Peter and Paul in Acts and the Construction of Early Christian Identity: A Review of Historical and Literary Approaches

Abstract

The study of Peter and Paul in the Acts of the Apostles has gone through primarily two methodological phases, a search for the historical Peter and Paul and a search for the literary Peter and Paul. In recent decades, the literary approaches to the Bible have begun to raise questions about the role of the reader in understanding texts and their characters, resulting in a few studies that raise the question of the interaction between the reader and the characters of Peter and Paul. This latter development constitutes an emerging third methodological phase, the search for the identity-forming Peter and Paul. At issue in this search is how those who interact with the Acts narrative, both ancient and modern readers, are affected by the presentation of characters of Peter and Paul.