Symphony of Scriptures

Acts 10:1–15:35 is a central section in the Book of Acts focusing mainly on a major development in the early Christian movement—namely the reception of Gentile Christians in the church. Undoubtedly, a vital aspect of the process is the use of Scripture. The Holy Scriptures of Israel play a crucial role in framing the dilemmas and offering solutions. The challenge lies not so much in identifying the right words, phrases, narratives, themes, or books of the Old Testament that are evoked in Acts but much rather in defining patterns of textual correlations. To this effect Barta applies French literary theorist Gérard Genette’s map of transtextuality to enumerate in order to group and to evaluate patterns of intertextual connections in Acts 10:1–15:35.