D. The Gospel of Luke
1. The Nativities of Jesus and John (1:1-2:52)
The fundamental source of Luke’s double nativity story is
the nativity of Samuel. Eli becomes Simeon (and perhaps also Zachariah), while
barren Hannah becomes old Elizabeth (and Mary, too, if we accept the majority
of manuscripts’ attribution of the Magnificat to her instead of Elizabeth,
1:46-55). The Magnificat is clearly a paraphrase of Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel
1-10. The repeated refrain of Jesus’ continuing growth in wisdom and favor with
God and men (2:40, 52, cf., 1:80) comes directly from 1 Samuel 2:26, “Now the
boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and
with men.”
The birth
annunciation to Mary recalls those of Isaac (Genesis 17:19, “Sarah your wife
shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name...”; 18:9-15) and Samson
(Judges 13:2-5, “you shall conceive and bear a son... and he shall begin to
deliver Israel...”). The story also borrows from the commissioning stories of
Moses (Exodus 3:10-12) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-8), where the servant of God
objects to the divine summons and his objection is overruled (see Luke 1:18,
34).
A less
familiar source for the Lukan nativity story is the nativity of Moses as told
in Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, where we read that, during
Pharaoh’s persecution of the Hebrew babies, Amram has determined to defy
Pharaoh by having a son. God makes known his will by sending an angel to the
virgin Miriam. “And the Spirit of God came upon Miriam one night, and she saw a
dream and told it to her parents in the morning, saying, ‘I have seen this
night, and behold a man in a linen garment stood and said to me, “Go, and say
to your parents, ‘Behold, he who will be born from you will be cast forth into
the water; likewise through him the water will be dried up. And I will work
signs through him and save my people, and he will exercise leadership
always’”’” (9:10).
The angel
Gabriel’s predictions in Luke 1:32-33, 35 derive from an Aramaic version of
Daniel: “[And when the Spirit] came to rest up[on] him, he fell before the
throne. [Then Daniel rose and said,] ‘O king, why are you angry; why do you
[grind] your teeth? [The G]reat [God] has revealed to you [that which is to
come.] ... [Peoples will make war,] and battles shall multiply among the
nations, until [the king of the people of God arises... [All the peoples will
serve him,] and he shall become gre[at] upon the earth... He will be called
[son of the Gr]eat [God;] by his Name shall he be designated. He will be called
the son of God. They will call him son of the Most High... His kingdom will be
an eternal kingdom, and he will be righteous in all his ways” (4Q246, The
Son of God).
When Mary
visits her cousin Elizabeth, the latter’s unborn child, John the Baptizer,
leaps in the womb in greeting to acknowledge the greater glory of the unborn
Jesus. Here, as G.R. Driver pointed out, Luke refers to Genesis 25:22 LXX,
where Rebecca is in pain because her two rival sons strive within her as a sign
of fraternal discord to come: “And the babes leaped within her.” This precedent
Luke seeks to reverse by having the older cousin, John, already deferring in
the womb to his younger cousin. Here he has an eye on the rival John the
Baptist sect whom he thus tries to conciliate and coopt.
.
2. The Centurion’s Child and the Son of the Widow of
Nain (7:1-17)
Luke has used 1 Kings 17 as the basis for the two-miracle
sequence here (Brodie, pp. 136-137 ). The original Elijah version stipulates (1
Kings 17:1) how the famine shall be relieved only by the prophetic word, just
as the mere word of Jesus is enough to heal the centurion’s servant/child at a
distance (Luke 7:7b). Elijah journeys to the Transjordan where he will meet a
Gentile in need, the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:5, 10a), just as Jesus
arrives in Capernaum to encounter a Roman centurion. Both Gentiles are in dire
need, the widow about to succumb to starvation with her son (17:12), the
centurion desperate to avert his son’s/servant’s imminent death (7:2-3). Once
the facts are made known to the miracle worker, there is a series of commands
(1 Kings 17:10c-13; Luke 7:8), and divine deliverance is secured, the
multiplication of food in the one case (17:6), the return of health in the
other (7:10).
