The Relationship of Jewish and Gentile Believers to the Law Between A.D. 30 and 70 in the Scripture

67 guarantee of loyalty to God. The speech, and the quotation from Isaiah , are directed against the accusers, not against the Temple . " 53 That Stephen was speaking against abuse of the Temple rather than the Temple itself is then preferred for the following reasons . This view demonstrates better continuity of thought in the narrative by expressing divine approval and veneration of the Temple itself while at the same time turning the same charges against Stephen's attackers as the ones who were really guilty. This understanding also harmonizes well with the pattern of Stephen answering the false charges against him. Most importantly , it allows Stephen's quotations to have the same sense as Solomon and Isaiah intended by them. Stephen's words about Jesus . At first glance Stephen' s speech seems not to within just a few years (Acts 10) God would clearly reveal to the surprise of Peter and his contemporaries that Gentiles were accepted just as Jews , but we must be careful not to read later reveJation back into the speech of Stephen. Weinert makes this point concerning the Temple: "many scholars even today continue to confuse Luke ' s outlook on the Temple with insights taken from elsewhere in the NT, or else to use only a handful of the more than 60 references to the Temple in Luke-Acts as a basis for generalizations about Luke's attitude toward the Temple. The results are anything but systematic or complete , and often they are highly questionable . As an example , one widely-held and persistent misconception is that Luke basically i critical of the Temple , and sees this institution as something to be rej ected, destined only for destruction and replacement by a higher kind of worship . The Lucan basis for thi interpreta– tion, however, is hardly solid or broad . In Acts, it is true that Stephen (7:48-50) and then Paul (17:24-25) both affirm that God does not dwell within what is mere human handiwork. For Luke such statements represent a traditional prophetic assertion of God' tran cendence and freedom from creaturely constraint (cf. Isa 66:1-2)," Franci D. Weinert, "The Meaning of the Temple in Luke-Acts," Biblical Theology Bulletin 11 (July 1981): 85 . 53 Doble, "The on of Man aying in Act 7.56," 80 . 'In teph n' p h I aiah ' oracle cannot be et again t the Temple' exi tence for both tephen and Wi dom agr d that it wa by divine in titution. tephen's peech i not an anti-Temple polemi , rather an argument that od revealed him elf to I rael through men and in titution - p iall M and th emple ( f . Act 6 . 13 f .) - but that both had b en abu d . Thi on lu i n h r with Luk ' p iti e attitude to the T mple thr ughout the r t of hi rk. Hi p 1 b (1.5 22 and end ( 4 .53) in th mpl wher J u r gul rl t u ht (I . 47 ; 1. 7, 53 I the J ru 1 m ct , uk pr nt th ap tl rtin t it d il , 5 f ) Ht a n m f th mple (Lk 19. ttribut t J u m h th ame attitud a th t f'. und in t ph n ' p h: th d ' H u f Pra 1, au ' d rn n,,, 0.