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The Gospel according to Luke from R. Brown: Introduction to the New Testament, Chapter 9. Basic Information
This is the longest of the four Gospels. Yet it is only half of the great Lucan writing, for it was originally joined to Acts as part of a two-volume work that in length constitutes over one quarter of the NT - a magnificent narrative that blends together the story of Jesus and that of the early church. Luke departs from Mark more than does Matthew and can be said to stand part way between Mark/Mt and John theologically. Indeed, although all the evangelists are theologians, the number of writings on the theology of Luke is astounding. In my treatment of each Gospel I have made the recounting of the narrative in the General Analysis the occasion for pointing out the characteristics and thought patterns of the evangelist. Rather than devoting a special subsection to Lucan theology, I shall weave observations pertinent to it into the Analysis; for perhaps more than in any other Gospel the story is intrinsic to the theology. Part of the theology is the way the Gospel story of Jesus prepares for what happens in Acts, especially to Peter, Stephen, and Paul. That preparation will be highlighted in the Analysis. Afterwards subdivisions will be devoted to these special issues: Sources and compositional features, Authorship, Locale or community involved, Purpose, Date of writing, Issues for reflection, and Bibliography. Basic Information Date: 85, give or take five to ten years. Author by Traditional (2d-century) Attribution: Luke, a physician, the fellow worker and travelling companion of Paul. Less well attested: a Syrian from Antioch. Author Detectable from Contents: An educated Greek-speaker and skilled writer who knew the Jewish Scriptures in Greek and who was not an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry. He drew on Mark and a collection of the sayings of the Lord (Q), as well as some other available traditions, oral or written. Probably not raised a Jew, but perhaps a convert to Judaism before he became a Christian. Not a Palestinian. Locale Involved: To churches affected directly or indirectly (through others) by Paul's mission. Serious proposals center on areas in Greece or Syria. Unity and Integrity: Western Greek mss. lack significant passages found in other mss. (Western Non-Interpolation: Issue 1 below). Division: 1:1-4 Prologue 1:5--2:52 Introduction: Infancy and Boyhood of Jesus 1. Annunciations of conceptions of JBap and Jesus (Lk 1:5-45; Lk 1:56) 2. The Magnificat and the other canticles (Lk 1:46-55) 3. Narratives of birth, circumcision, and naming of JBap and Jesus (Lk 1:57-2:40) 4. The boy Jesus in the Temple (Lk 2:41-52) Lk 3:1--4:13 Preparation for the Public Ministry Preaching of JBap, baptism of Jesus, his genealogy, the temptations Lk 4:14--9:50 Ministry in Galilee 1. Rejection at Nazareth; activities at Capernaum and on the Lake (Lk 4:14-5:16) 2. Reactions to Jesus: Controversies with the Pharisees; choice of the Twelve and preaching to the multitude on the plain (Lk 5:17-6:49) 3. Miracles and parables that illustrate Jesus' power and help to reveal his identity; mission of the Twelve (Lk 7:1-9:6) 4. Questions of Jesus' identity: Herod, feeding of the 5,000, Peter's confession, first and second passion prediction, transfiguration (Lk 9:7-50) 9:51--19:27 Journey to Jerusalem 1. First to second mention of Jerusalem (Lk 9:51-13:21) 2. Second to third mention of Jerusalem (Lk 13:22-17:10) 3. Last stage of journey till arrival in Jerusalem (Lk 17:11-19:27) 19:28--21:38 Ministry in Jerusalem 1. Entry into Jerusalem and activities in the Temple area (Lk 19:28-21:4) 2. Eschatological discourse (Lk 21:5-38) 22:1-23:56 Last Supper, Passion, Death, and Burial 1. Conspiracy against Jesus, Last Supper (Lk 22:1-38) 2. Prayer and arrest on the Mount of Olives, Jewish and Roman trial (22:39-23:25) 3. Way of the cross, crucifixion, burial (Lk 23:26-56) 24:1-53 Resurrection Appearances in the Jerusalem Area 1. At the empty tomb (Lk 24:1-12) 2. Appearance on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35) 3. Appearance in Jerusalem and ascension to heaven (Lk 24:36-53). * Although one may divide the body of the Lucan Gospel geographically in terms of Galilee and the road to Jerusalem, further subdivision is difficult and inevitably arbitrary, since one episode runs into another. Convenience of treatment has played a large role in the subdivisions given above. General Analysis of the Message Among the four evangelists only Luke and John write a few verses explaining reflectively what they think they are about: John at the end (Lk 20:30-31), Luke at the beginning. Prologue (Lk 1:1-4) This is one long sentence in a style more formal than that found elsewhere in the Gospel, written to guide the reader. Commentators have pointed to parallels in the classical prefaces of Greek historians (Herodotus, Thucydides) and of the Hellenistic medical and scientific treatises or manuals. There have been many writers, and now the evangelist too will write. The source for all this writing is a previous generation: "the original eyewitnesses and ministers of the word." Some, especially those who make a historicizing claim that the eyewitnesses included Mary for the infancy narratives, interpret Luke as referring to two groups: eyewitnesses and ministers. Most, however, favor two descriptions for the one group: Those who were eyewitnesses of his ministry and became ministers of the word, viz., the disciples/apostles. Again with a historicizing interest, some would understand "after following everything accurately... to write for you in order" in v. 3 to mean that the evangelist was a follower of the apostles who wrote literal history. Probably the author means no more than that he traced things with care and reordered them logically. The theological goal is spelled out to "most excellent Theo-philus," namely, assurance concerning the Christian instruction that had been given him. The "assurance" is about the saving value of what is narrated, not primarily about its historicity or objective reporting - even though that reporting has its roots in traditions stemming from the original eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. Luke-Acts is a narrative (1:1: diegesis) written by a believer to encourage belief. Lucan theology is dramatized in history and geography. Drawing on the inspiration of Conzelmann (Theology), commentators have traced with many {228} variations three stages of Lucan salvation history. One workable proposal offers this analysis: Israel (= a story recounted in the Law and the Prophets or OT; see Lk 16:1607), Jesus (= a story recounted in the Gospel, beginning in Lk 3:1), the Church (= a story recounted in Acts, beginning in Ac 2:1, and continuing beyond to the ends of the earth until the Son of Man comes). Jesus is the centerpiece binding together Israel and the Church; and his time may be calculated from the baptism to the ascension (Ac 1:22). Transitional from the OT to Jesus and from Jesus to the Church respectively are two bridges constructed by the evangelist. In Lk 1-2 OT characters representing Israel (Zechariah, Elizabeth, the shepherds, Simeon, Anna) come across the bridge to meet Gospel characters (Mary, Jesus); in Ac 1 the Jesus of the Gospel comes across the bridge to instruct the Twelve and prepare them for the coming Spirit, who will establish the Church through their preaching and miracles. Thus there is continuity from the beginning of God's plan to the end. With that plan in mind, let us turn to the first bridge. Introduction: Infancy and Boyhood of Jesus (1:5-2:52) Seven episodes are recognizable: two annunciations of conception (JBap, Jesus), the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, two birth narratives, presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the boy Jesus in the Temple at age twelve. There are minor differences among scholars about the arrangement and subordination of the episodes, but a careful parallelism in the first six is generally recognized. The accompanying Table 3 is virtually a commentary on the very popular proposal that Luke intended two diptychs. The universal Gospel tradition that JBap appeared on the scene before Jesus has been applied to conception and birth, and they now are presented as relatives. Yet no doubt is left that Jesus is greater. 1. Annunciations of Conceptions of JBap and Jesus (1:5-45, 56). We {229} saw that Mt started his infancy narrative with an echo of the Book of Genesis, Abraham begetting Isaac. Luke draws on the same first biblical book, not by naming Abraham and Sarah but by recalling them in the portrayal of Zechariah and Elizabeth09 - a technique similar to a photograph that has undergone double exposure so that one set of figures is seen through another. The angel Gabriel who makes the announcement is named in the OT only in the Book of Daniel, which stood toward the end of the canon of Jewish Scriptures (among the Writings - thus in his own way Luke is covering the span of the Scriptures). In Daniel, as in Luke, Gabriel comes at the time of liturgical prayer; and the visionary is struck mute (Dn 9:21; Dn 10:8-12,15). More important, Gabriel interprets the seventy weeks of years, a panoramic description of God's final plan in the last part of which "everlasting justice will be introduced, vision and prophecy will be ratified, and a Holy of Holies will be anointed" (Dn 9:24). This time period is now beginning with the conception of JBap, who will play the role of Elijah (Lk 1:17), the one who according to the last prophetic book (Mai 3:23-24 (or 4:5-6)) will be sent before the coming Day of the Lord. If the annunciation of JBap's conception is evocative of what has gone before in Israel, the annunciation of Jesus' birth catches to a greater degree the newness that God has begun to bring about. Not to aged parents desperate for a child but to a virgin who is totally surprised by the idea of conception does the angel Gabriel now come. And the conception will not be by human generation but by the creative Spirit of God overshadowing her, the Spirit that brought the world into being (Gn 1:2; Ps 104:3 0). The child to be born is the subject of a twofold angelic proclamation. First, the expectations of Israel will be fulfilled; for the child will be the Davidic Messiah. Gabriel proclaims this in Lk 1:32-33 by echoing the prophetic promise to David that was the foundation of that expectation (2 Sm 7:9,13,14,16). Second, the child will go far beyond those expectations; for he will be the unique Son of God in power through the Holy Spirit. Gabriel proclaims this in Lk 1:35 by anticipating the christological language of the Christian kerygma (Rm 1:3-4). Mary's response, "Be it done unto me according to your word" (Lk 1:38), meets the Gospel criterion for belonging to the family of discipleship (8:21). Thus proleptically the angel heralds the gospel of the twofold identity of Jesus, son of David and Son of God, and Mary becomes the first disciple. Although some would classify the visitation (Lk 1:39-45) as a separate scene bringing together the dramatis personae of the two annunciations, it can be seen as an epilogue to the annunciation to Mary; for she is fulfilling with haste the first duty of discipleship by sharing the Gospel with others. JBap within his mother's womb begins his role of alerting people to the coining Messiah (see 3:15-16), and Elizabeth's reaction of blessing Mary as the mother whose womb gives birth to the Messiah and then as one who has believed the Lord's word anticipates Jesus' priorities in Lk 11:27-28. 2. The Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55) and Other Canticles. I have referred to "the First Stage of Lucan Composition" in order to allow for the common thesis that at a second stage (not necessarily in time) Luke added to his basic outline canticles taken from a collection of early hymns in Greek: the Magnificat, the Benedictus (1:67-78), the Gloria in excelsis (2:13-14), and the Nunc dimittis (2:28-32). All these could easily be removed from their present context and indeed, except for an occasional verse or phrase that may have been inserted (e.g., 1:48,76), are not specific in their references to the action being described in the context. The canticles reflect the style of contemporary Jewish hymnology as seen in 1Mc (preserved in Greek) and the Qumran Thanksgiving Psalms (Hodayot, in Hebrew), for every line echoes the OT so that the whole is a mosaic of scriptural themes reused for a new expression of praise. Thus the canticles complement the promise/fulfillment motif of the infancy narratives. (Beyond that, the Magnificat is clearly patterned on the hymn of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, in 1Sm 2:1-10.) The christology is indirect, proclaiming that God has done something decisive but never spelling this out in reference to Jesus' career14 - whence the suggestion that these may stem from very early Christians. In a sense, Luke remains faithful to the origin of the canticles by putting them on the lips of the first to hear about Jesus. The Magnificat spoken by Mary, the first disciple, is especially meaningful because having heard that her child would be the son of David and the Son of God, she translates this into good news for the lowly and the hungry and woe for {233} the powerful and the rich. In Luke her son does the same. The heavenly voice says, "You are my beloved Son" (3:22); and Jesus translates that into beatitudes for those who are poor, hungry, and mournful, and woes to those who are rich, contented, and mirthful (6:20-26). Accordingly the Magnificat has had prominence in liberation theology (BBM 650-52). 3. Narratives of Birth, Circumcision, and Naming of JBap and Jesus (1:57-2:40). In this diptych the similarities between the two sides are not so close as in the annunciation diptych because the greater dignity of Jesus gets such extensive attention. The events surrounding JBap echo the annunciation scene: Elizabeth unexpectedly gives the name John to the child, and Zechariah recovers his speech. The Benedictus extols the fulfillment of all that has been promised to Israel. The description of JBap's growing up and becoming strong in spirit (1:80) echoes the growth of Samson (Jg 13:24-25) and of Samuel (1 Sm 2:21). The setting for the birth of Jesus is supplied by the decree of Caesar Augustus for a census of the whole world, the first enrollment when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Historically this description is fraught with problems: There never was a census of the whole Empire under Augustus (but a number of local censuses), and the census of Judea (not of Galilee) under Quirinius, the governor of Syria, took place in ad 6-7, probably at least ten years too late for the birth of Jesus. The best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately. Theologically, by associating Jesus' birth with the decree of Augustus, Luke is introducing a divine plan that will culminate when Paul proclaims the Gospel in Rome (Ac 28). The events Luke will describe actually took place in a small town in Palestine, but by calling Bethlehem the city of David and setting them in a Roman census Luke symbolizes the importance of those events for the royal heritage of Israel and ultimately for the world Empire. The announcement of the angels, "To you this day there is born in the city of David a Savior who is Messiah and Lord" (2:11), is imitative of an imperial proclamation. If Augustus is portrayed in inscriptions as a great savior and benefactor, Luke is portraying Jesus as an even greater one. This is an event on the cosmic stage, as the angelic multitude underlines by affirming glory to God in heaven and peace {234} on earth (see Issue 2 below). The shepherds with whom the revelation about Jesus is shared and who react by praise are Luke's counterparts to Matthew's magi. Eventually both shepherds and magi depart from the scene and never reappear, and so both Luke and Mt avoid contradicting the wider tradition that public christological recognition of Jesus did not exist at the time of his baptism. Mary is the only adult who survives from the infancy narrative into the public ministry of Jesus. Lk 2:19,51 use formulas about pondering, taken from Jewish visionary descriptions (Gn 37:11; Dn 4:28 LXX), to indicate that Mary did not yet fully understand the implications of what had occurred. That preserves her status as a disciple even after all the revelation that has been given; she still has to learn about the identity of her Son as revealed through the suffering of the ministry and the cross. Accordingly, she is told in Lk 2:35, "A sword will pierce through your own soul." As with the visitation, so also with the presentation of Jesus in the Temple (2:22-40), classification as a separate scene is possible; but there is a parallelism between 1:80 and 2:39-40 and thus a basis for keeping the scene within the diptych pattern (see Table 3). We should note that there are two important matching themes: how Jesus' parents were faithful to the Law,18 and how Simeon and Anna, representative of devout Jews waiting for the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel, accepted Jesus. This is part of Luke's thesis that neither Jesus nor his proclamation was contradictory to Judaism; e.g., at the beginning of Acts he will show thousands of Jews readily accepting the apostolic preaching. Nevertheless, the light that is to be a revelation for the Gentiles and a glory for Israel is set for the fall as well as the rise of many in Israel (Lk 2:32,34). 