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ABSTRACT
This article examines the four most widely discussed proposals for
the genre of Acts in contemporary scholarship (biography as proposed
by C. Talbert, novel as proposed by R. Pervo, epic as proposed by
D. MacDonald, and history as reflected in the consensus of schol-
arship). Because the historical genre is currently the most widely
accepted understanding, four historical subgenres are also considered
(general history as proposed by D. Aune, political history as proposed
by D. Balch, deuteronomistic history as proposed by T. Brodie, and
apologetic history as proposed by G. Sterling). Currently the tendency
of scholarship appears to be moving in the direction of understanding
Acts as a mixture of genres, some of which are fictive.
Keywords: Acts, genre, historicity, interpreters, Luke–Acts.
1992; Grässer 2001; Marshall 2003). The two most important histories
of nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century Acts scholarship also
illustrate this division with W.W. Gasque (1989) privileging the more
historically conservative tradition of Acts scholarship and A.J. Mattill
(1959) privileging the less historically conservative tradition of Acts
scholarship.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the best of the conservative
tradition was represented by scholars such as F.F. Bruce (1954; 1960;
1984; 1990), I.H. Marshall (1969; 1970; 1978; 1992; 2003) and C. Hemer
(1977; 1989), who often followed the earlier work of the British W.M.
Ramsay (1897; 1911) and the American H.J. Cadbury (1927; 1955;
1958). During the same period, the other tradition, which had less con-
fidence in the historicity of Acts, was best represented by M. Dibelius
(1956), H. Conzelmann (1960; 1966; 1987) and E. Haenchen (1966;
1971). In this two-century-long debate over the historicity of Acts and its
underlying traditions, only one assumption seemed to be shared by all:
Acts was intended to be read as history. Although the debate over his-
toricity has never fully abated, since the mid-1970s another debate has
arisen to parallel (and sometimes overshadow) the unsettled historicity
debate.
This parallel debate has questioned whether the historicity debate was
predicated upon an inaccurate assessment of the genre of Acts as history.
This essay will examine the Acts scholarship of the last thirty-five years
which has engaged in this rethinking of the genre of Acts. It will examine
the major proposals for the genre of Acts as biography, novel, epic and
various kinds of history. After examining these proposals, the essay will
conclude by examining what may be an emerging consensus regarding
the genre of Acts.
noted, ‘It has not yet been determined, however, just exactly how the
patterns are related to the genre of Acts… The major problem, of course,
is to determine exactly to what genre Luke–Acts belongs’ (1974: 125).
Talbert attempted to solve this ‘major problem’ by comparing Luke–Acts
to Diogenes Laertius’ third-century Lives of Eminent Philosophers.
Talbert’s comparison focused upon three areas: content, form, and
function. In regard to content, Talbert argued that Laertius’ subjects,
philosophers, ‘were regarded as divine figures… The proper model for
understanding the role of a founder of a philosophical school in antiq-
uity is a religious, not an academic one’ (1974: 126). He further ex-
plained that Laertius’ Lives not only discussed the lives of the founders
of the various philosophical schools, but also included ‘narratives about
the masters’ successors and selected other disciples who in actuality
formed a type of religious community created and sustained by the
divine figure’ (1974: 126). The final component in the content of Laer-
tius’ Lives contained ‘summaries of the doctrine of the various schools’
(1974: 127).
In Talbert’s analysis, this content therefore took ‘an (a)+(b)+(c) form’
in which ‘(a) life of the founder + (b) narrative about the disciples and
successors + (c) summary of the doctrine of the school’ could be expected
(1974: 127). Importantly, however, the (c) component could be omitted in
some cases because both the (a) and (c) components fulfilled the same
function, ‘to protect the master from false charges’ (1974: 129). Accord-
ing to Talbert, both the life of the philosopher (a) and the narrative about
the disciples (b) were consistently present because they complemented—
without overlapping—one another in function. The account of the foun-
der’s life established ‘the way of life of a given school derived from or
associated with him’, while the narrative about the founder’s disciples
sanctioned ‘the authentic or true way of the various schools’ (1974: 128).
According to Talbert, the disciples’ narrative served to legitimate the true
and appropriate heirs of the founder’s tradition.
