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Acts describes Gentiles who come to faith as those appointed to eternal life. Rabbinic tradition in tractate Berakhot uses the same Jewish idiom when a heavenly voice tells the dying Rabbi Akiva he is destined for the life of the world to come.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Acts 13:48
New Testament
47 For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have appointed you to be a light for the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” 48 When the Gentiles heard this, they began to rejoice and praise the word of the Lord, and all who had been appointed for eternal life believed. 49 So the word of the Lord was spreading through the entire region.
Berakhot 61b
Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic
The Gemara relates: When they took Rabbi Akiva out to be executed, it was time for the recitation of Shema. And they were raking his flesh with iron combs, and he was reciting Shema, thereby accepting upon himself the yoke of Heaven. His students said to him: Our teacher, even now, as you suffer, you recite Shema? He said to them: All my days I have been troubled by the verse: With all your soul, meaning: Even if God takes your soul. I said to myself: When will the opportunity be afforded me to fulfill this verse? Now that it has been afforded me, shall I not fulfill it? He prolonged his uttering of the word: One, until his soul left his body as he uttered his final word: One. A voice descended from heaven and said: Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, that your soul left your body as you uttered: One. The ministering angels said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: This is Torah and this its reward? As it is stated: “From death, by Your hand, O Lord, from death of the world” (Psalms 17:14); Your hand, God, kills and does not save. God said the end of the verse to the ministering angels: “Whose portion is in this life.” And then a Divine Voice emerged and said: Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, as you are destined for life in the World-to-Come, as your portion is already in eternal life.
Date: 450-550 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
… 13:48: As many as were appointed to eternal life. tetagmenoi eis zōēn aiōnion = mezummanim lechayyei cha’olam habba. Babylonian Talmud Berakot 61B: (When Rabbi Aqiba [died around 135] breathed his last,) a voice from heaven went out, saying, “Hail you, Rabbi Aqiba! For you are destined for the life of the world to come sh’th mzwmn lchyy h’wlm hb’.” Babylonian Talmud Moʽed Qaṭan 9A: Rabbi Parnakh (around 270) said that Rabbi Yohanan (died 279) said, “In that year (the consecration of the temple in 1 Kings 8), the Israelites did not celebrate the Day of Atonement, and they were afraid and said, ‘Perhaps those who hate Israel (euphemism for the godless Israelites) are subject to destruction!’ Then a voice from heaven went out and said to them, ‘You are all destined kwlkm mzwmnyn for the life of the world to come.’” Babylonian Talmud Ketubbot 103B: On the day Rabbi died, a voice from heaven went out, saying, “Whoever was present at the death of Rabbi (took part in the funeral service) is destined mzwmn for the life of the world to come.” …
Strack, Hermann L., and Paul Billerbeck
A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash, Volume 2: Mark through Acts
(p. 1385) Lexham Press, 2022
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