4 - Acts and the New Testament

Summary

Acts holds a unique position within the New Testament. It contains 14 per cent of the New Testament, and, including the Gospel, Luke is responsible for 28 per cent. Acts has no direct literary link with any other New Testament writing. This is clear from its literary genre: Acts is the only example of historiography. Its pattern lies above all in biblical historiography; Luke wrote his history as a part of the biblical history. Acts is stamped with historical and theological views. Stylistically, Acts is unique: Luke has command of a style of ‘dramatic episodes’; he is not interested in the episodes as such, but in the continuous historical course, and creates history from histories. He employs in his history-writing a great variety of stylistic means: missionary and apologetic speeches, technical exegesis, erudite expositions, historical résumés, miracle stories, legends, dialogues, prayers, letters, we-passages, sea voyages, summaries, notes, visions, auditions, dreams.

Luke is the only historian among the New Testament authors, writing history on a large scale. From other writings in the New Testament, e.g. from the Gospels and the letters, it is possible to extract historical evidence by the means of deduction from the information present and reconstruction of what actually happened. Luke, however, presents a coherent exposition, where the course of history is theologically decisive.