| Sumario: | The meaning of the enigmatic verse of Acts 15:21, not to mention the issues around the preceding Apostolic Decree (vv. 19-20), has largely been researched individually and historical-critically. By contrast, in this study I explicate the meaning of the verse within the broader scope of James's speech by attending to the Jewish spatiality on Luke's narrative-ideological plane. The Lukan James's speech tightly combines intertextual elements that bear on significant Jewish spatiality, namely, the restored tent of David (v. 16) within the quotation of Amos 9:11-12, the alluded-to holy land (v. 20) drawn from Lev 17-18 as the background of the decree, and the Jewish synagogues in every city (v. 21) as the background of James's final invocation of Moses. From this perspective, I propose that v. 21 is part of the Lukan narrative-ideological portrait that reconfigures the holy land's purity concern via the eschatological presence of the restored Davidic tent, making it relevant to the larger Greco-Roman world in accordance with the continuing monotheistic cultic sanctity.
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