Partners in Crime: Reading Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5.1–11) alongside Adam and Eve

Abstract

The account of Ananias and Sapphira evades simple interpretation. Among the unanswered questions in the passage is the issue of Sapphira’s culpability in the misdeed shared with her husband. While many interpreters assume that Sapphira shares culpability with Ananias, some interpreters, particularly feminist interpreters, argue that Sapphira’s involvement was coerced or that Sapphira’s misdeed differed from Ananias’s. An intertextual reading of Ananias and Sapphira alongside Adam and Eve (Gen. 1–3) illuminates this question of Sapphira’s culpability. These two ‘first couples’ similarly commit wrongdoing and receive punishment. Acts, however, alters gendered aspects of the account of Adam and Eve: whereas Eve ate the fruit first, Ananias lied to Peter first. Ananias and Sapphira thus illustrate that men and women can be implicated in wrongdoing in either passive or active ways. Ultimately, reading these two stories together allows for more nuance in our understanding of Luke’s treatment of gender.