It
appears that Luke has drawn the story of the centurion’s son from the wider
gospel tradition, as it appears in both Matthew 8:513 (hence in Q) and John
4:46-54. It had already been derived from the Elijah story by early Christian
scribes. But Luke has decided as well to add a new Jesus tale, unparalleled in
other gospels, modeled upon the 1 Kings sequel to the story of Elijah and the
widow. Whereas Elijah later raises from the dead the widow’s son, Jesus next
comes upon a funeral procession and raises the man about to be buried, again a
widow’s son, this time from Nain. Luke has decided to reserve one feature from
the first Elijah episode to use in his second Jesus episode: the initial
meeting with the widow at the city gate of Zarephath, which he makes the gate
of Nain (even though historical Ain had no gate!).
But
before this, Luke opens his second episode with the same opening from 1 Kings
17:17a: “And it happened afterward” // “after this...” The widow’s son is dead (1
Kings 17:17b; Luke 7:12b). Elijah cried out in anguish (1 Kings 17:19-20),
unlike Jesus, who, however, tells the widow not to cry (Luke 7:13). After a
gesture (Elijah prays for the boy’s spirit to return, v. 21; Jesus commands the
boy to rise, 7:14), the dead rises, proving his reanimation by crying out (1
Kings 17:22; Luke 7:15). His service rendered, the wonder-worker “gave him to
his mother” (1 Kings 17:24; Luke 7:15b, verbatim identical). Those present
glorify the hero (1 Kings 17:24; Luke 7:16-17).
If Luke himself (as Brodie thinks, pp.
136-152) composed the first episode directly from the first Elijah episode,
instead of taking it from Q, he will have also transferred the widow’s lament
that Elijah has come to punish her sins into the centurion’s confession that he
is unworthy to have Jesus come under his roof.
3. The Sinful Woman (7:36-50)
According to Brodie (pp. 174-184), Luke has created his
rather cumbersome story of the sinful woman from a pair of Elisha’s miracles,
the never-failing cruse of oil (2 Kings 4:1-7) and the raising of the
Shunammite’s son (2 Kings 4:8-37). The widow of Elisha’s disciple is in
financial debt, with her creditors about to take her two children in payment (2
Kings 4:1). In Luke’s version, her arrears have become a debt of sin (Luke
7:37, 40-42). Elisha causes her oil to multiply, becoming enough to pay her
debt. Jesus’ cancellation of the woman’s debt is less material but no less
miraculous, as he pronounces her forgiven (Luke 7:44-50). As for the oil, it
has become the myrrh with which the woman anoints Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:38). In
Luke’s version, Simon the Pharisee has invited the itinerant Jesus to dine
(Luke 7:36), a reflection of the Shunammite’s invitation of Elisha to stay and
eat with her whenever passing by (2 Kings 4:8-11). As a reward, Elisha grants
her to conceive a son. Years later, he dies of sunstroke, whereupon she
journeys to Elisha for help, falling at his feet (2 Kings 4:27), just as the
suppliant woman anoints the feet of Jesus (Luke 7:38). There is no need to
posit Luke’s creation of the whole anointing story, the core of which he got
from Mark 14:3-9, but he has substantially rewritten it in light of 2 Kings.
4. Appointment in Samaria (9:51-56)
The connection between Luke 9:51-56 and 2 Kings 1:1-2:1 is
obvious to all in view of the explicit allusion in the one to the other (Luke
9:54). But Brodie shows (pp. 207-214) how the Lukan story is simply rewritten
from its prototype. Luke has transferred the anticipation of the hero’s being
taken up into heaven from the end of the section of Elijah’s clash with the
Samaritan troops (2 Kings 2:1) to the beginning of the story of Jesus and the
Samaritan village (Luke 9:51a). The king of Samaria has sent messengers to
inquire of the oracle of Baal-zebub in Philistine Ekron, but Elijah meets them
and turns them back (2 Kings 1:2-5). In Luke this has become the turning back
of Jesus’ messengers sent ahead to secure the night’s accommodations in
Samaria. The Samaritans are no longer those turned back but those who turn
others back in their travels. The prophet is now the sender of the messengers,
not their interceptor. Once the king of Samaria sends troops to apprehend
Elijah, the latter calls down fire from the sky to consume them (2 Kings
1:9-10). The scene is repeated (vv. 1-12). The third time Elijah relents and
comes along quietly (1 Kings 1:13-15). James and John want to repeat Elijah’s
miraculous destruction of the Samaritans (now villagers, not troops), but Jesus
will have none of it. Instead he takes the role of the angel of the LORD who
bade Elijah show mercy.
