Whose story is the main focus in Acts of the Apostles?

Answer 1

The Acts of the Apostles is universally seen as a history of the Church in the years immediately following the resurrection of Jesus, with its focus on the lives and works of St Peter and St Paul. We have Paul's own epistles as an alternative source of information about Paul but there are major unexplained differences between Acts and the epistles, while there is no alternative source of information about Peter other than what we can glean from Paul's epistles.

An important, well disguised theme of Acts is the primacy of St Peter over St Paul during the period of their respective ministries. For example, if Luke attributed a previously unknown miracle to Paul, then his followers or admirers were unlikely to complain, but quite comparable miracles were also associated with Peter, and the miracles associated with Paul were always less impressive those associated with Peter. Where Paul, in his epistles, took credit for opening the Church up to Gentiles, Acts quite emphatically gives this credit to Peter, making Paul no more than a minor player. The focus is on Peter and Paul, with the emphasis on the primacy of Peter.

Answer 2

At first reading, the Acts of the Apostles appears to focus on the history of the early Church. A more careful and critical reading shows that it actually focuses on a comparison between the apostles Peter and Paul. The first part of the book is largely devoted to Peter, while the second half is largely devoted to Paul, but overall there is a well disguised theme of the primacy of St Peter over St Paul.

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. 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.

According to Acts, 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. Paul was released from prison by a timely earthquake that arguably need not have been of divine origin, and furthermore he did not make good his escape.

According to Paul's own account, he took it upon himself to preach to the Gentiles and even rebuked Peter in Antioch for refusing to eat with the Gentiles. Compare this to Acts chapters 10 and 11, where Peter experienced a miraculous vision and was visited by the Holy Ghost, giving him a sign to bring Gentiles into the Church. In that account, Peter defended his actions in choosing to eat with the Gentiles and asserted that the Church must preach to the Gentiles. In the Acts account, Paul was carefully excluded from the company when these important decisions were made.

St Peter and St Paul are referred together and in opposition in Acts of the Apostles in order to show second-century Christians who was really, in its author's opinion, the most important apostle.

Even the passages that deal with apostles other than Peter and Paul still serve a purpose in the discussion of the two main characters. The story of the trial and stoning of Stephen, which some scholars say seems to have been derived from older material, provides an introduction to 'Saul' as the callous young man who watched the death of Stephen but was not man enough to participate, as contrasted with the great apostle who later gave his life to serve Christianity. The story that has Agabus prophesying the famine (Acts 11:28), after which the disciples determined to send relief to those who dwelt in Judea, seems carefully crafted to deny Paul any role in this important relief effort, although his own epistles suggest that he played an important part.