Patterns Of Deification In The Acts Of The Apostles

Patterns of Deification in the Acts of the Apostles

Five times throughout the course of Luke's narrative in Acts, an individual character is identified as (a) god. Rarely have scholars read these deification scenes within their narrative and historical settings with sufficient care. With regard to the narrative setting, scholars working on the deification scenes tend to take one or another as normative and read the remaining acclamations in light of a particular interpretation of that one pericope. However, such reading strategies run aground when they arrive at the final acclamation (28:1-10), which breaks the exegetical bow of the interpretive ship. In this study, Daniel B. Glover evaluates the deification scenes in the Book of Acts by locating them within the broader ancient Mediterranean context of deification. He offers a fresh reading of Acts that situates each of the five scenes within a distinct literary pattern recognizable to its earliest readers.

Hidden Criticism of the Angry Tyrant in Early Judaism and the Acts of the Apostles

Hidden Criticism of the Angry Tyrant in Early Judaism and the Acts of the Apostles adds to the current literature of imperial-critical New Testament readings with an examination of Luke’s hidden criticism of imperial Rome in the Acts of the Apostles and in Paul’s speech on the Areopagus in Acts 17. Focusing on discursive resistance in the Hellenistic world, Drew J. Strait examines the relationship between hidden criticism and persuasion and between subordinates and the powerful, and he explores the challenge to the dissident voice to communicate criticism while under surveillance. Strait argues that Luke confronts the idolatrous power and iconic spectacle of gods and kings with the Gospel of the Lord of all—a worldview that is incompatible with the religions of Rome, including emperor worship.

Erwählung und Berufung bei Paulus