Parts of Acts, especially in the final quarter of Acts, include some first-person narration. In other historical sources from this period, we would normally understand this feature as evidence of the author’s participation, underlining the author’s direct access to information. Some scholars have questioned this interpretation, but those who question it usually sidestep the abundant, dominant evidence from other ancient historical writers. This essay challenges a less common alternative approach that does appeal to historical evidence but is vulnerable to misapplication.
Various ancient historians used third- and first-person designations for themselves differently, and sometimes even varied the usage within their individual works. William Sanger Campbell offers a useful survey of some of this usage, correctly observe that ancient writings, in contrast to most modern ones, regularly “refer to their narrators in first (singular and plural) and third person for both event- and narrator-level narration.” Although his survey of usage is quite helpful, his reservations concerning Luke’s first-person usage for eyewitness historical testimony must be qualified.
This content is by Dr. Craig Keener, but edited and posted by Defenders Media.
For more, please check out Dr. Keener’s Between History and Spirit
