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Acts of the Apostles
 
  Date: 80-95 AD

  1. Introduction

    1. The Problem of Acts
    2. History of Research in Acts
    3. Luke as a theologian, writer, and historian
    4. The Question of Sources
    5. Luke and Paul
    6. The Text of Acts
    7. The Language and Style of Acts
    8. Chronology of Acts
    9. Theology of St. Luke
    10. Authorship and Date

  2. Commentary

    1. 1:1-4 (Preface)
The Problem of Acts

By the "problem" of Acts, we simply mean the main questions that surround the book. In addition to the questions that one could ask, such as: when was Acts written, where was it written, and to whom, the "problem" of Acts deals with the question of how the composition of the content of Acts occurred. For example, was the author an eyewitness of the events which he writes about, or did he use eyewitness accounts? Were those accounts written sources, or oral? Or did he use traditions? Or perhaps he invented most or all of Acts himself, the so-called "free composition" which many critics accept! Since many disagree as to whether Luke, the companion of Paul (Col. 4:14), actually wrote this book, and this subject is treated in the below section on authorship and date and the question of the author is for the most part irrelevant for the rest of the sections, the author of Acts is now referred to as "Luke" simply for convenience, without an implication as to ascribing the composition of the book to Luke or not.

By the mid-second century Acts had become a widely used book, having been accepted as an authority like other Apostolic writings (see section X for more details on the date and tradition of Acts and its author). Justin Martyr used it, and after him it was especially used by Irenaeus in his fight against Gnostic and other heretics. We can therefore start with our investigation into where Luke obtained the information for the content of his book. The following sections that deal with the question of "how" Acts was composed consist of: a) A brief history of views on Acts, b) the question of whether the author used sources and if so to what extent, c) the genre of Acts: whether Luke wrote primarily or exclusively as a historian, theologian, or simply a literary writer, and finally, d) Luke and Paul: how the Paul of Acts contrasts with the Paul of the Epistles. After that there are some other, more periphal sections that can be used as a reference or general information such as: the text of Acts that is used and its provenance/history, the language and style of the author of Acts, a chronology of the events described in Acts, the theology of Luke, and the final section as general conclusions about the person of the author and the time of composition.

History of Research in Acts

The traditional view of Acts is that it's a book that relates the history of what the Apostles did: the Acts of the Apostles in the straightforward sense. We can begin our investigation with the simple observation that Acts, for one, doesn't talk about all of the Apostles, only Peter and Paul. And then, two, it doesn't tell us everything about them, as we know from the Pauline Epistles. This led to the early 19th century scholars to explain this situation in two ways: either Luke was unwilling or unable to tell us more.

The second view, also known as "source criticism" (due to the supposition that Luke used sources and thus couldn't tell us more because the sources didn't relate further) became the dominant view in the beginning of the 19th century until about the middle of it, being replaced with Lucan "unwillingness" or "tendency criticism", and then source criticism coming back at the end of the 19th century until about the 1920's/30's.

Source Criticism

In 1798 Bernhard L. Königsmann with his seminar-programme, De fontibus commentariorum sacrorum, qui Lucae nomen praeferunt, deque eorum consilio et aetate, began the first era of source criticism. He stated that, judging from the prologue of Luke, the author of Acts didn't claim to be an eyewitness and is thus different from the author of the "we"-passages. He postulated that there were other sources (which however he didn't specify with more detail) due to the "variety and unevenness of the style" and from contradictions in Acts.

After him, J. A. Bolten had quite a different view: Luke translated and annotated one or more Aramaic sources. This brings up the problem of the Lucan semitisms and forshadows Torrey's work. In 1801, W. K. L. Ziegler noted that Acts' narratives about Peter reminded him of the Acts and Kerygma of Peter mentioned by early Church authors. Also, he conjectured written accounts about the martyrdom of Stephen and the conversion of Paul as sources for the first part of Acts, which "played a special rôle in these investigations."

