¹ Is it right to see protruding here Luke's own attitude to the law, so carefully kept out of sight elsewhere? (Cf. Haenchen, E., The Acts of the Apostles (ET Oxford, 1971), p. 446Google Scholar and n. 3). Or is J. Jervell closer to the mark in pointing to the history of Israel as the story of the failure of the Jews to keep the law (‘The Law in Luke-Acts’, in Luke and The People of God (Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1972), p. 151Google Scholar n. 55)? A systematic consideration of Luke's theology of the law is beyound the scope of this treatment. Nevertheless our results will have a singnificant bearing on this debate.

² Haenchen, op. cit. p. 446 n. 3. See also p. 459.

³ More so in the light of the obvious interest of the passage in how Jewish Christians are saved, which is present clearly in v. II on any reading.

⁴ cf.Overbeck, F. in Wette, W. M. L. de, Kurze Erklärung der Apostelgeschichte (4th ed. thoroughly revised and expanded by Overbeck, F., Leipzig, 1870), p. 226Google Scholar, ‘Strenggenommen aus der Gesetzes-freiheit der Judenchristen argumentiert’.

⁵ Haenchen, op. cit. p. 446.

⁶ An obvious case is Acts 21. 25 which is to be explained as Luke's reminder to the reader, rather than his failure to recall Paul's presence at the Jerusalem conucil. Cf. Haencher, op. cit. p. 610.

⁷ We may compare the recasting of the account of Paul's conversion in Acts 22. So that a relatively full account can be given in the setting – an address to a hostile Jewish audience – the most explosively controversial point is relegated to the end, where it can be allowed to precipitate a commotion without disturbing Luke's intention of once more recounting the conversion episode.

⁸ These portray a very positive Jewish piety according to the law. See esp. I, 6, 8–11, 22; 2. 21–7, 36–8, 39, 41–2. The Jewish piety of the Benedictus is reflected in J. Gnilka's conclusione ‘Das Benedictus steht an der Schwelle von Judentum zum Christentum. Sein Verfasser … schätzt die religiöse Literatur des Judentums seiner Zeit’, B.Z. VI (1962), 238.

⁹ Some suggestion of this pervasiveness is given by the list in Cadbury, H. J., The Making of Luke-Acts (London, 1927), pp. 306–8.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Though not if its necessity for salvation is seen in such strict terms as Jas. 2. 10, ‘For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it’.

¹¹ See Rabbinic references cited at Barrett, C. K., The Gospel according to St. John (London, 1955), p. 274Google Scholar. It is however still difficult to have this Jewish view emerge here and yet be represented nowhere else in Luke/Acts, when we consider how frequently Jewish obserances come into view.

¹² Note already in the Cornelius episode, Acts 10. 34, ούκ έστιν προσωπολήμπτης ό θεός.

¹³ They have the end-time experience of the Spirit (2. 17, contra Haenchen, op. cit. p. 179). God's promise through Joel is now redeemed (2. 39). They live in days of fulfilment of what all the prophets pointed forward to (3. 24). Even the hope of resurrection is in a sense fulfilled (26. 6–8, cf. v. 23).

¹⁴ Cf. Acts 13. 32 f., τήν πρός τούς πατέρας έπαγγελίαν γενομένην ότι ταύτην ό θεός έκπεπλήρωκεν τοίς τέκνοις ήμίν. ήμίν is however textually insecure. Haenchen's ‘neither the Jews of old nor the Jewish Christians themselves’ seems to separate without good reason.

¹⁵ This contrast is seen to express Luke's point even more effectively when we call to mind the close connection for Luke between salvation and forgiveness of sins (Luke I. 77 γνσιν σωτηρίας…έν άϕέσει άμαρτι⋯ν αύτ⋯ν). For Luke man's greatest need is forgiveness (cf. Luke 14, 37, Acts 13. 38 f. etc.).

¹⁶ Elsewhere throughout Acts the law seen as the Jewish way of relating to God remains unquestioned. Here also it is called in question as a way of expressing piety. It is merely pointed out that the law can make no claim to be salvific.

¹⁷ In an appended not we offer reasons for translating v. 11 ‘through the grace of the Lord Jesus, we believe (in order) to he saved, and so do they’.

¹⁸ Compare Acts 13. 38 f. where the salvific ineffectiveness of the law is contrasted with the salvific effectivencess of believing. διά τούτου ύμίν άϕεσις άμαρτι⋯ν καδαγγέλλ εται [καί] άπό πάντωνἄν ούκήδυνήθητε έν νόμ腹Μωϋσέως δικαιωφναι έν τούτ腹 π⋯ς ό πιστεύων δικαιο腡ται.