5. Calling a Ploughman (9:59-62)
The stories of Jesus’ calling Peter, Andrew, James, and
John (Mark 1:16-20) and Levi (Mark 2:14) all seem to stem from Elijah summoning
Elisha to become his disciple and successor (1 Kings 19:19-21). But Luke seems
(Brodie, pp. 216-227) to have created another discipleship paradigm which
implicitly critiques the prototype. In Luke 9:59-62, Jesus forbids what Elijah
allows, that the new recruit should delay long enough to pay filial respects.
Also, whereas ploughing was for Elisha the worldly pursuit he must abandon for
the prophetic ministry, for Luke ploughing becomes the very metaphor for that
ministry.
6. The Central Section (10:1-18:14)
Based on Mark’s Transfiguration scene, which both take
over directly (Matthew 17:1-8; Luke 9:28-36), Matthew and Luke
depict Jesus as the Prophet like unto Moses, and each has him promulgating a
new Torah. Matthew presents a whole new Pentateuch by organizing the teaching
of Jesus into five great blocks: the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7), the
Mission Charge (chapter 10), the Parables chapter (13), the Manual of
Discipline (chapters 18-19), and the denunciation on the Pharisees plus the
Olivet Discourse (chapters 23-26; the cramming together of two themes in the
fifth section only underlines his determination to squeeze the whole thing into
five divisions, no matter how snug the fit!). By contrast, Luke thought it
sufficient to have Jesus present a Deutero-Deuteronomy, a “second law” such as
Moses offers in the Book of Deuteronomy. C.F. Evans (“The Central Section of
St. Luke’s Gospel,” 1967) was the first to point this out. Just as Matthew did,
Luke has both simply organized some traditional materials and also created some
of his own based on suggestions in the scripture text he was emulating.
a. Sending out Emissaries (Deuteronomy 1; Luke
10:1-3, 17-30)
Just as Moses had chosen twelve spies to reconnoiter the
land which stretched “before your face,” sending them through the cities
of the land of Canaan, so does Jesus send a second group, after the twelve, a
group of seventy, whose number symbolizes the nations of the earth who are to
be conquered, so to speak, with the gospel in the Acts of the Apostles. He
sends them out “before his face” to every city he plans to visit
(in Canaan, too, obviously).
To match
the image of the spies returning with samples of the fruit of the land
(Deuteronomy 1:25), Luke has placed here the Q saying (Luke 10:2//Matthew
9:37-38), “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few; therefore beg the
Lord of the harvest to send out more workers into his harvest.”
And
Jesus’ emissaries return with a glowing report, just as Moses’ did.
b. Judgment for Rejection (Deuteronomy 2-3:22; Luke
10:4-16)
Just as Moses sent messengers to Kings Og of Bashan and
Sihon of Heshbon with terms of peace, so does Jesus send his seventy out with
the offer of blessing: “Peace be to this house.” The Israelite messengers are
rebuffed, and God punishes them by sending Israel to decimate them. Jesus warns
that in case of rejection (which does not in fact occur), the aloof cities will
face divine judgment some time in the future. This mission charge material
comes from Q (cf. Matthew 10). That it did not originate here with Luke borrowing
it directly from Deuteronomy is evident from the fact that the hypothetical
doom of the unresponsive towns is compared with those of Tyre and Sidon, not of
Bashan and Heshbon. Perhaps Luke decided to use the Q material here because it
uses the image of the missionaries “shaking the dust” (i.e., the contagion) of
the village “from the soles of their feet” (Luke 10:1), matching the mention of
“the sole of the foot” in Deuteronomy 2:5.
c. Praying to the Lord of Heaven and Earth
(Deuteronomy 3:23-4:40; Luke 10:21-24)
“At that time” Moses prayed to God, like unto whom there
is none “in heaven or on earth” (Deuteronomy 2:23-24). In the Q saying Luke
10:21-24//Matthew 11:25-27, perhaps itself suggested originally by the
Deuteronomy text, Jesus “at that time” praised his divine Father, “Lord of
heaven and earth” (Luke 10:21). Jesus thanks God for revealing his wonders to
“children,” not to the ostensibly “wise.” In some measure this reflects the
wording of Deuteronomy 4:6, where Moses reminds his people to cherish the
commandments as their wisdom and 4:9, there he bids them tell what they
have seen to their children. The Deuteronomic recital of all the wonders
their eyes have seen (4:3, 9, 34, 36) may have inspired the Q blessing of the
disciples for having seen the saving acts the ancient prophets and kings did
not live to witness (Luke 10:23-24). Only note the antitypological reversal of
Deuteronomy: for Q it is the ancients who failed to see what their remote heirs
did see.
