Section 5: Early Christian Fan Fiction
Introduction
There is not really a lot to write in this introduction. We are down to our final two books of the New Testament: Acts and Revelation. Section 5 is named “Early Christian Fan Fiction” purposefully—we will be exploring how these two books are clearly not factually or historically accurate. It may be quite shocking to hear two of the largest books in the New Testament labeled as fiction, but they clearly are, and it is important for readers to know this. It may even be a relief to many who likely still struggle with stress or anxiety about Armageddon to know Revelation is fiction. We have already seen in Section 1 that the apocalypse is not a singular event, but it is a genre of literature used over and over again in many different versions or events that depend on what the author wants to say about their present moment. We have already seen that there is no rapture anywhere in scripture. We have also already seen that the antichrist is not a scary concept, and it does not refer to an evil Satan-loving ruler coming to usher in Armageddon. So, it should not really be a surprise that the rest of the things you were told exist in Revelation are simply fictional.
Acts, too, is fictional because it is a continuation of Luke’s long narrative that takes the church from Jerusalem to Rome. It is a neat and tidy narrative that makes many of the Apostles, especially Peter, very Greek—just as Luke did with Jesus—and shows why a Greek church was always God’s plan all along. The problem is that in doing so Luke will disagree with our earliest Christian sources—Paul’s letters—quite a lot. Luke’s goal, despite what he tells Theophilus, who may or may not be a real person, is to get Christianity more legitimacy. It is essentially the same goal we saw from Hebrews—to show why and how a Jewish man became the god of a new very Greek religion. Luke does and will sacrifice some historical accuracy to make that point. Acts is also quite late, one of the last books in the New Testament to be written, so it is taking all the material that has been established by earlier writers of all genres and using that as a foundation to build his story. This is why we are calling it fan faction. It is quite similar to someone taking all the established Star Wars, Lord of Rings, or Harry Potter material, then using to carve out their own unique story that fills in some of the material left ambiguous by the original authors.
Acts of the Apostles
(120 CE - 160 CE)
Introduction
The Book of Acts is likely the final book to be written of those included in the New Testament, and is a rewriting of history in an attempt to paint over the serious conflict in the early Jesus movement. The goal of Luke in Acts is to finalize the transition we saw begin in Luke’s gospel from a Jerusalem based church to a Rome based church. Despite being called “Acts of the Apostles” (emphasis mine), the narrative will quickly be taken over by Paul and leave behind any mention of any of the original followers of Jesus. This is because Paul was the starting point for proto-orthodoxy and the move away from Judaism toward Greco-Roman sentiments. Luke will take liberties with the history in order to tell the story to his satisfaction so that it meets his goals. On many occasions, Acts directly contradicts Paul’s own telling of events. The Pauline epistles and the writings of Paul’s competitors demonstrate this conflict, and highlight the competing and changing theological and doctrinal views of early followers of Jesus. Moreover, there is evidence throughout Paul’s writings that the Jerusalem Church, headed by James the brother of Jesus, was consistently sending out teachers possibly even to follow Paul around and counter his teachings. Peter (whom Paul calls by his Aramaic name, Cephas) appears to be the representative with whom Paul most often contends.
Luke will continue his depiction of Christianity as a philosophy, and we will see Paul take the mantle of philosopher from Jesus and run with it. Luke will even use Paul as a proxy for the clash between Greek paganism and Christianity; and make no mistake, this is a clash between the mysterious/mystical, and the philosophical. One such clash occurs when Paul decides to preach the heart of Greek culture: the Agora of Athens. We do not know how historically accurate this event might be, but it absolutely helps serve the larger purpose of Luke. This may be a fictional encounter Luke uses to proxy the conflict between mysticism and good hard philosophy. Ironically, the philosophers in this story—Epicurean and Stoic, as best we can tell—accuse Paul of being a “messenger of foreign gods” because he preaches Jesus and Resurrection. Preaching a Jewish human as God and a resurrection as reality would have been controversial because Greeks view the body as a prison from which the eternal soul must escape. Because of this, Paul is accused of introducing foreign beliefs into the discussion, and Paul is arrested and taken to the Areopagus who wants to interrogate these odd teachings. Paul uses philosophical ideas to promote his religion, and even wins converts in Areopagus’ crowd.