"J. G. Eichhorn found in Acts a 'self-consistent original historical narrative' and for this reason wished to attribute to Luke even the speeches of Acts, 'which all take place under circumstances where no one could have written them down'." J. C. Riehm viewed the author as Luke, a companion of Paul and other participants (who was also the "I" in the "we" passages) who didn't need any sources for the second part of Acts due to being an eyewitness, but made use of many minor, fragmentary sources in the first part.

In 1831/2, Freidrich Schleiermacher wrote that Acts formed one (double) work with the Gospel of Luke, but "had an independent and peculiar genesis." While the separate stories behind the gospels were necessary to be alongside the apostolic preaching (but unlike Dibelius, Schleiermacher did not consider this preaching to publicly proclaim anything of the sort of these stories), Acts' content is only due to Christians' historical sense. "Both documents [Luke and Acts] were intended to present a coherent account de rebus christianis." The prologue in Luke applied also to Acts and thus meant that there were "guarantors" and sources for Acts too. The author was not the "I" of the "we"-passages: they are simply from a source. Also the fact that there are three accounts of Paul's conversion and two of Peter's vision suggests multiple sources. In several places it's clear that a new report is beginning and thus with that a new source. The author compiled Acts from written sources that were already put together, probably "opuscules from the communities at Jerusalem, Antioch and Ephesus, as well as a travel-diary." Acts was written after the fall of Jerusalem, and remained incomplete. The author didn't know the Pauline Epistles. It was a misunderstanding that made him record a journey that never took place in 11:30. The speeches were already in the sources that were used. The reason that the LXX version of the OT was used was because the Aramaic tradition behind these sources had been overtaken and changed by Hellenistic Christians.

Mayerhoff disagreed with Schleiermacher's denial of the author being the "I" in the "we" passages and proceeded to demonstrate the stylistic uniformity between that part and the rest of Acts, with the author (of Luke as well as Acts) being Timothy. Friedrich Bleek and M. Ulrich agreed with Timothy as the "I" of the "we" passages and Luke as the author of Acts.

A. F. Grörer in Geschichte des Urchristentums (1838) considered Chapter 1-12 highly legendary with few and incomplete sources, whereas 13-28 were by Luke, an eyewitness and companion of Paul, and the two parts were united by an unknown person toward the end of the 1st century.

Eugen Schwanbeck (Über die Quellen der Apostelgeschichte (1847)) was the last of the first age of source-criticism. He saw a biography of Paul being one of the sources for Acts, and also a life of Barnabbas and memoirs of Silas, these second two forming the basis of chapters 15-28.

Haenchen notes that most source-criticism theories came during this period. After this came the age of tendency criticism begun by Ferdinand Christian Baur which lasted until a revival in source-criticism came at the end of the 19th century.

Tendency Criticism

Naturally there was speculation as to Luke's "tendency" before Baur, which will be mentioned, starting from the 18th century. If Luke deliberately omitted things he knew, he must have made a selection. This brings up the question: What interest guided him in that selection? What aim, or "tendency", was there for it? With this, Acts no longer was able to be understood as simply narrating the history of what happened, but to understand what purpose made Luke write what he wrote.

With this, the speculation as to Acts' purpose began. The scholars of that day were divided on what that actual purpose was:

J. D. Michaelis considered two intentions behind Acts: to give a trustworthy report on the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit along with the first miracles supporting the truth of Christianity, and secondly, to narrate the circumstances which proved the validity of the Gentile mission over against the Jews. Luke wrote during the Roman captivity of Paul.

J. J. Griesbach (Jena Easter-programme for 1798) wrote that Acts was written to defend Paul against Jewish Christians. This view was also attributed to H.E.G. Paulus in pages 281ff. of his Introductionis in Novum Testamentum capita selectiora (1799).

Eckermann said that Luke selected only the events which best show the wonderful workings of God in the establishing of his kingdom on earth.