The rest
of the Q passage, Luke 10:22, may derive from Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Sun:
“O Aten, no man knoweth thee, save for thy son Akhenaten.”
d. The Commandments and the Shema (Deuteronomy 5-6;
Luke 10:25-27)
These two chapters of Deuteronomy present both the
Decalogue and the Shema. Luke presents but the tip of the iceberg when Jesus
asks a scribe what he considers the gist of the Torah and the man replies with
the Shema (adding Leviticus 19:18). Here Luke has rewritten Mark 12:28-34,
which did list some of the Ten Commandments, albeit loosely. Luke’s closing
comment, “Do this and you will live,” comes from Leviticus 18:5, “You shall
therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances, by doing which a man shall live.”
It is not a case of Jesus being quoted as quoting the Leviticus text; rather it
is evident Luke has refashioned the unacknowledged Levitical original into a
fictive saying of Jesus.
e. (No) Mercy to the Foreigner (Deuteronomy 7; Luke
10:29-37)
To Deuteronomy’s stern charge to eradicate the heathen of
Canaan without mercy (7:2), itself a piece of long-after-the-fact jingoism, not
an historical incitement to genocide, Luke poses this uniquely Lukan parable,
that of the Good Samaritan, in which the despised foreigner/heretic is filled
with mercy (Luke 10:33) for a Jew victimized by thugs. Like all the uniquely
Lukan parables, this one is the evangelist’s own creation. By contrast, Matthew
knew of no such sympathy of Jesus for Samaritans (Matthew 10:5). This parable,
like the uniquely Lukan narrative of the Samaritan leper (17:1-19), reflects
Luke’s interest in the Samaritan mission (Acts 8:5-17 ff.), shared with John
(John 4:1-42). The parable of the Good Samaritan, like most of Luke’s, is a
genuine story, no mere extended simile, and it compares two type-characters, in
this case the indifferent priest and Levite versus the compassionate Samaritan,
just as Luke elsewhere contrasts the Prodigal and his straight-arrow brother,
Lazarus and the Rich Man, the Pharisee and the Publican, the Widow and the
Unjust Judge, Mary and Martha, the Importunate Friend and his Unresponsive
Friend. The contrast with Moses’ mercilessness is of a piece with Luke’s
Elijah/Jesus contrast in Luke 9:54, where Jesus shows mercy to Samaritans,
unlike his counterpart Elijah who barbecued them (2 Kings 1:10, 12).
f. Not by Bread Alone (Deuteronomy 8:1-3; Luke
10:38-42)
Luke has created the story of Mary and Martha as a
commentary on Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man does not live by bread alone, but... man
lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” Luke has opposed
the contemplative Mary who hungers for Jesus’ (“the Lord’s”) “words” with the harried Martha (“Lady of the
House,” hence an ideal, fictive character), whose preoccupation with domestic
chores, especially cooking and serving, threatens to crowd out spiritual
sustenance (cf. Deuteronomy 8:11-14). It is not unlikely that the passage is
intended to comment in some way on the issue of celibate women and their
various roles in the church of Luke’s day (cf. 1 Timothy 5:3-16).
g. Fatherly Provision (Deuteronomy 8:4-20; Luke
11:1-13)
Deuteronomy compares the discipline meted out to Israel by
God with the training a father gives his son, then reminds the reader of the
fatherly provision of God for his children in the wilderness and promises
security, prosperity, and sufficient food in their new land. Luke matches this
with his version of the Q Lord’s Prayer, sharing the same general themes of
fatherly provision and asking God to spare his children “the test,” recalling
the “tests” sent upon the people by God in the wilderness. Luke adds the Q
material about God giving good gifts to his children (Luke 11:9-13//Matthew
7:7-11), certainly the point of the Deuteronomy text, together with his own
parable of the Importunate Friend, which (like its twin, the parable of the
Unjust Judge, 18:1-8, also uniquely Lukan) urges the seeker not to give up
praying “How long, O Lord?”