This is typical of what we see in Acts, though not always this well fleshed out. A philosophical march toward Rome using Philosophy as a key tool, aided by miraculous and divine intervention. It is a wonderful story to explain how and why God always “wanted” the church to leave Jerusalem and go to Rome.
For Acts, we will cover it in the same way we covered the gospels—by section rather than by chapter.
Notes on Acts
Putting the Holy Spirit in Play Acts 1:1 - Acts 1:11
In the very first verse we get reminded of Luke’s goal to frame Jesus as a philosopher and Christianity as a philosophy. What Jesus “did and taught” [poiein te kai didaskien] us language precisely evocative of a philosopher, much the same way saying “innovative and visionary” is evocative of a tech entrepreneur in modern English.
It is interesting that Luke tells us Jesus spent 40 days speaking to and teaching his students. We do not have this tradition anywhere in the New Testament other than this verse. This seems to be a contradiction with Luke’s statement at the end of Chapter 24 in his gospel that Jesus blessed the students then was carried into heaven, unless he came back for 40 more days after this. Perhaps, because Luke will describe the ascension of Jesus here in Acts 1 he means to infer that there was a period between the end of Luke and Acts 1.
The idea of 40 days itself is a biblically—and ancient Levantine—idea that symbolizes completeness or a long period of time, and pops up all over the place. 40 years is the length of a generation in the Bible. Noah’s flood lasted 40 days, the Israelites wondered in the wilderness 40 years, Jesus fasted 40 days, etc. This suggests this 40 day visit from Jesus may have been more of a symbolic creation of Luke’s. What is interesting is Luke seems to believe Theophilus is already aware of this event, but none of the writings that would have told about this visit have survived. There must have been a prominent tradition floating around the milieu, or another text that was not preserved that gave more detail.It is a flat contradiction with Mark and Matthew that Jesus told the students not to leave Jerusalem (v4). In those gospels the students are reminded that Jesus told them he would meet them in Galilee, and in Matthew he does appear to them there. Why would Luke put in this contradiction? Because he needs the church to be a Jerusalem church, not a Galilean church, so that he can complete the narrative of God’s journey from the center of Judaism to the center of the Roman Empire.
Luke must know how unfulfilling the story of Jesus would have been for Jews, so he adds in v6-8 to reiterate just how the expectation of the Kingdom of God in Jerusalem was not a failure, but will still be coming at some point in the future. By the time Acts was being written this expectation was already nearly 100 years in waiting, so it is critical for Luke to address why this had not happened. Historically speaking, if Jesus did appear to his students, and they were expecting him to be the Messiah, then they too would immediately be wondering how Jesus can be the Messiah but the kingdom not be established before he died. It is a natural question for the students to ask.
Jesus again gets lifted up into heaven after telling them the holy spirit will come. This is a bit hard to track on Luke’s timeline because he never tells us exactly when the 40 days visitation happens. It appears as though this could be it, because v6 begins with what sounds like it could be a retelling in Greek. There is not a sequential flowing of the events between Luke 24:50 - Acts 1:11, so we do not know if some of the narrative is referring to one of these events, or if this is multiple versions of the same event, or if it is a sequence of events that is not well detailed. But, the plain reading seems like Jesus would come and go from heaven to teach the students after he died; however, we cannot be sure of that because no clear sequence is laid out.
Luke quickly pivots from his narrative in the gospel to his narrative in Acts with v8, the pronouncement of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will be a focus in Acts much more broadly and concretely than it has been in any other book we have seen so far. This is another hint that Acts is later in the timeline of development. No other writer focused on or developed the concept and nature of the Holy Spirit anywhere near as much as Acts will do. This focus is indicative of the fact that Jesus has still not returned and it has been decades and decades since he died. Now, because Jesus has not come back Christians are developing a new worldview to cope with that fact, and the power and mysticism of the Holy Spirit is one of those coping mechanisms. That’s not to suggest it isn’t real, it may be, but writings for the first 100 or so years of Christianity told us little about it. It was either not terribly common or not terribly prominent for that time. But here, in Acts, the Holy Spirit serves almost as a coping mechanism because where Jesus or his power might be needed, the Holy Spirit will be present to sort of hold Christians over until Jesus comes back.