Hänlein viewed Acts as wanting to show God's help in "the propagation of Christianity, enhance the Apostles' reputation by reporting their miracles, and urge the equal right of gentiles as well as Jews to the blessings of the faith."

J. G. Eichhorn wrote that Acts' purpose was not to give a history of the Church nor Apostles, but of the Christian mission.

S. G. Frisch said that Acts was an attempt by Luke to convince Jews and Jewish Christians that Jesus the Messiah was greater than Moses in worth/standing, and that the will of God and Christ was that all men equally share in the Christian salvation.

Mayerhoff saw Acts as wanting to write down: 1. the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem (center of Judaism) to Rome (center of paganism) 2. the reaction against this mission (which always served in the further propagation of the Church) and 3. the Church's internal consolidation.

K. A. Credner: "As a disciple of Paul, the author of Acts selected only what was important for Pauline doctrine. The whole work is a historical commentary on the following verses in Romans: 1.16, 3.9, 10.12. The author intended to write yet a third book (279); that is why he gives no account of Paul's death."

J. L. Hug wrote that Acts is history; the author selected in accordance with the special needs of Theophilus.

Karl Schrader was astonished by the degree to which the Paul of Acts was dependent on the original Apostles and that the miracles of Acts' Paul ran parallel with those of Peter, and also that the Paul of the Epistles was another Paul, which made him conclude that the apologetic purpose of Acts compromised its historical reliability.

Ferdinand Christian Baur united three important theses. First, from the Epistles of Paul it shows that Paul preached a different gospel from the original Apostles (the gospel of freedom from the law, versus that of circumcision), and the result of this antithesis was a struggle between the "Pauline" and "Petrine" "Christianities". On this bases Baur arrived at his second supposition: Acts was an attempt to reconcile the two hostile parties of Paulinists and Judaists. The third thesis, however, really underlined the importance of the second: that an age is not really understood, including the New Testament age, until it's seen from the standpoint of its central problem. In every age there's a struggle between two great powers - the old and the new - until they are reconciled in some higher unity. Every writing has to be placed in the context of this, and only then can it be historically understood.

The issue for the NT age (the apostolic and subapostolic ages) was the question of the legitimacy of the Gentile mission. Acts is how the author tried to reconcile the opposing parties; thus it belongs to the "closing stage of this process" and is not Luke's work.

This was the view of early Christianity by the Tübingen school. Its strength was that its explanatory power went from looking at early Christianity as far as the early Catholic Church. But its weakness was that it makes history too simplified/simplistic by pitting merely two opposing parties against each other - the Gentile and Jewish "Christianities", and also that it makes a problem that existed in the early years of Christianity the driving force at a time when this wasn't an issue and other things were.

Baur had thought it possible that the author of Acts used certain diaries of Luke. Therefore even if it took a very intense critical examination of Acts, it still contained valuable historical material for the Apostolic age.

His disciple, Albert Schwegler, on the other hand considered Acts to be a "peace-offering and attempt at reconciliation 'in the form of history'." For Schwegler, Acts had used traditions as unhistorically and arbitrarily as it was in the Clementine Homilies. The book had value only as to the history of its time of composition; its Sitz im Leben. For Schwegler, this period was 110-150, when Jewish Christianity was still dominant.

Eduard Zeller, Baur's other disciple, came to similar conclusions. The Peter-Paul parallelism is "a scheme devised by the writer himself." The author of Acts had no intention of presenting history, but his aim was to influence the two opposing parties in Christianity: the Paulinists and Judaists. There is a "conciliatory tendency" in Acts. From the fact that Acts doesn't focus on any antithesis between faith and works, but simply on the validity of the Law itself, Zeller concluded that it was written when the problem of faith vs works had already passed away, and so put Acts in the first decades of the 2nd century.

Most scholars of that day (e.g. Adolf Hausrath, Adolf Hilgenfeld, Albrecht Ritschl, H.J. Holtzmann, August Neander) did not ally themselves with Baur's view. This was in part because no one wanted to say a New Testament book contradicted a central doctrine, but also because Baur's view had weaknesses.

