What is the relationship between Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul?

Answer 1

A:

As with the gospels, Acts of the Apostles was written anonymously. The second-century Church Fathers speculatively attributed this book and the related gospel to Luke, the physician and companion of Paul, on the basis that they felt Actstells us so much about Paul that it must have been written by someone who knew him well. Of the several possible candidates, they chose Luke as the author because he was a gentile, and both Luke and Acts seem to have a gentile interest in them.

For a number of reasons, Acts is unlikely to have been written by Luke. One of these is that it demonstrably uses material from the writings of Josephus for historical background, and this places its authorship quite late in the first century or early in the second century, too late for someone already a physician in the first half of the century. Whoever wrote Acts was using oral or written records about Paul, plus a good deal of imagination.

Acts of the Apostles was once thought to be the first great work of Christian history, and a reliable account of the early Church. In support of Acts as a book of history, Sir William Ramsay stated "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." This is now strongly disputed. Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) says that anyone familiar with recent scholarship would laugh at Ramsay's claim, and says that the whole book is a work of Propaganda aimed at Gentile Christians and Gentiles who have not yet become Christians. Hans Joachim Schoeps writes that Acts has been believed much too readily, saying that Acts is only a retrospective view of Christian origins written by one party - the winners. The book of Acts is not a true history.

Many scholars have held the view that Acts was written as a favourable account about Paul, pointing to the number of miracles attributed to him and the important role he plays in Acts. Because of the many discrepancies between the narrative in this book and the epistles of Paul, they try to squeeze the date of authorship into the end of the first century, before Paul's own writings became more widely circulated and could have been used as reference.

My view is that Acts was written becausePaul's epistles were becoming widely circulated, and as a reaction to them. A hidden theme in Acts of the Apostles is a comparison between Peter and Paul, such that Peter always comes across as the more worthy apostle. Whereas Paul had written of being the one who decided to preach to the gentiles, Acts gives this honour to the apostle Peter. In Paul's epistles, Barnabas is only ever seen as an assistant to Paul, but in Acts he becomes Paul's early mentor. Even the conversion of Paul leaves him blind and helpless, absolutely dependent on the disciples for help, and then taught the gospel in Damascus rather than, in Paul's words, by no man. The scene in which Jesus appears to Paul is based on the ancient Greek play, the Bacchae.

We can find quite a number of very similar miracles performed by both Peter and Paul, but in each case Peter's miracle was even more awe-inspiring and worthy than the miracle performed by Paul. When Paul was released from prison, no angel came to him, and the earthquake need not have been of divine origin. Peter was released from prison twice by angels, who in one case accompanied Peter from the prison. There was no doubt about the extent of divine assistance Peter received in his escapes.

According to Acts, Paul's first miraculous cure was improbably similar to Peter's first cure. In both cases, a man who had been lame since birth was immediately cured by being commanded to stand and walk. Peter's first miracle cure was performed in the name of Jesus, at the Temple, where the faithful saw the healed beggar praising God, and was the opportunity for some outstanding proselytising. Paul's first cure was clumsy and without apparent purpose, given that Paul did not tell the man about Jesus and he was even mistaken for a pagan god.

In an even more difficult challenge, Peter resurrected Tabitha, a good woman and a disciple, who was certainly dead and her body had already been washed.This miracle became known throughout Joppa and, as a result, many were converted (Acts 9:36-42).Paul also resuscitated a young man who foolishly fell asleep in an upper storey window and fell to the ground. There is some uncertainty as to whether the young man was really dead when Paul intervened to revive him, and the miracle did not present an opportunity to convert unbelievers (Acts 20:6-12). .

Paul and Peter were also capable of malevolent miracles. In an apparent miracle, Paul blinded Elymas (Bar-jesus) the sorcerer, for trying to frustrate his attempts to convert Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:11). But Peter was to be feared more than Paul. A certain man named Ananias sold a possession and gave only some of the proceeds to Peter, who believed that the church was entitled to all the money. Peter realised the deceit immediately and Ananias fell dead. Later, Peter told Ananias' wife she would also die, because she repeated the deceit. Of course, if these events really did occur, then both apostles were guilty of serious crimes. Peter was guilty of calculated murder and his followers were accessories, but the narrative shows the awesome power of Peter's miracles. In both cases, the apostle was frustrated by the actions of his victim, and in both cases, the needs of the church superseded ethics and moral values. But none of this is historical.