The Acts of the Apostles (New Testament Readings)

The question of literary genre of Luke's second volume has been the focus of much debate. In this volume, Loveday Alexander examines afresh the Acts texts, by focusing on the ancient readers of the text. The Acts of the Apostles argues that the diversity of the contemporary readers of the text provide rich and varied readings, as the divergent cultural and educational backgrounds of the readers reveal different perceptions of the text. The Acts of the Apostles explores how Acts would have come across to the reader whose intellectual world was shaped by the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, by the Greek Bible, by Hellenistic biography, or the Greek novel, or politcal apologetic. It shows how these various readings offer new insights into the text itself and also broadens our understanding of the pitfalls of communication in the ancient world and the strategies adopted by the first Christians writers to negotiate them.