Professors C.K. Barrett, L. Gaston and C.H. Talbert were kind enough to read this work in manuscript form. From them and from the editors of the series, Professor R.McL. Wilson and Dr M.E. Thrall, I received both encouragement and a number of useful suggestions. Professor Wilson and the present associate editor Professor G.N. Stanton were also most helpful in checking the proofs. My thanks to them all and to the efficient and courteous staff at Cambridge University Press.

Unfortunately the commentaries by J.A. Fitzmeyer on Luke (vol. I), and J. Roloff and G. Schneider on Acts were published after the manuscript was complete so that they could not be included in the discussion.

The book is dedicated to my children, without whom I might have written more. They thus bring not only great pleasure to me but great relief to the scholarly world.[…]