| Abstract
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This dissertation approaches the Acts of the Apostles from the optic of postcolonial criticism. I argue that the Lukan community struggles to legitimate itself, in hybrid fashion, before two structures of powers or hegemonies: the Roman Empire and its system of imperial worship and the defining institutions of Judaism. I take Acts 12 as point of departure, with its twofold motif of self-exaltation and self-attribution of divine prerogatives. Regarding Rome, I read Acts 12 as a hidden transcript within the system of imperial worship, pointing to the fate of any power that would usurp divine prerogatives and claim allegiance to any Lord other than God. I also analyze the representation by mimicry of Roman worship in Acts, based on supremacy and hegemony and exercised by way of imperial decrees, the erection of temples, neokoroi , religious customs, and so forth. I further analyze the representation of Roman officers, whom, I argue, Luke portrays as full of fear, liars, seekers of bribes, and, more importantly, in need of salvation and peace. Regarding Judaism, I read the Lukan community in Acts as a Jewish Christian group within the development of a plurality of Judaisms and within the Jesus movement. They see themselves, I argue, as the legitimate heirs of the correct interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures. Further, they do not deny their ethnicity, but do proclaim the eschatological/apocalyptic end of the institutions that define Judaism (the kingship and the Sanhedrin as a temple establishment) as well as the restoration of the Kingdom of God, rather than of Israel, with a full acceptance and inclusion of the Gentiles.
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