Unlawful for a Jew? Acts 10:28 and the Lukan View of Jewish-Gentile Relations

Scholarly Interpretations of Acts 10:28

New Testament scholarship tends to take Peter's statement that “it is unlawful for a Jew to cling to or approach anyone of another nation” in Acts 10:28 as a restriction that underlies Luke's view of Judaism. Most recently, John Moxon has argued that “the Lukan presentation seems to rely on the general concern about ‘associating too much’ with the world of gentile immorality and idolatry” (67). Moxon infers that while Jewish-Gentile association was an issue for Luke, the evangelist would have approved of it in moderation. Others, however, claim that Luke uses Acts 10:28 to show the influence of a more encompassing Jewish separatism on Peter and the “vestiges of his Jewish prejudice,” which God forces him to overcome in favor of Christian inclusion (Scott: 479). According to David Lertis Matson, Peter's eventual decision to enter Cornelius's home in Acts 10:48 “violate[s] the ‘social script’ that effectively barred Jews from having social intercourse with Gentiles” (104; cf. Juel: 106). Commenting on Peter's exclusionary statement in 10:28a, Joseph Fitzmyer claims, “Peter still thinks like a Jew, as he addresses the assembled Gentiles, who are presumed to know enough about Judaism to sense that something unusual is happening” (461; cf. Barrett: 515). The lack of nuance in these comments perpetuates the idea that, for Luke, Jews as a whole are averse to Gentile interaction and that such exclusivity is foundational to the Jewish religion.

In an effort to support Luke's supposed claim about the ethnically exclusive nature of first-century Judaism, scholars cite contemporary Jewish texts that approximate Peter's view. Among the most commonly cited texts is Jubilees 22:16:

Other texts include the Letter of Aristeas, which prohibits Jews mingling with “any of the other nations, remaining pure” (139), Josephus's description of Essenes bathing after contact with Gentiles (JW 2:150), and Joseph's refusal to associate with the idolatrous Asenath in Joseph and Asenath 8:5–7 (cf. Barrett: 515; Bockmuehl: 59; Crossley: 146–47; Gibson: 116; Jipp: 208; Moxon: 61–65; Parsons: 150).

While such texts may resemble Acts 10:28a when assessed in isolation, broader literary contexts caution against drawing strict parallels. Regarding the verse in Jubilees, Jonathan Klawans has shown that the call to separate from the nations is not a universal prohibition against all interethnic contact, since Jubilees allows Jews to own Gentile slaves (see Jub 15: 12–13, 24). Rather, separatism in 22:16 is predicated upon Gentiles’ perceived unseemly actions or behaviors—a topic that recurs throughout Jubilees (e.g., 1:9; 12:2; 22:17–22; see Klawans: 294; cf. Theophilos: 79). Even if Luke were aware of this rationale for separation, Acts clarifies that Cornelius is an “upright and God-fearing man who is well spoken of by the entire Jewish nation” (10:22). Thus, the behavioral issues that might have barred Jewish-Gentile interaction according to Jubilees are not operative in Cornelius's case. Similarly, in Joseph and Asenath, Joseph initially shuns Asenath because it would “not be fitting for a man who worships God … to kiss a strange woman who would bless dead and dumb idols with her mouth and eat bread of strangulation from their table” (8:5). If idolatry is the issue, Luke has no reason to take a separatist stance against Cornelius, “a devout man who feared God with all his household” (Acts 10:2). Likewise, with reference to Gentiles, the Letter of Aristeas describes the “perversions [of] … worthless people” (142)—another condemnation of unrighteous behavior that could not apply to Cornelius (cf. Klawans: 296; Moxon: 67). Finally, Josephus's note on Essenes bathing after contact with Gentiles (JW 2:150) presupposes prior contact; for the Essenes, seemingly it was not unlawful to associate with Gentiles, but necessary to bathe following such association. More, the sect also required “bathing after contact with low-status Essenes” (Klawans: 300). So post-relational ablution was not a phenomenon reserved for interaction with non-Jews.

Others insist that Peter's claim is overly narrow and regard it as an exaggeration, while at the same time maintaining its basic validity (see Harvey: 422; Rajak: 335; Walaskay: 106). For example, Tessa Rajak writes:

She asserts that the “virtually automatic response of Roman writers to Jews” was that Jews were “misanthropic, self-sufficient, unwilling to share a table with any of their own kind or even to render basic human assistance” (335). While Rajak does not specify sources, she rightly describes the sentiments of some Roman writers. Tacitus, for instance, writes that Moses inaugurated a “new religion quite opposed to those of the rest of humanity,” and that Jews “profane all that we hold sacred … [and] permit all that we abhor” (Hist. 5.4.1). However, Erich Gruen identifies several oddities and inconsistences in Tacitus that lead him to label the anti-Jewish excursus as “Tacitean irony” (187). For example, Tacitus makes several incompatible claims about Jewish origins (5.2), and he contradicts himself when he mentions the Jewish aversion to idol worship (5.5.4) alongside a story about Jews dedicating the image of an ass in their Temple (5.4.2). To the extent that the Roman writer “teased and toyed” with his readers in this way (Gruen: 196), Gruen cautions against taking Tacitus's assessment too seriously. Either way, no amount of Gentile vituperation against Jews can support or refute the veracity of the supposedly Jewish attitude toward Gentiles expressed in Acts 10:28.