4. The Boy Jesus in the Temple (Lk 2:41-52). From the viewpoint of sources, this seems to have come to Luke independently of the other infancy material; in Lk Lk 2:48-50 there is no indication of previous revelation about the identity of Jesus as God's Son or of his extraordinary conception. There was a genre of Jesus' boyhood or "hidden life" stories, best attested in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which recounts "the mighty childhood deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ" between ages five to twelve. The implicit rationale is a response to a question that must have arisen: If during the public ministry Jesus worked miracles and could speak for God, when did he acquire such {235} powers? At his baptism? The boyhood stories are designed to show that he had these powers from an early age (see BINTC 126-29). No matter what the origin of the story of Jesus at age twelve, by placing it between the infancy and public ministry accounts, Luke has constructed a most persuasive christological sequence. In the annunciation an angel proclaims that Jesus is God's Son (Lk 1:35); at age twelve Jesus, when speaking for the first time, makes clear that God is his Father (Lk 2:49); at age thirty at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry God's own voice from heaven says, "You are my beloved Son" (Lk 3:22-23). Once again, however, since historically such self-revelation at an early age could conflict with later local ignorance at Nazareth about his unique identity (Lk 4:16-30), we are assured that Jesus was obedient to his parents when he went back to Nazareth (2:51), presumably by not provoking any more revealing incidents like that in the Temple. Preparation for the Public Ministry: Preaching of JBap, Baptism of Jesus, His Genealogy, Temptations (3:1--4:13) We see Luke's feel for history and his theology of world import in the subpreface (3:1-2) that he uses to mark off the beginning of the era of Jesus and the Gospel proper. There is a sixfold synchronism dating it (probably ca. ad 29) by imperial, gubernatorial, and high priestly reigns. JBap's preaching ministry (3:1-20), which inaugurates the Jesus era (Ac 1:22), fulfills Gabriel's prediction to Zechariah in Lk 1:15-16. Luke combines material from Mark, from Q (Lk 3:7-9),20 and material of his own (Lk 3:10-15). By the expression "the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah" (Lk 3:2) Luke assimilates JBap's call to that of an OT prophet (Is 38:4; Jr 1:2; etc.). The Isaian prophecy that is connected to JBap in all four Gospels is extended (Is 40:3-5) to include "all flesh shall see the salvation of God" as part of Luke's theological concern for the Gentiles. The vituperation that Mt 3:7 directs to the Pharisees and Sadducees, Lk 3:7 directs to the multitudes - a reflection of the Lucan tendency to remove some of the local Palestinian color and generalize the message. Particularly Lucan is JBap's teaching in Lk 3:10-14 with its emphasis on sharing goods, justice for the poor, and kind sensitivity. All this is similar to what the Lucan Jesus will emphasize, a Simian this Analysis I give more lengthy treatment to the material peculiar to Luke (such as the infancy narrative); in treating material that Luke shares with Mark (triple tradition) and with Mt (Q material), I shall avoid repetition of information conveyed in the last two Chapters. One might also preview Luke's typical changes of Mark described in the subsection Sources below. {236} This is the similarity that explains Lk 3:18, where JBap is said already to be preaching the gospel. Amid the Synoptics only Luke (Lk 3:15) raises the issue of whether JBap was the Messiah,21 a question used to introduce JBap's preaching about the one to come (Lk 3:16-18). Then exhibiting his love for order (Lk 1:3), Luke in Lk 3:19-20 anticipates the reaction of Herod to JBap from Mk 6:17-18 in order to finish the story of JBap's ministry before beginning the story of Jesus' ministry. Thus Luke avoids any subordination of Jesus to JBap, who is not even mentioned in the following baptismal scene. The Lucan story of the baptism of Jesus (3:21-22) indicates that Jesus is praying (a Lucan theme that will also end the ministry: Lk 22:4622) and in response the Holy Spirit descends in bodily form (Lucan imagery to stress reality; see Lk 24:39-43). This same Holy Spirit who comes on Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel will come on the Twelve at Pentecost at the beginning of Acts (2:1-4). Luke stops here to recount Jesus' genealogy (Lk 3:23-38). While Matthew's genealogy descended from Abraham to Jesus, Luke's genealogy mounts to Adam (to prepare the way for all humanity, beyond the physical descent of Israel) and even to God (Lk 3:38). The localization of the genealogy before Jesus begins his ministry imitates Ex 6:14-26, where Moses' genealogy is given after his prehistory and before he begins his ministry of leading the Israelites from Egypt. The testing/temptations of Jesus (Lk 4:1-13) are introduced by the indication that Jesus was "full of the Spirit," a Lucan emphasis to prepare for the prominent role of the Spirit in Acts (e.g., Lk 6:5; Lk 7:55). Derived from Q, the Lucan temptations, like the Matthean, correct a false understanding of Jesus' mission. Particularly noteworthy is that, unlike Mark and Matthew, Luke has no angels come to minister to Jesus and specifies that the devil left him till an opportune time. At the beginning {237} of the passion, Luke alone among the Synoptics will be specific about the presence of Satan, the power of darkness (Lk 22:3,31,53); and on the Mount of Olives when Jesus is tested again, an angel will come to strengthen him (Lk 22:43-44). Ministry in Galilee (4:14--9:50) With his sense of theological geography, Luke calls attention to Jesus' return to Galilee (Lk 4:14) and to his departure from there toward Jerusalem (Lk 9:51). In between Luke places most of the public ministry account that he takes over from Mark, on which he imposes his own order. 1. Rejection at Nazareth; Activities at Capernaum and on the Lake (Lk 4:14-5:16). To explain why Jesus of Nazareth spent most of his ministry in Capernaum, Luke begins the story with the rejection of Jesus at Nazareth (Lk 4:14-30), which takes place considerably later in Mk 6:1-6 and Mt 13:54-58. Also, the Nazareth scene is much expanded beyond Mark's "on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue," for Luke supplies that teaching as Jesus comments on the scroll of the prophet Isaiah (the sole Gospel evidence that Jesus could read). The passage (Is 61:1-2), which reflects the Jubilee-year amnesty for the oppressed,26 is used to portray Jesus as an anointed prophet and is programmatic of what Jesus' ministry will bring about. (Presumably it would have appealed strongly to those of Luke's addressees among the lower classes.) The rejection of Jesus the prophet by those in his own native place echoes Mark; but there is no Lucan suggestion that those rejecting him included his own household or his relatives (cf. Mk 6:4). Jesus' turning to outsiders is justified by prophetic parallels. The fury of the people against Jesus, even to the point of trying to kill him, goes far beyond the Marcan account and serves from the very beginning to prepare readers for his ultimate fate. Luke recounts four activities connected with Capernaum (Lk 4:31-44), which now becomes the operational center of Jesus' Galilean ministry. The first of twenty-one Lucan miracles (deeds of power: Chapter 7 above, n. 16) is an exorcism - even though the devil has departed until a more opportune time, Jesus will struggle with many demons. The healing of Simon's mother-in-law (Lk 4:38-39) omits the presence of the four fishermen-disciples from {238} Mark's account because in Luke, Jesus has not yet called them. In a summary of Jesus' deeds at Capernaum (Lk 4:40-41) Luke avoids the exaggeration in Mk 1:33 that the whole city gathered around the door - perhaps an illustration of Luke's sense of better order. What happens when Jesus goes to a deserted place (Lk 4:42-44) exhibits typical Lucan universalizing, since the people rather than Simon and his companions come to seek out Jesus. Compared to Mk 1:39, which has Jesus going through the synagogues of all Galilee, Lk 4:44 localizes the synagogues in Judea. That may illustrate the vagueness of Luke's ideas of Palestinian geography, since in the next verse (Lk 5:1) Jesus is still in Galilee, at the Lake. Or does Luke's Judea simply mean "the country of the Jews"? The miraculous catch offish and the call of the disciples (Lk 5:1-11) illustrates ingenious Lucan (re)ordering. The call of the first disciples that Mark had placed before the four Capernaum episodes has been moved after them and indeed after a fishing miracle that only Luke among the Synoptics records. That Jesus has healed Simon's mother-in-law and effected a tremendous catch of fish27 makes more intelligible why Simon and the others followed Jesus so readily as disciples. The call of a Simon who confesses himself an unworthy sinner is a dramatic presentation of vocation and prepares the way for a calling of Paul who was also unworthy because he had persecuted Christians (Ac 9:1-2; Ga 1:13-15). The theme of leaving "everything" to follow Jesus (Lk 5:11) illustrates Luke's stress on detachment from possessions. Next, Luke narrates the healing of a leper (Lk 5:12-16). 2. Reactions to Jesus: Controversies with the Pharisees; Choice of the Twelve and Preaching to the Multitude on the Plain (Lk 5:17-6:49). Drawing on Mk 2:1-3:6, Luke presents a series of five controversies (Lk 5:17-6:11) in all of which Pharisees28 play a role. The controversies involve a paralytic, the call of Levi, fasting, picking grain and healing on the Sabbath. In them Pharisees criticize many aspects of Jesus' behavior: his claim to be able to forgive sins, his associates, his failure to have his disciples fast, their picking grain and his own healing on the Sabbath. Notice the Lucan emphasis on Jesus' prayer (Lk 5:16). The healing of the paralytic becomes more solemn as Luke broadens the audience to Pharisees and teachers of the Law from every village of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem, and we are told the power of the Lord was with him to heal (Lk 5:17). To make the setting more intelligible to {239} his Hellenistic audience (in Greece?), Lk 5:19 describes a roof of tiles rather than the matted reed and dried mud roof of Palestine through which one would have to dig (Mk 2:4). In the call of Levi, out of Lucan respect for Jesus, the ire of the Pharisees and their scribes is now directed against the behavior of his disciples (Lk 5:30) rather than against Jesus (as in Mk 2:16). In the question about fasting and the response about the new and the old, Lk 5:39 is unique in stressing the superiority of the old. Is this Luke's gesture of respect for those of Jewish descent among his addressees who have had a difficult time leaving behind their former adherence? These controversies lead Jesus' enemies to plot against him (Lk 6:11). The Herodians of Mk 3:6, however, drop out of the picture as meaningless to Luke's audience (also cf. Lk 20:20 to Mk 12:13). Luke turns to the favorable side of the reaction to Jesus by recounting the choice of the Twelve, and the healing and preaching to the multitude on the plain (Lk 6:12-49) - a parallel to Matthew's Sermon on the Mount which was directed to the Twelve (Mt 5:1-2). In his sense of order Luke has transposed the two scenes of Mk 3:7-12 and Mk 3:13-19, the healing of the multitude and the calling of the Twelve,30 so that the Twelve are with Jesus when he heals "all" among a great multitude on a plain (Lk 6:17-19). That means that the Lucan Sermon on a Plain which begins in Lk 6:20 is directed to all disciples, not only to the Twelve. Four Lucan beatitudes open the sermon, echoing the program for the ministry read aloud in the Nazareth synagogue. These beatitudes address those who are actually poor, hungry, mournful, and hated "now." The accompanying "woes," perhaps of Lucan creation and resembling the contrasts in the Magnificat, hint at the antagonisms engendered among the addressees by the affluent. The comparable condemnation in Jm 2:5-7; Jm 5:1-6 might suggest that the reason for the violent dislike was the practice of injustice by the rich. Yet, as we shall in later chaps., at times but not consistently, Luke seems to regard the very possession of wealth (unless distributed to the poor) as corrupting one's relationship to God. Luke's ideal is the Jerusalem community of those believers who give their possessions to the common fund as he describes in Ac 2:44-45; Ac 4:32-37. Without the "You have heard it said... but I say to you" that characterizes Mt 5:17-48, Lk 6:27-36 enunciates Jesus' values. Although sometimes these are called "the ethics of the kingdom," that designation is far more appropriate for Matthew, where "kingdom" occurs eight times in the course of {240} the Sermon on the Mount, than for Luke, who mentions "kingdom" only once in the whole sermon (Lk 6:20). Thus there is less eschatological tone to the startling demands of the Lucan Jesus for his disciples to love those who hate and abuse them. The passage on not judging (Lk 6:37-42, expanded over Mt 7:1-5) is an extension of love. We are reminded that the demands are addressed to all who would hear (Lk 6:27,47), and that the demands are not met by those who do not bear good fruit and simply say "Lord, Lord" (Lk 6:43-49). 