Acts as a Historical Source

Despite all appearances to the contrary, I am still working my way through James Dunn’s Beginning from Jerusalem. I’m just doing it slowly.

In his second chapter (chapter 21 following Jesus Remembered), Dunn lists and evaluates the primary sources on earliest Christianity (30 to 70 CE). The bulk of the chapter is devoted to evaluating the earliest narrative of the church’s development – Acts of the Apostles.

Dunn’s analysis of Acts as a historical source begins by probing the authorship and date of the book. In just a few pages Dunn manages to weigh in on a variety of introductory issues. He, like most scholars, considers Acts to be a literary companion to the gospel of Luke based on the similar prologues (Lk 1.1-4; Acts 1.1-2), stylistic similarities, and significant literary parallels (e.g. Lk 3.21-22 \\ Acts 2.1-4; Lk 4.14-21 \\ Acts 2.14-39; 13.16-41; etc.). Like the gospels, there is no authorship ascribed to Acts and so we are left to evaluate early church tradition. Irenaeus is the earliest source to indicate that Luke/Acts was composed by Paul’s travelling companion Luke (Against Heresies, 3.1.1; cf. Muratorian Fragment 3-6; Col 4.14; 2 Tim 4.11). Whether or not this tradition is accurate, Dunn does not think the evidence is strong enough to say (65-66). But, he finds the “we” passages (Acts 16.10-17; 20.5-15; 21.8-18; 27.1-28.16) to be crucial in evaluating Acts as a source and indicates the author’s involvement in the events he describes. As one would expect, the suggestions about dating Acts range widely from before Paul’s death to well into the second century. Dunn, following Schnelle and Fitzmyer, opts for the 80s or early 90s.

Having described his view of the date and authorship, Dunn moves to the question of genre. He begins with the statement, “there is almost universal agreement, despite numerous qualifications, that [Acts] has to be accorded the title ‘history’ in at least some sense” (68). So, Acts is history, but in a highly qualified way. What are the necessary qualifications? Dunn suggests four helpful caveats for describing Acts as history. First, it is important to understand that there is “no single ideal type of ancient ‘historian’” (69). Luke was not following a standard literary form, but rather attempting “to tell the story of Christianity’s beginnings” (69). He may have followed some standard conventions, like including speeches, narrative summary statements and the like, but he was not rigidly following or attempting to follow a standard historical form.

Second, Acts as history does not depend on literary sources. This is surprising in light of the Luke’s obvious use of source-material in composing his gospel. Dunn draws the conclusion that, “Luke’s sources [in composing Acts] were seldom literary and probably much more a matter of reports made personally to Luke” (70). I think this observation raises some interesting questions about the overconfidence of source critical assumptions in regard to the gospels, but more to the point, it speaks to Acts as a different kind of literature than the gospels. Unlike stories about Jesus, a narrative of the early church was not a common literary concern in the first century. “Acts” literature does not become common until the second and third centuries. This might suggest that since Acts was not the kind of literature with which Christians were typically concerned, it was written for a more practical purpose – to tell the story of what happened after Jesus’ ascension.

Third, scholars have longed framed the evaluation of Acts as a literary source by asking whether it is history or theology. Indeed, “the working assumption evidently was that Acts could not be both history and theology without the history being diminished or corrupted” (70-71). This false dichotomy is an unfortunate bias of modern historiography that attempts to scientifically retell “just the facts.” There is no reason why Acts cannot be both theology and history. As Dunn argues, “Modern historians [. . . ] are hardly less biased, tendentious and rhetorical [. . .] in their reconstructions and portrayals of characters and events than ancient historians” (71-72). The time has long since passed that the history vs. theology dichotomy be dispensed once and for all.