A scholar named Matthias Schneckenburger saw in Acts an "apologetic" character; i.e. the author wrote his material for a certain defensive purpose in mind. He still supported Lucan authorship of Acts however, and maintained that this apologetic character of Acts did not compromise its historicity. Yes, Paul in Acts is different from the letters, but Luke has placed him in such a (selected, but yet still historical) light so that the Judaistic party of Christianity can't reproach him. Luke simply achieved this by the choice of what he has selected from history to write.

On this Baur objected that if Luke suppressed this much material and placed Paul in such a severely skewed light, such an author wouldn't have any problem going further unhistorically. It's very likely that, seeing this, the author altered history not simply by choosing to not write certain facts, but also by inventing them. "The fact remains that the Peter-Paul parallelism was not achieved purely by selection of material!"

But others came forward to challenge Baur's view in more damaging ways. Gotthold Viktor Lechler posited two major problems with Baur's view of early Christianity. First, there was no conflict in the early evolution of the Church: there was a "peaceful" evolution. Paul did not attack the Law. He used to observe the Jewish feasts and the Mosaic Law. And Acts (with Luke who is the author) portrays him correctly. This objection was easily refuted by the Tübingen school (Galatians, Romans, and so on). The second attack on Baur, however, was much more critical. Lechler pointed out that Jewish Christianity could not have held much power and thus lost it fast after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, along with the death of most of the original Apostles. For this, the Judaist party would have been completely unable to have the power in the 2nd century that the Tübingen school assigned to it. Thus the rise of the early Catholic Church came from Gentile Christianity itself, not out of a reconciliation between Gentile and Jewish Christianity, and as it was the Pauline Christianity from which the idea of the Church Universal came, so did the Church's self-contained organization. By the end of the 2nd century the Church was mostly composed of Gentile Christians who had neither borrowed nor reconciled with Jewish Christianity, and the evolution came from its own self-progression, including opposition to gnosticism, to a "legal and hierarchical standpoint intimately related to the theocracy of the Old Testament".

This was also noted by Ritschl in the second edition of his Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche: eine kirchen- und dogmen- geschichtliche Monographie (Bonn, 1857). He wrote that Catholic Christianity arose not from a reconciliation between Paulinism and Jewish Christianity, but was a stage of Gentile Christianity, which had never really been dominated by Paul's theological doctrines. Ritschl further saw an insufficiency in the Pauline-Judaist "dichotomy", and also noted that there were a lot of common factors that Paulinism and Jewish Christianity would have shared.

Bruno Bauer contributed three ideas into the debate. First, he noted that Acts had completely transformed the Paul of the Epistles: "the religious dialectician, accustomed to fight only with words, is supplanted by the 'wizard' who 'dazzles his opponents'. The Apostle, 'who fulfils his historical work through sufferings, struggles and trials,' becomes the 'miracle-worker'. The author of Acts is out to convey the 'godlike impression' made by Peter and Paul alike.

But Acts also makes a second transformation. Acts takes away Paul's honor as Apostle to the Gentiles and gives it to Peter who then "legitimates and sanctions" Paul's activity. Paul has to in the end give strict proof that he still observed and never even thought of abandoning the Law, and this is the sharpest contrast between the Epistles.

However, there is no reconciliation in Acts between Paulinism and Jewish Christianity. This distinction and warring of the two parties simply no longer existed in the time when Acts was written. The "victor" of the old versus new was "Judaism"; the power that doesn't let any individual to change it, and so always defeats the new. It wasn't a single-handed effort or revolution when Paul (this is the basic thesis of Acts) brought the gospel to the Gentiles. "The revolutionary is absorbed into the...tradition."

Bauer saw the Apostle Paul as a free, "creative" individual who is restrained by the "existing order". "Paul is the 'hero strong in his own powers,' 'who draws resolve and power to act from the spring of his inner being.'"

