A common suggestion by commentators is that Acts 1:8 announces the plot of Acts. B. Gaventa offers a variation on this suggestion, “The story that follows conforms so closely to this statement that it serves as something like a table of contents for the entire book of Acts”.[1] It is observed that Acts begins in Jerusalem (Acts 2), then the church is scattered through Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1), finally, after the conversion of Cornelius, the gospel is taken to the ends of the earth and the book finishes in Rome.
This suggestion bears further scrutiny and it is argued here that it is a superficial analysis. Acts does not illustrate a linear plot which moves from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and then to Rome. The plot development that moves the gospel out of Jerusalem affects Judea and Samaria simultaneously; further, while the gospel is taken to the Gentiles after Cornelius, this development is presented as an unexpected development driven by the holy Spirit (Acts 11:17). Finally, while the gospel is taken to the Jews and Gentiles in Paul’s missionary journeys, Jerusalem and Judea remains the centre of the church and where journeys are ended. The story of Acts circles around Jerusalem instead of moving in a straight line away from Jerusalem to Rome.
It is implausible to suggest that Luke advertised a “plot” in Acts 1:8; this literary concept does not match the structure of Acts; hence, Gaventa’s notion of a “table of contents” is more appropriate. A further consideration relevant to this question is the “end” of Acts; Acts does not have an end for its plot. Insofar as Paul’s trial at Rome dominates the closing chapters, the story is driven by the plotting device in Acts 25:11-12, Paul’s appeal to Caesar. The resolution of this device is unfulfilled. For this reason, it is implausible to read “ends of the earth” in Acts 1:8 as a geographical term of reference for “Rome” as if the plot of Acts was to end in Rome. The “ending” that is signalled in the story of Acts is not narrated by Luke. This lack of an advertised ending has been the subject of speculation: Luke died or was prevented from finishing his account; Paul died or was executed and Luke did not want to narrate such an ending; Paul was acquitted and Luke did not want to narrate that ending, and so on.
To these suggestions, we can add the further proposal that Acts ends with Paul’s stay in Rome because Luke has included the end of his story in the eschatological predictions of Luke 17/21. The end of the story is the return of the Son of Man to Jerusalem. The plot of Luke-Acts has this ending rather than the outcome of any trial in Rome. Paul’s journey to Rome is a sub-plot of the witness to the ends of the earth, a sub-plot with the same status as his journey to Cyprus or Macedonia. Luke does not end Acts with the outcome of Paul’s trial because he does not end his advertised plot with the return of the Son of Man.
S. Kurz[2] observes, Luke is able to continue his story beyond Acts 28 and show how it is linked to eschatological material in the Jewish Scriptures through a description of an eschaton (e.g. Lk 17, 21).[3] The presence of this material in Luke-Acts affects the reader’s perception of the whole story and what is being done in the life of John the Baptist, Jesus and the apostles.
Thus there is “wrath” to come (Lk 3:7, 21:23, cf. 2 Chron 29:8-10); there is condemnation of that “generation” (Lk 21:32, Acts 2:40, cf. Deut 32:5); there is a sequence of events in relation to Jerusalem and the land that are to happen before the return of the Son of Man (Lk 21:27, Acts 7:56, cf. Dan 7:13). With the prospect of this impending crisis, to which the return of Jesus is linked, the missionary story is one of escape and deliverance (Lk 3:7, 21:21, Acts 2:40).
Luke does not narrate the fulfilment of these predictions but they nevertheless condition the implied reader’s perspective on his story. Jesus and the apostles are not preaching an actual restoration of Israel inaugurated in their actions (Acts 1:6), but offering a prospective restoration in which those who respond to the gospel can participate (Lk 1:74). This is the classic story-pattern of the Jewish prophets: they prophesy impending doom and offer a prospective salvation conditional upon repentance (Acts 3:19-21).
The plot-line of Acts, when this is considered independently of the gospel, supports this replication of the role of the Jewish prophet. The apostles are commissioned to preach throughout the land and to the “end of the earth” (e[wj evsca,tou th/j gh/j, Acts 1:8). This expression is one of Luke’s Septuagintal phrases of choice; it occurs, for example, in Isa 49:6, which is a key text for Luke (Lk 2:32, Acts 13:47, 26:23, 28:28). This text gives a Jewish perspective to the perceptual geography of the phrase “end of the earth”. This is an idiom for “outside the land” where the Jews have been scattered. The LXX interpretation of the MT of Isa 49:6, explicitly connects the phrase to the Diaspora — kai. th.n diaspora.n tou/ Israhl (“and the Diaspora of Israel”).
The use of evsca,tou th/j gh/j (“ends of the earth”) elsewhere in Isaiah confirms this idiomatic sense. Thus, Isa 48:20 associates the phrase with the Babylonian captives proclaiming a message of liberation to the “end of the earth”. The point of the proclamation by Yahweh in Isa 45:22 is that the “end of the earth” should look unto Zion for salvation, and the same point is found in Isa 62:11. The sense of the phrase in Acts therefore is not a cipher for Rome,[4] or Spain, or a distant location, but rather an idiom for all countries outside the land where the Jews have been dispersed. Luke’s story shows proclamation throughout the “end of the earth”.[5]
This proposal changes the rhetoric of Paul’s assertion in Acts 13:47,
“For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth.” Acts 13:47
The usual interpretation of this assertion is that “the ends of the earth” are “the Gentiles” and that Paul is making a contrast between those who are of Israel and those who are “of the ends of the earth”; the gospel is being taken to the Gentiles. However, this gives an ethnic cast to the expression unsupported by the LXX. The logic of the citation is just that the apostles have been appointed to be a light for the Gentiles in addition to the Jews who live alongside Gentiles in the Diaspora.
[1] B. R. Gaventa, Acts (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 65.
[2] W. S. Kurz, “Luke-Acts and Historiography in the Greek Bible”, SBLSP 19 (1980): 283-300 (284).
[3] We have excluded here Luke’s genealogy as a link with the Jewish story as this does not function as a plot device.
[4] Thus, instead of seeing the plot of Acts as “movement to Rome”, this should be treated as a sub-plot of the Diasporan plot implied by Acts 1:8 — a sub-plot initiated by Acts 19:21, dei/ me kai. ~Rw,mhn ivdei/n.
[5] Perceptual Geography is a branch of Human Geography that studies the perceptions of communities about space. For example, it studies the use of spatial expressions about the compass such as what is the “south”, where does the “south” begin, and where does it end. It cannot be simply assumed that “end of the earth” in the mouth of a Galilean character signalled “Rome” as opposed to Dan or Beersheba, Babylon or Spain.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One