Introduction

A spatialised reading of Acts 6–7

Whereas the previous chapter explored the narration of ascension geography through a variety of different settings and spatialities within Jerusalem, this chapter propounds such a geography around one character within Jerusalem, and one who is often interpreted in historicist terms.

The Jerusalem section of Acts concludes with a lengthy account of Stephen's ministry and martyrdom (6:8–7:60). The account is dominated by Stephen's speech in Acts 7, the sheer length of which indicates its importance within Acts. The speech is typically presented as historical in its orientation. Thus Soards states, without needing to justify it further, that it is ‘the most prominent example of the use of the past in an address in the form of explicit citations of scripture’, and Gaventa is typical when summarising Acts 7 as ‘Stephen's rendition of Israel's history’. This historical reading also extends to authorial intent, and to the speech's theology, which is itself often cast in historical terms, most usually in connection with a Deuteronomistic view of history. Alternatively, the history has been viewed negatively, as purposeless for its theology or as unsympathetically characterising Stephen.

The previous chapters of this study justify asking whether these readings mask the passage's spatiality such that they could be termed historicist, according to Soja's critique of that term. This is not to deny the historical dimension which is certainly present in Stephen's address, but rather to ask whether heilsgeschichtlich summaries need to allow more room for the spatial, especially when Acts 6–7 is considered within Sojan categories and in light of Christ's ascension.