The Acts of The Apostles: An Introduction and Study Guide: Taming the Tongues of Fire (T&T Clark’s Study Guides to the New Testament) - Softcover

Shelly Matthews

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0567671232 ISBN 13: 9780567671233

Publisher: T&T Clark (UK), 2017

Synopsis

The book of Acts opens with the dramatic story of tongues of flame descending upon believers at Pentecost and the prophecy of an egalitarian dispensation of the Spirit being fulfilled. Yet, as the narrative unfolds, we become aware of a tension between the socially egalitarian promise of the Pentecost story and the author’s underlying concern to provide reassurance for his elite patron Theophilus that Jesus followers do not disturb the existing social order.

In this guide, Acts is read as a struggle to tame the tongues of fire. Acts mutes the egalitarian promise of the Spirit through presenting an ‘orderly account’ (as its author calls it) of the Jesus movement that appeals to elite sensibilities. And, at the same time, the narrative contains contradictions, gaps and fissures that suggest the outlines of a more complex, and even subversive, religious movement.

About this title

About the Author

Shelly Matthews is Associate Professor of Religion at Furman University, the co-editor of Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, and the author of First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in Early Judaism and Christianity.

Edition details

• Publisher: T&T Clark (UK)
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0567671232
• ISBN 13: 9780567671233
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112