Fourth, Dunn observes that describing Acts as “history” does mean that it meets modern standards of historical writing. The ancient world had different measures of history. This is not to suggest that ancient historians were less concerned with “what happened,” but rather to observe that modern historians have the benefit of “extensive source material and more refined methods” (72). Ancient history-writing was a different kind of thing than modern work, but that does not mean it is worthless history. According to Dunn, it does mean that uncritical acceptance of everything written is probably naïve.

So, Dunn considers Acts to be history, but how accurate? In his view, Acts is quite accurate history. Dunn sees accuracy reflected in Luke’s concern to tell what happened (Lk 1.1-4; Acts 1.1-2) and his access to eyewitness accounts of Paul, Silas (Acts 16.10-17), Philip (Acts 21.8, 10), Agabus (Acts 21.10) and surely others. In Dunn’s estimation, “Luke both had personal involvement with Paul’s mission and [. . .] he was able to draw on first-hand (eyewitness) reports for at least much of the substance of the earlier episodes which he narrates in Acts” (76). Dunn also finds a high degree of “concurrence between Acts and data from Paul’s letters” (77). Numerous non-biblical sources also support Luke’s account. On all these counts, then, Luke demonstrates both concern for accuracy and corroborating evidence.

Despite the historical value of Acts, it also demonstrates literary and theological tendencies. Dunn observes how Luke’s primary concern is the outworking of God’s purpose. Furthermore, Acts is concerned to parallel the gospel of Luke, as well as highlight the similarities in Peter and Paul’s respective ministries. Dunn sees Luke indulging in certain literary freedoms such as idealizing the first Christian communities (Acts 2.41-47; 4.32-35), telescoping events, smoothing out relations between Paul and the Jerusalem church (esp. Acts 9.23-30), and ignoring Paul’s letter-writing activity. Dunn also thinks that Luke accepts miraculous accounts “in an uncritical way” (cf. Acts 2.43; 4.30; 5.12; 6.8; 8.13; 14.3; 15.12). I wonder if Dunn would extend this criticism to the accounts of Jesus’ miraculous activity, or even what criteria define an ancient’s “critical evaluation” of miraculous accounts? Despite these tendencies, Dunn concludes his evaluation of historicity, “It is of first importance in all this that we neither attribute to Luke an unrealistically idealistic quality as an ancient historian nor assume that his mistakes and Tendenzen [tendencies] show him to be unworthy of the title ‘historian’” (87).

Though a fitting conclusion to his argument, Dunn goes on to evaluate “the most sensitive area of unease over Luke’s portrayal of Christian origins” – namely the speech material (87). Composing roughly 30 % of the book, the speeches constitute a major portion of Acts and carry the theological freight. How do Luke’s speeches fit ancient historiographical standards that vary from great creativity (compare Josephus, JW 1.373-79 & Ant. 15.127-46) to rigorous effort “to give the general import of what was actually said” (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 1.22, cited by Dunn 88)? Dunn thinks that Luke has done pretty well drawing from traditions while obviously demonstrating his own literary concerns.

This line of argument raises an important question. How is it that we can differentiate between Luke’s literary concerns and earlier tradition? Dunn goes about this by assuming an early imminent eschatology that eventually tapers off, as well as a low Christology that eventually becomes high. This approach seems suspect to me. It’s not that I doubt eschatology and Christology developed, for I’m sure they did. Rather, I question our ability to observe when this happened as though it were simply an evolutionary development. I question our ability to put firm dates on material based on its theology, especially within a single literary composition. I think Dunn has provided an important question in evaluating the creativity of Luke’s speeches, but I wonder if there is not a better method by which to determine what is “tradition” and what is “Lukan.”

As usual, Dunn has provided a sober reading of the evidence. Acts is a good historical source, but that does not mean it fell from heaven. It demonstrates theological and literary concerns that at times override historical interests.