Mathias Becomes One of the Twelve: Acts 1:12 - Acts 1:26
Luke telling us that the Mount of Olives was “a Sabbath day’s journey” for the students indicates that the students still followed the Law of Moses. At this point in the narrative they are still clearly very Jewish, as customs at the time limited the number of steps one could take on the Sabbath to 1,000. For simplicity, rather than counting steps a distance of 1,000 yards was used. Some Jewish sects still use this prescription today. This is the second indication in the first few verses that the students were thoroughly Jewish still at this point. The transition from Jerusalem to Rome will be a surprise for them too.
Luke gives us another complete list of the 11 remaining apostles. This is probably necessary for his readers because, as we have discussed, there are many contradictions between the lists of names given in the four gospels.
The Greek makes clear that while the students, which included women and Jesus’ family, were praying they did so “in agreement/like mindedly” [homothumadon]. This is omitted from most English translations, possibly because those who first translated the Bible in English did not want to give the impression that the women were on par with the 11, but this concept of unity is critical to Luke. The word is used only once in the earliest Christian writings (Romans 15), but Luke uses it 11 times in Acts. Given the fierce divisions in the early development of Christianity—some of which Acts will fudge the record to smooth over—Luke really wants to construct a narrative in which there was unity and all the students of Jesus believed in him and stayed loyal to the movement. It is also noteworthy that the women and family of Jesus were part of the unity, apparently equal with the 11 in prayer and part of the appearances from Jesus as well. It is unclear if James the Just is one of the 11, perhaps the son of Alphaeus, or if that is another James, and James the Just is part of the family described in v14.
The mention of Jesus’ family (v14), and specifically his brothers, is telling for Luke’s overall goal in his Luke-Acts narrative. While Mark and Matthew mention and name the brothers, and Paul and other early Christian and non-Christian writings are familiar with them and their role, Luke leaves them out of his gospel. Even here he does not name them. Luke will make clear that James the Just was the leader of the Jesus Movement, because that fact seems like it was unavoidable historically, but wants to brush over that rather than focus on it. This makes sense because if Jesus’ family plays a prominent role, then the transition from Jerusalem to Rome is a bit more difficult. If it is the 12 that play the prominent role, as Acts will seek to emphasize, then Paul fits in much more neatly, and the transition to Rome makes more sense. Luke begins this in the very next verse (v15) by indicating that Peter played a more authoritative role despite both Paul, and later scenes in Acts making clear what what historically true—that James the Just was the leader.
As we discussed when we covered Matthew, this version of Judas’ death is entirely different than Matthew’s, bringing into question the historic accuracy of the death of Judas. If he was real, and he did betray Jesus, perhaps he just took the money and left and was never seen from again. Fundamentalists will try to merge the two stories together by saying that Judas hung himself in the field, and then after he died the rope broke or his neck snapped and he fell and burst open. But, this isn’t possible if we pay attention to the smaller details of the story. Clearly Judas is somehow associated with the “field of blood”, because both Matthew and Acts mention it. However, in Matthew, Judas throws the money back at that Sanhedrin, and then kills himself. Only then does the Sanhedrin take the money and buy the potter’s field. It becomes known as the field of blood because it was bought with blood money. In Acts Judas buys the field, and it gets the name because he dies there. Luke also gives no indication it was from suicide, only that Judas fell. Perhaps it was an accident or a punishment from God, but we cannot say for certain it was a suicide. Other early Christian accounts give more detailed and more graphic descriptions of the death, making it even harder to tell what the truth was.
The Psalm Peter quotes is a curse on the enemies of Israel, but Peter uses it to describe the fate of Judas.
The criteria for apostleship in v21-22 would exclude Paul. This may be intentional on Luke’s part because he wants it to seem like the only way Paul could have been called was by a visitation from Jesus. So, Paul was excluded by the 11, but then Jesus chose him because the humans would not. This type of divine intervention makes the transition away from Judaism seem more like a grand plan from above.