3. Miracles and Parables that Illustrate Jesus' Power and Help to Reveal His Identity; Mission of the Twelve (Lk 7:1-9:6). The Lucan form of the healing of the centurion's servant in Lk 7:1-10 (a Q miracle), where two deputations are sent to Jesus rather than having the official come himself, and where a servant (doulos) is cured rather than a boy/son (cf. Mt 8:5-13; Jn 4:46-54), may be secondary. The story contrasts a Gentile's faith-response to Jesus with the Jewish authorities' rejection of him. This is a Gentile who has loved the Jewish nation and built the synagogue and thus foreshadows Cornelius, the first Gentile to be converted in Acts (Lk 10:1-2). The next miracle, the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Lk 7:11-17), is uniquely Lucan. This awesome manifestation of power gains Jesus christo-logical recognition (Lk 7:16 echoes the prophet and divine visitation motif of Lk 1:76-78), but also shows his compassionate care for a mother deprived of her only son. (For resuscitations, see Chapter 11 below, n. 41.) Returning to Q material (= Mt 11:2-19), Luke gives us a scene dealing with JBap (Lk 7:18-35) that clarifies his relationship to Jesus. The response of the Lucan Jesus to JBap's disciples in terms of Isaiah is consistent with his having read from Isaiah proleptically at Nazareth. Luke alone (Lk 7:29-30) mentions that Jesus' praise of JBap suited all the people and the tax-collectors, who were baptized by JBap and recognized his role in the plan of God (Lk 3:10-13), but not the Pharisees and the lawyers, who were unbap-tized and rejected that plan. That reaction helps to explain the Q comparison to petulant children who cannot be pleased (Lk 7:31-34). The Lucan form of the final verse (Lk 7:35) has wisdom justified by "all her children," i.e., JBap and Jesus and those who are their disciples. Perhaps as a continuation of the objection to the Son of Man who has come eating and drinking (Lk 7:34), Luke adeptly narrates, in the context of eating at the table of Simon the Pharisee, a beautiful story involving a penitent sinful woman who weeps over and {241} anoints Jesus' feet (7:36-50). It may be composite since it involves a parable comparing two debtors. Is the Lucan story the same as that of the anointing of Jesus' head by a woman at the house of Simon the leper in Mk 14:3-9 and Mt 26:6-13, and that of the anointing of Jesus' feet by Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, in Jn 12:1-8?33 There is also a debate as to whether Luke's sinful woman was forgiven because she loved much or whether she loved much because she had already been forgiven. Either meaning or both would fit Luke's stress on God's forgiveness in Christ and a loving response. After the story of this woman, the last part of Luke's "Little Interpolation" into the Marcan outline describes the Galilean women followers of Jesus (8:1-3), who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Three of them are named: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna; the first two will reappear at the empty tomb (24:10). Interestingly the other Gospels name Galilean women exclusively in relation to the crucifixion and resurrection, so that only Luke tells us of their past and that they served (diakonein) the needs of Jesus and the Twelve out of their means - a picture of devoted women disciples. In part this support anticipates the picture of women in Acts, e.g., Lydia at Philippi (Ac 16:15). Rejoining the Marcan outline at its parable chapter (Mk 4:1-20), Luke next recounts the parable of the sower and the seed and its explanation, interrupted by the purpose of the parables (Lk 8:4-15). Particularly interesting is the simplification of the seed that fell into good soil. Only a hundredfold yield is mentioned (not thirty or sixty), and this seed is interpreted as those who hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience (Lk 8:15). The brief array of parabolic sayings centered on the lamp (Lk 8:16-18) also ends on the theme of hearing and heeding and leads into the arrival of Jesus' mother and brothers (Lk 8:19-21). Although drawn from Mk 3:31-35, the import is entirely changed. There is no longer an {242} unfavorable contrast between the natural family and a family of disciples; rather there is only praise of the mother and brothers as hearing the word of God and doing it - they exemplify the good seed and fit the criterion of discipleship. Luke now gives a sequence of four miracle-stories (Lk 8:22-56): calming the storm at sea, healing the Gerasene demoniac,35 resuscitating Jairus' daughter, and healing the woman with a hemorrhage. The miracles in this chapter are elaborate, as can be seen by comparing the exorcism in Lk 8:26-39 to that in Lk 4:33-37; and the grandeur of Jesus is fully displayed as he exercises power over the sea, demons, long-lasting illness, and death itself. Next36 Luke continues with the sending out of the Twelve (Lk 9:1-6). Having manifested his power, Jesus now shares it with the Twelve by giving them authority over demons37 and sending them to preach the kingdom/gospel and to heal (Lk 9:2,6). 4. Questions of Jesus' Identity: Herod, Feeding of the 5000, Peter's Confession, First and Second Passion Prediction, Transfiguration (Lk 9:7-50). While the Twelve are away, we are told of Herod's having beheaded JBap (Lk 9:7-9). Luke omits the whole Marcan account of Herod's banquet and the dance of Herodias' daughter, reflecting perhaps a distaste for the sensational. The important point for Luke is the "tetrarch's" (Lk 3:1) curiosity about Jesus (preparing for Lk 13:31 and Lk 23:8). The theme of Jesus' identity is followed out in the subsequent scenes. They begin with the return of the Twelve Apostles and the feeding of the 5,000 (9:10-17), an adapted form of Mk 6:30-44. Luke then skips over Mk 6:45-8:26 (the "Big Omission"), leaving out everything from after the feeding of the 5,000 to after the feeding of the 4,000. Presumably the Lucan evangelist saw these as doublets and decided to report only one; but the differences from the Marcan account of the 5,000 and the presence of another variant in Jn 6:1-15 may mean that he combined two accounts in the one multiplication of the loaves he reports. (On the eucharistic possibilities, see pp. 136, 345.) {243} Rejoining Mark's outline at Mk 8:27, Luke has next the threefold proposal about who Jesus is and Peter's confession (Lk 9:18-20), introduced by the typical Lucan note that Jesus was praying. In the sequence Peter's "the Christ of God" is Luke's way of answering Herod's "Who is this?" ten verses earlier. This confession is greeted by Jesus' first passion prediction (Lk 9:21-22), but there is in Luke (unlike Mark/Mt) no misunderstanding by Peter and no chastisement of him. Rather Jesus continues by teaching about the cross and judgment (Lk 9:23-27). If the Son of Man must suffer, so also must his followers if they hope to share in his glory. Interesting Lucan features in this series of loosely attached sayings about disciple-ship include the demand that the cross must be taken up "daily" and the specification that the Son of Man has his own glory alongside that of the Father (Lk 9:26). The transfiguration (Lk 9:28-36), set in the context of Jesus praying, describes that glory as present already in Jesus' earthly career (Lk 9:32). Yet it also affirms the suffering aspect of the Son of Man, for Jesus talks to Moses and Elijah about his "exodus," i.e., his departure to God through death in Jerusalem. Both glory and suffering are affirmed by God's voice that identifies him as Son and Chosen One (Suffering Servant). The story of the boy with a demon (Lk 9:37-43a) is not so explicit about epilepsy as is Mt 17:15 and abridges the graphic Marcan account even more than does Matthew In particular, Luke suppresses most of the Marcan emphasis on the incapacity of the disciples to heal this child, being more interested in the miracle as manifesting "the majesty of God." Similarly in the second prediction of the passion and the dispute about greatness (Lk 9:43b-50) Luke again softens the Marcan picture by explaining that the disciples did not understand because Jesus' saying was concealed from them and by moderating the confrontation over which of them was the greatest. Not only is the least among them the greatest, but even an outsider who uses Jesus' name has a place. Journey to Jerusalem (9:51-19:27) At this point Luke writes another subpreface (somewhat comparable to Lk 3:1-2) to mark off major change. The time is coming for Jesus to be taken {244} up (to heaven), and so he sets his face for Jerusalem where he is to die. Luke is portraying a Jesus who knows his destiny and accepts it from God. The long journey41 is (an artificial) framework for the "Big Interpolation" (Lk 9:51-18:14), as Luke leaves the Marcan outline for almost all this second half of the Gospel and inserts large blocks from Q and from his own sources (L). This section of the Gospel is most characteristically Lucan. The material may be divided into three subsections according to the points in Lk 13:22 and Lk 17:11 where Luke reminds us of the framework of the journey. 1. First to Second Mention of Jerusalem (Lk 9:51--13:21). We have seen some parallels between the Gospels of Luke and John, but now we perceive that they are also far apart. Among the Gospels only Luke has the hostile encounter with a Samaritan village (Lk 9:51-56), which is diametrically the opposite of the warm reception given Jesus by the Samaritans in Jn 4:39-42. Very Lucan is Jesus' refusal of the vengeance upon the Samaritans proposed by James and John. The dialogue with three would-be followers (Lk 9:57-62) highlights the absolute demand imposed by the kingdom. We saw a sending of the Twelve in Mk 6:7-13, Mt 10:5-42 (woven into the Mission Discourse), and Lk 9:1-10. Only Luke has a second mission, the sending of the seventy-two (Lk 10:1-12). Actually he seems to have created it out of the same Q material used for the sending of the Twelve. The doubling may be designed to prepare for Acts where the Twelve function prominently at the beginning of the mission, but then the initiative passes to others, like Paul, Barnabas, and Silas. The need for a second sending in the Gospel (10:2) is explained by the size of the harvest. Does the designated "seventy-two" echo for Luke the LXX numbering of the nations in Gn 10:2-31 and thus prognosticate the ultimate extent of the harvest?43 The proclamation that "the kingdom of God has come near" has an element of judgment in it, for it is followed by woes to the disbelieving cities (10:13-16). Joy at the subjection of the demons marks the Lucan return of the seventy-two (Lk 10:17-20) - compare the unemotional return of the Twelve in Lk 9:10. {245} Jesus sums up their mission (and perhaps the mission of the church as Luke has known it) in terms of the fall of Satan. The authority over serpents and scorpions given to them in Lk 10:19 is similar to that in the postresurrectional mission in the Marcan Appendix (Mk 16:17-18). Why the disciples should rejoice because their names are written in heaven (Lk 10:20) is explained by what follows. Jesus thanks the Father for revelation (Lk 10:21-22), a passage that has Johannine parallels (p. 184 above). That the disciples have been chosen by the Son to receive the revelation is shown in the blessing of the disciples (Lk 10:23-24), a macarism that acknowledges what they have seen. Luke's next episode involves the lawyer's question about eternal life and Jesus' response about the love of God and neighbor (Lk 10:25-28). Although the lawyer is posing a test, Jesus likes his answer; and that leads into further probing by the lawyer and the Lucan parable45 of the good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37). Since the commandment to love leads to (eternal) life, the lawyer seeks casuistically to know to whom the commandment applies; but he is told that one can define only the subject of love, not the object. The Samaritan is chosen to illustrate a subject whose range is unlimited, perhaps preparing for Ac 8 with its positive picture of the reaction of Samaritans to the gospel. The story of Martha and Mary (Lk 10:38-42) is another instance where material peculiar to Luke has Johannine parallels (Jn 11:1-44; Jn 12:1-8). Yet there are also major differences: The brother Lazarus is absent from Luke, and the family home at Bethany in John is two miles from Jerusalem, not a village on the way from Galilee and Samaria to Jerusalem. The import of the Lucan story is that heeding the word of Jesus is the only important thing - a lesson harmonious with the earlier answer about the love of God and neighbor as the basic observance necessary for eternal life. It demonstrates that what is required is not complicated. Similarly uncomplicated is the instruction given to the inquiring disciple about the Lord's Prayer (Lk 11:1-4) - a shorter and in some ways older wording than that preserved in Matthew, but also less eschatological. The encouragement to pray is continued by the {246} uniquely Lucan parable of the insistent friend (Lk 11:5-8), a story redolent of Palestinian local color, for it envisions the whole family crowded into a single-room house. Q material on insistence in asking (Lk 11:9-13) is added to make the point. The most important variant from Mt 7:7-11 is the promise in Lk 11:13 to those who ask: Matthew has good things given by the heavenly Father; Luke has the Holy Spirit given, as verified in Acts. Abruptly in this friendly sequence where Jesus has been teaching his disciples, Luke shapes a controversy passage and sayings about the evil spirit (Lk 11:14-26). The reference to the struggle between the strong man (Beel-zebul) and the stronger one (Jesus) prepares readers for the struggle to take place at Jerusalem in the passion. Peculiarly Lucan is the beatitude from the woman in the crowd (Lk 11:27-28). The pattern of two blessings with priority being given to obedience to God's word has already been anticipated in Lk 1:42-45. In the warning signs for this generation, parabolic sayings about light, and woes to the Pharisees (Lk 11:29-12:1), there are noteworthy Lucan features. Unlike Mt 12:40 that interprets the sign of Jonah in terms of the three days in the whale's belly (preparatory for Jesus' burial and resurrection), Lk 11:32, like Mt 12:41, interprets it as the preaching to the people of Nineveh. Very typical is Lk 11:41 in its stress on the importance of almsgiving, indeed giving from what really matters. While in Mt 23:34 Jesus utters a saying in his own name (simply "I"), Lk 11:49 attributes the same saying to "the Wisdom of God," raising the issue of whether here he identifies Jesus as divine Wisdom. Whereas Mt 23:13 accuses the scribes and Pharisees of locking up the kingdom of heaven, Lk 11:52 has the lawyers taking away the key of knowledge. Finally Luke ends the passage with a warning to the crowds to beware of "the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy." This is the closest Luke comes to the frequent Matthean designation of the Pharisees as hypocrites (see Chapter 5 above, n. 19). The exhortation to confess fearlessly (Lk 12:2-12) promises reward for anyone who proclaims the truth and warns of judgment for one who does not. Even a Gospel so emphatic on forgiveness as Luke preserves the tradition of the unforgivable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Lk 12:10). The assurance that "the Holy Spirit will teach you what you ought to say" when facing hostile synagogue and secular authorities (Lk 12:11-12) takes on added significance in stories that illustrate the trials of Christians in Acts. The pe-ricope on greed and the parable of the rich barn-builder (Lk 12:13-21) is distinctively Lucan. The hopes to divide an inheritance equally or to enlarge a growing business, understandable in themselves, run against the contention that a strong interest in material possessions is not reconcilable with interest in God. Ideally Christians are asked to live by the maxim "One's life does not depend on what one possesses" (Lk 12:15; see Ac 2:44; Ac 4:34). The fate of {247} the barn-builder reflects the expectation of an individual judgment taking place before the general judgment at the