Acts of the Apostles
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The Acts of the Apostles is a New Testament book about how all those ancient Christians managed without Jesus. Its authorship is traditionally ascribed to Luke the Physician, companion of Paul of Tarsus, and is accepted by scholars as having been written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke.
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[edit] Summary
Saint Peter preached in Jerusalem, and many credulous folk believed stories about resurrections and empty tombs, et cetera. Peter told a story about the death of Judas Iscariot, saying Judas bought a field and died in a fall. (Acts 1:18). This contradicts Matt 27:5 which claims he hanged himself.[1]
The second chapter tells of how The Holy Spirit came to the church: with the rush of a mighty wind and flames of fire settling on each believer. Actually it was probably a brush fire driven by a katabatic wind, but since they were all drunk with new wine, everyone ignored the danger and partied like it was 1999. Acts 2:38, a verse Peter spoke during this time, is the favorite verse in the entire Bible of churches practicing Jesus-only baptism, but they somehow failed to read just a few verses past that after the Apostles sobered up, we are told they held all things in common and practiced communism. Oops! Ananias and Sapphira held back some of their real estate earnings, making Peter unable to purchase more for himself and the rest of the Apostles, so Peter pwnd them. Luke never puts it too explicitly, but only tells that Ananias and Sapphira instantly died. Eventually they got tired of communism and started a faith healing crusade for a while.
The enemies of Christianity sometimes persecuted the Christians. Saint Stephen was stoned to death. Saul of Tarsus looked after the coats of those who stoned him. Later, about 31-33 CE (Due to ambiguities on which "Acts" visit to Jerusalem Galatians 2:1 is referring to, possibly, even as late as 38 CE), Saul of Tarsus had hallucinations on the road to Damascus. He became a Christian, and changed his name to Paul of Tarsus. Paul traveled as a missionary to many different countries and preached to many people of many different nationalities. Paul and his companions had many marvelous and supernatural adventures and Christians imagined he worked miracles. Paul converted many credulous people especially Gentiles, and wrote many letters to Christian groups he had visited in his travels, seven or eight of which later entered the New Testament under the overall title of the "Epistles of Paul".
In 43/44 CE, Peter fasted for a long time. A very, very, long time. Sometimes, very, very hungry people might dream, or even hallucinate about food. Peter had a “vision” (three times!) telling him that he could eat anything he liked -- including "unclean" food. Due to that, (and some sayings attributed to Jesus and written by Paul) Christians don’t feel bound by Kosher food laws. Gradually the early church became less orientated towards traditional Jews and became accepting of Helenistic Jews, later became accepting of Gentiles.
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