In the introductory essay to a collection of studies on Luke-Acts published in 1966, W. C. van Unnik says that the twovolume work has become “one of the great storm centers of New Testament scholarship.” Old questions are being raised afresh and old answers face fresh review. Among the old questions is that of the sources used by Luke in the writing of Acts. However, the only study of recent vintage referred to by van Unnik is that by Jacques Dupont, The Sources of the Acts (1964). There are no essays in the Keck-Martyn volume itself which deal specifically with the question. Without disputing the importance of other questions (text, style, and especially theology), the sparse attention given of late to source-criticism of the speeches of Acts is not entirely felicitous. One essay does treat the speeches (Eduard Schweizer, “Concerning the Speeches in Acts,” 208-16), but only those in the first seventeen chapters and only in terms of their structural identity. Schweizer's opening remark is interesting: “Ever since Martin Dibelius' essay about this subject, it has been more and more widely recognized that the speeches are basically compositions by the author of Acts who, to be sure, utilized different kinds of materials for particular passages” (208). The question of the sources of the speeches is a difficult one, and any suggested answers are, at best, tenuous. It is however the premise of this essay that further work in the area is warranted, possible, and of contributory value to the rest of Lucan scholarship, a conclusion drawn from an analysis of two of Paul's speeches in Acts: his address to the mob of Jerusalemites (22:1-21) and his Abschiedsrede or parting address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus (20:18-35).