After offering this explanation of the content, form and function of the
biographies in Laertius’ Lives, Talbert made comparisons between
Laertius’ Lives and Luke–Acts. In terms of content, Talbert argued that
‘Luke–Acts, as well as Diogenes Laertius, therefore, has for its contents
the life of a founder of a religious community, a list or narrative of the
founder’s successors and selected other disciples, and a summary of the
doctrine of the community’ (1974: 129-30). In terms of form, Luke–Acts
contains the two essential elements of Laertius’ form, the account of the
founder’s life (a) and the narrative about the subsequent disciples (b) even
though the less significant third element, the summary of doctrine (c), is
omitted (1974: 130). For Talbert, Luke–Acts, therefore, functioned as
did Laertius’ Lives: to legitimate the proper interpreters of the founder’s
original teachings. Talbert explained:
In the ancient world the (a)+(b) pattern is found only in certain Lives of
the philosophers and in Luke–Acts. This is a striking fact. There is
furthermore a similarity in purpose between Luke–Acts and the Lives
of philosophers following this pattern, whether they be collections or
individual Lives. Both are concerned to say where the true tradition is
to be found in the present (1974: 134).
Given the similarity of content, form and function, Talbert was able to
conclude that ‘Luke–Acts, to some extent, must be regarded as belonging
to the genre of Greco-Roman biography, in particular, to that type of biog-
raphy which dealt with the lives of the philosophers and their successors’
(1974: 134). According to Talbert, the author of Luke–Acts chose this
genre in order to vindicate a particular form of Christianity (represented
by the apostles and Paul) as the true heir to Jesus’ life and teachings and
to undermine competing claims to legitimacy. Talbert explained:
Both Luke’s choice of genre type for his message to the church and his
development of the type chosen were rooted in the Sitz im Leben of his
community. The Lucan community was one that was troubled by a
clash of views over the legitimate understanding of Jesus and the true
nature of the Christian life. The Evangelist needed to be able to say
both where the true tradition was to be found in his time (i.e., with the
successors of Paul and of the Twelve) and what the content of that
tradition was (i.e., how the apostles lived and what they taught, seen as
rooted in the career of Jesus) (1974: 135, emphasis Talbert’s).
Acts would have entertained ancient readers and encouraged them to read
Acts as something other than historiography (1987: 12-85).
Pervo suggested that Acts bears significant resemblance to ancient
novels, which he defines as ‘a relatively lengthy work of prose fiction
depicting and deriding certain ideals through an entertaining presentation
of the lives and experiences of a person or persons whose activity tran-
scends the limits of ordinary living as known to its implied readers’
(1987: 105). Pervo, like Talbert, offered a formula for determining the
genre of Acts, suggesting that ‘the novel = material + manner + style +
structure’ (1987: 114). For Pervo, a novel is a fictive narrative about
intriguing personalities which incorporates predictable themes (e.g.
religion, status, travel, and adventure) and is told both in an entertaining
manner and in a style accessible to the common person (1987: 104-14).
Pervo suggested that the apocryphal Acts are very close to the canoni-
cal Acts in genre and that ‘none of the attempts to distinguish these Acts
into canonical and apocryphal types of substantially different genres is
compelling’ (1987: 131). Although none of the apocryphal Acts have a
companion volume like the third gospel, Pervo was unbothered because
he assumed that Luke and Acts do not belong to the same genre (1987: 4;
1989; Parsons and Pervo 1993). For Pervo, the Gospel of Luke is
probably biography or perhaps a ‘biographical novel’ (1987: 185 n. 5),
while Acts tilts ‘sharply toward the historical novel’ (1987: 137). Pervo
argued for the ‘ancient novel’s relevance to the understanding of Acts’
and desires ‘that such comparison [between Acts and ancient novels]
proceed alongside, as well as in competition with, investigations using
historiographical models’ (1987: 137).
Although Pervo is often sharply criticized for classifying Acts as an
ancient novel (e.g. Walker 1989), he never made a complete equation
between the genre of Acts and the ancient novel. His research did,
however, highlight both what he regarded as strong parallels between the
ancient novel and the book of Acts and what he considered a fruitful point
of comparison for subsequent research. Although such comparisons were
already in their infancy (e.g. Schlierling and Schlierling 1978; Praeder
1981) before Pervo’s eloquent apology for rethinking the fictive nature of
Acts, in the wake of Pervo’s monograph comparisons between Acts and
ancient novels became increasingly common in leading peer-reviewed
publications (e.g. Dawsey 1989; Alexander 1995; Ascough 1996; Harrill
2000; Schwartz 2003).