end of the world. A passage decrying cares about earthly things (Lk 12:22-34) illustrates how well off one can be without such cares. The instruction, "Sell your possessions and give alms" (Lk 12:33) is very Lucan in its outlook. Luke now changes the topic with a section on the necessity of faithful watchfulness (Lk 12:35-48). In the midst of Q material (that Mt 24:43-51 has incorporated into the Eschatological Sermon) Lk 12:41 is an insert: a question by Peter as to whether this teaching is "for us or for all," which is never specifically answered. However, since the next saying involves a steward who takes good care of the household, one may judge that there is a greater obligation on the apostles and on Christian leaders. The Q material, which ends in Lk 12:46 with a threat of punishment for the servant who does not watch, is qualified by the Lucan addendum in Lk 12:47-48 distinguishing between the punishment of those who had knowledge and those who did not. (In narrating the hostile treatment of Jesus in the passion, Luke will be the most attentive of all the Gospels to distinguish between the people and their leaders.) That distinction leads into a frightening description of the diverse results of Jesus' ministry (Lk 12:49-53). In eschatological language Jesus speaks of the fire he is to bring on the earth and the baptism of being tested that is part of his destiny. Division, not peace, will be the result; the prediction in Lk 2:34 that Jesus was set for the fall and rise of many in Israel is now made more precise in terms of how families will be split. Since other statements esteem peace (Lk 2:14; Lk 19:38) and unified families (role of JBap in Lk 1:17), the results of Jesus' ministry are ambivalent, with a thrust in both directions. Evidently much of this will happen soon, for Jesus expresses ire at people's inability to read the signs of the present time (Lk 12:54-56). To Q material related to settling before being judged (Lk 12:57-59), Luke adds his own examples of destruction to inculcate repentance (Lk 13:1-5). We have no other knowledge of Galileans who were killed by Pilate while offering sacrifice (at Jerusalem), or of the fall of a tower in Siloam (the fountain of Jerusalem), although some have thought that the former incident explains the enmity between Herod (the tetrarch of Galilee) and Pilate that Luke reports in Lk 23:12. The parable of the fig tree (Lk 13:6-9) offers one more chance for the tree's bearing fruit before being cut down. Many have wondered if it is not a benevolent Lucan form of the cursing of the fig tree in Mk 11:12-14; Mk 11:20-23 and Mt 21:18-21, and thus a miracle that has become a parable. Luke next portrays Jesus teaching in a synagogue on a Sabbath and compassionately healing a crippled woman (Lk 13:10-17), a deed that makes the ruler of the synagogue indignant. Although the healing causes rejoicing among the people, it shames the authorities and in the present sequence may illustrate {248} that some will not repent and listen. Nevertheless, the twin parables of the mustard seed and the leaven (Lk 13:18-21) give assurance that the kingdom will ultimately spread and be great despite its small beginnings. 2. Second to Third Mention of Jerusalem (Lk 13:22-17:10). Stopping to remind us that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, Luke provides an opening question as to how many will be saved. This introduces material on exclusion from and acceptance into the kingdom (Lk 13:22-30). Many who may claim to know Jesus will be shut out, while outsiders from all over the world will get in. The Pharisees' report of Herod's homicidal hostility (Lk 13:31-33) offers the explanation for Jesus' going on to Jerusalem. The reader is probably meant both to think that the Pharisees are telling the truth and to distrust their motives; for they may have been trying to get Jesus off the scene by urging him to save his life through departure from Galilee. Paradoxically, Jesus knows that going to Jerusalem will lead to his death. (Herod will reappear during the Roman trial when Pilate turns Jesus over to him for judgment.) Jesus' thoughts about his destiny leads into the plaintive apostrophe to Jerusalem (Lk 13:34-35): As a prophet Jesus will die there, but the city will be punished for what it does to prophets. The next three episodes are set in the home of a prominent Pharisee: the Sabbath cure of a man with dropsy, two instructions about conduct at dinner, and the parable of the great banquet (Lk 14:1-24). The cure of the man almost forms a pair with the Sabbath healing of a woman in Lk 13:10-17 and has much the same message. (Actually at Qumran there was a prohibition of pulling a newborn animal out of a pit on the Sabbath: CD 11:13-14.) The first instruction, i.e., not taking the privileged place at dinner, comes close to prudential good manners, especially if the goal is judged as enjoying greater honor at table (Lk 14:10). Yet it does warn against self-honor. The second instruction, i.e., inviting the disadvantaged rather than one's peers, is at home in the upside-down values of the kingdom where the poor are more important than the rich. The eschatological outlook is explicit in the final line (Lk 14:14) where the recompense of this behavior is promised at the resurrection of the just. The parable of the great banquet48 passes a judgment of rejection on those who were first invited because they had priorities that they put before the invitation to the kingdom. {249} Then, without mentioning Jesus' departure from the Pharisee's home, Luke has Jesus talking to the great multitudes who accompanied him about the cost of discipleship (Lk 14:25-35). Peculiarly Lucan are the prudential parables about the need to calculate the cost before starting a house or beginning a war (Lk 14:28-32) - parables worthy of an OT wisdom teacher. This message is very different from the more prophetic stance of not worrying about the needs of this life, inculcated earlier in Lk 12:22-34. The whole next chapter consists of three parables: lost sheep, lost coin, lost (prodigal) son (Lk 15:1-32). Mt 18:12-14 works the lost sheep parable into the Sermon on the Church addressed to the disciples; Luke addresses it (and his own other two parables) to the Pharisees and scribes who object to Jesus' keeping company with sinners. The references to joy in heaven show that the parables give a lesson in God's loving mercy and dramatize the value of those whom others despise as lost. In the first two Luke has a man and woman respectively as dramatis personae (shepherd, housekeeper) similar to the man-woman combination in the mustard seed and yeast parables of Lk 13:18-21. The lost or prodigal son stresses that the elder brother should not be jealous of the father's benevolent treatment of the sinful younger brother, and that fits the context of correcting the Pharisees' attitude toward sinners. Beyond that, the point made in the middle of the parable at Lk 15:20 is important for understanding the concept of Christian love. The portrayal of the father running to the younger son and kissing him before he can give the prepared speech of repentance could serve as an illustration of Rm 5:8: "God's love for us is shown in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," and 1 Jn 4:10: "In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us" (p. 533 below). Many have found difficulty with the uniquely Lucan parable of the unjust steward (Lk 16:1-15) because it seems to commend to the disciples shady business practice; but what is praised is the prudent energetic initiative of the steward, not his dishonesty. Diverse sayings dealing with wealth have been {250} attached to the parable, but it is debated at which verse they begin: 8b, 9, or 10. Overall they serve Luke's theological tenet that abundant money corrupts and that the right way to use it is to give it away to the poor and thus make friends who, when they go to heaven, can help. At the end of the pericope Lk 16:14-15 shifts to challenging the Pharisees who are "lovers of money" and justify/exalt themselves before others. Perhaps Pharisee devotion to the Law supplies the mental connective to the following Q sayings about the Law and divorce (Lk 16:16-18). The better interpretation of v. 16 is that the coming of JBap marks both the end of the Law and the prophets and the beginning of preaching the gospel of the kingdom (Lk 3:1-2,18). There is no discontinuity between the two eras, for in Jesus' teaching not even the smallest part of a letter of the Law drops out (v. 17). What is the relation of the saying on divorce (v. 18) to the preceding principle about the Law? Clearly Jesus' prohibition of divorce does not agree with the permission given the man to divorce in Dt 24:1-4. Although Luke does not mention Gn 1:27; Gn 2:24 as do Mk 10:6-12 and Mt 19:4-9, had that reference (which is part of the Law) become an inherent part of the Christian interpretation so that forbidding divorce was seen to agree with the Law? It was part of the Qumran adherence to the Law (p. 141 above). The theme of the damning effects of wealth returns in the uniquely Lucan parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31). The different fates after death are not based on the rich man having lived a life of vice, and Lazarus having been very virtuous; they are based on the rich man having had a comfortable and well-fed life, while Lazarus was hungry and miserable (16:25). This attack on the Pharisees' love for money (which would also serve as a warning for Christians, e.g., Ac 5:1-11) is made sharper by a second point, made at the end of the parable. If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not listen to someone come back from the dead. To Luke's readers/hearers this would appear prophetic, for Acts will show that people did not listen even after Jesus came back from the dead. The topic changes as Jesus addresses to his disciples four unrelated warnings on behavior (Lk 17:1-10). Cautioning against scandalizing others, they stress forgiving fellow disciples, the power of faith, and the distinction between great achievement and duty. The last warning, which is peculiarly Lucan, is an interesting challenge: The disciples who have followed Jesus might get the idea that they had done something great, but they are to tell themselves that they are unprofitable servants who have only done their duty. {251} 3. Last Stage of Journey till Arrival in Jerusalem (Lk 17:11-19:27). This begins with the uniquely Lucan cleansing of the ten lepers, including the thankful Samaritan (Lk 17:11-19). Jesus has been traveling toward Jerusalem since Lk 9:51, and in Lk 9:52 his messengers entered a Samaritan village. That at this point in the story he is still passing between Samaria and Galilee tells us that the journey is an artificial framework (and also that Luke may not have had a precise idea of Palestinian geography). Yet the framework explains why there is a Samaritan among the lepers, indeed, the sole leper to show gratitude and thus to receive salvation. His reaction anticipates the glad reception of the good news about Jesus by Samaritans in Ac 8:1-25. Since Jesus' journey will soon come to an end with his departure from this world, it is appropriate that Jesus now gives to the Pharisees and then to his disciples eschatological teaching (Lk 17:20-37), drawn together from Q, L, and Luke's own composition, as an anticipation and almost a doublet of the eschatological discourse to be presented in Lk 21. The teaching warns against being deceived, on the one hand, by bogus claims that the kingdom or the days of the Son of Man have visibly arrived and, on the other hand, by thoughtless living as if there will never be a judgment. The more interesting Lucan features include: that the kingdom of God cannot be observed and is among us (see Issue 4 below), and that the judgment is unpredictably discriminatory, choosing one person and leaving another (Lk 17:31). In face of this judgment, the uniquely Lucan parable of the unjust judge (Lk 18:1-8) is designed to encourage the disciples by an a fortiori principle. If continued petitioning persuades a totally amoral judge, how much more will their persistent, confident prayer be heard by God who vindicates the chosen ones. The theme of prayer leads into the Lucan parable of the Pharisee and the publican (or tax-collector: Lk 18:9-14). Beyond exhibiting God's mercy to sinners, the story raises the issue of the rejection of the Pharisee, who is not justified. The Pharisee is not a hypocrite; for, although a bit boastful, he has lived faithful to God's commandments as he understood them. Is the problem that although he thanks God, he has not shown any need of God or of grace or forgiveness? Or does the Lucan Jesus come close to Pauline thought that observing commanded works does not justify by itself? The example of God's graciousness to the outcast tax-collector leads Luke to recount Jesus' kindness to little children (Lk 18:15-17),52 who serve as a model of dependence on God for entering the kingdom. {252} In turn this leads to the ruler's question of what is necessary for eternal life and the obstacle offered by riches (18:18-30). Although Luke is following Mark carefully now (with the noteworthy exception that Luke does not say that Jesus "looked with love" on this rich man), the theme is harmonious with Luke's insistence on selling all and distributing to the poor. Even those who observe the commandments must be challenged to go farther, not simply in order to be perfect as in the more tolerant Mt 19:21, but in order to enter the kingdom. Lk 18:29 adds "wife" to the list of what will be left behind (cf. Mk 10:29) for the sake of the kingdom - is he thinking of his hero Paul in Acts who was unmarried? Lk 18:30 promises that those who make the sacrifices will receive "manifold" in this life - a more prudent assurance than the hundredfold, houses, brothers, sisters, etc. in Mk 10:30. What Jesus himself will sacrifice is articulated in the third prediction of the passion (Lk 18:31-34). It hews close to Mk 10:32-34 even to the point of predicting that the Gentiles will spit upon and scourge the Son of Man - something that never happens in the Lucan passion narrative!53 The healing of the blind man as Jesus comes near Jericho (Lk 18:35-43) is a variant of the healing of Bartimaeus as Jesus leaves Jericho (Mk 10:46) and the healing of two blind men as Jesus leaves Jericho (Mt 20:29). Probably Luke has moved the scene geographically to Jesus' entering the city because next he wishes to introduce a colorful scene of his own involving Zacchaeus (Lk 19:1-10) within Jericho. Beyond Jesus' kindness to a tax-collector deemed a sinner, the story illustrates Luke's attitude toward wealth: Zacchaeus is a rich man, but salvation can come to his house because he gives half his goods to the poor. The theme of correct use of wealth continues in Oieparable of the pounds (Lk 19:11-27). The story of the nobleman going away and giving each of ten servants a pound that one of the servants turns into ten pounds, another into five pounds, and a third simply preserves,55 resembles the Matthean story (25:14-30) of a man who gives to three servants talents, respectively five, two, and one, that are turned into another five, another two, and simply preserved. In each case the last servant is chastised. The thrust of the parable is to challenge the disciples to make profitable {253} use of all that Jesus has revealed to them about the kingdom. Beyond some differences from Mt that may represent editing of a common Q story, Luke seems to have interwoven another story about a nobleman who goes to a far country to receive a kingship: His citizens hated him and sent an embassy to try to prevent his being appointed king, only to have him come back as king and slay them. This prepares for the rejection of Jesus in Jerusalem, his crucifixion as King of the Jews, his return in resurrection, and the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem. Ministry in Jerusalem (19:28--21:38) At the end of his long journey that began in Lk 9:51 Jesus arrives at Jerusalem where his "exodus," or departure to God, will take place. He will stay overnight at Bethphage and Bethany in the near environs of Jerusalem, but most of his activity there will be centered in the Temple area, and at the end he will deliver an eschatological discourse. 