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Ethical Pagan Theism and the Speeches in Acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

F. Gerald Downing
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Extract

It has been and still is debated whether the speeches attributed to characters in the Acts of the Apostles should be taken as their own, more or less accurately recorded; or as based on an early pattern of preaching; or as reflecting the beliefs of churches contemporary with the writing of the book (AD 65–95, or later still); or as the product of the imagination and conviction of the author. I wish to suggest that there is enough evidence for yet another possible explanation to demand consideration: Luke is portraying the teaching of the Christians as a creditable variant of the kind of ethical providential monotheism that educated pagans might be expected to attend to respectfully. The phrases used may well come from contemporary Christian stock (if not necessarily). The criteria for selection and for emphasis are drawn from the range of beliefs and attitudes already likely to be found among a high-minded pagan readership. I draw my evidence mainly from Flavius Josephus and from Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

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Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , July 1981 , pp. 544 - 563
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

NOTES

[1] From Thackeray, H. St. J. etc., Josephus, Harvard and London, 1926 etc.,Google ScholarJewish Wars (J.W.), Antiquities (Ant.), Against Apion (Apion) and Life.; and Cary, E., Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, (D.Ant.), Harvard and London, 1937 etc., both in the Loeb editions.Google Scholar

[2] E.g. in Dibelius, M., Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, ET London, 1956;Google ScholarEvans, C. F., ‘The Kerygma’, J.T.S. (NS) 7 104 1956, 25. Evans's account of the function of the speeches in Acts comes the closest of anything I have found to that presented here, though the close parallels in Josephus and in Dionysius are not noted.Google Scholar

[3] Jackson, Thackeray, Gartner and Feldman have all called attention to the likely importance of Josephus for New Testament studies, beyond his provision of odd historical snippets, but little seems to have been done. DrDonna, Runnals's unpublished thesis, Hebrew and Greek Sources in the Speeches of Josephus's Jewish War, Toronto 1971, affords a very useful starting point, but of course did not have wider overt aim.Google Scholar

[4] See my ‘Redaction Criticism: Josephus's Antiquities and the Synoptic Gospels’, II, J.S.N.T. 9, 10 1980, p. 29;Google Scholar and Schlatter, A., Das Evangelium des Lukas, Stuttgart 1931, pp. 23–8. Most of the words and phrases of Luke's proem are used by Josephus of his historical activity; and many also by Dionysius.Google Scholar

[5] Josephus, , Apion I 53;Google ScholarBrune, B., Flavius Josephus (1913; reprinted Wiesbaden 1969), on hapaxlegomena etc.Google Scholar

[6] Thackeray, , Josephus, op. cit., vol IV, p. 52; Ant. I 108; D.Ant. I 48 1 etc.Google Scholar

[7] Thucydides claimed only to be expressing ‘fitting sentiments’, not accurate reproduction; others were less concerned still. For Dionysius his Loeb editor writes, ‘the desire to please is everywhere in evidence’, and Donna Runnals says much the same of Josephus' speeches (op. cit.). They are rhetorical exercises, and do not pretend that their contents had any effect on the course events took.

[8] See Pelletier, A., Flavius Josèphe, Adapteur de la Lettre d'sAristée (Paris, 1962), e.g. p. 222;Google ScholarJosephus, , J. W. 1 15.Google Scholar

[9] Ant. I 17, XX 261 ff.; Apion I 42.Google Scholar

[10] D, Ant., 1 8 3,Google Scholar ‘Undisturbed entertainment’; etc.; for Josephus, see pelletier, , op. cit., p. 271;Google ScholarNiese, B., Enc. Relig. & Eth. 7 p. 569;Google ScholarThackeray, H. St. J., Josephus tha Man and the Historian (New York, 1929), p. 76; and (n. 7) above;Google ScholarFeldmann, L., articles in Am. Phil. Ass. Tr. & Pr. 1968 and 1970 on Esther and on Abraham.Google Scholar

[11] Speeches starting at Ant. II 20, II 50, II 140, II 160 (?), II 211; III 13, III 82, III 188; IV 40, IV 112, IV 129; V 93, V 100; VI 19, VI 36, VI 86, VI 131, VI 141, VI 155, VI 227 (?), VI 284; VII 337; VII 380; VIII 106; X 277 (?); XII 20, XII 101, XII 279; XIII 198; XV 373; XVI 31; J. W. II 345; III 347; III 471; IV 163; V 362; VI 97 (?); VII 323; Titus, III 471 can be more ‘theological’ than Jesus (IV 238).Google Scholar

[12] Josephus's, and Herod's, , referred to above; Jesus ', at J. W. 238; the trials of members of Herod's family, Ant. XV–XVII (from Nicholas of Damascus?).Google Scholar

[13] As promised by Thucydides, , for instance, I xxii 1; (n. 7) above.Google Scholar

[14] Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London, 1977), p. 422.Google Scholar

[15] The content of the few themes that are found both in Josephus and in Sanders' list is often more similar than might at first appear (for instance, the readiness of divine forgiveness). The selection is different. Attridge, H. W., in The Interpretation of Biblical History in the Antiquitates Judaicae of Flavius Josephus (Missoula, Montana, 1976), also notes the absence of any positive reference to the ‘the covenant’, pp. 79 ff. He provides a useful account of a small number of themes in Josephus, but apparently has failed to note the complex displayed here, and (e.g. pp. 176, 183) their parallels in Dionysius (who is however brought well into the picture) and in Luke (who does not appear at all). And although Attridge does show that there are differences between the ideas and emphases of the Jewish Wars and those of the Antiquities, he ignores the much more impressive tally of similarities. There seems to be considerable scope for further research.Google Scholar

[16] E.g. J.W. II 119–166.Google Scholar

[17] As Runnals shows, op. cit., Josephus, too, remains dependent on the LXX even in the speeches of Jewish War; but is much more concerned to paraphrase, sometimes even absurdly: Pelletier, op. cit.

[18] The ‘recipe’ speeches appear in chapters 2, 3, 7, 10, 13, 20, 24, 26. A full ‘kerygmatic formula’ of more than four items occurs in fact in only four passages in Acts, chapters 2, 3, 10, and 13: Dodd, C. H., The Apostolic Preaching and its Development (London, 1936).Google Scholar

[19] See my ‘Common Ground with Paganism in Luke and in Josephus’, forthcoming.

[20] See (n. 19) above.

[21] Josephus drops his hints at Ant. IV 125, 303; X 210, 260 ff.Google Scholar

[22] Skinner, Q., ‘The Limits of Historical Explanation’, Philosophy XLI, 157, 07 1966, 199 ff., warns effectively against over eager detection of one writer's ‘influence’ on another.Google Scholar

[23] Pelletier, op. cit., again.

[24] Foakes-Jackson, F. J., Josephus the Jew (London, 1930), ch. 16,Google Scholar quoting Streeter, B. H., The Four Gospels (London, 1925), on supposed contacts of Luke with Josephus. Streeter hazards a guess that Luke might have heard Josephus lecture in Rome; such a guess explains little, only ‘pictures’ the relationship. The War was popular knowledge, and Josephus tells us there were many other histories of it written; there were many other (conflicting) sources for Luke to have used.Google Scholar

[25] My ‘Our Access to other Cultures, past and present’, Modern Churchman, Winter 1977. (That Dionyslus can still be held to be representive is shown both by Plutarch's acknowledged use of him in the nineties; and by the reappearence of many of the themes classfied here, in the Parallel Lives.)Google Scholar