Questions in Continuity and Discontinuity

Alfred Loisy famously quipped, "Jesus proclaimed the kingdom, and it was the Church that came" (The Gospel and the Church cited in Dunn 25). Loisy's observation cuts to the heart of the puzzling relationship between Jesus and the communities that developed out of his mission. On the one hand, it cannot be doubted that Jesus was the most important cohering feature of the early family of believers. On the other hand, however, emphasis on the Jewishness of this Nazarene sect militates against elevating any human to the kind of status Jesus is given in Christianity. Thus, there is continuity with Jesus as the center of Christian identity and discontinuity with the Jewish theology out of which Christianity developed.

Dunn articulates the difficulty of sorting out the continuity and discontinuity by raising two questions. First, how does one bridge the gap between Jesus and Paul? This question must be answered to satisfactorily explain "how it was that Jesus' message of the kingdom became Paul's gospel of the crucified Jesus as Lord" (17). Second, how did "a Jewish sect become a Gentile religion" (17)? The Way, conceived as life following Yahweh articulated by Jesus, developed in Second Temple Judaism but gradually emerged as a predominately Gentile religion. The development has often been misread back into the earliest communities in such a way that Paul becomes a convert from Judaism to something else entirely‒ namely Christianity. The conversion of Paul is anachronistic but, based on the developments of the second and third centuries, understandable.

Following E. P. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism) and Joseph Klausner's (Jesus of Nazareth) suggestion that a hypothesis about the historical Jesus must show continuity with both Second Temple Judaism and the eventual break from it, Dunn suggests the same for the early Church. So, "A good hypothesis regarding Christianity's beginning should equally be required to explain how Christianity emerged from Jesus and how the movement which thus emerged within the matrix of Second Temple Judaism so quickly broke out of that matrix" (18). Out of this question comes two more exciting and difficult questions. Did the developments of the churches remain true to the mission of Jesus? And then, did Christianity evolve into something else along the way or did it maintain a basic identity throughout its early development? The heart of the matter for Dunn is Christology. When and why did the Early believers start worshiping Jesus?

Rather than setting out to answer these questions Dunn gives attention to articulating how they have come to be asked in the first place. He starts with Reimarus and makes his way through the "third quest" in a matter of only eleven pages. Along the way he sharpens the articulation of discontinuity between Jesus and Paul (Reimarus) leaving the subsequent Jesus of History vs. Christ of Faith dichotomy (Strauss, Harnack, Kähler and Bultmann) which raises the difficult question of Christology where he finds an impasse in current discussions. Dunn also raises the crucial issue of eschatology both imminent and realized expectation. The current state of affairs leads Dunn to suggest, "the more Jewish we see Jesus to have been, the harder it is to understand how and why the Christ dogma emerged; where the latter obscured and blocked the way to the former, now the former may seem to obscure and to form a block on the way to the latter" (27).

Dunn is concerned to raise the questions in his introduction and not yet to answer them. I'm excited to see exactly how he does so and I'm appreciative to see how the questions have come to be asked. Good scholarship is always aware of how it has inherited the questions it asks.

What exactly began in Jerusalem?

The phrase "historical Jesus" is a rare example of the language of NT scholarship finding its way into common parlance. Since at least the nineteenth century many scholars have assumed that the traditions about Jesus found in the gospels reflect the communities which used and produced those traditions more than the historical person of Jesus. There is certainly some validity to this assertion. The gospels are not concerned with producing "history" in the modern sense. One of the difficulties with this suggestion, however, is that it assumes we know quite a lot about these early communities. This is simply not the case. As Dunn points out (following F. G. Downing) "the primitive church(es) were (on such a reckoning) as much an unknown as Jesus" (3). One cannot assume that Jesus tradition reflects a community rather than Jesus when less is known about the community than traditions about Jesus.

What then can be known about these early communities? Dunn specifically focuses on these communities from AD 30 to 70. He begins by defining what exactly it is that began in Jerusalem. His goal is to describe "from within" what began in Jerusalem‒ "to ask how the participants understood themselves and what was happening, when horizons were limited and outcomes unknown" (5). Dunn wants to articulate how these early communities saw themselves not how later historians describe them as the birth of a new religion.

