Saturday, May 1, 2021

Carol R. Holladay on Acts 13:48

Carol R. Holladay provides the following commentary on Acts 13:48:

 

Those “[who had] been destined for eternal life believed,” a heavily predestinarian claim, may be an allusion to the widespread Jewish notion of being enrolled in God’s book (See Exod 32:32-33; Ps 69:28; Dan 12:1; 1 En. 47.3; 104.1; 108.3; Jub 30.19-20, 22; Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12; 21:27). The gift of the meaning seems to be: Since gentiles have been destined for eternal life by virtue of God’s ancient (or prior) desire to include them among the people of God, they become believers. (Carol R. Holladay, Acts: A Commentary [The New Testament Library; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016], 282, emphasis added)

 

This is important as the biblical texts speak of people having their names blotted out from the book of life, showing that the contents thereof is not static:

 

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. (Rev 3:5)

 

Yet now, if thou wilt not forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book (Exo 32:32-33)

 

And it come to pass,when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst. The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. (Deut 29:19-20)

 

Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous. (Psa 69:28)

 

And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: (Isa 4:3)

 

We see this in 1 Enoch, too:

 

As for you, wait patiently until sin passes away, for the names of (the sinners) shall be blotted out from the Book of Life and the books of the Holy One; their seeds shall be destroyed forever and their spirits shall perish and die; they shall cry and lament in a place that is an invisible wilderness and burn in the fire—for there exists ground there (as upon the earth). (1 Enoch 108:3)

 

Further, it should be noted that τεταγμενοι is better understood as a middle, not aorist, perfect passive participle, as the Gentiles are the subject of each of the verbs in the verse. Furthermore, it fits better the context: Luke is contrasting these believing Gentiles with the Jews who rejected the gospel in v. 45.