The list of nations in acts 2: Roman propaganda and the Lukan response

Journal of Biblical Literature

Volumn 121, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 497-529

  Gilbert, Gary ^a  

^a CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 62449174089     PISSN: 00219231     EISSN: 19343876     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3268158     Document Type: Article

References (118)

1. Hans Conzelmann, The Theology of St. Luke (trans. G. Buswell; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1961), 18-27, 60-73
2. Hans J. Klauck, "Die heilige Stadt: Jerusalem bei Philo und Lukas," Kairos 28 (1986): 129-51
3. Conzelmann, Theology of St. Luke, 27-73
4. Richard Pervo, Profit with Delight (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 50-57
5. idem, "Luke-Acts: A Mixed Population Seeks a Home in the Roman World," in Images of Empire (ed. Loveday Alexander; JSOTSup 122; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 202-21
6. Donald A. Miesner, The Missionary Journeys Narrative: Patterns and Implications," in Perspectives on Luke-Acts, ed. Talbert, 199-214
7. Martin Hengel, "Luke the Historian and the Geography of Palestine in the Acts of the Apostles," in Between Jesus and Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 97-132
8. Adelbert Denaux, "The Delineation of the Lucan Travel Narrative within the Overall Structure of the Gospel of Luke," in The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism (ed. Camille Focant; BETL 110; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993), 357-92
9. James M. Scott, "Luke's Geographical Horizon," in The Book of Acts in Its Graeco-Roman Setting, ed. Gill and Gempf, 522-44
10. Douglas R. Edwards, Religion and Power: Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greek East (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 87-90
11. Rudolf Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte (2 vols.; EKK 5/1 and 2; Zurich: Benziger, 1986), 1:107
12. Gerd Lüdemann, Early Christianity according to the Traditions in Acts (trans. J. Bowden; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1987), 40-12
13. Either in recognition of this difficulty or providing a more original reading, early Christian writers supplied alternative geographical locations: Tertullian and Augustine presented the reading of Armenia; Jerome attested to Syria; John Chrysostom offered India. For the many modern attempts to emend the text, see Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1971), 293-94
14. C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 1:121
15. Donald Juel, Luke-Acts: The Promise of History (Atlanta: John Knox, 1983), 57
16. See Robert C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts (2 vols.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1986, 1990), 2:30-31
17. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Role of the Spirit in Luke-Acts," in The Unity of Luke-Acts (ed. Jozef Verheyden; BETL 142; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999), 165-83
18. Manfred Görg, "Apg 2,9-11 in außerbiblischer Sicht," BN 1 [1976]: 15-18)
19. Stefan Weinstock, "The Geographical Catalogue in Acts 2:9-11," JRS 38 (1948): 43-46
20. Weinstock, "Geographical Catalogue," 45
21. See also Lüdemann, Early Christianity According to the Traditions in Acts, 40-41. Although Paul of Alexandria wrote in the fourth century C.E., long after Acts, the list betrays elements of a much earlier period. Weinstock argues that Acts and Paul of Alexandria most likely drew from a common astrological tradition
22. Here Metzger refers to the analysis of Bo Reicke; see Metzger, "Ancient Astrological Geography," 132
23. See the passages cited in Barrett, Acts, 1:122
24. On this list of people and similar biblical lists, see Edwin C. Hostetter, Nations Mightier and More Numerous (Richland Hills, TX: Bibal Press, 1995)
25. Scott, "Luke's Geographical Horizon," 483-544
26. Michael Goulder, Type and History in Acts (London: SPCK, 1964), 154-58
27. and Philip S. Alexander "Geography and the Bible (Early Jewish)," ABD 2:983
28. Scott, "Luke's Geographic Horizon," 528-30
29. see also Goulder: "What God had divided and broken at Babel, he restored at Pentecost; unity, comprehensibility, one tongue are returned through the coming of the Spirit" (Type and History, 158)
30. Scott, "Acts 2:9-11 as an Anticipation of the Mission to the Nations," 103-4, 116
31. Güting, "Der geographische Horizont," 164-67
32. If, on the other hand, we follow the majority of manuscripts and retain the word "Jews," its deletion by later copyists, presumably intentionally, may indicate a desire to render the narrative audience as more universal by erasing the explicit reference to their Jewish identity. See Metzger, Textual Commentary, 290-91
33. Wedderburn, "Traditions and Redaction in Acts 2.1-13," 39-44
34. Ps. Sol. 17:31
35. b. Pesahcombining dot below. 88a
