The Purpose of Acts

Wright tentatively suggested that Acts was prepared for Paul’s trial before the Emperor. Wright said this was something of an old theory. Though I wrote an essay on the purpose of Luke-Acts in 1999, that was partly a new view on me, I think. Certainly others say that Acts is an apologia to the Romans or a defence of Paul, but Wright’s theory seems nicely to explain the very specific cliff-hanger ending and give the document a realistic situation in life. I don’t remember reading that it was prepared particularly for Paul’s trial before the Emperor, but I’m probably mistaken. Much of the material might seem pretty irrelevant to the Emperor.

Obviously Luke-Acts has other bigger purposes too and seeing Luke-Acts as a literary whole might be one problem for an exclusive form of this theory since Luke’s gospel preface suggests another (not necessarily unrelated) aim.