Essentially, MacDonald has given himself the task of making the ‘in-
visible’ visible again. Not surprisingly, some interpreters suspect that
MacDonald was creating rather than discovering the parallels that he
developed (e.g. Sandnes 2005).
The reader will ultimately have to determine the plausibility of Mac-
Donald’s parallels. The following examples are typical. On a thematic
level, MacDonald (2003a: 101) offered this chart:
Iliad 6 Acts 20
* Hector was a target of violence. * Paul was a target of violence.
* Hector returned to Troy to have the * Paul had left Troas and summoned
* elders pray to the gods. * the elders for instruction and prayer.
* Hector was eager to return to the * Paul was eager to return to Jerusalem
* battle despite the danger. * despite the danger.
* Hector’s farewell to Andromache * Paul’s farewell to the Ephesian elders
* took place not at their home but at * took place not at their home but at
* the gate. * Miletus.
* Hector would not die until days later. * Paul would not die until years later.
of Tydeus, and after them the two Ajaxes, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of
clothed in impetuous valor, and after them Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and
Idomeneus and Idomeneus’s comrade Judas son of James—
Meriones, equal to man-slaying Enyalius,
and after them Eurypylos, glorious son of
Euaemon, and up jumped Thoas of
Andaemon and bold Odysseus—
all these wanted to all these were continuing
fight with noble Hector. together in prayer.
And the people prayed and lifted their And they prayed
hands to the gods, looking up to broad
heaven, one would speak like and said:
this: “Father Zeus, “Lord, knower of hearts,
(I pray that) Ajax may win the lot, indicate which of these two men
or the son of Tydeus, you select to take
or the king of gold-rich Mycene himself.” the place of this service and apostleship
that Judas forsook to go to his own place.”
So they spoke, and the horseman, Nestor And they gave them lots,
of Gerenia, shook them and out from the
helmet popped the lot that and the lot fell
they had wanted: that of Ajax. for Matthias.
the people of God in spite of opposition from the Jewish leadership, and
how the ‘successors’ (i.e., the apostles and the Christian church) stood in
the truest tradition of the ancestors and founder (1990a: 19). For Balch,
understanding Luke–Acts as political history enables one to appreciate
how the two volumes serve to establish the Christian church as the true
successors of the Jewish ancestral traditions.
For Brodie, this ‘model’ for a literary work is best described as ‘a pro-
phetic biography’ (1990: 79). Brodie was careful, however, to distinguish
his understanding from Talbert’s earlier work. According to Brodie,
Luke’s model was not Talbert’s generalized biographical genre from the
Hellenistic world, but rather the specific Elijah–Elisha narrative in the
deuteronomistic historian. Of course, several scholars, both before and
concurrent with Brodie, had observed the deuteronomistic historian’s
influence upon Luke and Acts (e.g. Goulder 1964; Dahl 1966; Cave 1969;
Drury 1976; Karris 1979; Sanders 1982; Schmidt 1985; 1999; Marcos
1987; Schmidt 2002), but Brodie made a unique contribution.
Brodie argued that the Elijah–Elisha narrative in particular was ‘cen-
tered on the taking of Elijah, and it is thus divided into two parts of about
seven chapters each’ (1990: 79). He then noted a parallel between the
Elijah–Elisha narrative and Luke–Acts. He found this parallel demon-
strated first by Luke’s emphasis upon Elijah in Jesus’ inaugural speech
(Lk. 4.16-30), second by Luke’s presentation of Jesus as ‘Elijah redividus’
and his presentation of Jesus ‘as emulating the OT, as going beyond it’
(1990: 80-81), third by Luke’s ‘meticulous reworking’ of passages from
the Elijah–Elisha narrative (e.g. Lk. 7.11-17//1 Kgs 17.17-24; Lk. 7.36-
50//2 Kgs 4.1-37; Lk. 9.51-56//2 Kgs 1.1-26; Acts 1.1–2.6//1 Kgs 21.8-
13) (1990: 81), and fourth by ‘the basic organization of the narratives’
(1990: 82). According to Brodie, this basic organization of the narrative
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