Read this if you…
- want the origin story of how a fringe Jewish sect became a Mediterranean-wide religion in one generation
- like Paul as a character — the shipwrecks, the riots, the Damascus Road conversion, the trials before Roman governors
- care about the Pentecost scene: tongues of fire, speaking in every language, the founding mythology of the Church
Skip this if you…
- don't want to read explicitly religious/Christian texts
The lineage through Acts
- The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Acts shaped it. - Shakespeare moved his Roman farce to Ephesus specifically because of *Acts* 19, which paints the city as a hotbed of sorcery and exorcism - The play's whole atmosphere of witchcraft — "There's none but witches to inhabit here" — and the exorcist Doctor Pinch grow straight out of Luke's account - A book of scripture quietly supplied the supernatural dread that turns a mistaken-identity comedy into something stranger
Depicted in Art
Saul lies sprawled on his back beneath a massive horse, arms raised toward an unseen light; an aged groom steadies the horse while the apostle is overwhelmed by his vision.
Caravaggio, 1601
Paul stands on a stone platform in a Greek square, arms raised, preaching to a half-circle of Athenians — the canonical Renaissance image of Paul's Greek mission.
Raphael, 1515
Paul stands on a stone platform in Ephesus, arm raised, as listeners burn their books of magic at his feet — the dramatic moment of his Ephesian mission.
Eustache Le Sueur, 1649
Christ swoops down from heaven trailing angels as Saul falls blinded from his rearing horse; soldiers and travelers scatter across a vast desolate landscape.
Michelangelo, 1545
Paul tears his garments in dismay while Barnabas restrains the Lystrians from sacrificing an ox to them as Hermes and Zeus; the priest raises the axe at center.
Raphael, 1515
The apostles and Mary cluster in a tall vaulted hall, flames flickering above each head as the dove of the Spirit descends in a beam of light through the architecture.
Titian, 1545
Recommended Editions
King James Version
Oxford University Press · 1611
The most influential and commonly quoted translation in English. The prose rhythm everyone else is responding to, even modern translations.
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Notable Quotes
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Screen & Stage
Acts of the Apostles
TV · 1969
Roberto Rossellini
Peter and Paul
TV · 1981
Robert Day
A.D.
TV · 1985
Vincenzo Labella
Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)
- Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, archaeologist & New Testament scholar, 1851–1939: "Luke is a historian of the first rank … this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians."
- Adolf von Harnack, German church historian, 1851–1930: The skeptic reversed himself: to date Acts late would make Luke not merely a blundering but an utterly incomprehensible historian.
- F. F. Bruce, biblical scholar, Rylands Professor at Manchester, 1910–1990: Acts is not historical romance but the work of a careful historian, worthy of comparison with Thucydides and Polybius.
- A. N. Sherwin-White, Oxford Roman historian, 1911–1993: "For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity must now appear absurd."
- Colin J. Hemer, Cambridge classicist & New Testament scholar, 1930–1987: The patient accumulation of small, incidental points of fact shows Luke reported what actually happened, with first-rank accuracy.