Abstract
Paul’s mandate to discern the spirits (1 Thessalonians 5:20–21) provides a glimpse of a complex and ambiguous dimension of Israelite and early Christian literature. Toward the end of the story of Israel’s first king, for example, “the spirit of God came upon” Saul,1 and he prophesied, then spent the night naked and catatonic (1 Samuel 19:23–24). This story is the mirror image of Saul’s first experience of the spirit, which transformed him into another man (10:6–7).2 But there is a twist. By the second story, Saul has, on several occasions, succumbed to an evil spirit of God. It is not clear whether the spirit, which prompts him to prophesy this last time around, is a good or evil spirit. This ambiguity prompts one commentator, Ralph Klein, to suggest that “the spirit may have been the evil spirit from God previously referred to (cf. 16:14).”3
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Why I do not capitalize the word “spirit” will become clearer in the course of this essay, particularly in my effort to identify the human spirit (as it tends to be called) as a holy spirit. Capitalization draws too severe a wedge between the allegedly human and holy spirits. For further details, see Jack. Levison, Fresh Air: the Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life (Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2012), 15–17.
Ralph Klein, 1 Samuel (Word Biblical Commentary 10; Waco: Word, 1983), 198.
Joseph Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (Anchor Bible 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998), 652. Fitzmyer notes the association elsewhere of tithenai with the heart. In Acts 5:4, Peter asks Ananias, “Why did you resolve in your heart to do this?” See also Luke 21:14.
See “Demons, Devil, Satan,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. J. Green, S. McKnight, and I. H. Marshall (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1992), 170–71.
Shelton A, “Delphi and Jerusalem: Two Spirits or Holy Spirit? A Review of John R. Levison’s Filled with the Spirit,” Pneuma 33 (2011): 52. In my opinion, Shelton does not take seriously enough the fact that Luke does not call the pythonic spirit a demon.
Blaine Charette, “‘And Now for Something Completely Different’: A ‘Pythonic’ Reading of Pentecost?” Pneuma 33 (2011): 60–61.
Conrad Gempf, “Apollos and the Ephesian Disciples: Befores and Afters (Acts 18:24–19:7),” in The Spirit and Christ in the New Testament and Christian Theology, ed. I. Howard Marshall, Volker Rabens, and Cornelis Bennema (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 131.
Ernst Käsemann, “The Disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus,” in Essays on New Testament Themes, ed. Ernst Käsemann (London: SCM, 1964), 143.
M. M. B. (Max) Turner, Power from on High: the Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts (JPTS 9; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 388n124; Hee-Seong Kim, Die Geisttaufe des Messias (Berlin: Peter Lang, 1993), 217–18.
James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 88.
Clint Tibbs, Religious Experience of the Pneuma: Communication with the Spirit World in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 (WUNT 2.239; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 69–70.
See Archie Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits: the Reception of Genesis 6.1–4 in Early Jewish Literature (WUNT 2.198; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005).
Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 6–10; Godin Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 96, 99–101.
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2.76–77, 1.373;
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Avery Dulles, and Carl E. Braaten, Spirit, Faith, and Church (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 17.
Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, 23 vols. (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 19.142–43, 147; Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury, 1978), 139.
Amos Yong, Who Is the Spirit? A Walk with the Apostles (Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2011), 94.
Yong, Who Is the Spirit, 121; see also 91–94, 119–21, 181–84. See further, Yong, “‘Not Knowing Where the Wind Blows… ’: On Envisioning a Pentecostal-Charismatic Theology of Religions,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 14 (1999): 81–112; “A P(new)matological Paradigm for Christian Mission in a Religiously Plural World,” Missiology: An International Review 33 (2005): 175–91.
See. Frank Macchia, “The Spirit of Life and the Spirit of Immortality: An Appreciative Review of Levison’s Filled with the Spirit,” Pneuma 33 (2011): 72. Macchia argues that the church must identify the presence of the spirit outside the realm of Christianity. “The possibility that we have overlooked in the Old Testament a rich understanding of spiritual fullness that is not well represented in the New Testament should give us pause to think… After all, we don’t need to denigrate the Spirit that inspires us from below in order to highlight the same Spirit that comes to us from above or beyond!”
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2013 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, and Amos Yong
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Levison, J.R.(. (2013). A Stubborn Missionary, a Slave Girl, and a Scholar: The Ambiguity of Inspiration in the Book of Acts. In: Kärkkäinen, VM., Kim, K., Yong, A. (eds) Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137268990_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137268990_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44371-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-26899-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)