First Person Narrative In Acts 27-28 -- By: Colin J. Hemer
Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 36:1 (NA 1985)
Article: First Person Narrative In Acts 27-28
Author: Colin J. Hemer
TynBul 36:1 (1985) p. 79
First Person Narrative In Acts 27-28
I. Introduction
The voyage--narrative of Acts 27–28 is a key passage for the interpretation of the ‘we-passages’ in Acts. It has traditionally been a strong buttress of the view that the writer was a companion of Paul, or at the least that he used as his source the diary of such a companion. But recent historical studies of the voyage have been sparse, and mostly directed to long-standing debates on points of detail.1 The focus of much recent study, here as elsewhere in Luke-Acts, has been on literary and theological interests.2
The object of this paper is not to get embroiled further in this discussion, beyond a preliminary sampling of the range of opinion and some necessary clearing of the ground. In the course of preparing a larger study of Acts I have found this passage a test-case of alternative
TynBul 36:1 (1985) p. 80
approaches. I intend therefore to make some interim observations on the character of the passage, and to offer some samples of the kinds of documentation which seem to me of material weight in my plea to put the discussion on a rather different footing.
Most of the recent studies will not detain us here. P. Pokorný sets the passage against a mystery-romance background; G. B. Miles and G. Trompf, followed in part and modified by D. Ladouceur, draw on a background in the Attic orators Antiphon and Andocides to link peril at sea with divine vengeance, and to take the preservation of the accused as affording a presumption of innocence admissible as an argument of probability in a secular Athenian dicastery-court. This narrative, then, at a focal climax of Luke’s work, is to be seen as a vindication of Paul before a higher court than that of Caesar. Ladouceur himself concedes (p. 441) that there is no evidence that such an immunity would be taken seriously in a first-century Roman court, and his invocation of a vindicatory significance in the mention of the Dioscuri (Acts 28:11) as the figurehead designation of the new ship (discussed by him at length on pp. 443-448) does nothing to ease my difficulty. The glimpse these studies afford of ancient popular thought are themselves most interesting, but they do not provide a convincing background here. I shall offer below a very different kind of parallel for the reference in Acts 28:11.
More crucial to our study are those approaches which affect our understanding of the function of the ‘we- passages’. Th...
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