Along with her comments on anti-Jewish Roman rhetoric, Rajak adduces the Gentile Balaam's prophecy that Israel would be “a people dwelling alone, and not counted among the nations” (Num 23:9) as a reflection of the Roman view found in Israel's own literature. She also notes that Philo glosses this verse as an explanation of distinctive Jewish customs in the Life of Moses 1.278. According to Philo, Balaam states of the Israelites, “because of the distinction of their particular customs, they do not intermingle with others so as to depart from [the ways of] their ancestors.” Yet, Philo undermines Balaam's prohibition on Jewish-Gentile intermingling in several ways: he encourages parents to send their children to the gymnasium (Spec. 2.229–30) and betrays firsthand knowledge of gymnastic and pancratic competitions (Prob. 110), he underwrites Moses’ marriage to his Ethiopian wife as a divinely ordained union (Leg. 2.67), and he participates in the embassy to Gaius (Legat. 349–73). Yet, as with Roman discourse about Jews, if the Lukan rationale for Acts 10:28a comes from the prophecy of Balaam in Numbers and/or Philo, then Luke is putting the sentiments of Gentiles on Peter's lips. For a Jew like Peter to use this kind of Gentile rhetoric would only reinforce the irony of his statement for Luke's readers (whether Jews or Gentiles), rather than provide an accurate description of how Luke understood Jewish attitudes toward non-Jews.

Instead of searching for ways to square Acts 10:28 with contemporary Jewish or Roman sources, many scholars note the relative lack of biblical, Second Temple, and/or rabbinic literature barring Jews from associating with Gentiles, thereby making any wholesale affirmation of Peter's position difficult to maintain (cf. Hayes: 49–50; Nanos: 296–97; Sanders: 170–88; Segal: 230–31). Klawans, for instance, finds a dearth of evidence in antiquity for either the notion of Gentile ritual impurity or systematic Jewish avoidance of non-Jews, which leads him to conclude that Acts 10:28 reflects both Lukan exaggeration and anti-Judaism (see 300–02). He writes, “it must be emphasized that the author of Acts … was by no means sympathetic to Jews or Judaism. Thus one can assume that Luke is exaggerating in Acts 10:28” (301). Yet this conclusion is unwarranted since, as Klawans himself notes, the verse departs from the view of Jewish-Gentile relations elsewhere in Acts, particularly in light of Luke's references to Gentile “God-fearers” (Acts 10:2, 22; 13:16, 26; 16:14; 18:7; cf. 17:4, 17):

Since Klawans rightly identifies the negative portrait of Jewish-Gentile relations in Acts 10:28 as inconsistent with Luke's broader narrative, instead of Acts 10:28 being a Lukan exaggeration, a more logical alternative is that the verse is an exaggeration of Peter's—one that, as we shall see, Luke works to dismiss throughout Acts 8–15. Luke is unsympathetic, not to Judaism, but rather to the idea of Peter as the apostle to the Gentiles.

Problems with Peter's Vision in Light of Luke-Acts

Based on previous episodes in Luke-Acts, there is reason to question Peter's appropriateness as an apostle to the Gentiles after his rooftop vision in Acts 10. First, Peter exhibits noncompliance when he refuses to follow the divine command to “rise” (‭ἀναστὰς‬). After Peter sees the image of various animals descending from heaven (Acts 10:11), a voice tells him to “rise” and eat (10:13), but he responds that he has “never eaten anything that is common or unclean” (10:14). Peter's failure to comply marks poor discipleship insofar as his refusal contrasts with other disciples who rise on command (cf. Acts 3:6; 8:26–27; 9:8). For instance, before his rooftop vision, Peter raises a dead woman, saying, “Tabitha, rise” (Acts 9:40). Being a good “disciple” (9:36), when Tabitha “saw Peter she sat up and he gave her his hand and he raised her” (9:40b–41). Whereas Tabitha sits up and rises when she sees Peter, Peter fails to rise even after he sees a heavenly vision.

Peter's decision not to rise even though he “saw the heavens opened” (Acts 10:11) also contrasts with Saul rising despite his inability to see after his own heavenly encounter. Jesus tells Saul, “‘Rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do’” (Acts 9:6). The moment that Saul regains his sight, Luke adds that he “rose and was baptized; and taking food, he was strengthened” (9:18b–19). Whereas Peter refuses to rise and eat in Acts 10, Saul—who will become the primary apostle to the Gentiles—both rises and eats at the end of Acts 9.

Second, it is possible that Luke connects the rooftop vision with Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man in the Gospel (Luke 5:17–26) in order to highlight Peter's misapprehension. When Peter goes up to the “rooftop” (‭δῶμα‬; 10:9) and sees a sheet being “let down (‭καθιέμενον‬) by its four corners” (10:11), Luke may be recalling the paralyzed man who is likewise “let down” from the “rooftop” (Luke 5:19). After Jesus heals the man, the scribes and Pharisees object that Jesus’ forgiveness of the man's sins amounts to blasphemy (5:21), but the healed man follows Jesus’ command to “rise (‭ἔγειρε‬), pick up your bed and go home” (5:24). Although the word for “rise” in Acts 10:13 is not the same as in Luke 5:24, when Peter refuses the heavenly injunction to rise on the rooftop he becomes the antithesis of the obedient man in Luke 5. Peter's objection to God's command casts him in the role of the scribes and Pharisees who, unlike Luke's readers, lack a proper understanding of Jesus’ authority and power.

