Abstract
The speeches of Acts have long been debated in scholarship, and for a long time (from Dibelius onwards) the Christian speeches were seen as doing the heavy lifting in understanding the theology of Acts, and thus were frequently studied apart from the narrative of Acts. In this innovative study, Kucicki studies the function of all the speeches (by believers and others) within the narrative of Acts; in other words, he seeks to tie the speeches into their narrative settings, rather than consider them in isolation from those settings.
The book is organized in a most interesting way. After a brief introduction, Kucicki sets out his own translation of the text of Acts without including the speeches and reflects on the narrative briefly section by section (chap. 1). Using rhetorical- and narrative-critical approaches, he divides the speeches of Acts into “topical” and “structural” speeches. The thirty topical speeches he identifies come in clusters of three, and within each cluster the first is introductory, the second progresses the topic, and the third concludes. The ten structural speeches do not fit within the topical threesomes, and each moves the narrative on in a particular way (hence “structural”). In two significant chapters he then explores the topical speeches (chap. 2) and the structural speeches (chap. 3), before he reviews his findings section by section through Acts (chap. 4). The work closes with a very lucid and clear conclusion, followed by bibliography and indices.
The text of Acts without the speeches is fascinating and repays careful reading. Kucicki concludes that the story of Acts largely works without the speeches being present—the only exceptions are Acts 22 and 23—although the presence of the speeches significantly changes the meaning of the narratives. Further, where speeches are lacking (Acts 9, 12, and 16), dialogues do much of the work that the speeches do elsewhere.
These observations lead into the analysis of the topical speeches. In each cluster of three, Kucicki briefly sets the narrative context and then studies each speech by setting its literary context, giving his own translation, analyzing the speech’s structure, discussing the meaning of the speech, and discussing the speech’s function in its narrative setting. He has plundered the commentaries well in this work (not so monographs and articles), although this factor means the structural and meaning discussions generally have little new to contribute. His author index shows that his favorite dialogue partners are Craig Keener (of course!), Luke Johnson, Joseph Fitzmyer, Hans Conzelmann, David Peterson, Eckhard Schnabel, and Ben Witherington III—a good list. The real interest for his bigger project is in the discussions of the function of the speeches, and his assessments here are thoughtful and helpful.
To illustrate, he takes the three Pauline speeches during his missionary travels as a group: the speech at Pisidian Antioch (13:16–41, 46–47), the Areopagus speech (17:22–31), and the speech to the Ephesian elders (20:18–35). He observes that these speeches present Paul speaking in (respectively) Jewish, pagan, and Christian settings. The first functions to present the kerygma and show how Paul presents it to diaspora Jews as a model of how Paul does this. It makes clear that the major obstacle to Jews in Paul’s gospel was belief in Jesus as Messiah. The second explains why Corinth, rather than Athens, became Paul’s headquarters in Europe; demonstrates that Paul’s resurrection gospel was rejected by Athenian philosophers; lacks supporting miracles, which makes it a “strictly intellectual attempt” (p. 140) at communicating the gospel, and a failure; and shows Paul’s attention to the aniconic Jewish understanding of God. The resurrection was the major obstacle to Paul’s gospel among pagans. The third summarizes the achievements of Paul’s mission and ministry: he had managed to form and sustain mixed Jew–Gentile communities of believers despite the obstacles identified in the two earlier speeches. The observations about function are well taken, although I am not so sure that these three speeches form a well-integrated cluster, not least because they are interrupted by the speeches in Ephesus (chap. 19), which Kucicki treats separately.
The structural speeches vary in function within their narrative contexts: most are either preparatory (1:16–22; 6:2–4; 14:15–17; 25:24–27) or clarificatory (18:14–15; 19:25–27, 35–40; 21:20–25). Two outliers serve to divide the narrative (4:24–30) and to state a “manifesto” for Acts (1:4–8). I was not so convinced that 4:24–30 functions to divide the topical speeches about the Jerusalem kerygma (2:14–40; 3:12–26; 4:8–12, 19–20) from the conflict speeches (5:29–32, 35–39; 7:2–60), as conflict with the Sanhedrin has begun before the prayer in 4:24–30. Indeed, the conflict is the immediate cause of prayer. That said, Kucicki again offers sensible and helpful observations on the functions of these speeches.
Readers who want to see how each speech functions would be advised to read chapter 4 (and the conclusion), where Kucicki reviews each speech in much briefer compass (with cross-reference to the fuller discussion in chaps. 2 and 3), and then refer to the more detailed discussion as necessary.
A few phrasings and asides gave me pause. He persistently writes “New Israel,” a name which I doubt Luke would approve. Rather, Luke sees the believing community as in continuity with Israel, indeed as Israel’s completion and expansion to include Gentiles. “Renewed Israel” would be a much better expression of Luke’s thinking. He also occasionally implies that Luke rejects “Judaism” and identifies particular groups of Jews as representing the whole Jewish people (e.g., p. 309). This point goes with the previous one as features of the work for readers to filter out as they learn from Kucicki’s more helpful points. He also regularly uses gender-exclusive language (such as “man,” rather than “humanity” or “humankind”), and that practice is distracting in today’s English style.
Kucicki is (full) Professor in the Department of Christian Studies, Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan and researched this book using the excellent facilities at the École Biblique in Jerusalem. His engagement with the secondary literature in English, French, and Italian reflects their fine holdings, although I was somewhat surprised to find few German works in his bibliography: three older sources and only Plümacher (1977) from recent times, and no German commentaries.
I am sorry to say that the copy-editing of this book is disappointing. It contains many errors in punctuation, spelling, syntax, grammar, and accentuation of Greek, and I am not accustomed to saying that about books published by Brill, who usually have very high standards (to match their prices). I hope this book will not be typical of this series in those ways. However, this book is certainly one which research libraries will wish to have.