It is pretty interesting that they cast lots to decide who the 12th man would be. It would be essentially the same thing as a group today saying, “we’ll flip a coin and God will decide”.
The Day of Pentecost: Acts 2:1 - 2:21
Pentecost, meaning “50th”, is named because it is 50 days after Passover. It is the second harvest holiday, marking the harvest of the wheat. It is called Shavuot in Hebrew, which means “weeks”, because it is seven weeks plus a day after Passover. The Jewish holiday, the feast of weeks, is still celebrated today. It makes sense that the Jesus Movement would all be gathered together for this event because this is one of the required pilgrimages to the Jerusalem Temple in Judaism.
We see again in v1 Luke emphasizing the unity [homothumadon] of the group.
What is really interesting about the Holy Spirit coming like a forked fire tongue (v2) is that each of those present begin to speak in other languages, but it is nothing like the speaking in tongues that we see in Pentecostal or charismatic churches today. In those churches what we often see is a babbling of the most common syllables of phonemes of the speakers native language. Studies have shown that speaking in tongues in the modern day sounds quite similar in each language, no matter where you go. So, speaking in tongues in Pensacola, Florida will sound more or less the same as in Vancouver, Canada; speaking in Tongues in Madrid, Spain will sound more or less than same as in Santiago Chile; speaking in tongues in Paris, France will sound more or less the same as in Tahiti, but all of these three tongues will sound different from each other because they are using the most common sounds of English, Spanish, and French.
The tongues we see here in Acts follows more along the lines of Paul’s description of the gift in his letters—people speak in an actual language of another that they do not know, so that other person can understand what is being spoken (v6-11). It is not a babbling or a spiritual language or the language of Adam, it is another current foreign language they do not know, spoken so a foreigner can understand. The modern equivalent would be someone who only speaks English in the United States suddenly being able to speak Mandarin so that a Chinese person can understand the preaching.The idea that the newly Holy Spirited group is acting drunk may be a philosophical reference. Clearly they weren’t drunk, because they were speaking in languages they did not know well enough to be understood by native speakers, so they were not inebriated. Instead, this may be a reference to Lucian who wrote that one of his followers felt like he was drunk on philosophy, but then had a good explanation for his behavior. Peter stands up to explain the behavior of those “drunk” on their new philosophy here.
It is also interesting that Peter is again the mouthpiece. We know historically the movement was led by James the Just. Perhaps, as Peter was the one who seemed to follow Paul around countering his preaching, Peter was the leader of outreach or the chief evangelist of the group.
The quotation of Joel is almost word for word from the Greek Septuagint, other than the beginning, which Luke changes from “after these things” to “in the last days”, because Joel was not speaking about this particular day of Pentecost. After all, that day of Pentecost was almost 2,000 years ago, and Jesus has not come back, so it could not have been the last days.
Peter Preaches to the Jews: Acts 2:22 - Acts 2:42
Luke makes Peter’s argument beginning in v22 essentially the same as Luke’s thesis in his Gospel—that Jesus was a great philosopher attested through his deeds, and God raised him up because of this, freeing him from death. The idea that one is freed from death may have sounded very similar to the eternal soul escaping the body at death to Luke’s original Greek audience.
The Psalm quoted in v25-28 is about how God spares David from harm and death. It is not meant to mean he was spared permanently, but only in that moment or time. Peter, however, takes it to mean that because David did die, the Psalm must not have been about David, but about Jesus.
Notice that being at the right hand of God (v33) is a clear distinction that Jesus is separate from God.
It is kind of interesting that Luke’s argument in v36 is that Jesus was not made Messiah until after he died. I think this betrays the late date of Acts, as this seems to reflect the idea of a spiritual Messiah that saves people from death and annihilation. This would not have been Peter’s initial understanding of the Messiah, and even if Peter did come to this understanding eventually (we have no proof that he did, but it is possible), Peter would still have understood Jesus to be the Messiah during his life as in the gospel he thought it was Jesus’ mission to bring the Kingdom of God.