Peter's reaction to his vision supports this reading insofar as it parallels the responses of those who are blind to divine activity in Luke-Acts. After the vision, Peter is “at a loss” as to what it might mean (Acts 10:17), and his unawareness echoes that of the captain of the Temple and chief priests who are “at a loss” when they are told that Peter escaped from prison (Acts 5:24). Others who are “at a loss” in Luke-Acts include Herod when he mistakes Jesus for a resurrected John the Baptist (Luke 9:7), the women who find Jesus’ empty tomb (Luke 24:4), and the onlookers at Pentecost who mistakenly assume that the Spirit-filled disciples are “filled with new wine” (Acts 2:12). In Acts 10, Peter joins a list of people who fail to comprehend divine activity.

Finally, in light of an earlier description of Jewish-Gentile relations involving a centurion (Luke 7:1–10), the evangelist both anticipates and undermines Peter's insistence that it would be unlawful to interact with Cornelius, who is also a centurion (cf. Acts 10:1, 22). Luke's description of positive Jewish dispositions toward the first centurion contrasts with Peter's anti-Gentile comment in Acts 10:28. According to the Gospel, “when [the centurion] heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant” (7:3). Clearly, Luke knows of no “social script” prohibiting Jews from social intercourse with Gentiles, or else the centurion would not have been able to request anything of Jews, and the Jewish elders would not have agreed to the centurion's request. More, the Jews’ praise for the centurion indicates an intimacy in the Jewish-Gentile relationship that Peter's assumption in Acts 10:28 would disqualify. Upon meeting Jesus, the elders say of the centurion, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue” (7:4–5). The notion that the centurion could build (or commission the building of) a synagogue without social interaction with Jews is, at best, improbable. Luke never hints at Jewish prejudice against the Gentile centurion; rather, Jews deem the centurion “worthy”—citing his love of Israel—which shows positive, reciprocal relations between Jews and Gentiles. Thus, the cumulative intertextual effect of previous episodes in Luke-Acts provides an initial reason for questioning the validity of Peter's reductionist view in Acts 10:28.

Acts 9–11 and Jonah LXX

In narrating the Cornelius episode, Luke includes many allusions to Jonah LXX that present Peter as a recapitulation of Jonah and his interaction with the Ninevites. Robert Wall has shown that both Jonah and Peter spend time in Joppa (Jonah 1:3; Acts 9:43); both are commanded to “rise and go” (Jonah 3:2 and Acts 10:20); the writers of Acts and Jonah both refer to the number “three” before describing Gentiles inclusion (Jonah 2:1; Acts 10:16); the Gentiles in both texts exhibit “faith” (Jonah 3:5 and Acts 10:43); the Jews in both texts respond unfavorably to Gentile inclusion (Jonah 4:1; Acts 11:2 cf. 10:14); and the divine demand for inclusivity contrasts with those responses (Jonah 4:2–11; Acts 11:17–18) (see Wall: 80; cf. Allen: 96-97; Czachesz: 37-38; Deines: 333–34; Green: 293; MacDonald: 49; Park: 30; Spencer: 122–23). For Wall, “Luke's point is that Jonah's God is Peter's God…. [T]he Cornelius conversion is legitimized as the continuation of God's merciful work at Nineveh” (Wall: 80, 85; emphasis original).

Luke makes several other connections between Peter and Jonah, not only to establish divine continuation, but also to highlight Peter's Jonah-like resistance to the divine will for Gentile inclusion. The Jonah narrative revolves around the eponymous character's opposition to divine commands, first in his attempt to flee to Tarshish, and then in his anger at the Ninevites’ repentance. At both of these points, Jonah prays—first from the belly of the fish (Jonah 2:2) and then immediately after Nineveh repents (4:2)—so that Jonah's prayers punctuate two pinnacles of his struggle against the Lord. Thus, when Peter goes up to the rooftop to pray before his vision (Acts 10:9), Luke provides the first foreshadowing of Peter's upcoming opposition to God.

Several other parallels underpin the notion that Peter is both like Jonah and opposed to God in his anti-Gentile convictions. For example, Peter's refusal to slaughter the visionary animals shows that he is even more obstinate than Jonah. During the vision the heavenly voice states, ‘Rise, Peter. Slaughter (‭θῦσον‬) and eat” (Acts 10:13). Whereas Peter declines the command to slaughter, Jonah tells God from the belly of the fish, “I will slaughter (‭θύσω‬) to you with a voice of praise and thanksgiving” (Jonah 2:10). The fact that Jonah 1:16 LXX uses the same Greek term to describe Gentiles who “slaughter sacrifices” to God compounds the problem of Peter's refusal. God then speaks to Peter “a second time” to tell him that these animals are clean (Acts 10:15). Similarly, it takes God speaking to Jonah “a second time” for the prophet to address the Gentiles in Nineveh (Jonah 3:1). Finally, Peter “enters into the Caesarea” (‭εἰσῆλθεν εἰϛ τὴν καισάρειαν‬) to approach Gentiles (Acts 10:24 cf. 10:25, 27), just as Jonah “enters into the city” (‭εἰσελθεῖν εἰϛ τὴν πόλιν‬) of Nineveh to approach Gentiles (Jonah 3:4). The Lukan shift from Nineveh to Caesarea works particularly well from an historical perspective insofar as Nineveh was the governmental seat and capital of Assyria, and Caesarea was the Roman governmental seat and capital of Judea (see Kyrychenko: 164).

