What Does the Spirit Have to Do with Foreigners?
Reading Acts 10:28–48 with Diodorus of Sicily and Tacitus
In: PneumaThis article examines how Greco-Roman ethnoracial views inform our understanding of Peter and Cornelius’s encounter in Acts 10:28–48. By drawing from the Gentile perception of Jewish misanthropy mentioned by Diodorus of Sicily and Tacitus, we find that Peter was harboring a resistance to preach the gospel to the Caesareans. By rereading the narrative from this perspective, visions and Spirit baptism within Acts 10 become divine events that challenge the reluctance to preach the gospel and associate with foreigners.
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1
I. Howard Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1983), 189–192; Mark Plunkett, “Ethnocentricity and Salvation History in the Cornelius Episode: Acts 10:1–11:18,” SBLSP 24 (1985): 465–479; F.F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988), 210–211; Julius Scott, “The Cornelius Incident in the Light of Its Jewish Setting,” JETS 34, no. 4 (1991): 481–484; Robert Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: The Acts of the Apostles (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 131; Joseph Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (New Haven: Doubleday, 1998), 461; Ben Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles: A Social Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 354; Chris Miller, “Did Peter’s Vision Pertain to Men or the Menu?” BSac 159 (2002): 302–307; Vanthanh Nguyen, “Dismantling Cultural Boundaries: Missiological Implications of Acts 10:1–11:18,” Missiology 4 (2012): 459; Samuel Perez Millos, Hechos (Barcelona: Clie, 2013), 733.
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3
James Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of the New Testament on the Gift of the Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1939), 82; Max Turner, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts: In the New Testament and the Church Today (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 55; Power from on High: The Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2015), 387.
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4
Roger Stronstad, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke: Trajectories from the Old Testament to Luke-Acts (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 77; See also William Atkinson, who champions a modified pentecostal view of Spirit baptism in Baptism in the Spirit: Luke-Acts and the Dunn Debate (Eugene: Pickwick, 2011); French Arrington, “The Indwelling, Baptism, and Infilling with the Holy Spirit: A Differentiation of Terms,” Pneuma 3, no. 2 (1981): 6; Tak-Ming Cheung, “Understandings of Spirit Baptism,” JPT 8 (1996): 124–128; Mark Lee, “An Evangelical Dialogue on Luke, Salvation and Spirit Baptism,” Pneuma 26 (2004): 91–92.
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5
Craig Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary 3:1–14:28 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), 1727–1730.
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7
Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 6.
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8
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 8.
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9
Denise Eileen McCoskey, Race Antiquity and Its Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 2.
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10
See Jonathan Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 34–35; In Homer’s Iliad the term race is applied to young men (2.91; 3.32; 7.115; 11.724), birds (2.459), and flies (2.87, 469).
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12
John Elliott, What is Social–Scientific Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 7–9; Bruce Malina, Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 1–9; The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels (New York: Routledge, 1996), 7.
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13
Elliott, What is Social–Scientific Criticism? 13; Malina, Christian Origins, 1–9; Malina, Social World, 7.
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14
Arnold Krupat, Ethnocriticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 3–5, 37.
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16
See Virgilio Elizondo, Galilean Journey: The Mexican American Promise (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1983), 21; Justo Gonzalez, Santa Biblia: The Bible through Spanish Eyes (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 20–21; Nestor Medina, “Transgressing Theological Shibboleths: Culture as Locus of Divine (Pneumatological) Activity,” Pneuma 36, no. 3 (2014): 441; Mestizaje: (Re)Mapping Race, Culture, and faith in Latina/o Catholicism (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2009), 1; Luis Rivera-Rodriguez, “Reading in Spanish from the Diaspora through Hispanic Eyes,” ThTo 54 (1998): 481; Rodolfo Estrada, “Is a Contextualized Hermeneutic the Future of Pentecostal Readings?” Pneuma 37, no. 3 (2015): 341–355.
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18
Marion Soards, The Speeches in Acts (Louisville: Westminster, 1994), 1; Keener finds the speeches to be no more than summaries (Acts, 1:261).
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27
Bruce, Acts, 210; Witherington, Acts, 353; Fitzmyer, Acts, 457.
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34
Witherington, Acts, 353; Millos, Hechos, 773; Bruce, Acts, 210; Keener, Acts 2:1792.
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35
Hans Bayer, “The Preaching of Peter in Acts,” in Witness to the Gospel, ed. I. Howard Marshall (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 268–269.
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37
Max Radin, The Jews Among the Greeks and Romans (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1915), 49; Adrian Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 1–12; John Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (London: Duckworth, 1979), 30; Hannaford, Race, 20; Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 1; Isaac, Ziegler, and Eliav-Feldon, The Origins of Racism in the West, 9; McCoskey, Race, 1.
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39
Ibid., 209.
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42
Ibid., 87.
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43
Ibid., 96.
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67
Ibid., 76.
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69
Fitzmyer, Acts, 467; See also Marshall, Acts, 194; Wall, “Peter, Son of Jonah,” 79–90.
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70
Bruce, Acts, 216–218; Witherington, Acts, 354; See also Yeu Chuen Lim, “Acts 10: A Gentile Model for Pentecost Experience,” AJPS 1 (1998): 67–69; Stronstad, Charismatic, 76.
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72
Bock, Acts, 401; Marshall, Acts, 194–195; Lim, “Acts 10: A Gentile Model,” 72.
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What Does the Spirit Have to Do with Foreigners?
Reading Acts 10:28–48 with Diodorus of Sicily and Tacitus
In: PneumaThis article examines how Greco-Roman ethnoracial views inform our understanding of Peter and Cornelius’s encounter in Acts 10:28–48. By drawing from the Gentile perception of Jewish misanthropy mentioned by Diodorus of Sicily and Tacitus, we find that Peter was harboring a resistance to preach the gospel to the Caesareans. By rereading the narrative from this perspective, visions and Spirit baptism within Acts 10 become divine events that challenge the reluctance to preach the gospel and associate with foreigners.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 860 | 297 | 9 |
| Full Text Views | 224 | 9 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 52 | 26 | 2 |