But Bauer also challenged the authenticity of the very Pauline epistles upon which he built his attack on Acts. They became for him the "works of free reflexion", and in the end he even considered Acts as a necessary pre-existence to Galatians!

This was advocated independently by A. D. Loman in 1882. The Paul of the Epistles is according to him an idealization (!) of the historical Apostle. Paul in the "we" passages in Acts and the epistles is an evolutionary stage of a legend about Paul. Rudolf Steck agreed with Loman in 1888. Thus, the picture Acts presents is the "fundamental" (i.e. closest to original history, but still not historical) data for the historical situation.

This isn't really anything new, as an Englishman, Edward Evanson denied the authenticity of Romans on the basis of its divergence with Acts.

Due to the work of J. B. Lightfoot, there were only two followers of Baur in England: Samuel Davidson (An Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, London 1894, Vol. II) and W. R. Cassels (Supernatural Religion: an Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation, 1874).

In France, Renan in his Les Apotres, 1866 (ET History of the Origins of Christianity, Vol. II, The Apostles, 1890), also disagreed with Baur. Acts was, according to Renan, written at around 80 (later extended to 100) and was carefully planned by Luke, who is the person that speaks in the "we" narrative. [Renan, X-XI]. The book wants positive relations towards Rome and thus breaks off before Nero's persecution [Renan, XXII]. Acts also tends towards the miraculous and thus is, "a dogmatic quasi-history, designed to support the orthodox doctrines of the time or to impress on readers' minds the ideas qui souriaient le plus ál la piértér de l'auteur'. Why not? 'It is only from the writings of the faithful that we know about the origins of any religion. Only the sceptic writes ad narandum (a truth often overlooked in Harnack's generation of source-critics!)." Luke wasn't concerned with recording history as much as he was with edifying his Christian audience. His work belongs to the folklorological genre of the legend: it is neither history nor false: "His work belongs to those semi-historical, semi-legendary documents which one can take neither as history nor as legend. Though nearly every detail is false, such works" have valuable truths that are there to be found.

Franz Overbeck in his commentary on Acts collected the evidence so far against Baur's historical constructions. Acts doesn't stand halfway between the earliest Christian parties: the Gentile Christianity of Acts is neither the Pauline one, nor is its Judaism that of the original Apostles'. Instead, the Judaistic element is already part of Acts' own peculiar Gentile Christianity, which (having itself strongly been influenced by the original Christian Judaism) is trying to "come to terms with its own genesis and with its founder Paul". Except for Paul's universalism in preaching the gospel, everything else that is Pauline is put aside, not because Acts is trying to make a peace-offering to another party, or reconcile two differing parties, but because Paul is no longer understood. Also, Acts wants to be seen favorably by the Roman authorities. It's obvious the book has the intention of avoiding that Christianity be politically discredited. "Gentile Christianity is not justified from the theology of Paul: the universal mission is for the Christian community already established from the very first (cf. Acts 1.8!)." The gospel of Paul is not presupposed: it is erased. Paul's opponents, as well as those of the earliest community, are the unbelieving Jews: the conflict with the Judaists in Acts is not only absent, but inconceivable! When the author (who is not Luke) is the one largely behind the source of the text (i.e. where he is mostly writing, not overtaking the tradition/source), there can hardly be any historicity; at the very most in the accounts about Peter, and particular individual references. Paul is certainly the hero of Acts, yet his portrait is so skewed that the work was probably written around 110-130. The internal and external break with Judaism, as well as problems with Rome suggest the time of Trajan: "Acts is a direct precursor of the apologetic literature." Probably comes from Asia Minor, possibly Ephesus.

Otto Pfleiderer agreed with Overbeck in his 1873 Der Paulinismus, saying that Acts shows "late Paulinism's awareness of its own past", and that the author of Acts juxtaposed and transferred the relationships of is own time into that of the Apostles'.