The idea that those who heard Peter must repent might be best understood not as repentance from sin, as modern Christians think of it, but as a rethinking or new understanding—the way metanoia indicates in its meaning. Peter is telling them they must rethink the scriptures, and reconsider their Jewish beliefs to be Christian beliefs—to think new about what the Messiah was meant to be and to follow the Messiah. Luke portrays this as a definitely Christian thing, but if this is based on a historical event at all, Peter would have been encouraging them not to leave Judaism for Christianity, but to adopt the Jesus Movement as their Jewish philosophy.
Notice that after they rethink their beliefs about the Messiah and God’s plan for humanity their sins are then forgiven. It is not that they repent of their sins, it is that they rethink their beliefs, and are baptized as evidence of this, and this persuades God to forgive them. We still, even 100 years after Jesus died when Luke was writing Acts, do not have Penal Substitution atonement.
Activities of the Early Christian Commune: Acts 2:43 - 3:26
Luke goes out of his way to emphasize that the earliest believers had “all things common” (v44). They sold all their belongings and used the money to help whoever needed it. This is not just another emphatic depiction by Luke that the believers were unified, this is likely a historical description. Early Christian leaders wrote about one sect of Jewish-Christians called the Ebionites. This may have been the original Jesus movement, and the word means “the poor ones”. We are told that they did in fact live a communistic system with each other, and the descriptions we get sound quite similar to the one Luke gives us in v44-47. Even the details about being in the Temple and having the good will of all the people sound accurate to what we know of James the Just, who may have been a Temple priest but certainly spent most of this time in the Temple every day. He earned the nickname “the just”, which also means the “the righteous” in Hebrew, because of his devotion to the Law of Moses and the Temple, so the idea that he and his followers had the good will of the people seems most likely true. In fact, when James was assassinated by the High Priest, as Josephus tells us, at a time when the governor of Jerusalem was being swapped out and so was briefly absent, it cause so much anger among the populace that Rome deposed the High Priest and appointed another.
Peter and John go to the Temple for the second daily sacrifice of a 1-year old lamb. It is a bit odd that Luke doesn’t mention James going, since we know from outside sources that James was in the Temple every day, but this is part of Luke’s narrative goal to downplay Jesus’ family in favor of the others so it does not seem so out of place when Luke elevates Paul. It is also odd that Luke is going out of his way to emphasized that the 12 are still thoroughly Jewish and participating in Jewish rituals at the Temple after Luke also went out of his way to depict Jesus as a Greek philosopher-hero who seemed opposed to the Temple and even a bit antagonistic toward the Law of Moses itself. But this again fits Luke’s narrative goals. He is showing that Jesus, according to his plot, began a move away from Judaism that the 12 did not fully realize or appreciate, and then only after post-resurrection appearances and the calling of Paul did the 12 fully grasp the necessity of the spiritual and physical move from Jerusalem to Rome.
The healing of the crippled man is the first time we have seen the 12 perform a specific miracle. In the gospel, Luke tells us that the 12 and the 70 cured diseases and cast out evil spirits, but he never gives any specific instance. Luke does, however, tell us in his gospel of the specific instance where a father brought his son to the students to heal him while Jesus was away and the students could not do so. This healing is a major shift in the plot, and marks a new ability and power of the 12 brought on by the advent of the Holy Spirit.
When Peter mentions that the healing was made possible by God who has glorified “his servant Jesus” (v13) this is as definitive as it can be that there is no Trinity in the Bible. The Greek word that gets translated as servant is paida, and this is the clearest pronouncement of distinction as one can possibly make. This word indicates that someone is a step lower on the social ladder, an inferior in position, and often a slave. This word was sometimes used to refer to children, although it is not the formal word for son [huios], it means something like “low one” or “inferior one”. It might be kind of like saying “stable boy” in modern English. The lower rung of social standing for this word often meant that it was a word used to describe slaves that were used for pleasure by their master, though that is not hinted at here in any way. It would be impossible to call someone a paida and have them be in any way equal to the one they are under. Jesus cannot be equal with God in this passage; Peter is clearly calling Jesus God’s inferior and aide. They cannot be one in the same when this word is used.
