Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Acts 1:1-11, The kingdom question and the cloud
Luke's second volume opens with the risen Jesus speaking about God's kingdom for forty days. Asked whether he will now restore the kingdom to Israel, he promises the Spirit, sends the apostles as witnesses to the end of the earth, and is taken up in a cloud.
Acts 1:1-11, in every translation this tool compares.
Luke picks up where his Gospel left off: the risen Jesus spends weeks with his followers, teaching about God's reign and telling them to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit. Their question about Israel's restoration gets a redirected answer, with the timing left to God and a mission handed to them that runs outward from Jerusalem to every nation. Then he is taken from their sight in a cloud, with a promise that he will return. For a first reader this sets the agenda of the whole book: the hope of Israel goes forward through Spirit-filled witnesses.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/kingdom-of-god\/","n":"God's kingdom","s":"Kingdom meant God's reign, God becoming king in fact. It was the good news Isaiah promised, and in Jesus' day it was also a slogan.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/spirit-of-prophecy\/","n":"The Spirit of prophecy","s":"Jews of Jesus' day linked God's Spirit above all with prophecy. Many believed the prophets had fallen silent long ago, and they looked for the day God would pour out his Spirit again.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/babel-and-the-nations\/","n":"Babel and the seventy nations","s":"Genesis 10 lists the nations of the world, seventy in the Hebrew text and seventy-two in the Greek. Jewish tradition counted the nations that way, and Deuteronomy 32 tells how God divided them and kept Israel as his own. Luke's list of nations at Pentecost recalls them.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/son-of-man\/","n":"The Son of Man","s":"Plain Aramaic for a human being, and also the figure in Daniel 7 who comes on the clouds and receives a kingdom. It is Jesus' favorite way of speaking about himself in the Gospels.","r":""}
Neither book names its author. Carson, Moo and Morris accept the early church's unanimous ascription to Luke, the physician who traveled with Paul, citing the we passages and a tradition that "runs against form in singling out a nonapostle as the author"; many critics since the late 1700s doubt it, chiefly because the Paul of Acts seems to them unlike the Paul of the letters. Most scholars date Acts to 80-95; Carson, Moo and Morris argue for about 62, since the book ends before Paul's trial. On reliability, Haenchen and Conzelmann treat the speeches as Luke's own compositions, while Ramsay, Hengel and Hemer find his details confirmed by other sources (Carson, Moo and Morris). Theophilus was probably a patron who paid for publication (Carson, Moo and Morris; Keener). The disciples' question was natural, since the prophets' promises of the Spirit sit within Israel's restoration (Keener and his notes). Greek ascension stories told of spirits becoming gods at death; the likelier model is Elijah's bodily ascension, with Elisha receiving his spirit as the disciples will receive the Spirit (the cultural backgrounds article Ascensions). The cloud evokes Daniel 7:13-14 and God's glory (the cultural backgrounds notes; the ESV Study Bible).
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 6, Acts, sections Author (The Traditional Case; The Case Against the Tradition; Conclusion), Date, Genre, Addressees, and Purpose, Acts in Recent Study and The Contribution of Acts (Ancient Historical Standards; The Speeches of Acts)
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 1:1, 1:6 and 1:9, and article Ascensions
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 1:1-5, 1:6 and 1:9-11
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Acts 1:9