Luke also reflects knowledge of Jonah in the repetition of Peter's vision (cf. Acts 10:9–23; 11:5–15), as the writer of Jonah repeats God's call to the prophet (cf. Jonah 1:1; 3:1). Luke even has Peter finish his monologue with a rhetorical question about the rationale behind Gentile inclusion, which recalls God's rhetorical question about divine care for the Gentiles at the end of Jonah. Peter asks of the Gentiles, “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?” (Acts 11:17). Likewise, Jonah concludes with God asking, “Should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, in which more than 12,000 people dwell, who do not know their right hand from their left, and much cattle?” (Jonah 4:11 LXX). The Jewish-Gentile relations that Peter resists have been in place since the time of Jonah (cf. Wall: 80, 85; Green: 293).

Insofar as Cornelius's repentance mirrors that of the Ninevites, Luke indicates that Peter's intransigence with regard to Gentile interaction is ill-advised. According to Jonah 1:16, during the storm that arises on the way to Tarshish, “the [Gentile] men feared the Lord greatly” (cf. Jonah 1:5, 10). Similarly, Luke states that Cornelius “feared God” (Acts 10:2) and describes him as a “God-fearing man” (Acts 10:22 cf. 10:35). In both Jonah and Acts, God responds to Gentiles once their actions “ascend” (‭ἀναβαίνω‬) to heaven: while Jonah states that the wickedness of the Ninevites “has ascended” to God (Jonah 1:2), an angel tells Cornelius, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God” (Acts 10:4). This difference between the Ninevites’ wickedness and Cornelius's righteousness augments the unreasonableness of Peter's resistance: if Jonah could preach to Gentiles despite their wickedness, surely Peter should not resist the pious Cornelius. In light of the Jonah story, Luke's scripturally literate reader should not share Peter's surprise at God's acceptance of righteous Gentiles.

To the extent that some scholars have missed the intertextual relationship between Acts and Jonah LXX, they have concluded that Luke must have deemed Gentile repentance to be a phenomenon that emerges with the Cornelius event. According to Matthew Thiessen,

The broader context of Luke-Acts disqualifies Thiessen's assertion that repentance was impossible for Gentiles before Cornelius. It should not shock Luke's reader that, as Peter puts it, “God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18), since Luke's Jesus states, “The men of Nineveh … repented at the preaching of Jonah” (Luke 11:32; cf. Jonah 3:8–10). In Acts 10, Luke's God has not “restructured the world” so that non-Jews can finally repent. The fact that Peter is stunned by such repentance should alert the reader that something is deficient in the apostle's understanding of the divine program as it relates to Gentiles.

Peter's Allusion to Deuteronomy 10:17-19 in Acts 10:34-35

Following the parallels between the Jonah and Cornelius narratives, Luke emphasizes the ethnic inclusivity of God by having Peter refer to Gentile inclusion in Deuteronomy. Peter declares, “Truly I am coming to grasp that God is not a discriminator (‭προσωπολήμπτης‬), but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34–35). While it has taken Peter some time to come to this realization, his epiphany is already explicit in the Torah: “For the Lord your God … is not one who shows discrimination (‭πρόσωπον‬)” (Deut 10:17 LXX). According to Deuteronomy, divine impartiality is manifest insofar as God “executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing” (10:18). Therefore, the people of Israel are told to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (10:19). What finally dawns on Peter is something that Scripture makes clear centuries prior to the Gentile mission in Acts: the God of Israel loves the stranger (i.e., the non-Jew), and so God's people must do the same.

In missing Luke's allusion to Deuteronomy 10:17–19, William Willimon makes far too much of what he sees as a “stunning confession by Peter” in eschewing Jewish discrimination:

On the contrary, while Peter may find God's impartiality to be a novel concept, he is merely repeating what the people of Israel have known since they were on the cusp of Canaan. Even when scholars note the legacy of divine impartiality in Israel's Scriptures, they can still revert to the false binary between an exclusive Judaism and an inclusive Christianity. While Terence Donaldson is aware that “God's impartiality … is firmly rooted in the Hebrew scriptures and widespread in postbiblical Jewish literature” (1997: 88), he also makes the contradictory claim that Peter “is instructed that he needs to set aside his Jewish dispositions … to recognize that ‘God shows no partiality’” (2007: 571). Donaldson's statement does not follow, since God's impartiality in Deuteronomy 10:17 is the impetus for the favorable Jewish disposition toward non-Jews in Deuteronomy 10:19. To the extent that the narrative of Peter and Cornelius is based upon prior statements on Jewish-Gentile relations in Israel's Scriptures (i.e., Jonah and Deuteronomy), the Petrine exclusivity in Acts 10:28 is out of step with a long-established Israelite posture.

