Pardon Me If I Repeat Myself

This is my 1 minute interview with Dr. Luke at the More Than Cake Cafe. Luke is the author of a two volume history of Jesus and the early Christian Church. In our time together we explore the link between history, theology, and community in Acts 2:42--47.

I based my script on the Ben Witherington’s book, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. His book a must read for every student of Acts. Here is just a bit of what he has to say in his section titled, A Closer Look—The Summaries in Acts.

It is important to look at the summaries from various angles and ask about their function as a whole in Acts, not just as individual linking passages. It is also useful to distinguish between summary statements and summary passages. For example, 2:41 is in a sense a summary statement concluding the previous narrative, and 2:42 is probably most naturally taken with what follows as part of a summary passage. Our concern here is primarily with the latter, of which there are a goodly number early on in Acts. In general one may say that summary statements are used to link together the narrative panels of Acts (6:7; 9:31; 12:24; 16:5; 19:20), and so the function of summary passages must be something else. The statements, like the panels they link, are meant to chronicle the spread of the word through the Mediterranean crescent, and as such they function much like similar statements about the spread of the word in Luke’s Gospel (cf. Luke 4:37; 7:17; and 4:14).

Cadbury’s general observations about the summary statements bear repeating: (1) they are Lukan creations, and are later than the intervening panels they link; (2) they are derived from generalization, probably from some of the specific adjacent material; (3) these summaries are liable to freer treatment than the material they link together and are liable to combination; (4) when the summaries are similar to one another in subject matter (as all the summary statements are), this may be due to Luke’s well-known tendency to repeat things with certain variations when he is dealing with the same theme on more than one occasion. Cadbury’s final remarks deserve to be stressed: “they are undoubtedly pieces of editorial workmanship, devised by the author or his predecessor for the creation of a narrative out of the raw materials. They serve double purpose—to divide and connect. They give continuity and historical perspective, but they are also of later vintage than the single episodes.… They indicate the material is typical, that the action was continued, that the effect was general. They fill in the lacunae … they suggest that there was plenty more material of the same kind.… Certain items are mentioned with a definiteness and brevity that imply that his knowledge or sources were more complete. In that case the summaries may rest on more information than we ourselves now have access to.” This last remark is crucial, for it suggests, as Hengel has elsewhere stressed, that in the case of Luke we are dealing with someone who is basically a condenser of a larger array of source material than he presents in Acts, rather than a creator of stories and statements based on too few, or in some cases no, sources at all.