Деяния апостолов. Главы 9-28: Историко-филологический комментарий

Summary

This book follows the same pattern as the previous one published by the same author in 1999 which was a commentary to the chapters 1-8. The text is divided into bite-size chunks. Each starts with the Greek text of the twenty-seventh edition of Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece post Eberhard et Erwin Nestle, ed. B. et K. Aland, J. Karavidopoulos, C. M. Martini, B. M. Metzger (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993), and is followed by a translation and commentary. In producing a fresh translation of the Book of Acts the author seeks to render the text as accurately as possible into modem Russian. Stylistic elegance is sacrificed to linguistic precision, and therefore this translation is not meant to be used independently, but only in conjunction with the commentaries.

The Preface to the earlier volume discussed the problems of the authorship of the Book of Acts, its date, the history of the transmission of its text, its language, sources, historical value and outlook. The Preface to the present book (p. 9-57) concentrates on Paul and is divided into three parts: 1) his biography; 2) the chronology of his life; 3) a comparison of the theology of the Book of Acts with his theology.

Paul’s biography is known from the Book of Acts and from the casual remarks which are scattered throughout his letters, though neither source supplies us with the full picture. Some of the information coincides, but there are quite a number of discrepancies between the two sources which make a reconstruction of Paul’s life notoriously difficult. Thus the first question to be addressed is which of the sources is more reliable. At first glance the answer is quite obvious: who can know the details of his own life better than Paul himself? In the view of the majority of scholars priority should definitely be given to Paul’ letters, i. e. the first-hand sources, over the second-hand account found in the Book of Acts. The present author does not consider this principle valid when the details of Paul’s life are being considered and not his theology. Paul never wrote an autobiography. His legacy consists of passionate, polemical and dogmatic letters. In some of them (Gal, Rom, Phil, Cor) he just mentions events of his life in passing, each time in a particular dogmatic context. Human memory is not always reliable, and when retelling the events of one’s own life one can easily adapt some details to fit the nature of the discourse. Paul does not give a historical account, but an exegetical interpretation of events of his life which in each case is subordinated to a particular theological aim. After his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus Paul’s life changed dramatically: from then on it became a part of the sacred history of salvation. From this perspective the exact details of his biography were of minor importance compared with his high goal: to attract his addressees to the truth he had known. Luke was another matter. In the Book of Acts he proved himself to be a historian, and as the author tried to show in her other book[1], not a bad historian, and so he tried to collect information about one of his main protagonists. In a nutshell, in case of a discrepancy between Paul’s letters and Luke’s account preference should not automatically be given to Paul’s letters.

Many details of Paul’s life, including the dates of his birth and death, are not known and will probably never be known. However, it is possible to attempt to reconstruct his life, at least partly, using the hints in his letters and the information in the Book of Acts. In the first part of the Preface such an attempt is made.

The chronology of Paul’s life is a hotly debated issue. There are quite a number of «Pauline chronologies» which differ, sometimes dramatically. Often these differences are the result of different understanding of the correlation between what we find in Paul’s letters and in the Book of Acts. On pp. 45-52 the reader can find a number of chronological tables of Paul’s life according to conjectures of F. F. Bruce[2], G. Lüdemann[3], R. Jewett[4], C. J. Roetzel[5], M. Hengel[6] and The Cambridge Companion to St Paul[7].

The third part of the Preface discusses the theology of Luke and the differences between Paul’s theology as known from his letters and his teaching as presented by Luke. There is no doubt that such differences exist, though it should be noted that at least some of them can be explained by the difference between the target audience in Paul’s letters and that of his speeches in Acts.

Paul’s letters are addressed to Christian communities, while in the Book of Acts he speaks mostly in front of those whom he is trying to convert. As F. F. Bruce noted, commenting on Paul’s Areopagus speech in Acts, «it is underestimating Paul’s versatility, his capacity for being ‘all things to all men’, to think that he could not presented the essence of Romans 1-3 to pagans along the lines of Acts 17:22-31»[8].

The corner-stone of Luke’s theology is belief in the God of Israel as the Creator and in Jesus as the Messiah and Saviour. For him Christianity is a missionary religion which is guided and directed by the Holy Spirit. Christianity recognizes itself as a continuation of Israel and sees its mission to the Gentiles as a fulfilment of Israel’s mission and as an integral part of Israel’s salvation. It is through this prism that the author of the Book of Acts views the beginnings and early history of Christianity. His theological contribution is to be found, «not so much in the treatment of particular doctrines as in understanding of the possibility and course of Christian history and especially of the Christian mission»[9].

The main part of the book (p. 66-594) consists of commentary. The text of the Book of Acts is discussed mostly from the philological and historical points of view, though theological issues are sometimes touched upon as well. The history of textual transmission is of great interest to the author, so attestations of particular readings in different manuscript families are discussed at length throughout the text.

Special attention is given to documentary evidence, above all to inscriptions. In one case, the discussion of the epigraphical evidence for the Italian cohort mentioned in Acts 10:1 turns out to be so detailed and lengthy that the author assigned a special excursus to it (p. 123-141).

Because the target audience of this book is not only students of history, philology and theology, but a wider readership, for their benefit all Greek, Latin and Hebrew quotations have been translated into Russian.

The author of the book owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the staff of the library of Tyndale House (Cambridge, UK) on which friendly premises most of the research for the book was done. The book is gratefully dedicated to all author’s friends in Britain.