What descriptors then are appropriate? This seemingly simple question has as many as seventeen possible answers. Rather than rehearse each of these options and the arguments for and against, I want to highlight just a few to observe overused anachronisms and underemphasized dimensions.

First, overused anachronistic titles are common. There are two in this category that are especially striking. The most overused anachronism to describe the early Jesus communities is "Christianity." To speak of "Christianity" before the 110s is incorrect. "Properly speaking, 'Christianity' did not yet exist" (5). The title first appears as a negative label given from the outside in Acts 11.26 (cf. Acts 26.28; 1 Pet 4.16; Ignatius, Eph. 11.2; Magn. 4; Trall. 6.1; Rom. 3.2; Pol. 7.3; Mart. Polycarp 3.2; 10.1; 12.1‒2; Did. 12.4; Diogn. 1.1; 2.6, 10; 4.6; 5.1; 6.1-9; Pliny, Ep. 10.96). Some have endeavored to qualify it as "primitive" Christianity or "emergent" Christianity. The chief problem with this is that it obscures a crucial question to the whole discussion: "what are the distinctives of Christianity, and when did they first emerge?" (6). "Christianity" is certainly what developed from Jerusalem, but not until decades later.

The second most overused descriptor is "church." The aware reader will contest, "But ekklēsia is a common NT word occurring 23 times in Acts, 62 times in Paul and 20 times in Revelation!" This is a true and important point that makes "church" a more helpful descriptor than "Christianity" but it suffers from its own problems as well. "Church" today does not mean what ekklēsia meant. The contemporary word "implies a unified entity" that did not exist. Certainly, this was the ideal quite early (Eph 1.22; 3.10; 3.21-4.6; Col 1.18, 24; 1 Cor 12.28; Gal 1.13). The singular "church" obscures the diversity that existed in these early movements.

It is now worth considering some of the descriptors that are less obvious and perhaps even surprising. It might be shocking to some, but "synagogue" appears as a descriptor of the early Jesus movement (James 2.2; cf. Ignatius Pol. 4.2; Hermas Mand. 11.9‒14; T. Ben. 11.2; Justin Dialog. 63.5; Irenaeus Against Her. 4.31.1). This term is not widespread or distinctive enough to carry the freight of describing the early Jesus movement, but it is indicative of the fact that early believers (another possible descriptor) were Jews being Jews following a Messiah. They were not "starting a new religion." "Saints," is particularly common in Paul and Revelation. Like "synagogue" it emphasizes the Jewish character of early believers for it claims "participation in the heritage of Israel" (12). It is a Jewish term (Pss 16.3; 34.9; Dan 7.18; 8.24; Tob 8.15; Wis 18.9; 1QSb 3.2; 1QM 3.5) that denotes a specific theological status within Israel (Pss. Sol. 17.26; 1QS 5.13; 8.17, 20, 23; 9.18; 1 Enoch 38.4-5; 43.4; 48.1; 50.1; etc.). The Jewishness of "Saints" is later obscured by hostile relations and the use of the term in later Christianity to refer to a special group of believers.

The most surprising of Dunn's suggestions for appropriate descriptors is "the poor." I was caught off guard at the suggestion that "the poor" could describe the early believers, thus betraying my western capitalist perspective. It is a descriptor that is rooted in the tradition of Israel (esp. Pss 69.32; 72.2), is used by Paul (Rom 15.26) and reflects Jesus' activity. In the end, the phrase is not broad enough to describe the early believers, but the fact that it's even an option is telling.

