336 Stephan Witetschek In other words: Rich and precise local detail indicates only that a particular incident could have happened in the way it is narrated, it does not automatically prove that the event did happen in the way it is narrated; strictly spoken, local detail in itself does not even prove that the event happened at all. To be sure, this rule has not gone unchallenged, especially with regard to the genre of Acts as a non-fictional text: Luke wrote about real, historical persons and about events that had really happened, so the argument runs, and therefore his work cannot be compared to and measured by the standards of a 19th-century novel (8). However, the question of the genre and historical reliability of Acts cannot be reduced to the dichotomy “Fiction — Accurate report of facts”. Even if one does not consider Acts as an ancient novel (9) and if one grants that the subject of Acts are events in an identifiable past (which allows considering the book, at least in a broad sense, as a piece of historio- graphy), this does not automatically make Acts a straightforward and “objective” account of “what really happened”. If nothing else, at least Luke’s selectivity in the account of Paul’s travels (no collection, no trouble with the Corinthians) indicates that he has a very particular agenda; numerous other elements could be added, such as the idealised presentation of the Jerusalem community in Acts 1–5. It seems, then, that the ajsfavleia promised in Luke 1,4 is not identical with historiographic objectivity and accuracy in a positivistic sense. To cut short what is a fairly complex, but by all means worthwhile discussion: It seems most appropriate to understand Acts as a piece of what may be called intentional or even constructive historiography, historiography that is meant to recall the memory of foundations and thus to shape the audience’s identity in their own time, to construct an image of the past that is meaningful and helpful for the present. In other words: “Im Modus apologetischer Geschichtsschreibung zeichnet Lukas in der Apostelgeschichte das Gedächtnisbild des Urchristentums, genauer: ein bewegtes und bewegendes Gedächtnisgemälde von Herkunft und Anfang des Christentums. Er verankert die relationale Apostles (BGBE 17; Tübingen 1975), Erasmus 28 (1976) 65-68, 67-68. Karl May (1842-1912), a German novelist, is famous for his novels set in the American West and in the Middle East — and for never having travelled to the places he so vividly describes. (8) Cf. E.J. SCHNABEL, Urchristliche Mission (Wuppertal 2002) 26-27. (9) Novelistic elements are pointed out by R.I. PERVO, Profit with Delight. The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia, PA 1987).