2018, April 15 ~ Acts 3:12-19; and 1 John 3:1-7

Acts 3:12-19

The book called “The Acts of the Apostles” was written around 85 to 90 CE by the anonymous author of the Gospel According to Luke. The first 15 chapters of Acts are a didactic “history” of the early Jesus Follower Movement starting with the Ascension. The last 13 chapters describe Paul’s Missionary Journeys – not always consistently with Paul’s letters.

Today’s reading is one of Peter’s two lengthy speeches given in the Temple. Immediately before this speech, Peter healed a lame man at the Temple and people followed him and John.

“Peter’s speech” largely exonerated the Romans for Jesus’ death (v.13) and followed Luke 23:13-25 in blaming the Jewish Authorities. In the historical context of the late First Century, this shifting of blame by the Jesus Followers to these “other Jews” made sense.

The Jesus Followers and the Pharisees were the only Jewish sects that survived the disastrous Jewish Revolt in 66 CE that led to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The Sadducees, scribes, Zealots, Herodians and the Essenes were all eliminated by the Romans by 73 CE.

In Christian Scriptures written after 73 CE, to avoid offending the ruling Romans, the Jesus Followers largely exonerated the Romans for Jesus’ death. Simultaneously, they separated themselves from “those other Jews” responsible for the Jewish Revolt in 66 CE.

As the conflict between the Jesus Followers and the Pharisees for control of post-Temple Judaism intensified after 80 CE, the last three Gospels (Matthew, Luke and John) minimized Roman responsibility for the Crucifixion, blamed the Temple Authorities and the Pharisees for Jesus’ death, and portrayed the Pharisees as hypocrites enslaved by the Law.

1 John 3:1-7

Today’s reading is from the first of three letters attributed to “John” – an attribution that was given to the letters in the late 2nd Century about the same time the four canonical Gospels were attributed to Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. (We do not know the actual authors of any of the Gospels.)

The author of 1 John was likely an individual speaking on behalf of a community of followers of the author of the Fourth Gospel.

Scholars also conclude that the three letters attributed to “John” were written after 100 CE because they do not reflect the tense relationships found in the Fourth Gospel between the Jesus Followers and the Temple Authorities (in Jesus’ lifetime and up until 70 CE) and the Pharisees (from about 70 CE until the “parting of the ways” around 100 CE).