The Acts of the Apostles is the second part of St Luke=s work and thus needs to be read with
the same expectations that are already raised in the prologue Luke 1.1&4: this is an educated
member of a contemporary movement who is writing for an equally educated audience with an
interest in the topic. It is about the story of God with Israel which has entered a critical
phase through Jesus of Nazareth and about the resulting Jesus movement and its spread. The
material is intended to make an appeal to readers that is just as existentially significant as
it was to the first listeners to the missionary speeches reported in it. It is not a
comprehensive historical narrative either temporally or geographically but the Biblical author
wants to go beyond mere hearsay and provide reliable information. Haacker comments on St Luke=s
text with philological tact and with informative insights into the way in which the Biblical
texts are embedded in history.
