What Are They Saying About Acts? by Mark Allen Powell
A contemporary survey What Are They Saying About Acts? offers a basic study of contemporary scholarship regarding the Book of Acts. Author Mark Allan Powell surveys selected works and focuses on offering clear explanations of trends and representative positions held by scholars today. Acts is one of the most important books of the New Testament. The theological teaching of the book of Acts on such topics as the role of the Spirit and the mission of the Church is essential for any discussion of Christian beliefs and practice. With each chapter, Powell offers a breakdown of the book of Acts into terms which are easily understood. The first few chapters determine how Acts is to be interpreted, its relationship to Luke's Gospel, the literary genre to which it should be assigned and its specific purposes. Then, basic questions are considered regarding the composition of Acts, who wrote it and what sources were used. The remaining chapters focus on three different perspectives from which Acts is sometimes interpreted: major redaction criticisms, more recent approaches, and the outlining of current scholarly opinion on the theology of Acts. What Are They Saying About Acts? is an excellent resource for those readers who wish to be introduced to this field of study. It is also an excellent resource book for clergy and more advanced scholars who would like a review and update of current scholarship of Acts.