Acts, he says, is intended to provide a basis for conciliation between the two, and Luke tries to bring peace by diverting animosity between the two factions, re-directing it in hatred toward the non-Christian Jews, and this is why Luke often shows non-Christian Jews in very negative ways. Harnack (1851-1930) says, while Luke accepted the divine rejection of the Jewish people, his own religious sentiments, a deep reverence for Torah, and his sense of fairness and absence of bias against the Jews, caused him to include favourable notes about them in his narrative. Haenchen and Conzelmann saw ambivalence as a primary feature of Luke-Acts. Luke, they say, was addressing a particular historical problem - understanding Christianity as a stage in continuity with Judaism and at the same time explaining why most Jews of his day did not respond to the Christian message. Luke had two images of Jews: one as the people of Moses and the prophets; the other as stiff-necked enemies of Christians. .
Jervell (1925-) was the first to give full recognition to Luke's positive images of Jews, reversing almost all the earlier judgments about Luke-Acts. He says it is the most Torah-observant Jews who repent and accept belief in Jesus, and that the only Gentile converts are God-fearers, with the inclusion of such Gentiles being a standard feature of Jewish expectation. Brawley sees only positive images of Judaism. Pharisees are treated with respect throughout the narrative and are used by Luke to legitimate Jesus and his followers. He sees the movement of early Christians toward Gentiles as an accommodation to Judaism, and that Luke ties Gentile Christianity to Judaism. Brawley seeks to demolish the conventional theory that Luke abandons the Jews as hopelessly hardened against the Gospel, and that he views them as a background for Christianity only as a part of a remote past. .
Luke does relate what appear to be escalating emotional outbursts by unbelieving Jews throughout Acts in reaction to encounters with Christian disciples.