The Spirit in Luke-Acts by Odette Mainville

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Spirit in Luke-Acts by Odette Mainville Luke Macnamara OSB odette mainville. The Spirit in Luke-Acts (trans. Suzanne Spolarich; Woodstock, GA: Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship, 2016). Pp. 322. $21.99. Following the publication of Gonzalo Haya-Prats’s monograph Empowered Believers: The Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts (Eugene, OR: Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship, 2011), this is the second important work on the Spirit in Luke-Acts to be translated into English under the auspices of the Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship (FFPS). As noted by Robert Menzies in his foreword, the intention is to make this work, which itself developed independently of Pentecostal scholarship, available to a wider scholarly (and Pentecostal) audience. The original French edition, L’Esprit dans l’œuvre de Luc (Montréal: Fides, 1991), was a revision of Mainville’s thesis under André Myre defended at the Université de Montréal in 1989. The translator is to be commended for preserving the dynamic and engaging style of the original. Mainville proposes to read the pneumatology of Luke-Acts in the light of a key statement of Peter’s Pentecost speech: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from God the promise of the Holy Spirit, he [Jesus] has poured out this that you both see and hear” (Acts 2:33). Working within Hans Conzelmann’s framework of three epochs in salvation history according to Luke—that of the OT, that of Jesus’s ministry, and that of the church—M. situates the key verse (Acts 2:33) at the junction of the latter two periods (see p. 3) and views it as a hinge upon which the pneumatology of Luke-Acts is articulated. The conception, baptism, and prophetic ministry of the earthly Jesus lead to his resurrection, exaltation, and reception of the Spirit as summarized in the first half of this verse, while the prophetic ministry of the disciples originates with Jesus’s outpouring of the Spirit that he received from God, as summarized in the latter half of the verse. The Spirit is understood as “the unifying principle between the two eras” (p. 176). [End Page 532] Mainville adopts a literary and redactional approach to interpret the key verse (Acts 2:33) in its proximate (with particular attention to the period between the resurrection and Pentecost), and wider (the lead-up of Jesus to his exaltation and the events subsequent to the outpouring of the Spirit) contexts. The promised Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4–5, 8) is conspicuously (seen and heard) received at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4) and explained in Peter’s speech to the observers. The emphasis on the OT background, the redactional choices of Luke and the literary parallels (now commonplace) constitute highlights that may reward even contemporary readers. There is extensive and fruitful engagement with European scholarship but no interaction with the emerging Pentecostal scholars of the period. At times, Conzelmann’s three-epoch temporal framework (reflective of the original date of M.’s work), appears to overly influence the analysis. Characters’ possession of the Spirit (being filled with the Spirit) is often interpreted within this framework. Jesus is perceived both as unique in relation to the other Spirit-filled characters of Luke 1–2 and also, especially through his baptism, as a model for the Pentecost experience of the apostles. The examination of the earthly Jesus’s divine identity would have been more balanced by a closer examination of his relationship to God as well as to the Spirit. While scholars might propose other verses as key to Lucan pneumatology, the study has built a convincing case for the importance of Acts 2:33 for understanding the pneumatology of Luke-Acts, and indeed its christology and ecclesiology. Given this theological focus, it is surprising that God (the Father) is only cursorily mentioned in the analysis, in view of God’s central role in both Jesus’s exaltation and the bestowal of the Spirit in the specific key verse, but also in the wider narrative. Despite the fact that it is over a quarter of a century since this work was published, it marked the beginning of M.’s distinguished...