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Acts 15

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Acts 15
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Acts 15:22–24 in Latin (left column) and Greek (right column) in Codex Laudianus, written about AD 550.
Acts 15:22–24 in Latin (left column) and Greek (right column) in Codex Laudianus, written about AD 550.
Book Acts of the Apostles
Category Church history
Christian Bible part New Testament
Order in the Christian part 5

Acts 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records "the first great controversy in the records of the Christian Church",[1] concerning the necessity of circumcision, Paul and Barnabas traveling to Jerusalem to attend the Council of Jerusalem and the beginning of Paul's second missionary journey.[2] Early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.[3] Critical opinion on the tradition was evenly divided at the end of the 20th century.[4]

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 41 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

In Greek
In Latin

Old Testament references

New Testament references

Locations

This chapter mentions the following places (in order of appearance):

Timeline

The journey of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem and the Council of Jerusalem is generally considered to have taken place around 48 [9] – 50 AD. Robert Witham dated it to 51 AD.[10]

Conflict over circumcision (15:1–5)

The circumcision controversy began in Antioch, when 'certain men' (Greek: τινες, certain 'people' in the NIV translation) came from Judea teaching that salvation was dependent on circumcision according to the Mosaic law. The People's New Testament Commentary [11] called them 'the Judaizing Teachers';[12] Paul called them and others with the same teaching 'false brethren secretly brought in'.[13]

The dispute which arose resulted in a decision to send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, to seek a resolution to the issue. In Jerusalem the pro-circumcision case was argued by 'some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed'.[14]

Council of Jerusalem (15:6–29)

The account of the Jerusalem Council is bracketed by the scenes in Antioch (verses 1–5 opening; verses 30–35 closing) as an indication that the narrator shifted from Jerusalem to Antioch as 'home ground', and might not have access to the developments in Jerusalem since Peter left that city in Acts 12:17.[15]

Verse 13

And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, "Men and brethren, listen to me:"[16]

The council listened to James because he was the first of the three pillars of church (see Galatians 2:9). He was the leader of the church in Jerusalem until he was stoned to death at the insistence of the high priest in 62 AD. James was the Lord Jesus Christ's half brother, the one who did not believe until the Lord appeared to him privately after the Resurrection (see 1 Corinthians 15:7).[17]

Verse 14

Simon has declared how God first visited the Gentiles to take from among them a people for His name.[18]

Verse 23

This is the letter delivered by them: "The apostles and the presbyters, your brothers, to the brothers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia of Gentile origin: greetings".[21]

The letter was addressed to non-Jewish believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Its wider relevance was confirmed in Acts 16:4, where Paul and Silas endorse its compliance across a wider area.[22]

Return to Antioch (15:30–35)

Armed with the apostolic decree, Paul and Barnabas triumphantly returned to Antioch, accompanied by the Jerusalem delegates, Judas (surnamed Barsabbas) and Silas (verses 22, 32), who provided encouragement and strengthening (cf. Acts 14:22), just like Barnabas, who was originally sent from Jerusalem to Antioch (Acts 11:22–24).[2]

Paul and Barnabas part company (15:36–41)

This section opens the account of Paul's second journey (Acts 15:36–18:23), which started after an unspecified interval (verse 36: τινας ἡμέρας, tinas hēmeras, literally "some days"), and without the formal commissioning ceremony recorded for his first journey (Acts 13:3). E. H. Plumptre refers to a "commonly received chronology" according to which the journey commenced "somewhat more than a year" after the Council held in Jerusalem.[1]

The proposed tour was simply intended to revisit converts from the previous mission [22] ("the brethren", or "our brethren" in the King James Version but not in critical Greek texts of the New Testament).[23]

Paul parted ways with Barnabas before the departure (verses 37–39), and Barnabas disappears from the remaining chapters of Acts, although Paul mentions him in his first epistle to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 9:6). Silas of Jerusalem (also called "Silvanus" in Latinized form), who is a 'prophet' and anointed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:32; like Paul and Barnabas), became Paul's new companion (verse 40). Paul and Silas began the journey through the Taurus Mountains passing Paul's home territory of Cilicia (verse 41), following the route along southern Anatolia (now Turkey) across the Cilician Gates.[22] Later, they evangelized Macedonia and Achaea (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:19).[22]

See also

References

  1. Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Plumptre, E. H. (1905), Acts 15, in Ellicott's Commentary for Modern Readers, accessed 11 May 2024
  2. Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Alexander 2007, pp. 1047–1048.
  3. Back to citation Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012.
  4. Back to citation Brown, Raymond E. (1997). Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Anchor Bible. pp. 267–8. ISBN 0-385-24767-2.
  5. Back to citation Continuation List Institute for New Testament Textual Research, University of Münster. Retrieved March 29, 2010
  6. Back to citation occurrence 6.0 Back to citation occurrence 6.1 Aland, Kurt; Aland, Barbara (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Erroll F. Rhodes (trans.). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-8028-4098-1.
  7. Back to citation Bruce M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament, Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 316.
  8. Back to citation occurrence 8.0 Back to citation occurrence 8.1 Back to citation occurrence 8.2 Back to citation occurrence 8.3 "Biblical concordances of Acts 16 in the 1611 King James Version".
  9. Back to citation Robinson, John Arthur Thomas (1976) Redating the New Testament, Westminster Press. ISBN 978-1-57910-527-3
  10. Back to citation Witham, R., (1730), Annotations on the New Testament of Jesus Christ, p. 474, accessed 11 May 2024
  11. Back to citation M. Eugene Boring, Fred B. Craddock, The People's New Testament Commentary, Westminster John Knox Press, 2004
  12. Back to citation People's New Testament, Acts 15, accessed 10 September 2015
  13. Back to citation Galatians 2:4
  14. Back to citation Acts 15:5 NKJV
  15. Back to citation Alexander 2007, p. 1047.
  16. Back to citation Acts 15:13 NKJV
  17. Back to citation The Nelson Study Bible. Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1997
  18. Back to citation Acts 15:14: MEV
  19. Back to citation Greek Text Analysis: Acts 15:14. Biblehub
  20. Back to citation Strong's Greek Concordance 4826. Sumeón. Biblehub
  21. Back to citation Acts 15:23: New American Bible Revised Edition
  22. Back to citation occurrence 22.0 Back to citation occurrence 22.1 Back to citation occurrence 22.2 Back to citation occurrence 22.3 Alexander 2007, p. 1048.
  23. Back to citation Acts 15:36: King James Version, and Acts 15:36: SBL Greek New Testament

Bibliography

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