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

92 being annulled. Like most other biblical visions, however, only the divine interpretation can assign the correct meaning. That interpretation is provided by Luke in the rest of the Cornelius narrative 108 where he consistently and only applies it to people rather than foods or the Law. With sensitivity to the literary development of the story Tyson insightfully writes : But Luke has . . . refused to interpret Peter ' s vision as an annulment of the food laws . That point is borne out in the so-called apostolic decree in Acts 15.20 (cf. 15. 29 ; 21. 25), which seems to impose some dietary regulations on Gentiles. This is a notorious problem for those who think that the vision of Peter constitutes an annulment of the laws of kashrut. . . . Despite the indications in his own narrative , Luke refuses to say that the food laws have been abolished or altered . 109 Haenchen argues that the vision as it now stands does not refer to foods and "Expositors would not have thought of interpreting the vision in terms of food (the actual text sees it only in terms of men!) if 11.3 had not emboldened them to do so. " 110 That the vision is understood in a figurative sense " is the conclusion of most of the more recent commentators with regard to 10 :28b /' according to Dibelius. 111 But one may ask, How can the vision not refer to the annulment of the food laws? Wilson explains : A vision which is aimed at teaching something does not necessarily have the same content as the problem to which it refers . That is , visions can have parabolic signifi– cance . The vision of foods and the twofold command and refusal may originally have been intended to teach Peter something about clean and unclean men. Because Peter' vision is to do with eating, this does not narrow its terms of reference to the problem of 108 lnterpretation of the vi ion apart from the narrative i futile becau e a onz llman rightly ob erves "Luke intend that the narrative action interpret the i ion for the r ad r" onzelmann, Acts , 82. 109 Ty on, "The Gentile Mi sion and cripture in Act , " 628 . Dib liu n ur , ' Lu doe not, however , interpret it in the en e of removing the di tin ti n b t e n food . T him 1t w (according to 10:28) a ign that d no longer wi h d there t b n di tin ti n et n 'cl an and unclean' people," Dibeliu , tudie in the ct of the po tle , 11 (emph 1 ht ) . I10 H n h n , cl , 3 2. Im , tud1e in the l of the po tle , 11 .