¹⁹ See appended note on βαστάзειν.

²⁰ See the references gathered under Matt. II. 29 by Strack, H. and Billerbeck, P., Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 1 (München, 1922), 608 ff.Google Scholar

²¹ As in the appended note on βαστάзειν, here too it is necessary to distimguish between being required to make an effort and feeling badly about the demands that are being laid upon one (‘oppressive’, ‘impossible’, etc.). The imagery of the зυγός cannot be used without stuggesting that there is contraint imposed, hard work required, obligation undertaken, etc., but it frequently escapes any sense that the зυγός is an undesirable thing. (Cf. the English ‘in harness’.) As early as Jer. 5·5 ‘yoke’ is being used as a synonym for obedience to ‘the way of the LOKD and the law of their God’. Ecclus. 51. 26 f. commends the yoke of wisdom in the following words: ‘Put your neck under the yoke, and let your souls receive instruction; it is to be found close by. See with your eyes that I have laboured little and found for myself much rest.’

Matt. II. 29 f. invites the taking of a yoke that is easy. Did. 6. 2 presents the ideal of Christian perfection as ‘to carry the whole yoke of the Lord’. 2 Bar. 41. 3 speaks of those who have ‘withdrawn from the covenant and cast from them “the yoke of the law”’.

Rabbinic texts which speak of the ‘yoke of the law’, ‘yoke of the kingdom’, etc. are conveniently gathered at Strack and Billerbeck, op. cit. I, 608 ff. and 176 f. ‘Yoke’ is used in these in the same way as in Jer. 5. 5.

There can be no thought that in this well-established use of ‘yoke’ with regard to religious obligation (‘of the law’, ‘wisdom’, ‘kingdom’, ‘Lord’, etc.), we are to see any kind of criticism of the religious duties. The word is used to denote ‘constraining religious obligation’ without any negative colouring at all.

²² Ibid. pp. 163 ff.

²³ Obligations are not shown to be oppressive simply because they happen to fail to be met. The resistance of our human failings to our own highest aspirations seems to be a universal experience.

²⁴ We can make a better case at Acts 15. 28 for the law as burdensome where elements of the Mosaic law are spoken of as a Βάρος. This is however in relation to gentile Christians to whom the whole Mosaic system was culturally alien. While the two are obviously linked it is not necessary to allowe the sense of 15. 10 to be controlled by this reference at 15. 28 as do Lake, K. and Cadbury, H. J., The Beginnings of Christianity, 4 (London, 1933), 174.Google Scholar

²⁵ In other contexts Luke is fond of representing the present (unbelieving) attitude of Jews as a continuation of the bilical (Acts 7. 51, 28 ff. 25 ff. and elsewhere).

²⁶ RSV translation, supported by, for example, Haenchen, op. cit. p. 446 and Conzelmann, H., T.D.N.T. 9, 392Google Scholar n. 160, who both refer to Blass, F. and Debrunner, A. (revised and translated by Funk, R. W.), A Greek Grammar of the New Testament (Chicago and London, 1961), ξ 397Google Scholar (2).

²⁷ If Luke had like Paul an established law/grace antithesis then this would provide the necessary transition from v 10 to v. 11, but none of Luke's other uses of Хάρις betrays the slightest interest in such an antithesis.

²⁸ Bultmann, R., T.D.N.T. 6, 203.Google Scholar

²⁹ Here physical healing is prominent in the content of σωθ脴ναι but not to the exclusion of a bigger concept. So also Luke 8. 12, 17. 19.

³⁰ These references are also noted by Luke and Cadbury, op. cit. p. 174.

³¹ Blass, Debrunner, Funk, op. cit. ξ 391 (4). Cf. Lake and Cadbury, op. cit. p. 174 who provide this as ‘an alternative view’ and suggest that ‘this interpretation may explain the variant in ℵ $$$πιστεύσομεν σωφ脴ναι’. Bruce, F. F., The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1952), p. 295Google Scholar, perfers this understanding of the infinitive.

³² With καθ όν τρόπον κάκεīνοι the stress must fall in such a way as to make clear that the case of the gentile Christians is being proved from the case of the Jewish Christians. It is interesting to note that although Haenchen, op. cit. p. 446, regards σωθ脴ναι as expressing the content of the belief and not the result of the belief as here, in a latter section (p. 456) where he is more interested in the thought content he paraphrases the verse, ‘Belief in Jesus is the only thing which saves – Jews and Gentiles alike.’