Rethinking the Unity of Luke and Acts
By Mikeal C. Parsons and Richard I. Pervo
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.
$13.00, paperback.
A Book Review by Steve Badger
Probably most Bible college and seminary graduates consider the unity of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts a well-established conclusion requiring no further scholarly analysis. Indeed, for at least half a century, unity has been the consensus of conservative, evangelical scholars. Ever since the publication of Henry Cadbury’s The Making of Luke-Acts in 1927, writers have followed his lead in referring to the Lukan corpus with the hyphenated title. In Rethinking the Unity of Luke and Acts, Mikeal Parsons and Richard Pervo reopen the debate.
Professors Parsons and Pervo introduce themselves in the preface and describe the process of shared authorship of the book. “Parsons wrote the Preface, chapter 1, and chapter 3; Pervo composed chapters 2, 4, and 5” (vi). Thus the reader can identify the primary writer of each portion of the text—except the Introduction (pp. 1-19). The individual author of any specific argument will not be distinguished in the paragraphs that follow; both will be held responsible for all statements since, by their own admission, the book is “truly a co-authored work” (vi).
In the preface the authors lead the reader to believe that they have no agenda. They claim that they will merely ask the questions that must be discussed in order to argue the question of unity. “This book will thus only probe [the questions of genre, literary aspects, and theology of Luke and Acts] . . . in an exploratory way” (vi). They continue this line of argument by claiming that, “At this point, it is more important for us to frame the questions than to attempt to settle these issues once and for all” (vi). They repeat at least part of this assertion in their Conclusion: “We therefore deemed it timely to subject this idea to a thorough scrutiny, not with the intention of either canonizing or deposing the prevalent view, but of providing it with suitable nuance” (115).
But even a casual reading of the book reveals that such is not the case. Parsons and Pervo divide the question of the unity of Lukas’s writings into authorial unity, canonical unity, generic unity, narrative unity, and theological unity. These scholars then argue quite forcefully that the two works do not share a common genre, a narrative unity, or a monolithic theology—and have never enjoyed canonical unity. The only possibility of unity they allow is that a single author wrote both works.
After giving an overview of the modern opinions of the genre of Luke and Acts, the authors offer evidence that these books have different genres. The evidence cited includes constituent forms (37f), the types of sources Luke used in each (37), and the tone of each work (38). The authors conclude, “These differences indicate that Lukas approached Acts with objectives and methods different from those with governed the composition of Luke. At the very least they provide methodological justification for challenging the assumption of generic unity” (40).
Parsons and Pervo write “The results of research suggest that much can be learned about Luke and Acts by studying them from different generic perspectives” (43). What generic perspectives do they have in mind? Accepting the generic unity of Luke and Acts, they posit, could “well obscure the valuable insights to be gained from investigation of aretalogoies, novels, apocryphal acts, various types of monographs, different modes of historical writing, biographies of diverse kinds, and other ‘gospels’” (43). They suggest that an understanding of these writings can then be used to gain insights into the New Testament writings. Since this approach minimizes the revelational content of the Scriptures, many Pentecostal scholars do not like it.
Perhaps the most difficult section of this book is the discussion of narrative unity. Many pastors—perhaps even most seminary-trained pastors—are not well-versed in the jargon of narrative criticism (because its development is so recent). The authors use terms like “real author, implied author, and narrator” in a technical sense, and confusion results if they are not properly understood. Suffice it to say that they conclude “that, at least on the discourse level, there are significant differences between Luke and Acts” (82). The two narratives, they conclude, “each tell the story differently” (82).
The authors provide an excellent historical review of the redaction criticism of Luke and Acts and conclude that “the theological unity of Luke and Acts is not a foregone conclusion” (89). In Chapter 4 they suggest several “disunities” in the theologies of Luke and Acts.
But this reviewer might suggest that the theology of the two works are not so much different as the later is an expansion or development of the earlier. Furthermore, though the authors discuss Lukas’s use of the Holy Spirit (103), they fail to consider an analysis of Lukan pneumatology that would challenge their conclusions. Most notably absent is any mention of Roger Stronstad’s Theological Unity of Luke-Acts.
Those who are familiar with the arguments of Robert Tannehill’s works (like The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation) and Charles Talbert’s works (like Literary Patterns, Theological Themes, and the Genre of Luke-Acts) will find Parsons-Pervo’s arguments interesting, but not convincing. But more to the point for most of us are these three questions: What are the consequences of concluding that:
1. Luke and Acts are two volumes of a single work;
2. Acts is a sequel to the Gospel; or
3. The two books are separate works with different genre and theologies?
More specifically, what are the implications of this work for the teaching and preaching ministry of the pastor? Not much, I think.
The authors are correct in challenging those who simply assume the unity of Luke and Acts at every level. But writers with an agenda should not pretend to merely be asking the right questions.
End Notes:
The authors avoided confusion by using “Luke” to designate the Gospel and “Lukas” to refer exclusively to the writer. This convention is also followed in this review.
Italics in quotations belong to the original author.
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