Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Construction of apparatus
- 1 The study of the text of Acts
- 2 The nature of the Western text of Acts
- 3 Lucanism and the Western text of Acts
- 4 Marginal annotation and the origin of some Western readings in Acts
- 5 The composition and editing of Acts
- Appendix textual witnesses
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of subjects
- Index of authors
- Index of biblical passages
5 - The composition and editing of Acts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Construction of apparatus
- 1 The study of the text of Acts
- 2 The nature of the Western text of Acts
- 3 Lucanism and the Western text of Acts
- 4 Marginal annotation and the origin of some Western readings in Acts
- 5 The composition and editing of Acts
- Appendix textual witnesses
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of subjects
- Index of authors
- Index of biblical passages
Summary
The composition of books in antiquity
The observations made so far about the Western text of Acts have suggested that the origin of the distinctive stratum of Acts' Western text is to be sought in an extensive and meticulous process of annotation which took place at an early stage in the book's history. This conclusion raises a further question: how could a book such as Acts have acquired this layer of annotations?
Luke, more than any other New Testament author, seems to have been aware of the world of Hellenistic culture and its literary conventions. We might expect him to have followed these conventions, and that what we may discover of the processes by which authors in antiquity brought their works to completion will tell us something of the way in which he is likely to have worked. There were several points in the process of compiling and disseminating a book which would have permitted annotation to have taken place.
Annotation by the author
An author in antiquity would begin work on a serious literary production by compiling notes (ὑπομνέματα or commentarii) which were to serve as its basis. A commentarius might carry the preliminary notes of a scholar. Lucian advised the aspiring historian first to collect such notes, which would give him the information from which to work. It is the historian's art, according to Lucian, to turn these data into a literary product worth calling ‘history’.
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- Information
- The Problem of the Text of Acts , pp. 167 - 189Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992