Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I ISSUES OF GENRE AND HISTORICAL METHOD
- PART II HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES IN ACTS
- 6 Acts 6.1–8.4: division or diversity?
- 7 James and the Gentiles (Acts 15.13–21)
- 8 Kerygmatic summaries in the speeches of Acts
- 9 The “script” of the Scriptures in Acts: suffering as God's “plan” (βουλή) for the world for the “release of sins”
- 10 Luke's social location of Paul: cultural anthropology and the status of Paul in Acts
- PART III ISSUES OF LITERARY CRITICISM
- Index of biblical references
7 - James and the Gentiles (Acts 15.13–21)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I ISSUES OF GENRE AND HISTORICAL METHOD
- PART II HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES IN ACTS
- 6 Acts 6.1–8.4: division or diversity?
- 7 James and the Gentiles (Acts 15.13–21)
- 8 Kerygmatic summaries in the speeches of Acts
- 9 The “script” of the Scriptures in Acts: suffering as God's “plan” (βουλή) for the world for the “release of sins”
- 10 Luke's social location of Paul: cultural anthropology and the status of Paul in Acts
- PART III ISSUES OF LITERARY CRITICISM
- Index of biblical references
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The speech of James in Acts 15.13–21 plays a key role in Luke's account of the Council of Jerusalem (and therefore in his whole account of the origins of the Gentile mission). Peter's speech, which opens the proceedings, reminds his hearers of the conversion of the first Gentile converts, when the evident charismatic phenomena (15.8; cf. 10.44–47; 11.15–17) constituted a clear declaration by God himself that Gentiles were acceptable to him as Gentiles (15.9; cf. 11.12). Thus Peter's argument is from miraculous events making God's will clear. Barnabas and Paul follow up this argument in the same vein, alleging “the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles” (15.12) as evidence that their Gentile mission is the valid continuation of what began in the house of Cornelius. But Luke does not represent this line of argument as the finally decisive one. After all, the matter under discussion is one of halakhah (15.5), which could only be decided from Scripture. It is therefore left to James to provide the clinching argument: that according to Scripture itself the Gentiles who, it predicts, will join the eschatological people of God will do so as Gentiles. On this basis James proposes the terms of the Apostolic Decree (15.19–20; cf. 15.28–29; 21.25) as a definitive decision on the issue of what the Torah itself requires of Gentile Christians.
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- History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts , pp. 154 - 184Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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