Inspiration comes, more often than not, in the routine of everyday life without our expecting it. The sequence of events leading to this book began with a casual question put to a student concerning an essay. The student expressed the opinion that it was difficult, if not even impossible, to establish any meaningful historical account of the primitive Christian movement on the basis of the Acts of the Apostles, “because Luke included too many long speeches that interrupt the account, and distract the reader from the story.” Unguardedly, I offered the simple suggestion that the “story” might be read without the “distraction” of the speeches. I do not know if the student followed my advice, but for my own part it was the spur that drove me to read Acts myself from a new perspective. The suggestion made to the student has resulted in Chapter 1 of this book, which contains only the narrative portion of Acts. My interest then turned to what I had “deleted” from the story, the speeches, because without the narrative context in which they are found they seemed to lose their meaning. It became clear that the narrative and the speeches are mutually interdependent. The speeches have a particular function within the narrative, and from the narrative we are alerted to the purpose of the various speeches. The task of unravelling the two layers while maintaining their close-knit unity is tedious, but it leads to a greater understanding and more accurate appreciation of what is surely a literary masterpiece created by Luke.
The journey from the first spark of a random idea to developing it into a full study covering all of Acts has been a long one, frequently interrupted by other commitments. That it has finally reached this stage is due in great part to the invaluable help of many irreplaceable friends, to whom I am very greatly and gratefully indebted.
First of all, my thanks are due to Nanzan Catholic University (Nagoya, Japan), which provided the necessary material support for my study, and especially for the financial assistance given for a period of research (2013.02–03) at the École Biblique in Jerusalem. My sincere thanks goes also to the staff of the École Biblique for their friendship and the hospitality given to me during the time I spent there.
Among those to whom I owe special gratitude the first is Walter Dunphy. With his long experience as professor and scholar he has been my main mentor during work on this book. His advice, suggestions and supervision of the English text, greatly influenced the shape that the initial idea has finally taken. I would also like to express my gratitude to Brendan Kelleher for his contribution in checking the English of the text and alerting me to nuances of the language not readily noted by somebody who is not a native-speaker. Due to circumstances I was forced to continue my academic work while preparing the manuscript for publication. Jakub Rajčáni, with his technical skills and attention to accuracy, offered invaluable assistance in this.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all those friends and confreres who supported me in many different ways during the whole process of writing, and especially in times when the whole project was in danger of floundering. First of all I would like to thank Jozef Chovanec with his wife Henrietta and new-born daughter Lucia for being truly friends in deed. Next I would like to mention in particular M. Calmano, A. Fausone, R. Strzyżewski, G. Ziebura, P. Sudnik and his family, M. Hirabaru, R. Okuya. Without doubt, there are very many more who should also be mentioned. Last, but by no means least, my thanks go to my mother Wiesława Kucicka.