Kirjahaku

Despite all scientific doubts regarding Acts, Luke's writing was and still is an extremely important source for understanding the man who contributed the most (directly or indirectly) to the canon of the New Testament. Luke is the first (known to us) person who recognized the importance of Paul's life and his mission activities, as well as Paul's innovative interpretation of the whole Jewish tradition (that can be compared only with Copernicus' statement) that resulted in a totally new concept of the relationship between mankind and God, where the center of the relationship is Jesus of Nazareth, the Resurrected Messiah for both Jews and Gentiles. Although Luke "did not save Paul for us" because Paul produced many writings on his own, he did however give us a very important look at Paul that balanced the rejection of Paul as the Jewish teacher with his indispensable contribution to transferring the Jewish concept of God into the Hellenistic religions' systems. Without the Acts of the Apostles, we would have to create a picture of Paul based on his writings, which is quite a challenging task. If the letters of Paul gave us some accounts about Paul's attitude and thoughts in particular situations, then Luke's Acts supplies this particular perspective with a deeper evaluation of Paul by a second witness. Luke definitely wants to present to the reader(s) "his Paul", who does not necessarily have to be unlike "the historical Paul".

Despite all scientific doubts regarding Acts, Luke's writing was and still is an extremely important source for understanding the man who contributed the most (directly or indirectly) to the canon of the New Testament. Luke is the first (known to us) person who recognized the importance of Paul's life and his mission activities, as well as Paul's innovative interpretation of the whole Jewish tradition (that can be compared only with Copernicus' statement) that resulted in a totally new concept of the relationship between mankind and God, where the center of the relationship is Jesus of Nazareth, the Resurrected Messiah for both Jews and Gentiles. Although Luke "did not save Paul for us" because Paul produced many writings on his own, he did however give us a very important look at Paul that balanced the rejection of Paul as the Jewish teacher with his indispensable contribution to transferring the Jewish concept of God into the Hellenistic religions' systems. Without the Acts of the Apostles, we would have to create a picture of Paul based on his writings, which is quite a challenging task. If the letters of Paul gave us some accounts about Paul's attitude and thoughts in particular situations, then Luke's Acts supplies this particular perspective with a deeper evaluation of Paul by a second witness. Luke definitely wants to present to the reader(s) "his Paul", who does not necessarily have to be unlike "the historical Paul".

The book refers to universal eschatology contained in the Letters to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 4, 13-5, 11; 2 Thess 2, 1-12). The whole material is divided in two groups (eschatological motifs and apocalyptic motifs). Each of the motifs is analysed in the Biblical context and in the Intertestamental Literature context (the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Qumran Literature). The exegetical analysis and the comparative analysis show similarity and diversity of the way Paul used the motifs. They also show which motifs were created or extensively modified by Paul in order to contribute to the creation of Christian eschatology. After presentation of the importance of eschatological topics in the 1-2 Thess (chapter I), the analyses of prodroms (chapter II) and events connected with the parousia (chapter III) indicate the way of using each of the motifs in different traditions. Based on results of the analyses, the Jewish background and Paul’s original contribution to the New Testament eschatology are presented in chapter IV.

In The Function of the Speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, Janusz Kucicki offers a new approach to interpretation of speeches contained in the Acts of the Apostles. He separated all speeches from the narrative parts of Acts and analyze them independently. Without narrative contexts the speeches expose their interrelation that allow to categorize the speeches into two major groups. The first group named "the topic speeches" contains the speeches, which create the topic group with common theme that is developed within the three speeches, where the first takes introductory character, the second takes the progressive character and the third takes the conclusive character. The second group of speeches named "the structural speeches" contains the speeches without developed theme.