1. Entry into Jerusalem and Activities in the Temple Area (Lk 19:28-21:4). The royal entry into Jerusalem (Lk 19:28-38) stays close to the Marcan account (Mk 11:1-10) but changes the theme from the bystanders' enthusiasm for the arrival of the kingdom to the disciples' praise of Jesus as king (see Jn 12:13). In Lk 7:18-19 the disciples of JBap posed to Jesus their master's question, "Are you the one to come?" Now the disciples of Jesus confirm that he is. Luke includes a refrain about peace and glory that resembles the Gloria in excelsis (Lk 2:14). When the Pharisees want the disciples rebuked, Jesus reluctantly predicts the destruction of Jerusalem (Lk 19:39-44). This is a continuation of the Lucan warnings in Lk 11:49-52 and Lk 13:34-35, but now the possibility of reform seems to be a thing of the past. (Scholars debate whether the description in Lk 19:43 is so precise that Luke must have written (or at least rephrased) it after the historical destruction by the Romans.) That Jesus wept when he uttered this prophecy is indicative to Luke's readers that Christians should not rejoice over that destruction. Unlike Mk 11:11-19 that places the cleansing of the Temple area on the day after Jesus entered Jerusalem, but like Mt 21:10-13, Luke places his (less violent) picture of the cleansing of the Temple (Lk 19:45-46) on the same day on which Jesus entered Jerusalem. {254} Otherwise Luke begins a section where most of his material is taken from Mark with minor changes. Jesus now starts daily teaching in the Temple area, provoking the question of authority (Lk 19:47-20:8). In a typical summary Luke describes how the chief priests and the scribes seek to destroy Jesus for this teaching; and then tells how, frustrated by his popularity among "all the people," the most they can do is to challenge his authority - a challenge offset by his own counter-challenge about JBap. (Luke does not need to tell the readers that Jesus' authority comes from God; see Lk 4:43.) The parable of the wicked attendants (Lk 20:9-19) serves as a critique of these authorities (as they recognize in v. 19), because they have not given back fruit from the vineyard. Indeed, the uniquely Lucan v. 18 makes it a threat, for the stone they rejected not only becomes the cornerstone of a new building but also fractures and crushes people. The authorities react by spying on Jesus and seeking to trap him with a question concerning the tribute to Caesar (Lk 20:20-26), which he deftly avoids. Another attempt to lessen Jesus' teaching authority is made by the Sadducees with their question about the resurrection (Lk 20:27-40), but the quality of his answer draws approbation even from scribes (vv. 39-40). Skipping over the scribe's question in Mk 12:28-34 about the most important commandment, Luke continues with Jesus' own question about David's son (Lk 20:41-44). These confrontations end with Jesus' withering condemnation of the scribes (Lk 20:45-47). The charge that they "devour widows' houses" leads into the story of the widow's offering (Lk 21:1-4), which, although taken and shortened from Mark, has a special resonance in Luke, since it favors the poor over the ostentatious rich and illustrates giving away all that one has. 2. Eschatological Discourse (Lk 21:5-38). As in Mark/Matthew, admiration of the Temple buildings elicits from Jesus a prediction of the destruction of the Temple (Lk 21:5-6); and that leads into a discourse on the last things - a discourse complicated by the fact that Jesus has already exhorted to eschatological vigilance in Lk 12:35-48 and given eschatological teaching in Lk 17:20-37. Unlike Mark/Matthew, Luke situates the discourse in the Temple as a continuation of his daily teaching there (Lk 19:47; Lk 20:1; Lk 21:38); and there is more interest in what happens to Jerusalem, which is separated from what will happen to the whole world. In the body of the discourse (Lk 21:7-36) some would maintain that Lk 21:8-24 {255} refers to the fate of Jerusalem and Lk 21:25-36 refers to the fate of the world when the Son of Man comes. These points are peculiarly Lucan: Lk 21:12 speaks of persecution for the sake of Jesus' "name" (see Ac 3:6,16; Ac 4:10; etc.); Lk 21:13-15 promises a wisdom that cannot be contradicted to be given when it is time to bear testimony (see Lk 7:35; Lk 11:49; Ac 6:3,10; Ac 7:10); Lk 21:18 supplies extra confidence to Jesus' followers, for not a hair of their head will perish (see Lk 12:7); in place of Mark's abomination of desolation, Lk 21:20 speaks of Jerusalem surrounded by armies (from a knowledge of what happened in ad 70?); between the destruction of Jerusalem and the final times, 21:24 seems to allow a long period: Jerusalem will be trampled "until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled"; Lk 21:28 speaks of future redemption; Lk 21:33ff. omits Mark's indication (Lk 13:32) that no one, not even the Son, knows the day or the hour (a motif that Luke reserves until Ac 1:7, without the limitation on the Son's knowledge); Lk 21:34-36 is an exhortation that serves to end the discourse as Jesus warns about judgment to come on the entire earth. After this ending Lk 21:37-38 supplies a summary describing Jesus' daily activity to serve as a transition to the passion narrative. Last Supper, Passion, Death, and Burial (22:l--23:56a) We have seen that when Luke follows Mark, he does so with substantial fidelity; but the passion narrative is an exception. Although many scholars posit dependence on a preLucan passion narrative separate from Mark, a more plausible case can be made for Luke's dependence on Mark combined with some special traditions. Here Luke may simply have done more reordering than elsewhere, perhaps in a desire to make this most important narrative more effective. In particular, both in the passion and resurrection accounts Luke draws on traditions that have left a trace in John as well. 1. Conspiracy Against Jesus, Last Supper (Lk 22:1-38). The first Lucan reordering is exemplified by the conspiracy against Jesus (Lk 22:1-6), which Mark interrupts to intercalate the story of Jesus' anointing61 but which Luke holds together as a unit. Luke explains that Satan entered into Judas (also Jn 13:2,27). After the temptations in the desert the devil had left Jesus till a more opportune time (Lk 4:13); now he has resumed the direct attack on Jesus. Also arrayed against Jesus, alongside the chief priests, are the captains or officers (of the Temple: Lk 22:4,52; Ac 4:1; Ac 5:24,26). Peter and John are specified as the disciples who went ahead to prepare {256} for the Last Supper (22:7-38), the Lucan account of which is twice as long as the Marcan or the Matthean. Jesus' earnest desire to eat this Passover meal with his apostles catches the warmth of the relationship, especially now that this hour has come (Lk 22:14-15; cf. Jn 13:1). The clauses about Jesus not eating or drinking again "until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God" or "until the kingdom of God comes" (Lk 22:16-18) enhance the eschatological symbolism of the Supper but are obscure in their precise reference. (In Lk 24:30-31 after the resurrection Jesus will break bread with his disciples, which may be considered a form of the coming of the kingdom.) An even greater problem is presented by Luke's having Jesus speak of the cup twice (Lk 22:17-18 and 20), before and after he speaks of the bread. Probably the first cup belongs to Luke's description of the ordinary Passover meal (Lk 22:15-18), while the second cup that is preceded by the bread belongs to Luke's description of the eucharist (Lk 22:19-20). The latter is parallel to the eucharistic description in Mk 14:22-24; Mt 26:26-28, but with the differences italicized in what follows: "my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me" (resembling 1 Co 11:24 : "my body which is for you; do this in remembrance of me"), and not "blood of the covenant" but "This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you" (the first part resembling 1Co 11:25). Thus there may have been two traditions of Jesus' Last Supper, one preserved in Mark/Matthew, the other in Paul and Luke. The feast of Passover had a remembrance (anamnesis) motif: "remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt all the days of your life" (Dt 16:3), but for Christians this is shifted to a remembrance of Jesus. The Lucan clauses that have the body and blood given or poured out "for you" stress the soteriological thrust of Jesus' death and of the eucharist. Mark and Mt have three predictions of the fate of the disciples: one (involving Judas) made at the Last Supper, two (involving the body of the disciples and Peter) made on the way to the Mount of Olives. Luke's more "orderly" account places all three at the Last Supper (as does John). The prediction of the giving over of Jesus by Judas (Lk 22:21-23) is substantially a reworking of Mk 14:18-21, except that in Mark it precedes the eucharistic words. The prediction about the body of the disciples/apostles (Lk 22:24-30), composed and adapted from Mark and Q, is very Lucan in its {257} benevolence. In reaction to a dispute about which of them is the greatest, Jesus praises them for their fidelity to him in his trials and promises them places at table in his kingdom and thrones from which to judge the twelve tribes. This is virtually the opposite of the prediction in Mk 14:27 that they will all be scandalized and scattered; and indeed, unlike Mark, Luke will never describe the flight of the disciples when Jesus is arrested. Similarly Lk 22:31-34 is a unique introduction that modifies the prediction of Peter's threefold denial; for amidst Satan's effort to sift all the apostles like wheat, Jesus promises to pray for Simon (Peter) that his faith will not fail. When he has turned back, he is to strengthen his "brothers" (the other apostles, all believers, or both?). Proper to Luke, too, is dialogue that leads to the assertion that the apostles have two swords (Lk 22:35-38). The situation of a mission without provisions (as in Lk 10:4 the seventy-two) is now changed; everyone needs to be prepared, having purse, or bag, or sword, for Jesus will be reckoned with outlaws. The apostles misunderstand the figurative language, and Jesus responds "Enough of that" to their report that they have two swords. 2. Prayer and Arrest on the Mount of Olives, Jewish and Roman Trials (Lk 22:39-23:25). Luke has no dialogue on the way from the Supper when Jesus is going to a "customary" place (cf. Jn 18:2) on the mountain opposite Jerusalem where Jesus prays and is arrested (Lk 22:39-53). Luke simplifies Mark's dramatic description of the alienation of Jesus from the disciples. There is no separation of Jesus in stages from the body of the disciples, and then from Peter, James, and John, to go off by himself; nor is there a description of Jesus' emotions and his falling to the ground. With composure the Lucan Jesus kneels to pray (a position familiar to Christians: Ac 7:60; Ac 9:40; Ac 20:36; Ac 21:5); he prays only once (not three times) and finds the disciples sleeping only once (and then "out of sorrow"). If Lk 22:43-44 (the appearance of an angel to Jesus) was written by the evangelist rather than added by a later copyist (see BDM 1:179-86), Luke differs from Mark/Mt by having Jesus' prayer answered, a touch illustrative of the Lucan Jesus' closeness to his Father. In Mark/Matthew, after Jesus was tested by the devil for forty days in the desert, angels ministered to him. Luke omitted that; but now an angel strengthens Jesus, making him ready to enter the second and greater testing or trial. Jesus' words during the arrest show that he knows the evil intention behind Judas' kissing him (Lk 22:48). Picking up on the discussion about {258} the swords at the Supper, the disciples demonstrate their continuing misunderstanding by asking about striking with the sword. This question causes Jesus to tell them to desist, advice that Luke would pass on to Christians facing arrest or persecution in their time. Alone among the Gospels, Luke has the chief priests themselves come to the Mount of Olives; and Jesus reminds them of his daily teaching in the Temple area as a challenge to the armed force being used to arrest him (cf. the interrogation of Jesus by Annas in Jn 18:20). Luke's theology of the scene finds expression in Lk 22:53: This hour belongs to the power of darkness. Yet even in this desperate moment the mercy of Jesus is demonstrated as (in Luke alone) he stops to heal the right ear of the servant of the high priest who came to arrest him. In Mark/Mt and in John the denials of Jesus by Peter are interwoven (in different ways) with the night scene where Jesus stands before Jewish authorities; Luke's orderliness causes him to put the denials by Peter (Lk 22:54-62) first, before the Jewish trial, with the result that Jesus is present in the courtyard while Peter is denying him. The poignant moment when the Lord turns and looks at Peter recalls the promise at the Last Supper that Jesus would pray for Simon Peter so that his faith would not fail. Luke also places in the night courtyard setting the Jewish mockery of Jesus (Lk 22:63-65) and has it done by those who were holding him captive, whereas Mark/Mt have it at the conclusion of the Jewish trial and done by the Sanhedrin members. This rearrangement causes Luke to simplify the presentation of the Jewish trial (Lk 22:66-71) and to set it all in the morning. The chief priests ask Jesus about being the Messiah, the Son of God; but this question is divided into two segments and a direct answer to the first is avoided because they would not believe - features found in Jn 10:24-25,33,36. The Lucan account of the Roman trial (Lk 23:1-25) departs significantly from Mark. A set of charges is presented to Pilate: Jesus is misleading the nation, as exemplified in forbidding taxes to Caesar and claiming to be Messiah king. Luke knows the pattern of Roman trials (cf. the charges presented in the trial of Paul in Ac 24:5-9), and he is fitting the tradition about Jesus into that pattern. Lk 23:4,14,22 dramatizes Jesus' innocence, for three times Pilate says that he finds no guilt in him - cf. the three times in Jn 18:38; Jn 19:4,6 where Pilate finds no case against Jesus. Only Luke (Lk 23:6-12) reports that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod who questioned and mocked him - {259} a continuation of the special Herod material (Lk 9:7-9; p. 267 below), but also an anticipatory parallel to the trial in Ac 25-26, where the perplexed Roman governor Festus turns Paul over to the Herodian king Agrippa II to be interrogated. In both cases (Lk 23:15; Ac 26:32) the accused is returned to the governor without being found guilty. Especially Lucan is the observation that Jesus' presence before Pilate and Herod healed the enmity that had existed between them. The Jesus who healed so many during the public ministry continues to heal throughout the passion. After Jesus comes back, Pilate tries twice again to release him, even offering the lesser penalty of whipping; but finally he gives Jesus over "to their will" (Lk 23:25). That is done without Luke's recording the scourging and mockery of Jesus by the Roman soldiers found in the other three Gospels. Was the omission prompted by a dislike of repetition because Jesus had already been mocked before Herod? 