h. Vanquishing Strong Enemies (Deuteronomy
9:1-10:11; Luke 11:14-26)
On the eve of Israel’s entrance into the land, Moses
reviews their fathers’ sorry history of rebellion yet promises victory over
stronger nations including the half-mythical Anakim, descended from a race of
titans. Later haggadah made these Sons of Anak descendants of the miscegenation
between the Sons of God understood as fallen angels and the daughters of men
(Genesis 6:1-6). Thus it is no surprise for Luke to discern a parallel between
this text and the Q/Mark account of the Beel-zebul controversy, where Jesus
exorcises demons (fallen angels?), despoiling Satan, the strong man, of his
captives. According to the analogy, the poor hapless demoniacs are like the
promised land of Canaan, while the demons possessing the wretches are like the
Anakim holding the land until God casts them out because of their wickedness,
even though like Satan their chief they are far stronger than any mere mortal.
As noted
in the discussion of the Beel-zebul controversy in Mark (section B.11
above), the Q comparison of Jesus with the “sons” of the Pharisees and his own
use of “the finger of God” to cast out demons must derive from a midrash upon
the Exodus contest between Moses and the priest-magicians of Pharaoh. But Luke
anchors it precisely at this point because of the Deuteronomic reference to
“the finger of God” writing the commandments upon the stone tables. The “strong
man” element of both Markan and Q versions of the Beel-zebul episode also
originated elsewhere, in Isaiah 49:24, but it seemed to fit the Deuteronomic
reference to stronger nations here. That is, though the Beel-zebul controversy does
stem from scriptural sources, it was pre-Lukan material which he then placed at
a particular point in his sequence because of its perceived analogy to the
piece of Deuteronomy he needed to parallel.
i. Impartiality and Clear Vision (Deuteronomy 10:12-11:32;
Luke 11:27-36)
Again, Luke has done his best to match up previously
existing gospel traditions with themes from the next bit of Deuteronomy. To the
exaltation of God as impartial to all, no respector of persons, Luke matches
(and, not unlikely, creates on the basis of Mark 3::31-35) an anecdote showing
that not even the mother of Jesus is higher in God’s sight than the average
faithful disciple.
Corresponding
to the warning for Israel not to repeat the sins of the Canaanites and so
repeat their doom, Luke matches the Q material on how even ancient
non-Israelites better appreciated the divine witness of their day than did
Jesus’ contemporaries (Luke 11:29-32//Matthew12:39-42).
Finally,
Luke places the Q material about the eye being the lamp of the body (Luke
11:34-36//Matthew 6:22-23) in tandem with Deuteronomy 11:18’s charge to cherish
the commandments in one’s heart and to place them as frontlets on one’s
forehead. Presumably, the unstated middle term of transition from the one image
to the other was Psalm 19:8 (“the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the
heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes”) or perhaps
Psalm 119:105 (“Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.”).
j. Clean and Unclean (Deuteronomy 12:1-16; Luke
11:37-12:12)
The substance of Deuteronomy 12:1-14’s prohibition of
sacrifice on the traditional high places and restriction of worship to the
(Jerusalem) Temple, finds no real echo in Luke, who waits to apply roughly
parallel material to Deuteronomy 12:15-16, which allows for the preparation and
eating of meat as a purely secular process at home. (I.e., no longer must every
eating of meat be part of a sacrifice, traditionally offered at home.) Here we
read that clean and unclean alike may eat meat in this way, and Luke has seized
on this rubric to introduce the Q material on the inability of the Pharisees to
tell the real difference between clean and unclean (Luke 11:39-52//Matthew
23:4-7, 23-36, as well as Mark 7:1-5 (//Luke 11:37-38) and the Q material
Matthew 10:26-35//Luke 12:2-9. The connection is merely that of catchwords, as
proves also to be the case when we notice that the Q phrase “the blood of all
the prophets shed” (Luke 11:50//Matthew 23:35, ”all the righteous blood shed on
earth”) just barely recalls the Deuteronomic phrase, “you shall not eat the
blood; you shall pour it out upon the earth” (12:16).
