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
9 - Bold speech, opposition, and philosophical imagery in Acts
- 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
Opposition is a central theme in the Acts of the Apostles. Success in spreading the message of Christianity is not independent from conflict and suffering, but is inextricably tied to it (Marguerat 2002: 39). The account of the death of Stephen is a notable element in the development of the theme, but it runs throughout the narrative. Indeed, as Richard Pervo notes, “confinement, including arrest, incarceration, and bondage, is a literal feature of more than one-third of Acts” (Pervo 2009: 11). Acts' stories of conflict with authorities have played a key role in developing and sustaining the widespread view that persecution and martyrdom have been central to the Christian experience from the earliest days of the Christian movement. The nature and function of the opposition in narrative of Acts, however, has long been the subject of debate. Does the emphasis on opposition and conflict capture the historical realities of the first Christians? Is this emphasis shaped by the author's theology and/or literary strategies? Whatever the historical realities may be, in what follows I suggest that the emphasis on opposition and conflict in Acts has the narrative function of constructing the heroes of the narrative as “true” philosophers. The author of Acts presents the leaders of the Christian movement to Theophilus, the educated reader (whether a person or a larger entity), using widespread philosophical topoi that emphasized the conflict between the philosopher and a ruler or authority figure.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Engaging Early Christian HistoryReading Acts in the Second Century, pp. 153 - 168Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013