3. Way of the Cross, Crucifixion, Burial (Lk 23:26-56). Elevating the way of the cross (Lk 23:26-32) beyond the transitional sentence found in the other Gospels, Luke constructs an episode that has a key place in the structuring of Jesus' death. Here immediately before Jesus is crucified, Luke groups Simon the Cyrenian, a large multitude of people, and the "daughters of Jerusalem"; in Lk 23:47-49 immediately after Jesus dies on the cross he groups the Roman centurion, the crowds, and the women from Galilee - a triptych with the crucifixion in the center and a group of three parties favorable to Jesus on either side. Luke reported that when Jesus was born there were many Jews who received him favorably; he insists that this is true also when Jesus died, only now a Gentile has also entered the picture. Echoing the OT, the warnings of Jesus to the weeping daughters of Jerusalem (Lk 23:28-32) represent a continuation of the theme whereby Jesus reluctantly proclaimed the fate of the city to be sealed (Lk 19:41-44) - despite the presence of some who are sympathetic. The specification "yourselves and your children" recognizes that the burden of the coming catastrophe will fall on another generation. Luke also reshapes the incidents culminating in death on the cross (Lk 23:33-46). Only in Luke does Jesus speak at the moment of crucifixion. Some manuscripts of Luke lack Jesus' words in Lk 23:34, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do" (BDM 2:971-81); but the extension of forgiveness would fit the Lucan outlook admirably. Mark describes three groups of mockers at the cross before Jesus died: the passersby, the {260} chief priests, and the two co-crucified. After separating out the people as simply observing, Luke has his mocking threesome consist of the rulers, the soldiers, and one of the co-crucified. The unique scene with the other co-crucified in Lk 23:40-43 is a masterpiece of Lucan theology. The generosity of Jesus goes far beyond what the criminal68 asks for, and he becomes the first one to be taken to Paradise! The trusting and confident final word of Jesus on the cross, "Father, into your hands I place my spirit" (Lk 23:46) is quite different from the Marcan Jesus' plaintive cry of being abandoned. All the negative signs that accompanied the crucifixion, including the rending of the sanctuary veil, are placed before Jesus dies, so that the positive, salvific results of the death can stand out clearly. To exemplify those results Luke recounts the reaction of the three parties to the death of Jesus, followed by the burial (Lk 23:47-56). The Roman centurion joins his testimony to that of Herod, Pilate, and the one co-crucified wrongdoer that Jesus was a just man and did nothing wrong. The crowds express sorrow. The women followers stand at a distance looking on; and they will be the connective to the future, for they will also look on at the burial69 and come to the tomb. The final touch is to tell us that the women observed the Sabbath law. Luke was very insistent to report that at the birth of Jesus everything was done according to the Law; from one end of his life to the other Jesus has lived within the confines of Judaism. Resurrection Appearances in the Jerusalem Area (24:1-53) Luke deviates from the Marcan indication that the risen Jesus would appear in Galilee, and concentrates his three appearance-scenes around Jerusalem. This makes the sequence with the passion tighter. More important, Luke can thus finish the Gospel in the place where it began, the city that symbolizes Judaism. 1. At the Empty Tomb (Lk 24:1-12). Although Luke follows Mk 16:1-8, he greatly modifies it, adding clarifications (v. 3: when the women went in, they did not find the body), a dramatic question (v. 5: "Why do you seek the living among the dead?"), and adaptations (v. 6: not an appearance in Galilee but a remembrance of what Jesus said there; and v. 9: The women did not {261} stay silent but told all this to all the rest). Luke has his own tradition about the presence of Joanna (the wife of Chuza: Lk 8:3). Truly novel is the textually dubious v. 12 which reports that, although the women were not believed, Peter ran to the tomb, saw only the burial wrappings, and went home wondering. It is extremely close to what is reported in Jn 20:3-10 (without the disciple whom Jesus loved, however). Luke's later plural reference to this in Lk 24:24, after the visit of the women to the tomb, is puzzling: "Some of our number went to the tomb." 2. Appearance on the Road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35). This dramatic and very long appearance account is entirely proper to Luke, although it is echoed in the Marcan Appendix (Lk 16:12-13). There are some good storytell ing techniques, e.g., the disappointed hope of the disciples that Jesus might have been the deliverer; Jesus pretending to want to go on farther. Yet there are also curious elements, e.g., an Emmaus sixty stadia (seven miles) from Jerusalem is not easily located; we know nothing of this Cleopas or, a fortiori, of his unnamed companion; it is hard to calculate how the time allot ments at the end of the day (vv. 29:33) are possible; finally Luke (v. 34) does not tell us the circumstances of the appearance to Simon (Peter) that took place before evening on this day. It is typically Lucan that the first account of an appearance should occur on a journey; and just as on the long journey to Jerusalem, so also in Lk 24:27 Jesus gives important revelation to disciples: He appeals to the whole of Scripture in order to explain what he has done as Messiah. In the Book of Acts the apostolic preachers will do this, and Luke wants to root their use of Scripture in revelation given by Jesus. Yet even though the disciples' hearts glowed when Jesus opened to them the meaning of the Scriptures, they recognized him only when he broke bread. This prepares for the (eucharistic) breaking of the bread in the Christian community described in Acts72 and (together with the other postresurrectional meals) may well have been at the root of Christian belief in the pres ence of the risen Lord in the eucharistic banquet. 3. Appearance in Jerusalem and Ascension to Heaven (Lk 24:36-53). As in John (and seemingly in the Marcan Appendix Lk 16:14-18), Hie first appear ance to the assembled disciples in Luke (Lk 24:36-49) is set in Jerusalem on the evening of the resurrection day. In both Luke and John (Lk 20:19-29) these features are found: Jesus stands in their midst and says, "Peace be to you"; there is reference to Jesus' wounds (hands and feet in Luke, hands and side {262} in John); and the mission given by Jesus involves forgiveness of sins and the role of the Spirit (explicit in John, symbolically designated as "what my Father has promised" in Luke). Luke is particularly insistent on the reality of Jesus' appearance, for Jesus eats food and affirms that he has flesh and bones. (In his references to a risen body, Paul speaks of one that is spiritual and not flesh and blood (1 Co 15:44 ,50).) Jesus explains the Scriptures to these disciples too - a sign that this is fundamental to any understanding of what God has done in him. Here the revelation consists of a mission (cf. Mt 28:18-20; Jn 20:22-23): a mission to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem of which a more detailed program will be given in Ac 1:8. Jesus commissions his disciples to be witnesses of these things that have happened to him in fulfillment of Scripture. Luke had promised at the beginning of the Gospel that his systematic account would be based on what the original eyewitnesses and ministers of the word passed on; clearly, then, he thinks that the disciples fulfilled their mission. The appearance ends with an ascension scene (Lk 24:50-53) when Jesus goes out to Bethany, blesses his disciples, and is carried up into heaven. Then the disciples return with joy to Jerusalem and the Temple, praising God. This ascension scene, which takes place on Easter Sunday night, terminates the Gospel story of Jesus. The Gospel began in the Temple when an angel came down from heaven to Zechariah; by inclusion it ends in the Temple as Jesus has gone to heaven. Sources and Compositional Features The evangelist acknowledges sources: "The original eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" passed on reports of what had come to pass, and many had already undertaken to compile accounts (Lk 1:1-2). The Gospel frequently looks forward to Acts; and that orientation affects the way Luke treats his sources. For instance, while the Matthean evangelist incorporated into his account of Jesus' ministry advanced christological insights, e.g., through the disciples' and Peter's confessions of Jesus as the Son of God, the Lucan writer can postpone such confessions until the apostolic preaching of Acts. The stress on Pauline journeys in Acts influences Lk 9:51 and Lk 19:28-29 in using the indications of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem in Mk 10:1,32; Mk 11:1 to frame ten chapters (Lk 9:51--19:27), so that this journey becomes the setting for most of Jesus' teaching. At times too, anticipation of Acts affects the ordering of material, as when the Roman governor Pilate refers Jesus to Herod for a decision, even as in Ac 25 the Roman governor Festus will hand Paul over to (Herod) Agrippa for a decision. As with Matthew, we shall treat first two written sources, Mark and Q, of which one can speak with more assurance, and then other compositional material. (a) Mark. The material taken from Mark constitutes about 35 percent of Luke. In the majority scholarly view the Lucan evangelist had a written form of Mark before him, although some have questioned whether in all details it was identical with the form of Mark used by Mt The Lucan procedure is to follow the Marcan order and take over Marcan material in large blocks. Notice that Luke omits two sequential Marcan sections: the "Big Omission" of Mk 6:45-8:26 (from after the first multiplication of the loaves to after the second multiplication) and the "Little Omission" of Mk 9:41-10:12 (temptations to sin, teaching on divorce). The reason for these omissions is not totally clear; but probable factors, in addition to Luke's theological preferences,76 were a desire to avoid repetition and to work material into the planned geographical flow of the story. Although in general Luke is quite faithful to Mark, he made changes that enable us to detect Lucan thought and proclivities. In what follows the more characteristic changes made by the Lucan evangelist are listed with some examples of each. § Luke improves on Mark's Greek, bettering the grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, e.g., in Lk 4:1,31,38 and passim by omitting Mark's overused "immediately"; in Lk 20:22 by changing a Latinism like kensos (= census) from Mk 12:14; in Lk 20:23 by substituting the more exact "craftiness, treachery" for the "hypocrisy" of Mk 12:15. § Luke states at the beginning his intention to write carefully and in an orderly manner (Lk 1:3); accordingly he rearranges Marcan sequence to accomplish that goal, e.g., Jesus' rejection at Nazareth is put at the opening of the Galilean ministry rather than after some time had elapsed (Lk 4:16-30 vs. Mk 6:1-6) in order to explain why his Galilean ministry was centered at Ca pernaum; the healing of Simon's mother-in-law is placed before the call of Simon and companions (4:38-5:11 vs. Mk 1:16-31) in order to make more logical Simon's willingness to follow Jesus; Peter's denials of Jesus are put before the Sanhedrin trial in preference to Mark's complicated interweaving of the two. At times Luke's orderliness is reflected in avoiding Marcan dou blets (Luke does not report the second multiplication of loaves) whereas Mt likes to double features and persons. Yet Luke has a double sending out of the apostles/disciples (Lk 9:1-2; Lk 10:1). § Because of changes made in material received from Mark, Luke occasionally creates inconsistencies, e.g., although in Lk 5:30 the partners in the conver sation are "the Pharisees and their scribes," Lk 5:33 speaks of "the disciples of the Pharisees," as if the Pharisees were not present; although in Lk 18:32-33 Luke takes over from Mark the prediction that Jesus will be mocked, scourged, and spit on by the Gentiles, Luke (unlike Mk 15:16-20) never fulfills that prediction; Luke has changed the Marcan order of the denials of Peter and the Jewish mockery of Jesus but forgotten to insert the proper name of Jesus in the new sequence, so that at first blush Lk 22:63, in having "him" mocked and beaten, seems to refer to Peter, not Jesus. See also n. 67 above. § Luke, even more than Matthew, eliminates or changes passages in Mark unfavorable to those whose subsequent career makes them worthy of respect, e.g., Luke omits Mk 3:21,33,34 and (in Lk 4:24) changes Mk 6:4 in order to avoid references detrimental to Jesus' family; Luke omits Mk 8:22-26 which dramatizes the slowness of the disciples to see, and Mk 8:33 where Jesus calls Peter "Satan"; in the passion Luke omits the predicted failure of the disciples, Jesus' finding them asleep three times, and their flight as reported in Mk 14:27, 40-41, 51-52. § Reflecting christological sensibilities, Luke is more reverential about Jesus and avoids passages that might make him seem emotional, harsh, or weak, e.g., Luke eliminates: Mk 1:41,43 where Jesus is moved with pity or is stern; Mk 4:39 where Jesus speaks directly to the sea; Mk 10:14a where Jesus is indignant; Mk 11:15b where Jesus overturns the tables of the money chang ers; Mk 11:20-25 where Jesus curses a fig tree; Mk 13:32 where Jesus says that the Son does not know the day or the hour; Mk 14:33-34 where Jesus is troubled and his soul is sorrowful unto death; Mk 15:34 where Jesus speaks of God forsaking him. {265} § Luke stresses detachment from possessions,77 not only in his special material (L), as we shall see below, but also in changes he makes in Mark, e.g., follow ers of the Lucan Jesus leave everything (5:11,28), and the Twelve are forbidden to take even a staff (9:3). § Luke eliminates Mark's transcribed Aramaic names and words (even some that Mt includes) presumably because they were not meaningful to the intended audience, e.g., omission of Boanerges, Gethsemane, Golgotha, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.78 § Luke may make Marcan information more precise, presumably for better storyflow, greater effect, or clarity, e.g., Lk 6:6 specifies that the next scene (Mk 3:1: "again") took place "on another Sabbath"; Lk 6:6 specifies "the right hand" and Lk 22:50 "the right ear"; Lk 21:20 clarifies or substitutes for Mark's "abomination of desolation." (b) Q source. The material taken from Q constitutes just over 20 percent of Luke; it adds a strong ethical tone to the portrayal of Jesus. Unlike the Matthean evangelist who moves around Q material to form five major ser mons or discourses, the Lucan writer is thought for the most part to have preserved the original order of the Q document (Table 2 above). Occasionally Luke inserts Q material within a block borrowed from Mark, e.g., the teaching of JBap (3:7-9,16c-18) within the first block that describes JBap. Most Q material, however, he inserts in two places where he opens up the Marcan sequence (Table 4 above), namely: a smaller body of Q material in Lk 6:20-8:3 as part of the Little Interpolation, and a larger body of Q material in Lk 9:51-18:14, the Big Interpolation (depicted as part of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem). In both instances he mixes it with other material of non Marcan origin. As we saw in the General Analysis, in order