Zachary K. Dawson. The Message of the Jerusalem Council in the Acts of the Apostles

Zachary Dawson publishes here his 2021 PhD dissertation accepted by McMaster Divinity College, which, according to the title, explores Acts 15 through a stylistic analysis. In fact, he analyzes the Cornelius episode (Acts 10:1–11:18), the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:1–29), and the episode of Paul’s final visit to Jerusalem (Acts 21:1–25).The book is divided into seven chapters. The first two chapters are introductory: after a “literature review” on the relationship between purpose and parallelism in Acts (pp. 1–27), Dawson develops a theory, a model, and a methodology to account for parallelism (repetition) in Acts (“linguistic stylistics,” pp. 28–76). He bases his theory of “experiential meaning,” which takes the shape of “a transitivity analysis” on the social semiotic stylistics model of Ruqaiya Hasan (which has not been applied in New Testament studies expect in an earlier article by Dawson). “Transitivity” is understood as referring to “the different processes that are recognized in a language, as well as the structural relations by which they are expressed,” the central components being “the process, realized by predicators,” “the participant(s), realized for the most part by grammatical subjects and complements, and “the circumstance(s), usually realized by adjuncts” (p. 48). The various activities of human experience are analyzed in terms of six basic types of processes (material, behavioral, mental, verbal, relational, and existential; p. 49, explained pp. 51–56). Further areas that are discussed are logical meaning, systems of taxis and logico-semantics, markedness, prominence, foregrounding, interpersonal meaning, intertextuality, and intertextual thematic analysis.Chapters 3–4 (pp. 77–132, 133–72) discuss Acts 10:1–11:18, first in terms of a transitivity analysis, then in terms of an intertextual thematic analysis (comparison with 1 Enoch’s Book of Dreams). While the analysis proceeds with a consistent linguistic focus, the result is hardly new or surprising: “Peter functions consistently as a more dynamic character than Cornelius” (p. 128), as “the story’s principal participant” (p. 129), in the context of Luke’s goal of promoting the unity of Jewish and Gentile believers (p. 173). The comparison with passages in 1 Enoch are helpful, although both Peter and the Jewish believers in Jerusalem would have coordinated Peter’s vision not merely, and certainly not primarily, with the Noahic tradition but with foundational stipulations in the Mosaic Law, an “intertextuality” that is not explored.Chapters 5–6 (pp. 174–217, 218–44) discuss Acts 15:1–29 and 21:1–25, first in terms of a transitivity analysis of the Jerusalem Council and Paul’s alleged apostasy, then in terms of an intertextual thematic analysis of the four abstentions of the Apostolic Decree in the context of the Noahide laws.Chapter 7 (pp. 245–612) summarizes Dawson’s findings and arguments. He claims that “Luke’s theme” is “a statement against a Noahic tradition” represented by 1 Enoch and Jubilees seeking “to facilitate the unity of the redefined, multiethnic people of God” (p. 262). He suggests that Luke addresses “Jewish believers at risk of acquiescing to a Jewish separationist ideology and thus departing from the community of believers, or perhaps they had already removed themselves at least in part from cohabitation with Gentile believers” (p. 262).The dissertation is well written and consistently constructed. A perennial concern pertains to the fact that linguistic arguments by themselves cannot clarify historical questions, which the author attempts to do (although, to be fair, not as a main goal of his work, which is the application of a particular linguistic method to a few selected texts from Acts). The audience of Acts cannot be meaningfully assessed without considering the audience of Luke’s first volume, his biography of Jesus (which can hardly be limited to a Christian Jewish audience) and the history of the earliest communities of Jesus followers. A convincing intertextual discussion focuses not on a few selected (late) texts and traditions but, in the case of Cornelius and the Jerusalem Council, on the Mosaic Law and its understanding in the entire early Jewish tradition. The focus on the Noahide tradition cannot compensate for the significance of Lev 17–18 for James’s exegesis, which remains the primary explanatory framework for James’s argument.It is difficult to find worthy dissertation topics in New Testament studies. One possibility is the application of some new method, and the large field of linguistics seems to provide ample space for such endeavors. The linguistic jargon varies from linguist to linguist, which forces authors of New Testament dissertations who have decided to use some new linguistic tool to adopt a particular linguistic theory and its concomitant technical concepts and terminology. The novelty of the results of the theory’s use in the exegesis of New Testament texts seems more often than not in the language of the dissertation describing the syntax and structure of Greek texts, forcing readers to immerse themselves in linguistic theory. The linguistic jargon more often than not glosses over exegetical details (such as ἔδοξεν ἡμῖν in Acts 15:25, for which we find the explanation “construes a relational: intensive: ascriptive process,” p. 199), marginalizes historical considerations (such as the relationship between James and the τινὲς ἐξ ἡμῶν of Acts 15:24, or between Peter and Paul), and minimizes the theological concerns of Peter, James, Paul, and Luke (such as the validity of the Mosaic Law, the consequences of the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Messiah for the community of believers)

Apostles · Linguistics · Theology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Philosophy