Philip and the Ethiopian (8:26–40) in Light of Peter and Cornelius

Peter's assessment in Acts 10:28 also contradicts Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–40), since this scene anticipates the very Jewish-Gentile interaction that Peter decries. While some scholars locate the Ethiopian within the people of Israel (Fitzmyer: 410; Jervell: 271; Johnson: 159; Pesch: 287–88; Seccombe: 360; Dowling: 203–04), the evidence points to the Ethiopian's non-Jewish background.

First, the Ethiopian is a member of a Gentile nation, and his being a eunuch would have disqualified him from joining “the assembly of the Lord” as a proselyte (see Deut 23:1).

Second, the Ethiopian is both a foreigner and a eunuch—the two categories of people that God will welcome into worship according to Isaiah (Isa 56:1–8), thereby reversing the commands of Deuteronomy that exclude both groups (Deut 23:1–3). The fact that the Ethiopian is reading from Isaiah when he encounters Philip pushes the reader to associate the foreign eunuch's baptism as a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy (cf. Acts 8:28–35).

Third, the Ethiopian's baptism is part of a progression of conversion—from Jews to Samaritans to Gentiles—that Jesus establishes at the outset of Acts: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Luke equates Gentiles with the third division of Acts 1:8 when God calls Paul and Barnabas “a light for the Gentiles that [they] may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47; cf. Isa 49:6 LXX) (see Wilson: 116). Since the Ethiopian is introduced right after Philip evangelizes Samaria (8:4–25), there is every reason to regard the Ethiopian as the first Gentile convert (cf. Barrett: 425–26; Conzelmann: 80; Gaventa: 143; Parsons: 123; Schnabel: 682; Spencer: 273; Tannehill: 109–11).

The tendency to see the Ethiopian as a something other than a Gentile (despite Luke's silence on his Jewish or proselyte status) usually stems from one of two prior assumptions. The first is that the Lukan progression from Jewish to Gentile evangelization must include either a Diaspora Jew or a proselyte before the inclusion of Gentiles (cf. Jervell: 271; Pesch: 287–88). This conviction is curious insofar as the description of the gospel's trajectory in Acts 1:8 makes no mention of Diaspora Jews or proselytes. In fact, were the Ethiopian a Diaspora Jew or proselyte, his narrative would be both redundant and obstructive to the progression of evangelization, since Diaspora Jews and proselytes have already become a part of the church before Philip meets the eunuch (cf. Acts 2:9–11, 41; 6:5).

The alternative claim is that Luke sees Peter as the rightful inaugurator of the mission to the Gentiles, and thus Luke would not undercut Peter's leadership by narrating Philip's conversion of a Gentile before Cornelius (cf. Haenchen: 314; Fitzmyer: 410). Luke Timothy Johnson assumes this Petrine priority based on the amount of time Luke dwells on the Cornelius story:

Johnson's claim that the “Cornelius sequence” spans Acts 10–15 is misleading, since chapters 12–15 do not mention Cornelius and Luke spends the bulk of chapter 11 repeating the events of chapter 10 (cf. O'Toole: 30; Witherup: 51–60). Moreover, as noted above, the repetition in the Cornelius narrative recalls the similar repetition in the book of Jonah—what Johnson calls the “enormous effort that Luke puts into the Cornelius narrative” solidifies Peter as Jonah's successor so that the apostle cannot be taking a “fundamentally new step” (159).

Rather than focusing on the length of the Cornelius narrative as evidence of its centrality, Scott Shauf points to the isolation of Acts 8:26–40 from the broader narrative context to argue that Philip's encounter with the eunuch is too minor a story to represent the first Gentile conversion. Shauf is correct that the meeting between Philip and the Ethiopian is a private encounter, and, apart from a passing reference to Philip's house (21:8–9), neither Philip nor the eunuch reappears in the narrative. Shauf claims that none of Philip's work in Acts 8

In light of this isolation, Shauf concludes that Acts 8:26–40 functions as “a foretaste of a much larger step” that Peter takes with Cornelius (773; cf. Pervo: 223).

However, it is precisely because of Philip's isolation that his work has direct bearing on Acts 10–11. Since Peter is not privy to the eunuch's baptism, Luke can present him as astonished at the inclusion of Gentiles, whereas this is old news for Luke's readers. Robert Tannehill highlights the Lukan motif of major missional events occurring unbeknownst to the apostles: “the new step is taken by someone other than the apostles, and the apostles must then catch up with the events that are happening independently of them” (110). Tannehill notes that after Philip had preached to Samaritans (8:4–8) “the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God [and] sent Peter and John to them” (8:14). Just as Philip initiates the Samaritan mission and then Peter and John follow suit, Philip also initiates the Gentile mission with the Ethiopian, and Peter follows Philip's example with Cornelius.

Luke provides parallels between the events surrounding Cornelius and the Ethiopian in order to show that Philip's meeting with a Gentile anticipates Peter's. Tannehill offers several of these parallels:

Further parallels include the fact that Philip's story ends in Caesarea (8:40), which is where the story of Cornelius and Peter begins (10:1, 24), and the Ethiopian “worships” (‭προσκυνήσων‬) in Jerusalem (8:27) just as Cornelius “bows down” (‭προσεκύνησεν‬) to Peter when he meets him (10:25).

