
- Subject index
5 - Acts of ascension: history, exaltation, and ideological legitimation
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- 1 Reading Acts in the second century: reflections on method, history, and desire
- 2 Jerusalem destroyed: the setting of Acts
- 3 Acts and the apostles: issues of leadership in the second century
- 4 Spec(tac)ular sights: mirroring in/of Acts
- 5 Acts of ascension: history, exaltation, and ideological legitimation
- 6 Time and space travel in Luke-Acts
- 7 The complexity of pairing: reading Acts 16 with Plutarch's Parallel Lives
- 8 Constructing Paul as a Christian in the Acts of the Apostles
- 9 Bold speech, opposition, and philosophical imagery in Acts
- 10 Among the apologists? Reading Acts with Justin Martyr
- 11 The Second Sophistic and the cultural idealization of Paul in Acts
- 12 Reading Luke-Acts in second-century Alexandria: from Clement to the Shadow of Apollos
- Bibliography
- Index of primary sources
- Index of authors
- Subject index
Summary
Luke's christology shapes his ecclesiology. The risen Lord acts and is present to the whole life of his church. He leads the Christians. Their mission is Christ's mission. He gives his followers their mission and directs them … Certainly, the Father and the Spirit are active, but a church without considerable activity on the part of the risen Christ is not Lukan.
(O'Toole 1981)Luke … does not see Jesus as present merely through his apostles who carry on his prophetic role. Rather, for Luke, Jesus is immediately present and active himself in the very lives of those “successors”. The risen, ascended, and coming Lord is the one at work in Acts …
(Strelan 2004)ASCENSION AS LEGITIMIZING DISCOURSE
Christian identity and practice in the period between the reigns of Domitian (d. 96 CE) and Septimius Severus (d. 211 CE) was largely formed by filling in the many gaps left open by the first generation of Christian discourse and the expanding of its imagery. This period is itself characterized by competing claims to divergent pasts. These were often inscribed through epical propaganda, which functioned both to root the narrative frameworks of culture into particular regional (mythic) stories (e.g. Roman or Judean) and to legitimate current practices and institutional structures. In this generative milieu, the ascension and rapture stories associated with foundational figures served as majestic evidence of exaltation and legitimation of ideological positions for (and on behalf of) the particular communities who produced and transmitted them.
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- Information
- Engaging Early Christian HistoryReading Acts in the Second Century, pp. 79 - 100Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013