Johannes Weiss was the last work of "tendency criticism" in that era, with his 1897 Absicht und literarischer Charakter der Apostelgeschichte. He agrees with Overbeck that Acts' character is closer to the Apologists than to Paul (Weiss, p.56), and that Acts was an apology for Christianity before the Gentiles in response to Jewish charges, which also shows how it happened that Christianity replaces and fulfills the worldwide mission of Judaism (Weiss, p.57). There are two ideas constantly coming up: 1. The Christians have no fault before the Roman authorities who therefore have no reason to punish them, and 2. Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism by teaching that fulfillment of Judaism's hopes. Thus it replaces "Judaism proper".

Source Criticism Returns

The Question of Sources

References

  1. The entire history of research on Acts is well summarized in Ernst Haenchen's, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, and this equivalent section summarizes it from the translation of Haenchen's 14th edition (1965; ET Basil Blackwell 1971, pp.14-50; the English translation is which the pages refer to for the rest of this article)
  2. Haenchen, Acts, p.24
  3. Bolten, Die Geschichte der Apostel von Lukas übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen versehen (1799)
  4. Ziegler, Über den Zweck, die Quellen und die Interpolationen der Apostelgeschichte, Gablers Neuestes Theologisches Journal, Vol. VII, 1801, pp.125ff.
  5. Haenchen, Acts, p.25
  6. Ibid.
  7. Dissertatio critico-theologica de fontibus actuum apostolicorum (1821)
  8. Schleiermacher's Collected Works, Division I: Zur Theologie, Vol. VIII, Einleitung ins Neue Testament, ed. G. Wolde, Berlin 1845
  9. Haenchen, Acts, p.25
  10. Ibid.
  11. Ibid., p.26
  12. Studien und Kritik, 1836, pp.1021ff.
  13. "Kommt Lukas wirklich in der Apostelgeschichte vor?" in Studien und Kritik, 1837, pp.369ff., and "Lukas kommt nicht in der Apostelgeschichte vor" in Studien und Kritik, 1840, p.1003
  14. Einleitung in die go(e)ttlichen Schriften des Neuen Bundes, 3rd ed. (1777), Vol. II chapter 154 (ET Introduction to the NT, 1793)
  15. Erklärung aller dunklen Stellen des Neuen Testaments (1807), Vol. II, pp.164ff.
  16. Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, 2nd ed., 1809, Part 3, 156f.
  17. Haenchen, Acts, p.16, n.2 continued from p.15
  18. Einleitung in das Neue Testament (1810), Vol. II chapter 147
  19. Dissertation, Utrumque Lucae commentarium de vita, dictis factisque Jesu et apostolorum non tam historicae simplicitatis, quam artificiosae tractationis indolem habere, 1817, p.53
  20. Einleitung in die petrinischen Schriften, nebst einer Abhandlung über den Verfasser der Apostelgeschichte, 1835, p.5
  21. Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 1836, Vol. I, Pt. 1, p.269
  22. Haenchen, Acts, p.16 n.2 continued from p.15
  23. Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 1st ed. 1808, 4th ed. 1847
  24. Der Apostel Paulus, Vol. 5, (1836)
  25. Ibid., pp.537f.
  26. whose works include: Die Christuspartei in der korinthischen Gemeinde; der Gegensatz des petrinischen und paulinischen Christentums in der ältesten Kirche, in the Tübingen Zeitschrift für Theologie, 1831, No. 4. In 1836, in the same periodical (No. 3, pp.100ff.), he published Über Zweck und Veranlassung des Römerbriefs und die damit zusammenhängenden Verhältnisse der römischen Gemeinde; here Acts is said to be the work of a Paulinist who wants to defend Paul against attacks of Jewish Christians. In 1838 (No. 3, 142ff. Über den Ursprung des Episkopats) Baur gave a reasoning of his main views on Acts. His other work is also important: Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi (1845) (ET Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, 2 vols. 1873-6), with a second edition, edited by Zeller, in 1866/7
