An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 208: It’s like the end of Age of Ultron where Scarlet Witch, Vision, Falcon and War Machine become the next generation of Avengers (Acts 1-5)

Acts 1-5
It’s like the end of Age of Ultron where Scarlet Witch, Vision, Falcon and War Machine become the next generation of Avengers.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Acts 1

“And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.”

I wasn’t expecting to see Jesus again, but like a character from Game of Thrones that died in the previous episode coming back to play their own corpse in the next one, He drops in for one final “So long and thanks for all the fish” with the apostles (actually it should be them thanking Him for all the fish, never mind).

This chapter is told by a narrator to one Theophilus, possibly a single person but, since the name implies “lover of God”, perhaps it’s the same meaning as “faithful reader”. The first verse mentions the author’s “former treatise” of the acts of Jesus, so one assumes that he must be one of the gospel writers, presumably John due to the juxtaposition.

Anyway, Jesus stays with the disciples for forty days before being taken up into a cloud by two men in white. Initially He tells them to stay in Jerusalem to receive the Holy Spirit, but later tells them to bear witness to “the uttermost parts of the earth”. The rest of the chapter is dedicated to the disciples trying to find a replacement for Judas, who has fallen over and burst (“falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out”) – not hanged himself from a Judas tree. This, apparently, is a fulfillment of prophecy in the Psalms, “Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take”. However, this evidently comes from Psalm 69, which reads “Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents”, this says nothing about a bishopric, but does add “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous” Psalm 69 is just another one of those “Lord smite my enemies” psalms, seems strange to specifically cherry-pick this verse to support events, but there we go.

The disciples choose, from 120 possible candidates, they choose Matthias rather than Joseph “Barsabbas” Justus, presumably because his name was less confusing (actually he was chosen by lot).

Acts 2

“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Ah, now this is the Pentecost. The disciples are gathered together, and there is a mighty wind, and tongues of fire, or “like as of fire” descend upon them and they begin speaking in tongues. Note that this is not the “speaking of tongues” that you see in Pentecostal churches, with people speaking some strange non-language (Ba-da-sa-ba-etc.). No, the disciples speak in actual languages of the world; “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians.” The idea being that the disciples should be able to spread the word to those nations (ignoring the uncomfortable fact that these days most of the named areas are *cough* Islamic).

Some listeners think that the disciples are drunk, amusingly, but Peter gives an uncharacteristically good speech proclaiming Jesus to be a prophet and fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, and that the listeners should “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”. It’s not clear what that actually means, still, but apparently it persuades three thousand people to sign up. This is one of the first mentions that I recall of “hell”, wherein Jesus is said not to be in hell. The implication is that baptism in the name of Jesus will stop you going to hell, but that’s not exactly what Peter says here, it’s merely a juxtaposition of concepts. And what, exactly, is “hell”? That’s not defined here either – the concept of the “lake of fire” isn’t given, it could equally just mean the oblivion of death that was generally implied in the Old Testament.

Oh, and Peter makes some prophecies of the end times – “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come”. So… a solar and a lunar eclipse then.

Acts 3

“And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple”

Peter and John go to the temple and heal a lame man, who walks and leaps into the temple. Peter then delivers pretty much the same sermon as last time to the assembled crowd, first upbraiding them for allowing Jesus to be crucified but then saying that through the faith in Jesus the lame man was healed. It highlights the problem of the crucifixion – if it as necessary for Jesus to die and rise again, then surely those responsible for it are not really to blame and were, in many ways, only doing what was prophesied.

What seems to be coming across, however, from this and Acts 2, is that Peter has become fired up by the death of Jesus; you can read it as him taking passion from the loss of his friend and really pushing the Jesus-as-Messiah narrative for all its worth.

Acts 4
“This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner”

The chapter continues on from the last one, with the temple elders coming to see that all the fuss is about. They end up trying to forbid people from preaching in the name of Jesus, but Peter rebuffs them and the number of followers grows (five thousand is given here). The followers of Jesus share all property in common; the wealthy sell their houses and goods, and Joses Barnabas (who seems to have taken over from Judas as treasurer) does all the selling and lays the money at the feet of the apostles. Wait… Joses/Joseph “Barsabbas” Justus was passed over for membership in the Big Twelve in favour of Matthias. I guess he can still be a second-tier disciple though, but you’d think treasurer would be part of the inner circle.

What I get from this chapter is a sense that, by having Jesus killed, the Pharisees have completely failed in trying to shut down His message and following, but only succeeded in making it stronger than before. A sharp lesson to them about creating martyrs.

Acts 5

“But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?”

The chapter opens with a rather troubling event. Ananias and his wife Saphira, sell some land but keep back part of the price rather than give it to the apostles. In punishment for this, Peter has them killed. Technically, according to this chapter, he doesn’t exactly, but they both die and it is blamed on them holding back from the apostles. To me, this reads like Peter becoming a pretty dangerous cult leader.

Later, the Saducees arrest the apostles but an angel (apparently) free them from prison. Then one of the Pharisees, Gamaliel, names some prior “messiahs”; one Theudas “boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought”, and Judas  of Galilee. Gamaliel’s advice to the Pharisees is to do nothing; either these are followers of a false prophet and will come to nothing in time, or it actually is God’s will and they will succeed. And so the apostles carry on proseletysing.