k. Inheritance (Deuteronomy 12:17-32; Luke 12:13-34)
Approached by someone in the crowd who seeks to have Jesus
adjudicate an inheritance dispute, Jesus refuses to play the role of arbiter,
one commonly played by itinerant Near Eastern holy men (who, having no earthly
connections or interests, the theory went, must be impartial as well as
inspired). His retort, “Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?” (Luke
12:14), echoes and no doubt derives from Exodus 2:14a, “Who made you a prince
and a judge over us?” Moses had sought to interfere in his people’s worldly
troubles, only to be rebuffed. Jesus’ intervention is sought, but he rebuffs
the request. Here is another Moses-Jesus antitype, at the expense of Moses,
since one greater than Moses is
ostensibly here.
The
ensuing parable, Luke 12:16-21, seems to be based on Ecclesiastes/Qoheleth
6:-2, “a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks
nothing of all he desires, yet God does not give him the opportunity to enjoy
them, but a stranger enjoys them.” See also Ecclesiastes/Qoheleth 2:18-21.
l. Severe Punishments (Deuteronomy 13:1-11; Luke
12:35-53)
Deuteronomy takes aim at false prophets, prophets of rival
deities, warning Israel not to heed their seductions. It is God who has sent
them, and not the deities whom they think themselves to speaking for. God is in
this way testing Israel’s fidelity. To match this theme, Luke has chosen to use
parable material based on the Markan Apocalypse (Mark 13:34-37); note Luke’s
expansion of Mark 13::37, “What I say to you I say to all: watch,” into a
dialogue between Jesus and Peter: “Peter said, ‘Lord, are you telling this
parable for us, or for all?’” (Luke 12:41 ff.). The Markan parable had the
departing master set tasks for his servants; hence they functioned as tests to
prove how well they would perform. For Luke, connecting the parable with
Deuteronomy, the church’s job while their Lord is away in heaven is to remain
faithful to his name as against the blandishments of other saviors and prophets
(Luke 21:8).
Since
Deuteronomy does not exempt even family members who may have fallen under the
spell of forbidden gods (13:6-11), Luke adds the Q saying Luke 51-53//Matthew
10:34-36), largely based on an unacknowledged quotation of Micah 7:6, “for the
son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are men of his
own household.”
m. Judgment on this People (Deuteronomy 13:12-18;
Luke 12:54-13:5)
Whole cities lapsing into pagan apostasy are to be
eliminated, destroyed, Deuteronomy mandates, with nothing ever to be rebuilt on
the desolation, so seriously does Israel’s God take spiritual infidelity. No
less gravely does the Lukan Jesus take the lack of repentance on the part of
Galileans and Jews. Past tragedies and atrocities will be seen as the mere
beginning of the judgments to fall like the headsman’s ax on an unrepentant
people. Of course, the Lukan Jesus prophesies long after the fact, referring to
the bloody triumph of Rome in Galilee and Judea culminating in 73 CE.
n. The Third Year (Deuteronomy 14:28; Luke 13:6-9)
Luke has seen fit to skip Deuteronomy 14:1-31, a list of
clean and unclean animals, and 14:22-27, which repeats 12:17-31.
Deuteronomy
14 stipulates a tithe of one’s produce every three years. Luke uses the law as
a springboard for a retrospective parable accounting for the Roman defeat of
Judea and Galilee, continuing his discussion from the preceding pericopae. The
people of God is like a barren fig tree which has disappointed its owner three
years straight, yielding nothing to offer God. The vinedresser pleads for an
extra year’s grace period before the fruitless tree should be uprooted. Luke’s
point: don’t say God didn’t go the second mile before exacting judgment.
o. Release of the Bondslave (Deuteronomy 15:1-18;
Luke 13:10-21)
Deuteronomy calls for the cancellation of debts in the
seventh year, a kind of release from bondage, as well as freedom for
bondservants. The last case stipulated is that of the bondwoman (Deuteronomy
15:17). From this last, Luke has developed his story of a woman, a bondservant
of Satan for eighteen years by virtue of a bent spine, being freed by Jesus.