to reflect his own theo logical views Luke adapts the Q material in many ways. Yet because we do not possess Q, it is often difficult to know whether it is Mt or Luke that has effected a change. The parables of the great supper and the talents/ pounds, where the two accounts differ so greatly (Mt 22:2-10; Mt 25:14-30 vs. Lk 14:16-24; Lk 19:12-27), illustrate the difficulty of knowing exactly what Luke has added. (c) Special Lucan material (often designated L). Between one third and 40 percent of Luke is not drawn from Mark or Q. Given the evangelist's acknowledgment of the original eyewitnesses/ministers of the word and of {266} many writers who had already undertaken to compile orderly accounts (Lk 1:1), it is not surprising that scholars have posited traditions and sources peculiar to Luke - even more numerous than those peculiar to Mt Yet there are two major difficulties when we consider the percentage of the Gospel that is not found in Mark or Q. First, since Luke is a very capable rewriter, it is extremely difficult to decide how much material the evangelist freely composed himself, and how much he took over from already shaped traditions or sources. Second, where the author has taken over material, it is not easy to distinguish preLucan traditions from possible preLucan sources. (In this Introduction L is understood as covering both.) Pages 232 and 255 above illustrated the issue in reference to the infancy and passion narratives. If I may insert my personal views, although I think Luke knew certain traditions about the origins and death of Jesus and about JBap, I doubt that there were composed Marian (family) and JBap sources available to Luke or a complete passion narrative other than Mark. There are certain agreements between Luke and Mt over against Mark, but I see no convincing evidence that Luke knew the Matthean Gospel. There are clear Lucan parallels to John, but I doubt that Luke knew the Johannine Gospel; rather certain similar traditions came down to both. However, scholars have plausibly posited some sources for the Gospel (for Acts' sources, see p. 316 below), e.g.: (1) a collection of early hymns or canticles (Magnificat, Benedictus, Gloria in excelsis, Nunc dimittis); (2) a story of Jesus at age twelve - an example of a wider genre of Jesus' boyhood stories; (3) a Davidic genealogy of popular provenance in circulation among Greek-speaking Jews; (4) a group of special parables, which may have included these:81 good Samaritan, persistent friend, rich barn-builder, barren fig tree, lost coin, prodigal son, Lazarus and the rich man, dishonest judge, and the Pharisee and the publican; (5) a group of miracle-stories, which may have included these: the catch of fish, resuscitating the widow's son, and the cures of the crippled woman on the Sabbath, of the man with dropsy, and of ten lepers. In addition, and distinct from larger sources, the author seems to have had particular items of tradition or information about JBap (family origins), Mary the mother of Jesus, Herod Antipas, and the Galilean women disciples. Some of this probably came through people whom the author {267} mentions, e.g., knowledge about Herod (Lk 9:7-9; Lk 13:31-32; Lk 23:6-12) coming through Manaen of the church of Antioch (Ac 13:1). As we end this discussion of Lucan sources, we should remind ourselves, just as we did for Mt (p. 208 above), that the evangelist has done far more than collect and organize disparate material. At the very beginning of Luke's work he speaks of orderly narrative, and all that he received or created has been woven into an epic sweep that begins in the Jerusalem Temple and ends at the imperial court in Rome. This epic can be read for itself without any knowledge of sources,82 and probably that is the way it was heard or read by the first audiences. Luke is a gifted storyteller, e.g., manifesting a truly artistic sense (the beautifully balanced infancy narrative), and presenting scenes of exquisite tenderness (the "penitent thief"). His choice or creation of L material includes some of the most memorable passages in all the Gospels, e.g., the parables of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son. Accurately Dante described him as "the scribe of the gentleness of Christ" - more than any other evangelist Luke has given the world a Jesus to love. If we combine this with the theological motifs noted in the General Analysis above and remember that the same writer also produced the Book of Acts, we must acknowledge the third evangelist as a most significant shaper of Christianity.
Authorship By the latter half of the 2d century (title of P75, Irenaeus, Muratorian Fragment) this book was being attributed to Luke the companion of Paul. Three references in the NT (Phlm 24; Col 4:14; 2 Tm 4:11) speak of him as a fellow worker and beloved physician who was faithful to Paul in a final imprisonment. The way that Col 4:11 is phrased, i.e., all the men listed before that verse are of the circumcision, suggests that Luke who is listed after that verse is not a Jew. The NT information is greatly increased by the assumption that Luke was part of the "we," i.e., a form of self-reference in certain passages of Acts where Paul is not traveling alone (intervals in the period ad 50-63). Outside the NT a Prologue from the end of the 2d century adds that Luke was a Syrian from Antioch who died in Boeotia in Greece (see Fitzmyer, Luke 1:38-39). Scholars are about evenly divided on whether this {268} attribution to Luke should be accepted as historical, so that he would be the author of Luke-Acts. The main objection against authorship by a companion of Paul comes from Acts in terms of historical and theological differences/discrepancies from the Pauline letters; but we shall leave that problem until we discuss authorship in the next Chapter. It does not make a great deal of difference whether or not the author of the Gospel was a companion of Paul, for in either case there would be no reason to think of him as a companion of Jesus. Therefore as a second- or third-generation Christian he would have had to depend on traditions supplied by others - as posited under Sources above. What can be deduced from the Gospel about the evangelist? The last observation in the preceding paragraph seems to be confirmed in 1:1-3, where he includes himself among those who received knowledge of the events passed along from the original eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. Of the four evangelists he had the best control of Greek and facilely uses several styles. In Acts he exhibits a knowledge of the rhetorical conventions of Greek historians and some knowledge of Greek literature and thought. It is not clear that he knew either Hebrew or Aramaic; but he certainly knew the LXX, as seen not only in his citations of Scripture but also in his heavy use of Septuagintal style in appropriate parts of his work. This ability in Greek has caused many to posit that the evangelist was a Gentile convert to Christianity. The knowledge of the OT, however, is so detailed that others have contended that he must have come to Christ with a Jewish background. Yet the mistake about purification in Lk 2:22 ("their" wrongly implies the purification of the father) is implausible on the part of one who grew up in a Jewish family. A solution that does justice to both sides of the issues is to posit that the evangelist was a Gentile who had become a proselyte or a God-fearer, i.e., was converted or attracted to Judaism some years before he was evangelized. {269} The Gospel is inaccurate on Palestinian geography (see Lk 4:44; Lk 17:11 above); that seems to rule out an evangelist from Palestine (but also seems to question whether he could have been the "we" companion who seemingly spent the years 58-60 there). The knowledge of the church at Antioch exhibited in Ac 11:19-15:41 (ending about ad 50) has been advanced as support for the extra-NT tradition that he was an Antiochene89 (or did it give rise to that tradition?). Many think that the eucharistic formula in 1 Co 11:23-25, which Paul says he received from tradition, came from the practice of the church at Antioch from which Paul had been sent forth on his missionary journeys. Luke's form of the formula in Lk 22:19-20 is not derived from Mark and is close to that of Paul, and thus could show contact with the Antioch church. There have been several attempts to establish that the evangelist was a physician, as Luke was, by pointing to technical medical language and perceptions introduced into material taken over from Mark. However, in a series of writings H. J. Cadbury won over most scholars to the viewpoint that the Lucan expressions are no more technical than those used by other educated Greek writers who were not physicians. More will be added to the picture of the author when we discuss Acts in Chapter 10. Locale or Community Involved External tradition that Luke (identified as the evangelist) was from Antioch does not tell us from or to where the Gospel was written. The tradition that Luke was a companion of Paul raises a likelihood that Luke-Acts was addressed to churches descended from the Pauline mission. More specifically a late-2d century Prologue reports that the Gospel was written in Greece (Achaia) and that Luke died there (Fitzmyer, Luke 1:38-39). From the internal evidence of the two-volume Lucan work, the concentration in the last half of Acts on Paul's career (independently of the "we" identification) makes it likely that the addressees were somehow connected with that apostle's proclamation of the gospel message. The Lucan Gospel differs in many ways from Mt If Mt was written for the church at Antioch, it is quite unlikely that Luke was addressed to the same church {270} (e.g., two such very diverse infancy narratives would not have been shaped in the same area for the same people). Occasionally an address to Rome has been suggested because Acts ends there, but Rome in the finale of Acts is primarily symbolic as the center of the Gentile world. Also, if the Gospel was written after ad 70 to the capital, one would have expected some echo of Nero's persecution in the mid-60s. (If Mark was written to Rome, would another Gospel have been needed there?) By way of narrowing the field, the last lines of Acts (28:25-28), attributed to Paul, indicate that the future of the Gospel lies with the Gentiles,92 not with the Jews. That would be strange if the Luke was addressing a largely Jewish Christian audience. Luke's references to the synagogue have a different tone from Matthew's. As Meier, Vision 17, plausibly observes, for Matthew's church the synagogue has become a foreign institution, while for Luke's addressees the synagogue always was a foreign institution. We have seen that Luke drops Marcan Aramaic expressions and place-names as well as references of local color (packed-mud roofs, Herodians) as if they would not be understood, and he substitutes what would be more intelligible to people of Greek background. (Thus, if there were Jewish Christians among the addressees, seemingly they were not Aramaic speakers.) Features in the presentation of Jesus reflecting the Gentile world have been detected in the Gospel, e.g., the prefacing of a narrative dealing with Jesus' infancy and youth gives the Gospel somewhat the aspect of a Hellenistic biography. Jesus' lectures at a banquet have been compared to those of a sage at a symposium (Lk 14:1-24). The resistance to portraying Jesus as suffering during the passion befits a Hellenistic resistance to portraying emotions. All this would make sense if Luke-Acts was addressed to a largely Gentile area evangelized directly or indirectly (through disciples) by the Pauline mission.. Of course, that description could fit many places. Specifically, the early tradition that it was written in and to an area of Greece would match {271} this internal evidence and might find some confirmation in Ac 16:9-10, which portrays Paul's movement from Asia Minor to Macedonia as dictated by divine revelation. Notice that I have spoken of an area; for rather than thinking of Luke's intended audience as a single house-church or even as living in one city, perhaps we should think of Christians of the same background spread over a large region. Purpose Closely related to the issue of addressees is the highly disputed issue of the purpose of Luke-Acts. Much depends on the relations to the Romans and the Jews pictured therein. Since the Lucan Pilate three times declares Jesus not guilty, was Luke trying to persuade Greco-Roman readers that the Jews were totally responsible for the crucifixion? Yet Ac 4:25-28 clearly blames Pilate. Because Acts ends with Paul having been taken to Rome as part of an appeal to the emperor, it has been suggested that the author envisioned a defense brief for Paul. However, then would he not have reported the results of Paul's trial in Rome? Another proposal is that through some of his descriptions of perceptive Roman officials (e.g., of Gallio in Ac 18:14-15) the author was trying to persuade Roman officials to deal fairly with Christians. Yet he also depicts weak Roman officials who are browbeaten by hostile Jewish leaders (Pilate, the magistrates at Philippi, and Felix). Moreover, the proposal that Pagan authorities were likely to read such a work as Luke-Acts is very speculative. A similar objection can be raised to the thesis of O'Neill, Theology, that Acts sought to persuade educated Romans to become Christians, a thesis complicated by his idiosyncratic dating of Acts to 115-130 designed to establish a comparison between Acts and the apologetic writing of Justin Martyr. A more plausible suggestion is that the Lucan writing could help the Christian readers/hearers in their own self-understanding, especially when calumnies were circulated among nonbelievers, whether Jews or Gentiles. Christians needed to know that there was nothing subversive in their origins, nothing that should cause them to be in conflict with Roman governance, and that it was false to assimilate Jesus and his immediate followers to the {272} Jewish revolutionaries" who had embroiled the Roman armies in war in the late 60s. As for the relation of Luke's audience to Jews who did not believe in Jesus, some would detect an overwhelmingly hostile picture, so that Luke would be writing to describe the rejection of the Jews. Yet Luke's portrayal of the role of the (Jewish) people in the passion is more nuanced and more favorable than that of the other Gospels, and in Acts he portrays many Jews as coming to believe in Jesus. There is no doubt that Acts describes Jewish leaders both in Jerusalem and in the diaspora synagogues as resisting the proclamation of Christ (and indeed that may be historical), but this description seems to spring from a desire to explain why Christian preachers and especially Paul turned to the Gentiles. Indeed, the whole flow of Luke-Acts suggests an endeavor to explain the status quo. In the three stages of salvation history, the Gospel comes after the Law and the Prophets because Jesus is loyal to Israel - in him God has not changed the divine plan but fulfilled it. Acts follows as the third stage because the Spirit that comes after Jesus' departure makes the apostles' ministry the legitimate continuation of Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom. The revelation to Peter about Cornelius, Jesus' call of Paul, and the agreement of Paul, Peter, and James at Jerusalem all legitimize Paul's ministry to the Gentiles as part of this continuation. By divine providence a Gospel that had its beginning in Jerusalem, the capital of Judaism, ultimately came to Rome, the capital of the Gentile world. The Gentiles addressed by Luke-Acts could thus be assured that their acceptance of Jesus was no accident or aberration