Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- 1 Reading Acts in the second century: reflections on method, history, and desire
- 2 Jerusalem destroyed: the setting of Acts
- 3 Acts and the apostles: issues of leadership in the second century
- 4 Spec(tac)ular sights: mirroring in/of Acts
- 5 Acts of ascension: history, exaltation, and ideological legitimation
- 6 Time and space travel in Luke-Acts
- 7 The complexity of pairing: reading Acts 16 with Plutarch's Parallel Lives
- 8 Constructing Paul as a Christian in the Acts of the Apostles
- 9 Bold speech, opposition, and philosophical imagery in Acts
- 10 Among the apologists? Reading Acts with Justin Martyr
- 11 The Second Sophistic and the cultural idealization of Paul in Acts
- 12 Reading Luke-Acts in second-century Alexandria: from Clement to the Shadow of Apollos
- Bibliography
- Index of primary sources
- Index of authors
- Subject index
7 - The complexity of pairing: reading Acts 16 with Plutarch's Parallel Lives
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- 1 Reading Acts in the second century: reflections on method, history, and desire
- 2 Jerusalem destroyed: the setting of Acts
- 3 Acts and the apostles: issues of leadership in the second century
- 4 Spec(tac)ular sights: mirroring in/of Acts
- 5 Acts of ascension: history, exaltation, and ideological legitimation
- 6 Time and space travel in Luke-Acts
- 7 The complexity of pairing: reading Acts 16 with Plutarch's Parallel Lives
- 8 Constructing Paul as a Christian in the Acts of the Apostles
- 9 Bold speech, opposition, and philosophical imagery in Acts
- 10 Among the apologists? Reading Acts with Justin Martyr
- 11 The Second Sophistic and the cultural idealization of Paul in Acts
- 12 Reading Luke-Acts in second-century Alexandria: from Clement to the Shadow of Apollos
- Bibliography
- Index of primary sources
- Index of authors
- Subject index
Summary
Reading Acts in the second century in conjunction with Plutarch can offer scholars a glimpse into how social identities may be negotiated in the formative period of Christian development. Plutarch's Parallel Lives and Acts' use of comparisons, parallels, and pairs bear witness to the complex social contexts in which they were involved. There is a social edge to comparison in these texts, and reading them in the second century shapes the way we understand how their respective paralleling takes place. During the second century, the Greeks in the East were more fully aware of their being under Rome, and they began to negotiate that “mixed” identity. Paralleling and pairing seem to be a useful tool in this identity process. Plutarch is concerned about the Rome/Greek parallels, situated in an ideal male discourse. To some extent, Acts deals with a Greek/Jewish contrast, but not necessarily in hierarchical opposition. Interpreters of Luke-Acts have suggested several pairs, couples, and contrasting figures by use of a variety of notions of sameness and difference. In this essay I will employ the concept of intersectionality as a herme-neutical lens through which to discuss the complexity of pairing; in so doing, I aim to highlight comparison and pairing as strategies in ancient texts, as well as to situate pairing as a critical and creative hermeneutical procedure among contemporary interpreters of the New Testament.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Engaging Early Christian HistoryReading Acts in the Second Century, pp. 123 - 140Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013