36. Kremer, Pfingstbericht, 156
37. Juel, Luke-Acts, 58
38. Luke T. Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (SP 5; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 45, 47
39. On ancient geography generally and citations to ancient authors, see J. O. Thomson, History of Ancient Geography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948)
40. O. A. W. Dilke, Greek and Roman Maps (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985)
41. Ronald Syme, "Military Geography at Rome," Classical Antiquity 7 (1988): 227-51
42. Katherine Clarke, Between Geography and History: Hellenistic Constructions of the Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
43. Claude Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (trans. Hélène Leclerc; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 29-56
44. Edwards, Religion and Power, 72-81
45. For a maximalist analysis of Rome's imperialist intentions, see William V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome 327-70 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979)
46. Clarke, Between Geography and History, 77-128
47. See the references in Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics, 31
48. P. A. Brunt, "Laus Imperii," in Imperialism in the Ancient World (ed. P. D. A. Gamsey and C. R. Whittaker; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 168, esp. 162-68 for references to Cicero's writings
49. Stefan Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 50-53
50. Many writers of the first and second centuries C.E. recognized the discrepancy between rhetoric and reality in discussing the empire's boundaries and lands beyond Rome's borders. See Jean-Marie André, "La Conception de l'Etat et de l'Empire," ANRW 2.30.1 (1982): 56-58
51. See the discussion in Seth Schwartz, Josephus and Judaean Politics (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 18; Leiden: Brill, 1990), 133-36
52. and Tessa Rajak, "Friends, Romans, Subjects: Agrippa II's Speech in Josephus' Jewish War," in Images of Empire, ed. Alexander, 122-34
53. The relation between Augustus and the poets of his day remains a complex issue. See Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (1939; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 459-68
54. Douglas Little, "Politics in Augustan Poetry," ANRW 2.30.1 (1982): 254-370
55. Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus (ed. Tony Woodman and David West; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)
56. Jasper Griffen, "Augustus and the Poets: 'Caesar qui Cogere Posset,'" in Caesar Augustus (ed. F. Millar and E. Segal; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 189-218
57. Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 225-79
58. Vergil and Horace particularly offered an eloquent voice in support of Roman policies. In addition to the works already cited, see G. Williams, "Did Maecenas 'Fall from Favor'? Augustan Literary Patronage," in Between Republic and Empire (ed. K. Raaflaub and M. Toher; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 258-75
59. See also Adam Perry, "The Two Voices of Virgil's Aeneid," in Virgil: A Collection of Critical Essays (ed. S. Commager; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 107-23
60. On the political or ideological importance of Vergil's universal expressions, see Philip R. Hardie, Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 293-335
61. Determining Ovid's political leanings, ranging from Augustan propagandist to radical dissenter, and the causes for his banishment from Rome is notoriously difficult. See S. G. Nugent, "Tristia 2: Ovid and Augustus," in Between Republic and Empire, ed. Raaflaub and Toher, 239-57
62. Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 155-64
63. The map, no longer extant, is described by Pliny the Elder. For a list and discussion of ancient sources, see Dilke, Greek and Roman Maps, 41-53
64. Moynihan, "Geographical Mythology and Roman Imperial Ideology," 153-56
65. J. C. McKeown, "Fabula Proposito Nulla Tegenda Meo: Ovid's Fasti and Augustan Politics," in Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus, ed. Woodman and West, 180
66. On the shield's function as political propaganda, see Hardie, Virgil's Aeneid, 336-76
67. See the discussion in R. R. R. Smith, "Simulacra Gentium: The Ethne From the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias," JRS 78 (1988): 71-77
68. David Braund, Rome and the Friendly King (London: St. Martin's Press, 1984)
69. Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), 297-333
70. On Herod's relations with Rome, particularly Augustus, see Peter Richardson, Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 226-34
71. eadem, "New Evidence for the Imperial Cult in Julio-Claudian Aphrodisias," ZPE 43 (1981): 317-27
72. eadem, "Further Information on the Imperial Cult at Aphrodisias," Studii Classice 24 (1986): 109-17
