Strange Acts: Studies in the Cultural World of the Acts of the Apostles (Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Fur Die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Und Die Kunde ... fr die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 126)

This book examines many of the strange events and actions in Acts in the context of the Hellenistic world and from that perspective. These events and actions include the ascension of Jesus, direction by the Spirit, visions, angelophanies, prison escapes and resuscitations of the dead. Many of these events are either avoided in scholarship or are investigated with an agenda other than to understand them for themselves. The book constructs an ancient audience to be one that has a close familiarity with the Septuagint and with other Greek and Latin writings. The culturally-strange events are then interpreted through the lens of these texts. Foreword 7 Abbreviations of Periodicals and Reference Works 13 Chapter 1: Tis a Strange World 15 1. Introduction 15 2. Ancient Literary Styles 16 3. The strange acts and scholarship 23 4. The strange god of the Christians 28 5. Some Greek and Roman attitudes towards the miraculous 32 6. The purpose of the strange acts 41 Chapter 2: Up, Up, and Away? 47 1. The ascension (Acts 1.9-11) 47 2. The ascension as vision 52 3. The vision of angels (Acts 1.10) 53 4. Ascensions in other literature 56 5. The ascension narrative and its worship setting 62 Chapter 3: Spirit Matters 65 1. Introduction 65 2. Non-Jewish understandings of spirit 69 3. Spirit as overwhelming power 73 4. Spirit as angel and person 77 5. Wind, fire and holy spirit (Acts 2.1-13) 82 6. The swaying temple (Acts 4.24-31) 91 7. Snatched by the Spirit (Acts 8.39) 99 8. Prevented by the spirit (Acts 16.6-7) 103 9. Spirit contradictions (Acts 20.22-23; 21.4-15) 107 10. Healing those with evil and unclean spirits 111 11. Peter and the unclean spirits (Acts 5.16) 118 12. Philip and the unclean spirits (Acts 8.7) 120 13. Paul and the evil spirits (Acts 19.12) 121 14. The exorcists and the evil spirits (Acts 19.13-17) 122 15. Paul and Python (Acts 16.16-18) 127 Chapter 4: On the Side of the Angels 133 1. Angels in the ancient literature 133 2. Angel-faced Stephen (Acts 6.15) 140 Chapter 5: Seeing Things 145 1. Introduction 145 2. Visions in the wider literature 150 3. The first visions (Acts 1.1-11) 157 4. Stephen’s vision (Acts 7.54-56) 163 5. Ananias’s vision (Acts 9.10-16) 167 6. Cornelius’s vision (Acts 10.1-8) 169 7. Peter’s ecstasic vision (Acts 10.9-16) 172 8. Paul's visions 178 8.1. The vision near Damascus (Acts 9.3-9; 22. 6-11; 26.12-18) 179 8.2. The vision in the temple (Acts 22.17-21) 193 8.3. The Vision at Troas (Acts 16.9-10) 197 8.4. The vision in Corinth (Acts 18.9-10) 200 8.5. Another vision in Jerusalem (Acts 23.11) 201 8.6. Paul's last vision (Acts 27.23) 202 Chapter 6: The Power of Bodies and Words 205 1. Introduction 205 2. Peter’s shadow (Acts 5.15) 205 3. Paul’s kerchiefs and belts (Acts 19.11) 209 4. The curses of Peter and Paul 212 4.1. The curse on Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5.1-11) 213 4.2. The curse on Simon (Acts 8.9-24) 223 4.3. The curse on Bar Jesus (Acts 13.6-12) 229 5. Shaving heads, shaking clothes, and making vows (Acts 18.18; 21.23-24; 18.6) 236 Chapter 7: Raising the Dead 245 1. Introduction 245 2. Death among the holy ones (Acts 9.36-42) 248 3. Paul stoned (Acts 14.19) 257 4. Death of a youth (Acts 20.7-12) 265 Chapter 8: Great Prison Escapes 273 1. Introduction 273 2. The first escape (Acts 5.19) 275 3. Peter’s second escape (Acts 12.1-17) 277 4. Paul at Midnight (Acts 16.25-34) 288 5. The heat on Paul in Malta (Acts 28.1-6) 298 Conclusion 307 Bibliography 309 1. Ancient Greek and Latin Texts 309 2. Reference Texts 313 3. Commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles 313 4. Secondary Literature 314 Index of References 323 1. Old Testament 323 2. Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha 327 3. New Testament 328 4. Dead Sea Scrolls 336 5. Rabbinic and Other Jewish Literature 336 6. Early Christian Literature 337 7. Ancient Greek Writers 338 8. Ancient Latin Writers 345 9. Papyri 349 Index of Modem Authors 351 Der Band untersucht befremdliche Begebenheiten in der Apostelgeschichte innerhalb des Kontextes der hellenistischen Welt und aus deren Perspektive: Jesu Himmelfahrt, Führungen durch den Geist, Visionen, Angelophanien, Gefängnisausbrüche und Totenauferweckungen. Viele dieser Begebenheiten werden von der Forschung entweder übergangen, oder sie werden mit einem anderen Ziel interpretiert als dem, diese Erzählungen zu verstehen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung liest die Erzählungen aus dem Blickwinkel der ursprünglichen Zuhörerschaft, die mit der Septuaginta und mit anderen griechischen und lateinischen Schriften bestens vertraut war. Die kulturell befremdlichen Begebenheiten werden dann vor dem Hintergrund dieser Texte interpretiert