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The Divine Necessity of the Resurrection: A Re-Assessment of the Use of Psalm 16 in Acts 2
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2020
Abstract
This article argues that the current predominant interpretation of the use of Psalm 16 in the speech in Acts 2, namely the ‘proof’ from prophecy explanation, as well as the few other models which have been advanced, are unconvincing on narratival grounds. Instead, it suggests that the Psalm is primarily quoted as a rationale to explain why Jesus rose from the dead and death could not detain him – namely because of his righteousness. The article concludes by submitting that this reading sheds important new light on the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus as a divine necessity in the early kerygma in Acts.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press
Footnotes
I am grateful to the members of the Hawarden Seminar 2019 and to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this article.
References
1 So Bovon, F., Luke the Theologian: Fifty-Five Years of Research (1950–2005) (Waco, TX: Baylor, 2006 2) 135Google Scholar: ‘The resurrection is the heart of the Lukan message’; D. Marguerat comments that Bovon's affirmation is by no means an exaggeration and that Luke is the only NT author to make the resurrection ‘le thème fondamental de son discours’. Marguerat, D., ‘Luc-Actes: la résurrection à l’œuvre dans l'histoire’, Résurrection: l'après-mort dans le monde ancien et le Nouveau Testament (ed. Mainville, O. and Marguerat, D.; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2001) 195–214Google Scholar, at 195; cf. Fitzmyer, J., The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 31; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998) 256Google Scholar: ‘It is the essence of the primitive kerygma.’
2 Cadbury, H. J., The Making of Luke-Acts (London: SPCK, 1958) 279Google Scholar.
3 See, for example, Haenchen, E., The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971) 187Google Scholar; A. Weiser, Die Apostelgeschichte, vol. i:Kapitel 1–12 (Würzburg: Gütersloh und Echter, 1985) 92; Conzelmann, H., Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 20Google Scholar; Barrett, C. K., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, vol. i (ICC; London: T&T Clark, 1994) 133Google Scholar; Fitzmyer, Acts, 257; Jervell, J., Die Apostelgeschichte (KEKNT 3; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998) 146CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D. P. Moessner, ‘Two Lords “at the Right Hand”? The Psalms and an Intertextual Reading of Peter's Pentecost Speech (Acts 2:14–36), Literary Studies in Luke-Acts: Essays in Honor of Joseph B. Tyson (ed. R. P. Thompson and T. E. Phillips; Macon: Mercer, 1998) 215–32, at 221–2; Pervo, R., Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009) 74–5Google Scholar; Holladay, C., Acts: A Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2016) 103Google Scholar.
4 Bock, D., Proclamation from Prophecy and Pattern: Lucan Old Testament Christology (LNTS; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997) 180–1Google Scholar.
5 Cf. Marguerat, D., Les Actes des apôtres (1–12), vol. i (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2007) 91Google Scholar.
6 One exception is Litwak, K. D., Echoes of Scripture in Luke-Acts: Telling the History of God's People Intertextually (London: T&T Clark International, 2005)Google Scholar. See the discussion of his proposal in n. 15.
7 Haenchen, Acts, 187. Cf. Barrett, Acts, i.144; Marguerat, Actes, i.91; Fitzmyer, Acts, 256; Moessner, ‘Two Lords “at the Right Hand”?’, 221.
8 So Haenchen, Acts, 182; Weiser, Apostelgeschichte, i.92–3; Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 146; Marguerat, Actes i.91; Moessner, ‘Two Lords “at the Right Hand”?’, 228.
9 J. Dupont, ‘Messianic Interpretation of the Psalms in the Acts of the Apostles’, The Salvation of the Gentiles: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Paulist, 1979) 103–28, at 109; Cf. Bock, Proclamation, 180–1.
10 Bock, Proclamation, 180; Litwak, Echoes, 177; cf. Moessner, ‘Two Lords “at the Right Hand”?’, 221: ‘This citation is viewed as some obscure text which Christians allegedly mined in order to find proof for the resurrection.’
