A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles 1: Preliminary Introduction and Commentary on Acts 1-14

Theological Studies, March, 1996 by Joseph A. Fitzmyer

A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles 1: Preliminary Introduction and Commentary on Acts I-XIV. By C. K. Barrett. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994. Pp. xxv 693. $64.95.

The ICC has been a venerable institution in biblical study and interpretation. Begun in 1895 under the direction of C. A. Briggs, S. R. Driver, and A. Plummer, it has been known for its detailed, critical, and theological interpretation. Despite many eminent volumes commenting on books of the Old and New Testaments, it never had a commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. A new series of the ICC was begun with the two-volume commentary on Romans by C. E. B. Cranfield in 1975. Now, finally, we are getting one on Acts, and it lives up to the venerable tradition of its forebears in the series.

In this first volume, Barrett presents a "preliminary introduction," discussing the text of Acts, its author, the sources, plan, and outline of Acts 1-14. The rest of the volume contains the commentary on Acts 1-14. One might be surprised that only a few introductory questions are discussed; that is the reason for the adjective "preliminary," since an introduction is properly the last thing one writes for such a commentary, after detailed exegetical work has provided the basis for the generic discussion of such introductory topics. As a result, the reader will have to await Vol. 2 for B.'s answers to some of the usual questions raised by the text of Acts.

In discussing the text of Acts, B. supplies the necessary evidence of its threefold form: the Alexandrian or Neutral text (on which his translation and commentary are based), the Western text, and the Byzantine text (with both of which he copes in notes on verses). The only surprise in lining up the evidence of papyri, uncials, minuscules, lectionary, and patristic readings is his failure to list 33, "the queen of the minuscules" (7). He supplies a good account of the ancient versions of Acts (Latin, Syriac, and Coptic) and reckons with the recent work of M.-E. Boismard and A. Lamouille in their attempt to reconstruct the form(s) of the Western text. But he rightly prefers not to agree with them that the text stems from Luke himself as well as the Alexandrian. He is inclined to regard the "occasional additions or paraphrases" of the Western text as the work of "an editor or copyist" (28). The solution of Boismard and Lamouille is, however, far more complicated than B.'s presentation of it, because he says nothing of what they call the "literacy criticism" of Acts, which should rather be referred to as "source criticism" (Les Actes des deux Apotres [3 vols.; Paris: Gabalda, 1990]). Their analysis of Acts from this point of view, related closely to their discussion of the textual transmission, is so complicated as to be improbable. Perhaps that is why he has not mentioned it.

In the second part of the introduction B. treats "Acts and Its Author," limiting himself to a discussion of the ancient ecclesiastical tradition about Luke as the author of Acts. He begins with the end of the tradition, Eusebius, Jerome, and canonical lists, and then goes on to show how that tradition developed from earlier testimonies in the New Testament, 1 Clement, Didache, Barnabas, Ignatius, Polycarp, 2 Clement, Hermas, Epistle of Diognetus, Epistula Apostolorum, Justin, and the Muratorian Canon.

The third part is devoted to "Acts 1-14: Sources and Plan," in which B. presents the main opinions of A. von Harnack, R. Bultmann, J. Jeremias, and P. Benoit. He is skeptical about the suggestions of these scholars when they are taken as referring to written sources, but he all too readily accepts the view of E. Haenchen that the generation that regarded itself as the last did not write for a coming one. B. emphasizes that Luke probably got information by letters from the great Pauline centers such as Philippi, Corinth, Antioch, and Jerusalem. (Since the We-Sections only begin in Acts 16, B. reserves his discussion of that problem and its relation to a possible source for Vol. 2.) The fourth part of the introduction supplies a numbered outline of chaps. 1-14, which shows the thrust of Acts as B. understands it.

The commentary proper is filled with many good exegetical discussions. Each numbered pericope provides a translation, a select bibliography, a comment on the pericope as a whole, and exegetical notes on individual verses. B. takes into account recent articles and books on each pericope and invariably makes good use of them, sifting the likely from unlikely suggestions. Details in the bibliographies might have been more carefully checked; some of the abbreviations used in the sectional bibliographies do not appear in the list (xiii-xxiii). Over all, the commentary makes a very good impression, and it will long be used by students, scholars, and educated readers. The last mentioned may find the quotations in foreign languages a bit disconcerting, not to mention untranslated Greek and Hebrew phrases.