Acts 22

Acts 22 is the twenty-second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the events leading to Paul's imprisonment in Jerusalem. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 30 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

Locations

The events in this chapter took place in Jerusalem. Some other places are also mentioned in this chapter:

Paul's speech in the Temple (verses 1–21)

This part contains the first in a series of Paul's apologetic speeches. Paul's opening words use the language and address designed to stress a commonalty with his audience, and to emphasize that he, like them, is a 'zealot for God' with a 'strict seminary education rooted in Jerusalem'; both are consistent with Paul's own claims about his education in.

Verse 1

The address to "men, brethren, and fathers" matches the opening words used by Stephen in his address to the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:2.

Verse 3

"This city": refers to Jerusalem. An alternative argument, that "this city" refers to Tarsus, does not match Paul's argument here.

Verse 8

The detailed record of Paul's conversion story here indicates that this account is important for Luke, even with some differences from the record in chapter 9, thus shedding 'an interesting light on Luke's practice as a narrator', who 'sees no difficulty in the fact that the retold story is slightly different each time'. The story is further repeated in Acts 26.

Verse 12

"Ananias": is given a little more background detail by Paul compared to the previous account in chapter 9, which is "relevant to his claim to be working within a framework of observant Judaism".

Verse 16

"Be baptized": In chapter 9, the significance of baptism was only alluded to briefly, without explanation, but here it is made explicit: 'it is to do with cleansing from sin, and calling on the name of Christ'.

Verses 17–18

"I returned to Jerusalem": likely refers to the visit of Acts 9:26, and Galatians 1:18.

Paul the Roman (verses 22–29)

When Paul mentioned the Gentiles, the audience was again stirred up and behaving riotous, so the tribune decides to remove Paul for further interrogation in the barracks, that is 'the examination of witnesses by torture', which was a routine practice in both Greek and Roman judicial systems. At the last moment, Paul reveals a little more of his citizenship status that 'produces consternation and dismay among the soldiers and minor officials into whose hands he has fallen'.

Verse 28

The claim of Paul to be 'free-born' here means that his citizenship status 'goes back at least to his father's generation, possibly earlier, to the period of the civil wars, when Roman generals granted citizenship to a number of individuals and associations in the Greek East who had supported their cause'. The citizenship status of the tribune corresponds to the record of 'the growing laxity of citizenship grants, which were widely reported to be freely available for money' during the reign of Claudius Caesar.

Paul to be brought before the Sanhedrin (verse 30)

The tribune 'ordered' the Sanhedrin to meet, although only in an advisory capacity, to 'help him determine whether or not Paul had a case to answer in Jewish law'.