Intro -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- PREFACE -- 1 HOW LUKE WROTE HISTORY -- How does one write history? -- Doubts arise -- The advantages of the Tendenzkritik -- A gaffe on a worldwide scale -- An aporia -- Historiography and postmodernity -- What credentials? -- Three types of historiography -- A poetic history -- A documentary interest -- Realistic effect? -- Fact and fiction -- Luke: the position of a historian -- The pamphlet of Lucian -- A code in ten rules -- The moralism of history -- The construction of the narrative -- The question of sources -- Variety and vivacity -- Topographical indications -- Speeches -- A laughing matter -- A theological historiography -- Jewish historiography, Greek historiography -- The reading pact of Luke-Acts -- The 'we-passages' -- Conclusion: Luke at the crossroads of two historiographies -- 2 A NARRATIVE OF BEGINNINGS -- Seeking a literary genre -- A continuation of the gospel? -- An apology? -- A historical monograph? -- An apologetic history? -- Defense and illustration of Christian faith -- The narratives of beginnings -- Acts - a story of beginnings -- The point of view of Luke the historian -- A valorization of the world -- Recurrence of the resurrection in history -- An image of God that changes -- A theology of the word -- A theology of providence -- Conclusion: the Gospel and the apostle -- The memory of the witnesses -- Jesus and Paul -- 3 THE UNITY OF LUKE-ACTS: THE TASK OF READING -- Internal tensions in the work -- An effect of unity -- Intrinsic tensions of narrativity -- Luke-Acts, a narrative entity -- Information withheld -- Significant inclusions -- Three unifying procedures -- Elliptic prolepses -- Fire and Pentecost -- A deliberate uncertainty -- Narrative chains -- The Damascus event -- Grace and purity -- The effects of redundancy.

A procedure of modelling: syncrisis -- Action and suffering -- A call to remembrance of the gospel -- Neither imitation nor confusion -- Permanence and suspension of the Law -- Integral validity -- Observance and rejection -- Two points of view: soteriological and historical -- The identity function of the Torah -- Luke the historian and Luke the theologian -- Conclusion: Luke-Acts, a diptych -- 4 A CHRISTIANITY BETWEEN JERUSALEM AND ROME -- Paul, Barnabas, Timothy and others -- Paul -- Barnabas -- Timothy -- The Godfearers -- Semantic ambivalence: a Lucan rhetorical device -- The Passion narrative -- Paul in Athens (Acts 17. 16-34) -- Acts 27-28 -- Ambiguous terms and themes -- An ambiguous process -- A theological programme of integration -- An Apology pro imperio -- A project of Christian civilization -- An open ending -- Flavius Josephus -- The God of Luke is not the God of Josephus -- Inculturation: failure and success -- Conclusion: integration of the opposing poles -- The exegesis of Luke-Acts -- The identity of the recipients of Luke-Acts -- The historiographical choices of Luke -- 5 THE GOD OF ACTS -- Two languages to speak of 'God' -- Implicit language -- Explicit language -- Engendering the word -- Neither Homer nor Genesis -- How are the history of God and human history articulated? -- The programmatic function: God precedes history -- The 'Gamaliel principle' -- The product of a group -- Eucharist in the storm -- The performative function: God redirects history -- A God who arranges and withdraws -- The enormity of God's choices -- A discreet God -- Theocentric Christology -- An ignorance which must be removed -- Retrospection -- A logic of testimony -- Are the witnesses puppets? -- Conclusion: the God of Luke -- The non-obviousness of God -- Interaction of human and divine -- Irony of God -- 6 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT.

Recounting the work of the Spirit -- The Church between fire and the Word -- The Spirit builds the Church -- The Spirit as witness -- Pentecost unfolds -- Faith precedes -- 'They spoke the Word of God with boldness' -- A work of the Word -- Spirit and miracles -- The Spirit and unity -- The ethical concretization of the Spirit -- A dimension of sanctification -- Free or captive Spirit? -- Two different discourses -- The Spirit, the pledge of God's consent -- Baptism and Spirit -- Conclusion: a pragmatic of the Spirit -- 7 JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN CONFLICT -- A contaminated debate -- Israel, a two-sided face -- The story of a double failure -- Reversing the paradigm -- Two irreconcilable readings -- An internal tension in Luke-Acts -- A first indication -- A prophetic model of rupture -- Antioch of Pisidia: the rupture -- A symbolic rupture -- The turning-point of history -- A path through the gospel of Luke -- A path through Acts -- From idyll to hysteria -- Openness and closure (Acts 21-28) -- The cracks -- The end of Acts -- Conclusion: continuity and rupture -- 8 ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA (ACTS 5. 1-11): THE ORIGINAL SIN -- No help from source criticism -- Five readings of the text -- The narrative structure of Acts 2-5 -- A rhythmic narrative -- A double gradation -- A reading centred on the community -- The community, the Spirit and the Word -- A violation of loyalty -- The role of the apostles -- The focus on the development of the community -- A crime against the Spirit -- Two fullnesses that exclude each other -- The efficacy of the Word -- An original sin -- A dubious association -- The 'symphony' of the couple -- An ethic of sharing -- A crime of money -- An ontological dimension of the Church -- Conclusion: an original sin in the Church -- 9 SAUL'S CONVERSION (ACTS 9 -- 22 -- 26) -- A revealing site of reading -- A series of three narratives.

The play of variations -- The differentiation of points of view -- Effects on the reader -- The function of the three narratives -- What is specific to each narrative -- Acts 9: the ecclesial mediation -- Acts 22: the affirmation of Jewishness -- Acts 26: the power of the Risen One -- Conclusion: an enlightening role in Acts -- 10 THE ENIGMA OF THE END OF ACTS (28. 16-31) -- The problematic of the ending of Acts -- Historical criticism: an unwarranted ending -- Theological criticism: censuring the author -- The example of Mark -- John Chrysostom -- A rhetoric of silence -- The example of Homer -- The effect of silence -- Lucian of Samasota: the freedom not to say -- Blame and praise in Dionysius of Halicarnassus -- A literary convention -- Acts 27-28 and the displacement of the reader's expectation -- A salvific operation -- Divine favour for Paul -- An inverted trial -- Installing a change of roles -- The last theological disputation (28. 17-28) -- Shifts of meaning -- An opening. . . -- . . . and an acknowledgement of failure -- Paul is aligned with the prophet -- A sketch of a response -- Paul the exemplary pastor (28. 30-31) -- A paradigmatic goal -- Rejoining the world of the readers -- Conclusion: the power of the end -- An open programme -- 11 TRAVELS AND TRAVELLERS -- An effect of globalization -- Travellers in Luke's writings -- A narrative theme of primary importance -- The narrative function of travel in the book of Acts -- Images of travel in Graeco-Roman culture -- How to classify? -- The semantics of the journey in the book of Acts -- The narrative of Christian conquest -- Numerous affinities -- Acts 16 -- The ending of Acts -- A novel of adventure and exploration -- The realism of the journey -- Attraction to the exotic -- The geographical itinerary of Acts -- Itinerancy, the claim to universality -- The path, a course of initiation?.

Conclusion: the memory of a time when the Word travelled -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- Primary sources -- Secondary works -- INDEX OF PASSAGES.

This book is an original evaluation of Luke's reliability as the first historian of Christianity.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.