but part of God's plan reaching back to creation, a plan that ultimately includes the conversion of the whole Roman world. Also although they were evangelized by those who had not seen Jesus, the gospel they received went back to "eyewitness and ministers of the world." Thus, not apologetics against adversaries but assurance to fellow Christians was the goal101 as the author himself indicated at the start: "So that you may realize what certainty you have of the instruction you have received" (Lk 1:4). If the author was {273} a Gentile Christian addressing fellow Gentile Christians, he wrote with the assurance that "they will listen" (Ac 28:28). Date of Writing The same ancient Prologue that locates the Lucan addressees in Greece tells us that Luke's age at death was eighty-four and that he wrote after Matthew and Mark. That Luke used Mark is most plausible from internal evidence; and if Mark is to be dated in the period 68-73, a date earlier than 80 for Luke is unlikely. (Since Mt and Luke seem to be totally independent of each other, there is no way from internal evidence to decide which is older.) The constant Lucan pessimism about the fate of Jewish leaders and Jerusalem makes it likely that Jerusalem has already been destroyed by the Romans in 70. Objection to a post-80 date stems largely from the fact that Acts ends ca. 63 with Paul's two-year imprisonment in Rome, and the contention that if Luke had written much later than that, he would have reported Paul's subsequent career and death. As we shall see in the next Chapter, however, that objection probably misunderstands the purpose of Acts which was not to tell the life of Paul but to dramatize the spread of Christianity, culminating with the symbolism of the great missionary coming to Rome, the capital of the Gentile empire. Indeed, the relation espoused by the Paul of Ac 28:25-28 between the mission to the Gentiles and the failure of the mission to the Jews is so different from what Paul himself wrote in Rm 9-11 ca. 57/58 that it is hard to imagine a date in the early 60s for Acts. How long after 80 was Luke-Acts written? A date no later than 100 is indicated. The Gospel's symbolic interest in Jerusalem as a Christian center does not match the outlook of 2d-century Christian literature. For Asia Minor and specifically for Ephesus the writer of Acts seems to know only a church structure of presbyters (Ac 14:23; Ac 20:17). There is no sign of the {274} developed pattern of having one bishop in each church so clearly attested by Ignatius for that area in the decade before 110. Nor does the writer of Acts show any knowledge of the letters of Paul, which were gathered by the early 2d century. Within the range between 80 and 100, in order to preserve the possibility that there is truth in the tradition that the author was a companion of Paul, the best date would seem to be 85, give or take five to ten years. Issues and Problems for Reflection (1) A particular textual problem, awkwardly called Western Non- Interpolations,104 affects the interpretation of Lk 22:19b-20; Lk 24:3b,6a, Lk 12:36b,40,51b,52a and perhaps other verses. The Western family of textual witnesses often has readings longer than those in other ms. traditions, but in these verses it has shorter readings. Following the lead of the famous 19th- century textual critics Westcott and Hort, many scholars and translators have followed the Western brevity and omitted from Luke the better attested longer readings. Some of them are important, e.g., Lk 22:19b-20 describes the eucharistic cup of wine; Lk 24:12 describes Peter going to the empty tomb. The recent trend, however, is to accept them as genuine, in part because P 75, the earliest ms. of Luke known to us, published in 1961, contains them. (2) "Glory in the highest heavens to God, and on earth peace to people of good will" (2:14). In the second clause there are four items, the first three of them undisputed ("on earth," "peace (nominative)," "to people (literally, men: dative)"). For the fourth and final item the oldest and best Greek mss., followed by the Latin Vulgate, read a genitive of eudokia, "good will, favor," leading to the classical Roman Catholic translation, "and on earth peace to men of good will" Inferior Greek mss. known to the KJV translators read a nominative, and Luther favored that because it avoided any suggestion that God granted peace in proportion to human merit, whence the classical Prot estant translation, "and on earth peace, good will toward men!' Modern scholars, rejecting the nominative, have sought to solve the theological prob lem by appealing to Hebrew and Aramaic phrases in the DSS: "a man/chil dren of His good will," so that Luke's genitive of eudokia could mean not "of (human) good will" but "of (God's) favor," extending peace to people favored by God. For the ongoing debate see BBM 403-5,677-79. {275} (3) The confession of Peter appears in all four Gospels and illustrates theories of inter Gospel relationships: Mk 8:29: "You are the Messiah"; Mt 16:16: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (followed by the giving of the name "Peter"); Lk 9:20: "The Messiah of God"; Jn 6:69: "You are the Holy One of God." In the Two-Source Theory Mt and Luke have expanded Mark in different ways. In the Griesbach hypothesis Mark, using Mt and Luke, chose the one element common to both. Those who maintain that Luke knew Mt think he shortened the Matthean formula, perhaps under the influence of Mark's shorter form. The likelihood that there is a special relationship between Luke and John might account for the genitival modifier ("of God") in both. Yet the relationship to John is complicated, for there are Johannine parallels to Mt as well. In Jn 1:40-42 Andrew calls his brother Simon (Peter) and tells him, "We have found the Messiah," on which occasion Jesus gives the name Peter; and in Jn 11:27 Martha confesses, "You are the Messiah, the Son of God." Is all this because John knew the Synoptics or because common traditions fed into the Synoptic and Johannine strains of Gospel formation? (4) Luke has texts that illustrate the complexity of the notion of the kingdom of God. There is ambivalence about whether the concept involves kingship or kingdom, whether and to what extent it has come and/or is still coming, and whether it is visible or invisible. Palpable images like gate and table and expulsion from the kingdom are employed in Lk 13:24,28,29; and in Lk 9:27 there are those standing here who will not taste death until they have seen the kingdom of God. Yet in Lk 17:20-21 Jesus contends that the coming of the kingdom is not a matter of observation so that one can say, "Here or there it is." In Lk 11:2 the disciples are taught to pray for the kingdom to come. In Lk 10:9 disciples are told to proclaim to the towns they visit: "The kingdom of God has come near"; in Lk 11:20 Jesus says that if it is by the finger of God that he drives out demons, "The kingdom of God has reached you"; and in Lk 11:21 he says, "The kingdom of God is in/among you." In Lk 21:31-32 (the eschatological discourse) upon seeing the signs of the last times, one can say, "The kingdom of God is near"; and all this will happen before this generation passes away. This varied outlook is a reflection of the problem of futuristic and realized eschatology that occurs elsewhere in the NT (see Issue 2 in Chapter 10 and p. 342 below). Bibliography on Luke (See also the Bibliography in Chapter 6 on the Synoptic Problem and on Q Research. Books marked below with an asterisk treat Acts also.) Commentaries and Studies in Series: Bock, D. L. (2 vols.; BECNT, 1994,1996); Browning, W.R.F. (TBC, 3d ed., 1972); Caird, G. B. (PC, 1963); Craddock, F. B. (IBC, 1990); Culpepper, R. A. (NInterpB, 1995); Danker, F. W. (ProcC, 2d ed., 1987); Ellis, E. E. (NCBC, 2d ed., 1974); Evans, C. A. (NIBC, 1990); Evans, C. F. (TPINTC, 1990); Fitzmyer, J. A. (2 vols.; AB, 1981, 1985); Geldenhuys, N. (NICNT, 1951); Green, J. B. (NTT, 1995); Johnson, L. T. (ABD 4:403-20; SP, 1991); Leaney, A. R. C. (BNTC, 2d ed., 1966); Marshall, I. H. (NIGTC, 1978); Morris, L. (TNTC, 1974); Nolland, J. (3 vols.; WBC, 1989, 1993); Plummer, A. (ICC, 5th ed., 1922); Reiling, J., and J. L. Swellengrebel (TH, 1971); Stoger, A. (2 vols.; NTSR, 1969); Thompson, G.H.P. (NCIarBC, 1972); Tiede, D. L. (AugC, 1988); Tinsley, E. J. (CCNEB, 1965); Tuckett, C. M. (NTG, 1996). Bibliographies: Fitzmyer, Luke, has excellent bibliographies for every section of Luke, and accordingly this Bibliography gives more attention to works after 1980; Wagner, G., EBNT* 1985); Van Segbroeck, F, The Gospel of Luke: A Cumulative Bibliography 1973-1988 (BETL 88; Leuven: Peeters, 1989); Green, J. B., and M. C. Mc Keever, Luke-Acts and New Testament Historiography* (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994_annotated); Mills, W. E., BBR 1995). Surveys of Research: Barrett, C. K., Luke the Historian in Recent Study* (London: Epworth, 1961); van Unnik, W. C, in Keck, Studies 1966) 15-32; Talbert, C. H., Interpretation 30 1976), 381-95; Karris, R. J., What Are They Saying about Luke and Acts?* (New York: Paulist, 1979); Fitzmyer, Luke 13-34; Bovon, F, Luke the Theologian: Thirty-Three Years of Research 1950-1983)* (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1987); Powell, M. A., What Are They Saying about Luke? (New York: Paulist, 1989). Brown, S., Apostasy and Perseverance in the Theology of Luke (An Bib 36; Rome: PBI, 1969). *Cadbury, H. J., The Style and Literary Method of Luke (2 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ., 1920). *_______, The Making of Luke-Acts (2d ed.; London: SPCK, 1958). A classic. *Carroll, J. T., Response to the End of History: Eschatology and Situation in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 92; Atlanta: Scholars, 1988). Cassidy, R. J., Jesus, Politics and Society: A Study of Luke's Gospel (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1978). *_______, and P. J. Scharper, Political Issues in Luke-Acts (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983). Conzelmann, H., The Theology of St. Luke (New York: Harper, 1960). Creed, J. M., The Gospel according to St. Luke (London: Macmillan, 1930). Danker, F. W., Jesus and the New Age: A Commentary on St. Luke's Gospel (rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). *Darr, J. A., On Character Building: The Reader and Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke-Acts (Louisville: W/K, 1992). Dawsey, J. M., The Lukan Voice: Confusion and Irony in the Gospel of Luke (Macon: Mercer, 1986). Drury, J., Tradition and Design in Luke's Gospel (London: DLT, 1976). Midrashic approach. Edwards, O. C, Jr., Luke's Story of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981). *Ellis, E. E., Eschatology in Luke (Facet Biblical Series 30; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972). *Esler, P. F., Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (SNTSMS 57; Cambridge Univ., 1987). *Evans, C. A., and J. A. Sanders, Luke and Scripture: The Function of Sacred Tradition in Luke-Acts (Minneapolis: A/F, 1993). *Fitzmyer, J. A., Luke the Theologian (New York: Paulist, 1989). *Flender, H., St. Luke: Theologian of Redemptive History (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967). *Franklin, E., Christ the Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975). *_______, Luke: Interpreter of Paul, Critic of Matthew (JSNTSup 92; Sheffield: JSOT, 1994). Goulder, M. D., Luke: A New Paradigm (2 vols.; JSNTSup 20; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989). *Harnack, A. (von), Luke the Physician: The Author of the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Putnam's, 1907). *Hastings, A., Prophet and Witness in Jerusalem: A Study of the Teaching of Saint Luke (Baltimore: Helicon, 1958). Interpretation 48 (Oct. 1994): issue dedicated to Luke. *Jervell, J., Luke and the People of God: A New Look at Luke-Acts (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1972). *_______, The Unknown Paul: Essays on Luke-Acts and Early Christian History (Min neapolis: Augsburg, 1984). *Juel, D. H., Luke-Acts: The Promise of History (Atlanta: Knox, 1983). Karris, R. J., Invitation to Luke (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977). ________, Luke: Artist and Theologian (New York: Paulist, 1985). *Keck, L. E., and J. L. Martyn, Studies in Luke-Acts (P. Schubert Festschrift; Nashville: Abingdon, 1966). Abbreviated SLA. Kilgallen, J. J., A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (New York: Paulist, 1988). Kingsbury, J. D., Conflict in Luke: Jesus, Authorities, Disciples (Minneapolis: A/F, 1991). Kodell, J., "The Theology of Luke in Recent Study," BTB 1 1971), 115-44. *Kurz, W. S., Reading Luke-Acts (Louisville: W/K, 1993). *Maddox, R., The Purpose of Luke-Acts (Edinburgh: Clark, 1982). *Marshall, I. H., Luke: Historian and Theologian (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971). *Mattill, A. J., Jr., Luke and the Last Things (Dillsboro, NC: Western North Carolina, 1979). *Morton, A. Q., and G.H.C. Macgregor, The Structure of Luke and Acts (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964). Navone, J., Themes of St. Luke (Rome: Gregorian Univ., 1970). *Neyrey, J. H., The Social-World of Luke-Acts (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991). *O'Collins, G., and G. Marconi, Luke and Acts (New York: Paulist, 1991). Essays. *O'Fearghail, F, Introduction to Luke-Acts: A Study of the Role of Lk 1:1-4,44 in the Composition of Luke's Two-Volume Work (An Bib 26; Rome: PBI, 1991). *O'Toole, R. E, The Unity of Luke's Theology: An Analysis of Luke-Acts (GNS 9; Wilmington: Glazier, 1984). *Ravens, D.A.S., Luke and the Restoration of Israel (JSNTSup 119; Sheffield: Academic, 1996). Reicke, B., The Gospel of Luke (Richmond: Knox, 1964). *Richard, E., ed., New Views on Luke and Acts (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1990). Essays. *Richardson, N., The Panorama of Luke: An Introduction to the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles (London: Epworth, 1982). Robinson, W. C, Jr., The Way of the Lord: A Study of History and Eschatology in the Gospel of Luke (Basel: dissertation, 1962). Schweizer, E., The Good News According to Luke (Atlanta: Knox, 1984). *Sheeley, S. M., Narrative Asides in Luke-Acts (JSNTSup 72; Sheffield: JSOT, 1992). *Shepherd, W. H., Jr., The Narrative Function of the Holy Spirit as a Character in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 147; Atlanta: Scholars, 1994). *Squires, J. T., The Plan of God in Luke-Acts (SNTSMS 76; Cambridge Univ., 1993). *Talbert, C. H., Literary Patterns, Theological Themes and the Genre of Luke-Acts (SBLMS 20; Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1974). *_______, ed., Perspectives on Luke-Acts (Edinburgh: Clark, 1978). Important articles. *_______, ed., Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar (New York: Crossroad, 1984). Articles. -, Reading Luke. A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Third Gospel (New York: Crossroad, 1986). *Tannehill, R. C, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation (2 vols.; Philadelphia/Minneapolis: A/F, 1986, 1990). *Tiede, D. L., Prophecy and History in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). *Tuckett, CM., ed., Luke's Literary Achievement (JSNTSup 116; Sheffield: Academic, 1995). *Walasky, P. W., "And So We Came to Rome": The Political Perspective of St. Luke (SNTSMS 49; Cambridge Univ., 1983). An apology addressed to the Roman Empire. * Wilson, S. G., The Gentiles and the Gentile Mission in Luke-Acts (SNTSMS 23; Cambridge Univ., 1973). *_______, Luke and the Law (SNTSMS 50; Cambridge Univ., 1983). *_______, "Lukan Eschatology," NTS 16 1969-70), 330-47.
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