Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

2012 / 3-4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK

peoples that we find in Acts 2 provides a useful starting point. There one finds a list of God-fearing Jews, living in Jerusalem, from every nation under heaven. These diasporic Jews were filled with utter amazement because of the spectacular events of Pentecost, and were particularly perplexed because they heard all kinds of languages being spoken. Luke records them as saying: “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:9-11). This list of nations is no random tally. It draws the reader’s focus towards a circular movement centred on Jerusalem. This is true in both religious and geographical senses.

Regarding the religious sense, many commentators have already observed that this list does not represent the political situation of the Roman Empire. Instead, it encompasses the Jewish diaspora that had already taken place before this time. Further to this, it includes places which had never been part of the Roman Empire. Luke shows his readers that there were Jews living throughout the known world.

Concerning the geographical sense, one noteworthy aspect is that Judea is included in the list of nations. Luke is not referring to the immediate region of ‘Judea’, for in Luke and Acts this only occurs when Judea and Galilee are mentioned together. Rather, this is to be understood as encompassing the Jewish homeland as a whole, with Jerusalem as its capital; in later years, the entire Roman province was to be known as Judaea (Luke 1:5; 4:44; 6:17; 7:17; 23:5; Acts 11:29; 15:1; 28:21). In showing that Jews were living throughout the world, Luke cannot leave out the Jewish homeland itself. In this context, Jerusalem and its surroundings are unmistakably the heart of the known world. It may then be concluded that in this list ‘Judea’ serves, as Bauckham has shown, as the geographical centre of the Jewish diaspora, a diaspora that fanned out in all directions.10

Luke points out that this entire diaspora was represented in Jerusalem at the miracle of languages at Pentecost. They were “God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven”. From Judea, the geographical heart of the Jewish world, one’s attention is first drawn towards the east: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia. Then it is turned northward: residents of Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia. From there one looks to the west: Egypt, Libya and Cyrene; visitors from Rome, and Crete. Finally one’s focus is drawn to the south: Arabia. The effect of this ordering is to show readers that the place where the Spirit was poured out dominates the perspective towards all four points of the compass.

To his audience, Peter says that their conversion will have worldwide effects: “The promise [this being a reference to the Spirit, promised by God and given at Pentecost] is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39). The reference to those ‘far off concerns those scattered far from Jerusalem in the diaspora, in every direction throughout the world.

P.H.R. (ROB) VAN HOUWELINGEN

10 Richard Bauckham, “James and the Jerusalem Church.” In The Book of Acts in Its First-Century Setting. Volume 4: Palestinian Setting, ed. Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 415- 480. Bauckham bases his description on a reconstruction of a world map of the time, taken from Strabos Geographica (420).

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