This collection of essays, emerging from a conference held at the University of Vienna in February 2009, concerns itself in broad terms with the contents and background of the so-called Apostolic Decree of Acts xv. Friedrich Avemarie examines the Jewish background to the decree, highlighting its origins in Leviticus xvii and xviii, but noting how it led to a different conception of the requirements of a proselyte from those found amongst Jews. Wilhelm Pratscher looks at the historical circumstances of the decree, arguing for their origin in the Antiochene dispute between Peter and Paul and for the plausibility of the participation of James, the brother of Jesus, in the formulation of what he takes to be the essential compromise of the decree. Hermut Löhr examines the prohibition on adultery in the decree and its Jewish background, and Loren Stuckenbruck explores the background of the reference in Acts xv.8 to the purification of the hearts of the Gentiles. Matthias Klinghardt investigates the role of the Apostolic decree in the context of the place of the Acts of the Apostles in the canon. Matti Myllykoski shows how the placement of the decree in Acts comports with Lucan interests and explores some of its pre-history as this is illuminated in the Didache where questions relating to the reception of the Gentiles into the Christian community play a role. Markus Lang looks at subsequent use or non-use of the decree in later Christian history. The rest of the essays in the volume are devoted to exploring the decree in the context of ancient associations of various kinds. Andreas Gatsfeld looks at the role of festal banquets in the life of associations, showing how these contributed to the integration of the association's members and the formation of a sense of community. Julietta Steinhauser looks at Egyptian cults in Greece, noting the diverse ways in which they behaved. Andreas Bendlin, in the longest essay of the volume, looks again at the famous early second-century inscription from Lanuvium (CIL 14.2112) with its rules and regulations relating to a local association. He seeks to contextualise its contents in the politics of of Lanuvium at the time of Hadrian, warning against a tendency in scholarship to generalise the inscription's contents. Three studies then follow in which explicit comparisons are made between forms of association in antiquity and the Apostolic Decree. Richard S. Ascough argues that Luke's presentation of the Apostolic Decree helps to project a view of the Christians as ‘good Romanized members of society whose association poses no threat to the Roman established order (unlike the Jews and indeed other associations)’. As he writes, though without citing a mass of evidence, ‘A closer look at the terms of the invitation reveals that rather than place Torah-like prohibitions on the Gentiles, the prescriptions present nothing more than many Romanised inhabitants of the Empire would expect to take place at a civilized banquet held by an association.’ Eva Ebel, in slight contrast to Ascough, argues that the Apostolic Decree can only be seen in a very broad sense as set of statutes similar to those found in an association. The editor, Markus Öhler, rounds off the volume with a discussion of the Apostolic Decree in the context of ethnically-oriented communities, like the Jews (or other ethnic groups living away from their lands of origin). He shows how in the Decree ethnically defined criteria in a specifically Christian way to stabilise the community from the inside and to preserve its outward profile.

This is an interesting collection of essays, which revisits an old subject in a different way from the norm. True, some of the essays cover old ground, but some of them, particularly those which compare the Apostolic Decree with the ethos and governance of associations do not. Whether we should look at associations as the primary background against which to view the so-called decree is not, in my opinion, demonstrated by any of the essays, as some of the authors, sometimes inadvertently, make clear. But proof is rarely available in this area of study, and there is much in these essays which is suggestive and upon which scholars can build.