Along with these similarities, Luke includes important differences to highlight Peter's flawed thinking in light of the action Philip takes with the Ethiopian. First, Peter's refusal of the divine call to “rise” (10:13) contrasts with Philip's obedience to the same command: “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Rise and go toward the south to the road’ … and he rose and went” (8:26–27a). Peter shirks Jewish-Gentile interaction, but the fact that Philip engages with the Ethiopian shows that Peter's claim of exclusivity in 10:28 is antithetical to the prior Jewish willingness to interact with Gentiles.

Second, the language of ‭κολλάω‬ (cling to) and ‭προσέρχομαι‬ (approach) in Acts 8:29b and 10:28a reinforces the fact that Luke does not share Peter's restrictive views. While Peter claims that it is unlawful to “cling to or approach” a non-Jew (10:28a), the Holy Spirit has already told Philip to do that very thing to the chariot-bound Ethiopian: “Approach and cling to this chariot.’ So Philip ran to him” (8:29–30a). As Craig Keener notes, “It seems probable that Luke chose these two verbs [in 10:28] to echo 8:29 … as a reminder that the Spirit had already led Philip across these barriers” (1788; cf. Tannehill: 111). Luke reminds the reader that Philip the Jew has already approached and clung to a Gentile in order to highlight Peter's ignorance as to what God has already done to bring the two groups together. As Peter's exclusionary statement in 10:28a immediately precedes his realization that God shows no partiality (10:28b)—which, as we saw, echoes God's declaration of nondiscrimination in Deut 10:17—Luke compounds the reader's consternation at Peter's slowness of heart.

In noting that the Holy Spirit commands Philip to “cling to” and “approach” the Ethiopian, Luke recapitulates the Israelite Boaz's words to the Moabite Ruth centuries earlier. Boaz says to Ruth, “Do not go to glean in another field, and do not depart from here, but rather cling to my young women…. Now [is the] time to eat; approach here and eat the bread and dip your morsel in the wine” (Ruth 2:8, 14a LXX). The operative verbs appear in the context of Boaz telling Ruth to eat, which heightens the irony of Peter's refusal to eat during his rooftop vision. As with the references to Jonah and Deuteronomy, Luke echoes Ruth to emphasize that Israel's Scriptures contradict Peter's pre-Joppa separatist view. Thus, Fitzmyer's claim that Peter “thinks like a Jew” (461) when he discourages approaching Gentiles is the opposite of Luke's point: for Peter to make such a claim shows that he is not thinking like his fellow Jews, Boaz and Philip.

Finally, Luke has Peter unknowingly restate the conversation that has already taken place between Philip and the Ethiopian. After the Gentiles receive the Spirit (Acts 10:46), Peter asks, “Who is able to withhold water baptism for these [Gentiles], who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (10:47). At this point, Peter tests the reader's patience as he repeats the eunuch's earlier question: “Behold, water; who will withhold me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36). Thus, at multiple points in Acts 10, Luke duplicates previous events to show that Peter is a latecomer to the Gentile mission. While Shauf claims that Luke narrates Philip's conversion of the eunuch “without compromising the centrality of Peter's witness to Cornelius” (774), a comparative reading of these episodes shows that Luke describes Philip's encounter with the eunuch precisely in order to compromise what Peter perceives to be the centrality of his witness to Cornelius.

Peter Interrupted

As Peter delivers a speech detailing his personal revelation to accept non-Jews like Cornelius (Acts 10:34–43), the Holy Spirit interrupts him in order to indicate the redundancy of Peter's new pro-Gentile outlook: “While Peter was still saying these words (‭ἔτι λαλοῦντος τοῦ Πéτρου τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα‬), the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word” (10:44). Two previous interruptions of Peter—during Jesus’ Transfiguration (Luke 9:34) and at Peter's denial of Jesus (22:60)—signify momentary lapses of the apostle's reason or loyalty. Therefore, when the Spirit interrupts Peter for the third time, Luke arouses suspicions as to the appropriateness of the speech in Acts 10. Scholars have tended to see this final interruption as a Lukan affirmation of Peter's speech, either meant to magnify the surprise of Gentile inclusion (Parsons: 155) or to obviate any challenge to such inclusion from Peter's interlocutors (Garroway: 751). However, due to its resonance with the negative contexts of Peter's prior interruptions, I argue that the Spirit's intrusion in Acts 10 flags Peter's rhetoric as both belated and superfluous in light of the Lukan narrative thus far. Peter's speech about Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins rehashes not only Luke's Gospel, but also Peter's prior speeches to his fellow Jews in Jerusalem (cf. Luke 24:46–47; Acts 2:38; 5:30–32). Therefore, the Spirit's interruption of Peter in Acts 10 bolsters Luke's argument that the apostle is not the appropriate Jewish representative to the Gentiles.

The first interruption of Peter responds to his lack of insight during the Transfiguration. Peter suggests that tents be made on the mountain for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah—even though Moses and Elijah have already begun to leave:

After Peter is interrupted and they enter the cloud, a divine voice says of Jesus, “This is my beloved son, listen to him” (9:35). Luke's readers are not called to listen to Peter, whose untimely suggestion is irrational, but to Jesus—the same Jesus who healed the Gentile centurion's servant in Luke 7.

