Is the Roman Empire a friend or a foe in Acts?

17 August 2023 by Steve Walton

3 comments

I’m giving a paper to the Hindustan Bible Institute, Chennai, India’s online research seminar today (17 August), and so here are the slides and the handout for this talk. Thoughts and comments welcome!

Articles and papers, Research, Speaking

Acts, Bible, Luke-Acts, New Testament Studies, Roman empire, Scripture

3 thoughts on “Is the Roman Empire a friend or a foe in Acts?”

Richard Fellows 17 August 2023 at 5.10 pm

I think scholars need to give more consideration to protective silences in Acts and Paul. For example, Luke must have known about Paul’s collections, and supported them, but he fails to explicitly mention the collection from Macedonia and Achaia. Nor does Luke explain the plot of 20:3. Surely the Jews told the Romans that Paul’s collection did not qualify as part of their temple tax and therefore lacked permission from Rome. The delegates could get into trouble. Paul protects them by giving them anonymity (2 Cor 8:16-18; 12:18), and Luke protects them by staying silent about the collection. For more on this, see my 2023 Nov Test article.

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Steve Walton Post author 17 August 2023 at 8.49 pm

Interesting thought. I shall read your article with interest.

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Richard Fellows 17 August 2023 at 9.35 pm

Concerning Sosthenes, see my articles on naming here:https://tyndalebulletin.org/article/29418-name-giving-by-paul-and-the-destination-of-acts
and here:
https://tyndalebulletin.org/article/29186
I argue that Gallio allowed the Jews to beat up Crispus-Sosthenes, their benefactor who had become a Christian.

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