The idea that Jesus is the “author of life” (v15) is quite odd for Luke. This seems fitting of John, who thinks Jesus was the divine logos and thus created the world. Luke, however, never expresses any such belief, and has already contradicted this belief in Acts 2:22 when Jesus is called a human who was raised up by God. This may be a later insertion from a scribe who knew just how incompatible a trinitarian theology was with calling Jesus paida in v13, and wanted to slip in something to contradict that so it looked trinitarian.
It is more likely, in my view, that Peter is referring to the philosophy of Jesus. “Author” is translated from archegos, which means the founder or leader. In this sense it makes perfect sense to call Jesus the archegos of life, because before Jesus there was no resurrection and no Holy Spirit. Jesus showed the way, wrote the instructions, so to speak, to life in the fullest measure—the immortal soul being released from physical suffering. In Peter’s case, this is through resurrection. This interpretation is supported by v16, when Peter points out that Jesus’ name made the crippled man walk. Peter says the man was given perfect health—you might say he was given life.I think we talked about this when we covered Matthew, but just as a reminder, the “prophet like Moses” seems to be referring to Joshua in Deuteronomy. This is another creative interpretation by early Christians to look at this verse and see Jesus. Perhaps they are right to do so, we have no way of knowing what the authors of Deuteronomy were thinking when the wrote it because we don’t even know who they are. However, the tradition around Moses death and burial, and the unanswered questions it raises, leave open the interpretation that there never was a prophet like Moses. Even Deuteronomy seems to suggest this, though it likely means that Joshua was a prophet like Moses was, as in performing the same function, but he was not a person like Moses was, as in he was not as great. The idea that the Prophet like Moses would be raised up was used by Christians to refer to Jesus being raised up from the dead and into heaven. This was not the plain meaning of raised up in Deuteronomy, but again, who am I to say this interpretation is wrong?
V23 is where we get some creative interpretation. Peter reworks Deuteronomy to suggest that the Torah mandates following Jesus. It does no such thing and only appears to with Peter’s reworking of what appears to be Deuteronomy 18:19.
Blind Explanation
From the very first words in Acts we see Luke’s goal again laid out very clearly. This is a purposeful narrative to explain the how and why Christianity stopped being Jewish and started being Greek. Without question we still see all the shades of philosophy that we saw in Luke’s gospel. When Peter preaches he is doing so very philosophically, pointing out that, at least using his interpretation of scripture, Jesus was the inevitable outcome of Jewish prophesy and expectation. This is also a perfect example of exactly what we talked about in the introduction—philosophy aided by miracle. Peter uses the healing of the crippled man as evidence that what he is saying about Jesus is true.
Luke makes clear in a number of ways that the 12 are still thoroughly Jewish. Given the early disputes among the sects—particularly the proto-orthodox vs the Jesus Movement—it would have been common knowledge to anyone remotely familiar with Jesus that he was thoroughly Jewish and so were his earliest followers. In his gospel, Luke demonstrated many times that Jesus was more open to those outside of Judaism, and hinted that he wanted a movement beyond Judaism, but the 12 did not fully comprehend this, so they are still fully Jewish in the beginning of Acts. Luke was doing the prep work to make is seem like the divine plan was always to move beyond Judaism, and it was rolled out slowly over time until the 12 finally understood. It will not be until later, after the risen Jesus tells them to move beyond Judaism, that they fully grasp the plan.
We also see Luke continue to downplay Jesus’ family. None of the brothers are named or mentioned despite the critical and leading role they played in the Jesus Movement and the Jerusalem church. As we discussed above, this is Luke’s way of making the transition seem more plausible. James was a well known figure, and was prominent even in Judaism if Josephus is to be believed. Luke cannot escape the fact that he was the leader. But, by playing up Peter’s role and elevating Peter to be the mouthpiece of the movement it unpins the movement from Jesus’ family. With the movement not tied to Jesus’ family it is much easier to introduce Paul as a significant player. In Paul’s own letters we see him fighting with James and Peter quite a bit, but Luke will smooth all that over. Having used Peter to decouple Jesus’ movement from his family, he can now use Paul to decouple the movement from Jerusalem.