The second interruption comes not by direct divine intervention, but by the rooster that crows after Peter denies Jesus in the high priest's courtyard (Luke 22:54–62). After the third time that a bystander accuses Peter of being Jesus’ disciple, Peter tells him, “Man, I do not know what you are saying (‭οὐκ οἶδα ὃ λéγεις‬). And immediately, while he was speaking (‭ἔτι λαλοῦντος αὐτοῦ‬), the rooster crowed” (Luke 22:60). Although Peter's denial appears in all four Gospels, only Luke's has the rooster interrupt him. Peter's language as he denies Jesus recalls Luke's interjection at the Transfiguration: Peter did not know what he was saying on the mountain, and he claims not to know what his accuser is saying in the courtyard. In light of these interruptions, in Acts 10:44 Luke implies that Peter does not realize what God has been saying throughout Israel's history, namely that Jews have always been permitted to interact with Gentiles.

Furthermore, the interruption in Acts 10 tells the reader that Peter's speech unnecessarily repeats what Jesus explicated in Luke, and what Peter himself has said already in Acts—namely that Jesus died and was raised from the dead, and that trust in his name effects the forgiveness of sins. When Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection, he links his death with both forgiveness of sins and the inclusion of Gentiles:

Likewise, in Peter's previous speeches in Acts he also connects Jesus’ death with forgiveness; immediately after accusing Jews in Jerusalem of “hanging [Jesus] on a tree” (Acts 5:30), Peter states that God raised Jesus from the dead so that those very Jews might receive “forgiveness of sins” (5:31; cf. 2:38). Peter restates this same point when he relates the Cornelius episode to the Jews of Joppa: “the Jews of Jerusalem … put [Jesus] to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day … [so that] everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:39–40, 43). Moreover, Peter has already assured his fellow Jews that after “the forgiveness of your sins … you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (2:30; cf. 5:32), so that both Jesus and Peter have prepared readers for Cornelius's reception of the Sprit (10:44). The interruption in Acts 10 confirms that Peter's speech only belabors the inclusive divine plan.

Peter in Acts 15 and Simeon in Luke 2

In Acts 15 Peter recounts his supposed pioneering efforts as an apostle to the Gentiles, but his final address in Acts contains inaccuracies that undermine his witness. Peter locates himself at the center of the Gentile mission, but nothing in Luke's narrative corroborates his claims. Addressing the Jerusalem Council, Peter states, “You know that in the early days God made a decision among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the good news and believe” (Acts 15:7). The first problem with this statement is that Luke never records a divine decision to use Peter as the mouthpiece to Gentiles; rather, Luke's Jesus says that Paul will “bear my name before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15). Despite Peter's assertion, Luke's readers do not know that God made a choice to use Peter among the Gentiles because no such choice exists in the narrative. Second, Peter begins his address with, “You know” (‭ὑμεῖς ἐπίστασθε‬), the same phrase with which he begins the statement in 10:28a that Luke dispels: “You know that it is unlawful for a Jew to cling to or approach anyone of another nation.” Since there is no precedent for the claim in 15:7, there is no reason to think that the comment in 10:28a has precedent either.

In Peter's prior speeches about Jesus’ work among his fellow Jews, he credited the ancient Israelites with foretelling the death and resurrection of the Messiah, but when it comes to bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, he gives himself the credit for initiating the mission. Peter specifies that the gospel has gone to the Gentiles “by my mouth.” This self-promotion differs from his earlier declarations that God spoke about Jesus “by the mouth” of David and the prophets (Acts 1:16; 3:18, 21; 4:25). As Acts 1–8 makes clear, Peter was adept at recounting Jewish scriptural history, but he oversteps his bounds on the subject of the Gentiles in Acts 15.

After Peter addresses the Council, James's reference to him as “Simeon” contradicts his claim to pro-Gentile primacy. James's use of “Simeon” recalls the Simeon of Luke's Gospel who prophesies salvation to the Gentiles through Jesus (see Dicken: 37–38; Fowl: 185–98; Riesner: 263–79; Shillington: 62, 70). Upon hearing Peter's claim that “the Gentiles should hear the good news and believe” through him (15:7), James responds, “Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name” (15:14). As this is the only time that Luke ever refers to Peter as “Simeon,” rather than “Simon” (cf. Luke 4:38; 5:3–10; 6:14; 7:40–44; 22:31; 24:34; Acts 10:5, 18, 32; 11:13), the reader cannot help remembering the Simeon who blesses the infant Jesus and his parents in the Temple (Luke 2:28–35). Holding Jesus in his arms, Simeon praises God, saying, “My eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:30–32). Within the Lukan narrative, it was by Simeon's mouth, not Peter's, that the good news of Jesus was first proclaimed with reference to Gentiles.

Luke shows that salvation for the nations goes back even further than Simeon (and certainly than Simeon-Peter) in that his declaration in Lk 2:30–32 draws upon descriptions of Gentile inclusion in Isaiah (see Brown: 458; Fowl: 190; Koet: 94; Shellberg: 144; Uytanlet: 65–66). Luke's recollection of Isaian statements via Simeon underscores the fact that Peter did not initiate the divine decree that good news would go to the Gentiles. In the Gospel, Simeon states, “For my eyes have seen your salvation (‭σωτήριόν‬) that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles (‭φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν‬).” Isaiah LXX uses the same Greek that Luke does to describe salvation as a light revealed to the Gentiles:

These explicit references to Gentile inclusion in both Isaiah and Luke show that Peter's was not the first Jewish voice to address the nations.