  27. Haenchen, Acts, p.17
  28. Albert Schwegler, Das nachapostolische Zeitalter, 1846, p.113
  29. Eduard Zeller, Die Apostelgeschichte nach ihrem Inhalt und Ursprung kritisch untersucht, 1854
  30. Haenchen, Acts, p.18
  31. Über den Zweck der Apostelgeschichte, Berne 1841
  32. Baur, Paulus 2nd ed., pp.8-17; pp.13f.
  33. Das apostolische und das nachapostolische Zeitalter mit Rücksicht auf Unterschied und Einheit zwischen Paulus und den übrigen Aposteln, zwischen Heidenchristen un Judenchristen, Haarlem (1851; 2nd editions: rev. ed., Stuttgart, 1857)
  34. Lechler, ibid., p.523
  35. Ritschl, p.271
  36. This is an unsuccessful refutation of Baur in my opinion; surely if there existed opposing parties between Pauline ideas of freedom of the Law and those that said one must follow the Mosaic Law that is sufficient for parties to oppose each other. What the 19th century theologians who were opposing Baur were trying to point out is that by the second century the Judaistic party (which is in fact denied to have existed at all based on the evidence by some scholars) could not have wielded the power necessary to successfully oppose Pauline or Gentile Christianity. Moreover, no such traces are found of a "dichotomy" as seen by Ignatius and 1 Clement.
  37. This is also an unsuccessful refutation; the common factors between Jewish and Pauline/Gentile (free from the Law) Christianity would have been more than overshadowed by the problem of the Law.
  38. Bruno Bauer, Die Apostelgeschichte: eine Ausgleichung des Paulinismus und des Judenthums innerhalb der christlichen Kirche, 1850, pp.7-9
  39. Bauer, ibid., p.8: "The wizard has nothing in common with the religious dialectician; the miracle-worker contradicts the spiritual hero." - Haenchen, Acts, p.21 n.2
  40. Bauer, ibid., pp.21f., Haenchen, Acts, p.21
  41. Bauer, Apostelgeschichte, p.53
  42. Bauer, ibid., pp.91f.
  43. Bauer, ibid., p.121
  44. Bauer, ibid., p.125
  45. Haenchen, Acts, p.21, summarizing Bauer, Apostelgeschichte, p.124
  46. Bauer, Kritik der paulinischen Briefe, Part 1, "Der Ursprung des Galaterbriefes', 1850, III
  47. Bauer, ibid., VI
  48. Quaestiones Paulinae in the Theol. Tijdschrift for 1882, pp.141ff., pp.302ff., pp.452ff.; also 1883, pp.14ff. and pp.24ff., and 1886, pp.42ff., and pp.387ff.
  49. Steck, Der Galaterbrief nach seiner Echtheit untersucht: nebst kritischen Bemerkungen zu den paulinischen Hauptschriften, p.357
  50. Edward Evanson, The dissonance of the four generally received Evangelists: and the evidence of their respective authenticity, examined; with that of some other scriptures, deemed canonical., 1792, 2nd ed., 1805
  51. Haenchen, Acts, p.22, Renan XXIX
  52. Renan, XLI, cited by Haenchen, ibid., pp.22-23
  53. Haenchen, Acts, p.23
  54. Overbeck, Kurze Erklärung der Apostelgeschichte, XXXI-XXXII
  55. Overbeck, ibid., XXXII
  56. Overbeck, ibid., XXXIII
  57. Haenchen, Acts, p.23
  58. Overbeck, Apostelgeschichte, XXXVI
  59. Overbeck, ibid.
  60. Overbeck, ibid., LXII
  61. Overbeck, ibid., LXIV
  62. Haenchen, Acts, p.23, summarizing Overbeck, ibid., LXV
  63. Overbeck, ibid., LXIX
  64. Pfleiderer, p.497; from Haenchen, p.23 n.11
  65. also in agreement with this, Carl Weizsäcker, Das apostolische Zeitalter der christlichen Kirche, 1886, p.459 (ET The Apostolic Age II, p.123)
  66. Haenchen, p.24, citing Weiss, p.59