Luke and
Matthew, each using both Q and Mark, have inherited the Markan story of the man
with the withered hand (Mark 3:1-6), a controversy about healing on the
sabbath, and the Q saying “Which of you, having one sheep [Luke: “a son/ass or
ox”] that falls into a pit [Luke: “well”] on the sabbath, will not lay hold of
it and pull it out?” (Matthew 12:11//Luke 1414:5). Matthew inserted the Q
saying into the Markan story, while Luke chose to duplicated Mark’s story of
the man with the withered hand as the healing of the man with dropsy (Luke
14:1-6) and to insert the Q saying into it at the equivalent spot. But he also
created the story of the woman with the bent spine, basing it on a paraphrase
of the same Q saying, adapted to the case suggested by Deuteronomy, the release
from a bond, so that the parallel cited becomes releasing a farm animal
from its tether on the sabbath.
p. Go to Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 16:1-17:7; Luke
13:22-35)
Deuteronomy commands thrice-yearly pilgrimage to the
Jerusalem Temple, and the Lukan Jesus declares nothing will deflect his
inexorable progress to Jerusalem to die there as a prophet must. As the
declaration presupposes the Lukan redactional agenda of the Central Section
itself, as well as the distinctive Lukan prophet Christology, the saying is
itself redactional.
q. Righteous Judges; Remembering the Poor
(Deuteronomy 16:18-20; 17:8-18; Luke 14:1-14)
The fit
here is loose, but the connection is nonetheless evident. Deuteronomy is
concerned with people accepting the oracular verdict of priests and judges, and
with limiting the prerogatives of the king. Luke, apparently simply to secure
the parallel, has set his scene in the house of a “ruler” and tells the story of
the dropsical man to exalt Jesus’ judgment over that of the scribes.
The rest
of the Lukan passage refers back to the preceding Deuteronomic text, 16:14,
whose ranking of various guests enables Luke to tack on a piece of table
etiquette borrowed from Proverbs 25:6-7 (“Do not put yourself forward in the
king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be
told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of the prince.”).
The specific inclusion of the widow and the sojourner in Deuteronomy 16:14 has
inspired Luke’s admonition to invite the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the
lame instead of one’s friends and relatives. While the Lukan version may seem a
more radical suggestion than Deuteronomy’s inclusion of the poor alongside
one’s family, it actually tends toward minimizing the discomfort of the
situation: one can bask in playing the benefactor to one’s poor clients without
having to embarrass one’s fellow sophisticates with the crude manners of the
poor at the same table (though in 1 Corinthians 11:18-22 we learn some “solved”
the problem by segregating the two groups at the same event!).
r. Excuses before Battle (Deuteronomy 20; Luke
14:15-35)
Luke has omitted Deuteronomy 19’s discussions of cities of
refuge and of false witnesses.
Commentators
commonly note the similarity between the excuses offered by those invited to
the great supper in Q (Matthew 22:1-10//Luke 14:16-24),
implicitly sneered at by the narrator, and those circumstances exempting an
Israelite from serving in holy war in Deuteronomy 20, building a new house,
planting a new vineyard, getting married. One can only suspect that Q
represents a tightening up of what were considered by an enthusiastic sect to
be too lax standards, just as the divorce rules were tightened by Christians.
(Those standards were now seen to apply, no doubt, to the spiritual crusade of
evangelism.)
The
parable of the Great Supper is pre-Lukan, as it appears already in Q (Luke
14:16-24//Matthew 22:1-10 ff.) and the Gospel of Thomas, saying 64. It is very
likely an adaptation of the rabbinic story of the tax-collector Bar-Majan, who
sought to climb socially by inviting the respectable rich to a great feast.
All, refusing to fall for the ploy, begged off, whereupon the tax-collector
decided to share the food with the poor that it not go to waste. This act of
charity did win him a stately funeral but was not enough to mitigate his
punishment in hell (Jerusalem Talmud, Hagigah, II, 77d).
The rest
of Luke 14:25-33 has perched here because of the treatment of warfare in the
parallel section of Deuteronomy, though the connection is really only that of
catchwords, as often in the Central Section.
s. Rights of the First-Born Versus Wicked Sons
(Deuteronomy 21:15-22:4; Luke 15)
Luke leaves aside Deuteronomy 21:1-14, the treatment of
corpses and female captives.
