Apologetics
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 60, No. 2 – Spring 2018
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
By James D.G. Dunn. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016. 421 pages. Paperback, $32.00.
The copyright page notifies the reader that Eerdmans has reproduced the same content as the 1996 Epworth edition, except for newer maps. In the Introduction, Dunn adds just over a page of bibliographic recommendations from 1996 to 2016. Dunn interacts with none of the new recommended works, judging from the appendix. Better said, the newer recommended works do not change how Dunn expounds the book of Acts, because this commentary is the author’s own exposition. There are no footnotes or endnotes. Dunn only mentions other works that have shaped his understanding, and Dunn’s sharp interest in the book of Acts makes this exposition more engaging than a technical commentary. Scot McKnight, a former student of Dunn’s, commends this work to Bible teachers as his own first read when studying Acts.
Dunn addresses the book of Acts as the second of Luke’s works, composed according to acceptable conventions for historical works of the first century. Because of these conventions, Luke might omit some traditions for the sake of clarifying theology. For instance, Luke recorded Jesus’ ascension as ending the period of physical encounters, but 1 Corinthians 15:5–8 might imply a longer period of appearances (4, 13). Dunn sometimes argues the inverse: Luke included data he found in sources that did not reflect his own views, but he felt compelled to include them. For instance, Dunn considers the Christology of Peter’s sermon “primitive” in comparison to Luke’s own time (28). Likewise, the prophet Christology of Acts 3 has a “marked primitiveness” to which Luke felt bound when recounting the early days. Therefore, “he [Luke] did not intend the sermon to be a model for preaching in his own day” (43, cf. 99 on 7:54–60). Throughout the work, Dunn maintains this tension between, on the one hand, Luke’s freedom to consolidate disparate details into a coherent eschatology (though even this activity has exceptions, like Acts 3:20–21 [47]), and on the other, Luke’s obligation to include the earliest Christologies even though Luke himself afforded Jesus a much higher status.
Throughout the commentary, Dunn’s reminders that the wonders and zeal depicted in Acts have parallels in the Old Testament (62, cf. Acts 5:1–11 and Lev 10:1–3; 2 Sam 6:6–7) and in other movements (22–23 on Pentecost; 108, 220–21, 259 on exorcisms) are refreshing. In handling Luke’s account of Paul’s conversion and speeches (e.g., 117–18 on Acts 9; 272–74 on Acts 20), Dunn does not obscure his exposition of Acts even though he extensively constructs pictures of Paul from the epistles. Paul’s primary epistles serve as Dunn’s standard for evaluating Luke’s picture of Paul, and Dunn finds Luke’s writings somewhat more credible than other scholars (e.g., Haenchen, Conzelmann, D. Rusam, Th. Phillips, or even Fitzmyer) at times. Finally, Dunn finds Acts 15 compatible with the Pauline letters, even if Luke compressed some informal developments of Jew and Gentile fellowship into the formal apostolic agreement (196–97).
