INTRODUCTION: JERUSALEM IMAGINED

The book of Acts was being written and presented in the early-second century at the same time that the physical city of Jerusalem was being re-imagined, reconstructed, and renamed. While scholars have long recognized the post-70 CE date of Acts, we have not paid enough attention to the ways that Jerusalem was understood by Luke's audiences in their second-century settings. This was a world in which Jerusalem was either a city in ruins (before Hadrian) or a re-established Roman city with a new name and a significant pagan, Gentile occupation. In either case, Luke's story of pre-revolt “Christianity”—arising in and departing from Jerusalem—was read through the lens of the audience's contemporary, post-revolt perception of Jerusalem. What it meant to read or hear Acts during the decades preceding and following Hadrian's establishment of Aelia Capitolina—with an eye on the role Jerusalem played in the narrative—must be better understood if we are to appreciate how Luke's story fits into the larger picture of Christian origins. As Christian identities were being shaped in this time period, why did Luke craft a narrative that so intentionally linked his group's identity to a Jerusalem heritage? As Luke's audience heard this story, how might they have processed this etiological narrative during a time when Judea and Jerusalem were being portrayed negatively throughout the Roman empire? In answering these questions, this essay situates Acts within a second-century context of hybridity and resistant adaptation.