As to the speeches that were made by different men, either when they were about to begin the war or when they were already engaged therein, it has been difficult to recall with strict accuracy the words actually spoken, both for me as regards that which I myself heard, and for those who from various other sources have brought me reports. Therefore the speeches are given in the language in which, as it seemed to me, the several speakers would express, on the subjects under consideration, the sentiments most befitting the occasion, though at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said. — Thucydides, History, 1.22, translated by C. F. Smith.
One of the reasons, I think, that translations of the Bible should avoid quotation marks, is that it imports into an ancient text assumptions about genre that are derived from the modern world. In formal English writing, the enclosing of words in quotation marks is a claim of verbatim quotation in most contexts. Ancient writers, when reporting speech, could almost never make a credible claim of verbatim quotation. Unless an ancient writer goes out of his way to claim that he somehow has the verbatim words of a speech or conversation, we should not put that claim in their mouth.
Concerning what Reventlow calls the “missionary speeches” of Acts, Reventlow tells that “A lengthy discussion has been underway in biblical research to determine whether these speeches originate in an ancient tradition, or are the creations of Luke himself. This debate has led to the result that the second of the two alternatives is more likely.”1 Whether or not we follow Reventlow’s assessment of the situation here, it is certainly true that the speeches in Luke wind up reflecting interpretations of Old Testament materials that Luke saw fit to publish, whether they were more of his own creation or something more like a retelling of existing traditions.
David Bentley Hart, in the Introduction to his translation of the New Testament, speaks of the general literary character of the New Testament in the following manner:
Whereas the Jewish Bible represents the concentrated literary genius of an amazingly rich culture–mythic, epic, lyric, historical, and visionary, in texts assembled over many centuries and then judiciously synthesized, redacted, and polished–the Christian New Testament is a somewhat unsystematically compiled and pragmatically edited compendium of “important documentation”: writings from the first generations of witnesses to the new faith, the oldest ambassadors to us from the apostolic and early postapostolic ages, consisting in quickly limned stories, theological discourses, and even a bit of historically impenetrable writings.2
Hart makes Luke a partial exception to the general roughness of the New Testament for his “urbane, unspectacular, but mostly graceful prose” (p. xxi), which is less prone to sudden shifts between past and present tense than the other gospels (p. xix).
Along the same lines, Reventlow says, “In distinction from the authors of the two older Gospels, those of Mark and Matthew, Luke is introduced at the beginning of his Gospel (1:1-4) as a writer with literary aspirations.”
One speech that draws particular attention from Reventlow is that of the proto-martyr Stephen, who is asked by the high priest to answer to charges of blasphemy. Rather than responding immediately and directly, Stephen begins with a long history of the people of Israel, beginning with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then Joseph and his eleven brothers. Stephen then recounts the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, and dwells at some length on the story of Moses. Moses is then followed by Joshua, David and Solomon, at which point Stephen announces that his listeners, like their forebearers, are murderers, first of the prophets, and then of Jesus. And only now does Stephen turn to an indirect defense of himself against the accusation that he has blasphemed the law — it is in fact his accusers who have failed to observe the law!
We will leave aside Reventlow’s comments on the history of this speech — where it might have come from, how it might have been edited, how it came into the hands of Luke. What is essential to notice is that, while Luke is able to pull proof-texts with the same creative dexterity as any other New Testament writers, Luke also has a clear view of Israel’s history as continuing into the history of the church. “The fact that Luke can appropriate the historical recounting of the past and enable his purposes to conform, although imperfectly, to it demonstrates that for him the history of Israel is also the history of the church” (Reventlow, p. 78). None of this is to discount that Luke also sees an essential discontinuity in that history, introduced by the rejection of Jesus by the bulk of the Jewish people.
Super Academical Footnotes
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