73. R. R. R. Smith, "The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias," JRS 77 (1987): 88-138
74. idem, "Simulacra Gentium," 50-77
75. Charles B. Rose, Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period (Cambridge Studies in Classical Art and Iconography; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 163-69
76. Smith, "Simulacra Gentium," 55-57
77. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty, 312
78. On the ideology of world dominion in the second centuiy C.E., see V. Nutton, "The Beneficial Ideology," in Imperialism in the Ancient World (ed. P. D. A. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 209-21
79. Luke-Acts is certainly indebted to scriptural traditions. See Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders, Luke and Scripture (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)
80. On wider Hellenistic influences, see Pervo, Profit with Delight; Talbert, Literary Patterns, Theological Themes and the Genre of Luke-Acts, 125-40
81. W. C. van Unnik, "Luke's Second Book and the Rules of Hellenistic Historiography," in Les Acts des Apôtres (ed. J. Kremer; BETL 48
82. Similar conclusions have been expressed by Schneider, Apostelgeschichte, 1:251
83. Wilson, Gentiles and the Gentile Mission, 123-24
84. Martin Dibelius, "The Acts of the Apostles as an Historical Source," in Studies in Acts of the Apostles (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1956), 106
85. Tannehill, Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts, 2:32
86. Craig A. Evans, The Prophetic Setting of the Pentecost Sermon,"in Luke and Scripture, 220
87. Zehnle, Peter's Pentecost Discourse, 124
88. Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte, 1:125
89. See Fitzmyer, Gospel According to Luke, 1:845-46
90. Lüdemann, Early Christianity according to the Traditions in Acts, 39
91. Dibelius, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, 106
92. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), 415 n. 19
93. Eduard Lohse, "Die Bedeutung des Pfingstberichtes im Rahmen des lukanischen Geschichtswerkes," in Die Einheit des Neuen Testaments (2d ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973), 188
94. Lohse, "Die Bedeutung des Pfingstberichtes," 178-92
95. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition, 374-89
96. and Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts, 205-7, 211-14
97. idem, Society and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles, 148-55
98. C. K. Barrett, Luke the Historian in Recent Research (London: Epworth, 1961), 63
99. For a more detailed refutation of the theory, see Walaskay, "And So We Came to Rome," 15-37
100. Cassidy, Society and Politics in Acts of the Apostles, 148-55
101. Maddox, Purpose of Luke-Acts, 97
102. Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts, 218
103. André, "La Conception de l'Etat et de l'Empire," 58-60
104. See the translation and discussion in Frederick W. Danker, Benefactor (St. Louis: Clayton Publishing House, 1982), 215-22
105. On the Augustan age as a new beginning, see Wolfgang Kirsch, "Die Augusteische Zeit," Klio 67 (1985): 43-46
106. How Luke-Acts presents the relation between Christians and Jews is a subject of immense discussion. See Jack T. Sanders, The Jews in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987)
107. idem, Christians and Roman Rule in the New Testament (New York: Herder & Herder, 2001), 55
108. See the discussion by Otto Eissfeldt, "Kreter und Araber," TLZ 72 (1947): 207-12. If correct, then the list, minus the final summary pair, would begin with Parthia and end with Rome, the two great political powers of the time
109. Ronald Syme, "The Political Opinions of Tacitus," in Ten Studies in Tacitus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 119-40
110. Ramsay MacMullen, Enemies of the Roman Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966)
111. Kurt A. Raaflaub and L. J. Samons II, "Opposition to Augustus," in Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, ed. Raaflaub and Toher, 417-54
112. On early Christian opposition to Rome, see Werner Schäfke, "Frühchristlicher Widerstand," ANRW 2.31.1 (1979): 460-723
113. Klaus Wengst, Pax Romana and the Peace of Jesus Christ (trans. John Bowden; London: SCM Press, 1987)
114. On the development of Christian ideas of the Roman empire, see Erik Peterson, "Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem," in Theologische Traktate (Munich: Kösel, 1950), 45-147
115. Ilona Opelt, "Augustustheologie und Augustustypologie," JAC 4 (1961): 44-57
116. Kurt Aland, "Kirche und Staat in der Frühzeit," ANRW 2.23.1 (1979): 81-90
117. André Graber, Christian Iconography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968)
118. Thomas F. Mathews offers a different interpretation of Christian art; see his The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993)