11 Weiser, Apostelgeschichte i.92–3: ‘Solche “Schriftbeweise” sind unserem Denken freilich ungewohnt und würden uns nicht befriedigen; aber für die frühe Kirche war es von fundamentaler Wichtigkeit, das, was sich mit Jesus zugetragen hatte, in Einklang mit dem AT zu bringen, da es das Glaubensbuch der Juden war. Ereignisse, von denen man den Anspruch erhob, dass sie nach dem Plane Gottes geschehen seien, mussten sich aus dem AT ableiten lassen’ (English translation mine); the quotation is endorsed by Fitzmyer, Acts, 257.
12 Bock, Proclamation, 186, 274.
13 Bock, Proclamation, 274: ‘The stress of Luke's use of the OT for christology is not primarily in terms of a defensive apologetic. Rather Luke's use of the OT for christology involves the direct proclamation of Jesus. Jesus is the Christ promised in the Scriptures. It is more correct to call Luke's use of the OT for christology, “proclamation from prophecy and pattern”.’
14 Bock, Proclamation, 180: ‘A clearer presentation of a direct prophecy fulfilled could not exist.’
15 One exception is Litwak (Echoes), who rejects the ‘promise-fulfilment’ or ‘prophecy-fulfilment’ model of interpretation of this Psalm and prefers to speak of a ‘revisionary reading of the Scriptures of Israel’ based on the Jesus-event, or of Jesus ‘actualizing’ the Scriptures (179). But even for Litwak, Psalm 16 is used ‘to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah’ (178). He thus also understands the Scriptures to play the role of supporting or proving the messiahship of Jesus (since Jesus actualises them through his resurrection), even if it was not a prophecy. Furthermore, Litwak also acknowledges that Peter gives the Psalm a predictive sense: ‘Yes, Peter gives the psalm a predictive sense, but his use of it is primarily a revisionary reading of the Scriptures of Israel, using the hermeneutical key of Jesus’ experience’ (179).
16 B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations (London: SCM, 1961) 41; Litwak, Echoes, 176.
17 Pervo, Acts, 75. See also Dupont's comment on the use of Psalm 2 in Acts 13: ‘For a Jewish audience which did not already believe in the transcendent lordship of the risen Christ, Paul's argumentation at Antioch would not be at all convincing’ (‘Messianic Interpretation’, 117). For Pervo, this exegesis shows that Peter's speech cannot reflect the primitive Christian message: ‘The exegesis presumes the resurrection of the flesh and is therefore not a residue of the primitive Christian message’ (Acts, 83). For a similar conclusion, cf. D. Juel, ‘Social Dimension of Exegesis: The Use of Psalm 16 in Acts 2’, CBQ 43 (1981) 543–56, at 555.
18 See especially the discussion in Juel, ‘Social Dimension of Exegesis’, 555.
19 This is the way Pervo (Acts, 74) explains the strange argument of the speech.
20 On the speech in Acts 2, cf. Johnson, L. T., The Acts of the Apostles (SP 5; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992) 53Google Scholar: ‘The speeches sound authentic because of his artistry: he does practice prosōpopoiia, and makes each discourse appropriate to the speaker and the occasion.’ On the appropriateness of the speeches to their context in Acts generally, cf. Tannehill, R. C., ‘The Functions of Peter's Mission Speeches in the Narrative of Acts’, NTS 37 (1991) 400–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marguerat, D., The First Christian Historian: Writing the ‘Acts of the Apostles’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 17–19Google Scholar.
21 Schaper, J., Eschatology in the Greek Psalter (WUNT ii/76; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995) 49Google Scholar. Despite the claims of earlier exegetes, the Hebrew text does not betray belief in an afterlife or the resurrection here: ‘Eine besondere Beachtung bedarf 10, ein Verse, der früher als die Hoffnung eines jenseitigen, seligen Lebens verstanden worden (so noch Delitzch, Kessler), aber nur ein grossartiger, triumphierender Ausdruck der Gewissheit ist, vor jähem, vorzeitigem Tode bewart zu bleiben, und auch nicht als eine erste Ahnung überzeitlichen, ewigen Lebens in Gott … gefasst werden darf. Das geschichtliche Verständnis solcher Stellen wird durch das Gegenstück in den Dankliedern … über allen Zweifel sichergestellt …’ (H. Gunkel, Die Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 19866) 51, quoted in Schaper, Eschatology, 49 n. 190). Cf. Marguerat, Actes, i.91; Barrett, Acts i.144.
