Description: The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting includes fourteen chapters devoted to the literary framework that undergirds the Book of Acts. Topics include the text as historical monograph, ancient rhetoric and speeches, the Pauline corpus, biblical history, subsequent ecclesiastical histories, and modern literary method. All of these chapters arise out of a consultation by the project's scholars at Cambridge in March 1993.
Review Quotes: Edwin A. Judge
"The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting offers a number of quite fresh approaches to Acts. . . A dozen different genres or types of document are explored here, resulting in a rich mix of options. Acts emerges from its isolation into a world of contemporary rhetoric and recording. This work lifts the study of Acts onto a new, much ore contextual plane. . . A most attractive entr?e to a promising series."
"An important contribution to a new and better understanding of Luke's Acts in its true literary and historical context. This work is coming at just the right time, when a change in the older pseudo-critical but (in reality) unhistorical assessment of Luke is becoming visible. It shows that Luke is a real Hellenistic historian writing a monograph about the history of a new messianic Jewish sect called 'Christians'. This group of highly qualified authors gives a convincing overview from quite different perspectives, helping us to do more justice to Luke and to better understand this fascinating early Christian author."