Along with Simeon, Paul and Barnabas also use Isaiah to support their roles as beacons of salvation for the Gentiles prior to Peter. Citing Isaiah 49:6, Paul and Barnabas state, “For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, that you should bring salvation to the ends of the earth’” (Acts 13:47). According to Luke, it will be Paul, not Peter, who takes the mantle from Simeon. If these many allusions to Isaiah were not enough to show Peter's tardiness as an evangelist to the nations, James follows his use of “Simeon” with Amos's prophecy that “all the Gentiles” who are called by God's name will “seek the Lord” (Acts 15:17; cf. Amos 9:12 LXX), and adds that Gentile inclusion is a concept “known from long ago” (Acts 15:18). Thus, Peter's claim that God decided to have him be the delegate to the nations in the “early days” (15:7) is beyond ironic: throughout Acts 8–15 Luke includes statements of Gentile inclusion from Moses, Boaz, Isaiah, Amos, and Simeon made in days much earlier than Peter's. These multiplied allusions undermine Peter's convictions and incrementally push him out of the narrative to make room for Paul, the rightful apostle to the Gentiles.

Conclusion

Peter's claim in Acts 10:28 that it is unlawful for Jews to associate with Gentiles appears in the midst of a Lukan narrative that challenges that very assertion. The verse is not a statement of fact that Luke endorses; rather, it reflects a level of Petrine ignorance that the evangelist uses to exclude the apostle from activity among the nations. Luke presents Peter's rooftop vision in terms that reflect deficient discipleship. First, Peter misses the metaphorical meaning of the vision and, in so doing, fails to rise on divine command. This refusal to rise contrasts with the rising of both Tabitha and Paul, the latter being the divinely chosen apostle to the Gentiles who will eventually overtake Peter as the central figure of Acts. Second, the vision itself may recall Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man in Luke 5, so that Peter's incredulity would cast him in the role of the Pharisees who question Jesus’ authority. Third, Peter's hesitancy to meet with the centurion Cornelius contrasts with the Jewish-Gentile interaction between Jesus, the Jewish elders, and the Gentile centurion in Luke 7—the exclusivism of Acts 10:28 stands in direct opposition to Jesus’ healing at the request of a non-Jew.

Luke makes reference to both Israel's Scriptures and the previous narrative in Acts in order to show that Acts 10:28a is at odds with prior revelation. The many intertexts from Jonah LXX in Acts 9–10 remind the reader that God had already made a way for Gentile repentance and inclusion with the Ninevites. To the extent that Peter represents a new (more recalcitrant) Jonah, and Cornelius represents a new (more righteous) version of the Ninevites, Peter's resistance to Jewish-Gentile relations mirrors the similar resistance in Jonah. Luke also cites from Deuteronomy 10:17–19 in order to reiterate God's impartiality that was in place long before the emergence of Christianity.

Philip's baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch further problematizes Peter's claim about Jewish disassociation from Gentiles. Peter recapitulates much of Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian, but his exclusionary posture towards Cornelius diverges from Philip's earlier acceptance of the eunuch. Most strikingly, whereas Philip “approaches” and “clings to” the Ethiopian's chariot (Acts 8:29), Peter claims that to approach or cling to a Gentile is unlawful (10:28a). This terminology also recalls the Israelite Boaz's request that the Moabite Ruth cling to his young women and approach his table (Ruth LXX 2:8, 14). Thus, Peter's exclusionary comments in Acts 10:28a are at odds with Israel's Scriptures as well as Acts itself.

The Holy Spirit's interruption of Peter's speech about Cornelius recalls similar interruptions at the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28–36) and courtyard denial (Luke 22:54–62); just as the interruptions in Luke's Gospel reflect Peter's deficiencies as a disciple, the Spirit's intrusion into Peter's speech in Acts rules out his role as an apostle to the Gentiles. After Peter presents himself as the initiator of the Gentile mission in Acts 15, Luke calls Peter “Simeon” in order to recall the Simeon who attests to Gentile salvation in Luke 2, and thereby undermine Peter's claims to evangelical primacy vis-à-vis Gentiles. More, Simeon's declaration echoes the prophecies of Gentile inclusion in Isaiah—prophecies that Paul and Barnabas also quote with reference to their work among Gentiles—that make Peter's claim to inclusive innovation even more of an historical impossibility. James's citation of Amos's prophecy that “all the Gentiles will seek the Lord” (Amos 9:12; Acts 15:17) marks the culmination of Luke's challenge to Peter's self-identification as the first evangelist to the Gentiles.

Thus, the scholarly tendency to describe the Cornelius event as marking a brand new horizon in Jewish history does not account for the intertextual information that Luke provides. According to Luke, Acts 10:28a is not—and has never has been—an accurate summary of Jewish-Gentile relations. The goal of the verse is not to usurp an exclusive Judaism with an inclusive early church, but rather to isolate a problem with Peter's view of Gentiles. While Peter may have been astonished to learn that he “should not call any person common or unclean” (10:28b), it is this very astonishment that highlights his limitations as an apostle to the nations and necessitates Paul's takeover of the Gentile mission.