22 1 Sam 2.9: ‘He will guard the feet of his faithful ones (חסידיו), but the wicked (ורשעים) shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail’; Ps 37.28: ‘For the LORD loves justice; he will not forsake his faithful ones (חסידיו; ὁσίους αὐτοῦ). The righteous shall be kept safe forever, but the children of the wicked (רשעים; ἀσεβῶν) shall be cut off.’
23 Some scholars interpret קדושים to be a reference to false gods, whom the psalmist rejects. But as N. deClaissé-Walford, R. A. Jacobson and B. LaN. Tanner (The Book of Psalms (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014) 179) note: ‘qedôšîm seems to carry the positive connation of those in good favor with the Lord, even where it applies to heavenly beings. And the phrase all my delight is in them is difficult to reconcile with the notion of heavenly beings who rebel against God's will. It is most likely that the holy ones and mighty ones refer to the company of faithful Yahweh-worshippers with whom the psalmist is in community. Thus, in v. 3 the psalmist names those people with whom a relationship is affirmed, while in v. 4 the psalmist names those people with whom affinity is rejected.’
24 Cf. Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 147: ‘“Die Wege des Leben”, אדח חיּים, ist für den Juden ein Leben nach den Vorschriften des Gesetzes, ein Leben in Übereinstimmung mit dem Bund.’ Cf. Haenchen, Acts, 182; Marguerat, Actes i.91.
25 Prov 15.24: ‘The path of life leads upward for the wise, that he may avoid Sheol below.’ Cf. Prov 5.6.
26 Haenchen, Acts, 181. Cf. Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 146: ‘Der Fromme weiss, dass er der Todesgefahr entgehen wird, weil Gott sein Leben beschützt.’
27 The expression ‘in security’ in Hebrew pertains to divine protection in this world. Cf. Schmitt, A., ‘Ps 16, 8–11 als Zeugnis der Auferstehung’, BZ 17 (1973) 229–48Google Scholar, at 235: ‘Der hebr. Text in V. 9b “auch mein Leib” wird in Sicherheit wohnen‘ bezieht sich klar und eindeutig auf ein gesichertes Leben in dieser Welt, das durch den Schutz Jahwes gewährleistet ist. Die Wendung škn lābaeṭaḥ findet sich häufig im AT als Verheissung bzw. Folge göttlichen Segens.’
28 Schaper, Eschatology, 49. Schaper suggests that this is one of the first, if not the first, instance of the hope of the resurrection and might possibly be earlier than Dan 12.1–3. For him, ‘it is the forerunner of the rabbinic belief in resurrection and seems to have originated in (proto-)Pharisaic circles’ (50). Cf. Schmitt, ‘Ps 16, 8–11’, 237.
29 So Schmitt, ‘Ps 16, 8–11’, 237: ‘Dem Frommen wird in Aussicht gestellt, dass ihn Vernichtung im Tod nicht treffen wird. Ihm droht nicht die διαφθορά, die über alles Gewordene verhängt ist, sondern ihm kommt, um das Ganze positiv auszudrücken, das ἄφθαρτον, die ἀφθαρσία zu. In Relation zu V. 9b ist sogar damit zu rechnen, dass in V. 10b der Glaube an die Auferstehung anklingt. Selbst für den Leib bleibt die Hoffnung, dass Verwesung und Zerfall sich nicht in ihrer letzten Konsequenz bemächtigen werden.’
30 Marguerat, Actes i.91.
31 So Schmitt, ‘Ps 16, 8–11’, 237.
32 Haenchen, Acts, 187: ‘it is no “chance fact of history” but a necessity founded in the will of God’ (my emphasis); Fitzmyer, Acts, 256: ‘God released Jesus from death's hold because that was part of the divine ‘plan’; for this reason death could not hold him in its clutches.’ Cf. Barrett, Acts, i.144; Marguerat, Actes, i.91; Moessner, ‘Two Lords “at the Right Hand”?’, 221.
33 On the scholarly consensus on the programmatic nature of Acts 2, cf. Butticaz, S., L'identité de l'Eglise dans les Actes des apôtres (BZNW 174; Göttingen: de Gruyter, 2011) 92Google Scholar.