From these and the many other options, Dunn draws four helpful conclusions. First, no one term or descriptor can bear the load of describing the early Jesus movement. A number of terms are useful including: "believers," perhaps "disciples," "saints," "the Way," or even "Nazarenes." The diversity of terms is necessary to keep from one term becoming "unduly normative" (15). Second, the needed variety of descriptors indicates the multiform character of those following "the Way." As Dunn observes, "The 'Christianity' which was beginning to emerge in the 30s was not a single 'thing' but a whole sequence of relationships, of emerging perspectives of attitude and belief, of developing patterns of interaction and worship, of conduct and mission" (16). Third, the observably coherent center is "continuity with the mission of Jesus" (16). What and exactly how Jesus was honored is a question, but he was the central defining feature of these early believers. Fourth, these disciples were distinctively Jewish.

It began from Jerusalem‒ a diversely defined group of Jews who followed, honored and at some point worshiped Jesus as God.

Beginning “Beginning from Jerusalem”

James Dunn is one of my favorite New Testament scholars. Not only am I quite taken with much in regard to his "New Perspective" readings of Paul and his seminal Romans commentary, but he's a scholar that is worth following on a number of levels. First, he is intellectually honest. He is willing to draw conclusions that he sees in the evidence. Obviously, "evidence" only speaks when put to use in a historian's argument, but there is a way to do this that is activist and a way that is honest, or at least as honest as possible. I find Dunn wrestling to be as honest as possible, both with himself and his "evidence." Second, he is diligent in working through primary sources. I often find myself buried in piles of books written about the NT and its milieu. This is certainly a worthwhile pursuit, but there is simply no way to think through the NT without constant direct engagement. Third, Dunn is creative and insightful. Say what you will about the "New Perspective" but Dunn's imaginative reading of Paul post-Sanders is nothing short of a brilliantly reexamination of Paul's work in Romans and Galatians. For these reasons and many others James Dunn is a scholar worthy of much attention.

Currently, Dunn is producing a trilogy called "Christianity in the Making." The first volume, Jesus Remembered (2003), was a comprehensive (992 pgs) look at the "historical Jesus." I have not read the first volume, so I won't pontificate ignorantly. There are a couple of reviews of the first volume here and here. Dale C. Allison Jr. a notable NT scholar in his own right (and another personal favorite) described Jesus Remembered this way,

This is not just one more book on Jesus but rather an esteemed scholar's wide-ranging presentation of conclusions arrived at over a lifetime of informed, critical reflection. It is full of good sense and much learning. As always, James Dunn's work is characterized not only by a genuine familiarity with Jesus' first-century Jewish world but also by an unsurpassed knowledge of the vast secondary literature. Especially suggestive is the consistent appeal to continuing oral tradition, which often appears justified.

So, if you're interested in something like that, go read it.


My current focus is Dunn's second volume, Beginning from Jerusalem. This volume focuses on the rise of the church from 30 to 70 AD which combined with Jesus' mission (the subject of Jesus Remembered), "are probably the most thoroughly investigated periods and subjects of all history" (xiii). This makes for an array of hypotheses and debates that baffle historians and informed laymen alike. Dunn's critical acumen and honest assessment is a welcome voice that I'm sure will bring much clarity to the period under consideration. 
The only problem with Dunn's book is that it commands about 3 ½ inches of shelf space consisting of 1347 pages! This is not really a problem if one desires a thorough account of the most thoroughly researched period in all of history. It is a problem, however, if you don't have hours to devote to one book. This morning, as I was choosing between the collection of literary options clamoring for my attention, my gaze landed on Beginning from Jerusalem. I was saddened by the fact that I knew I would not be able to read it through any time soon.

Then I thought, "Why not?"

Rather than trying to plow through all 1347 pages in large successive chunks, I will work through it slowly. It will allow me to reflect more and get through the book in at least a year. The added bonus of this approach is that I can blog through the book. It would be virtually impossible for me to write one critical review of this tome, though Michael Gorman has done just that here. Reading manageable portions will allow me to reflect and gain input from anyone else willing to comment. As always, I welcome the thoughts and challenges of anyone willing to offer them.

Today I began Beginning from Jerusalem. I hope you'll join me in the journey.

As an opening question for consideration I wonder what others like or dislike about Dunn's work? Why?