The great
parable of the Prodigal Son is Luke’s own creation, as is evident not only from
its juxtaposition of two type-characters, but also from the uniquely Lukan
device of character introspection in a tight spot:, “What shall I do? I
shall...” The Prodigal, having painted himself into a corner, reflects, “I will
arise and go to my father, and I will say to him...” (15:18), just as the
Unjust Judge, exasperated, “said to himself, ‘I will vindicate her...’” (Luke
18:4-5). Similarly, the Dishonest Steward “said to himself, ‘What shall I do?
... I have decided what to do...’”(16:3-4). And the Rich Fool “thought to
himself, ‘What shall I do...? I will do this...’” (12:17-18)
The
parable’s theme was suggested to him by the Deuteronomic treatment of sons and
their inheritance in 21:15-21. Luke has combined the elements of division of
property between a pair of sons, the possibility of favoring the wrong one, and
the problem of a rebellious son who shames his family. But, typically, Luke
replaces the sternness of the original legal provision (no doubt because he
writes for a Diaspora audience for whom some of these laws can no longer apply)
with an example of mercy. Here the rebellious son is accepted in love, not
executed.
Though
the basic inspiration of the parable comes thus from Deuteronomy, Luke owes the
building blocks from another source, the Odyssey. The character of the
Prodigal was suggested by both the long-absent Odysseus himself and his son
Telemachus who returns from his own long quest to find his father. Both the
parable’s element of wandering far from home and of the father-son reunion stem
from here. The cavorting of the Prodigal with loose women in far lands was
suggested by Odysseus’ dalliance with Calypso. But the motif of the Prodigal’s
having “devoured [his father’s] estate with loose living” is based on the
similar judgment passed more than once by Telemachus and Eumaeus on the “gang
of profligates” infesting Odysseus’ estate during his absence, the
suitors.
The
Prodigal’s taking a job as a swine herder, a galling “transformation” for a
Jew, may reflect the transformation of Odysseus’ men into swine by Circe,
especially since the hungry Prodigal would like to fill his stomach with the
pods the pigs eat, i.e., act like a pig. Then again, his working as a swineherd
may stem from Eumaeus’ having been one. The latter’s frequent characterization
as a “righteous swineherd” may have suggested the depiction of the Prodigal as
a repentant swineherd. The return of the Prodigal was suggested by the return
of Odysseus, but no less of Telemachus, who together share the same actantial
role. The Prodigal hopes to enter his father’s household as a mere slave,
whereas the returning Odysseus actually disguises himself as a slave on his own
estate. The glad reception afforded the Prodigal by his father recalls the
reunion of Odysseus and Telemachus, also father and son, but even more the
reunion of Telemachus and Eumaeus, his father’s faithful servant: “The last
words were not out of his mouth when his [Odysseus’] own son appeared in the
gateway. Eumaeus jumped up in amazement, and the bowls in which he had been
busy mixing the sparkling wine tumbled out of his grasp. He ran forward to meet
his young master. He kissed his lovely eyes and then kissed his right hand and
his left, while the tears streamed down his cheeks. Like a fond father
welcoming his son after nine years abroad, his only son, the apple of his eye
and the centre of all his anxious cares, the admirable swineherd threw his arms
around Prince Telemachus and showered kisses on him as though he had just
escaped from death.”
Next,
Luke splits Odysseus into two characters, the two brothers. The elder son also
returns from being away, albeit only out in the field (the scene of conflict
between another famous pair of brothers, Cain and Abel). Returning, he is
dismayed, like Odysseus, to discover a feast in progress. (Here we must note
also the echo of Exodus 32:18, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or
the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of... singing that I
hear!”) It is a feast in honor of a profligate, as the elder brother is quick
to point out, just like that of Penelope’s suitors. And, just as their feast is
predicated upon the assumption of Odysseus’ death, the Prodigal’s father
explains to the elder son that they must feast since the Prodigal was dead and
has now returned alive, as Odysseus is about to do.
Deuteronomy
22:1-4 stipulates all manner of lost objects which must be returned if found,
just as Luke 15:3-7 and 8-10 provide examples of lost things zealously sought
and found. The first of these is an appropriate Q parable, that of the Lost
Sheep (see also Matthew 18:10-14), while the second, the parable of the Lost
Coin, is presumably Luke’s own creation, reminiscent of the uniquely Lukan
parable of the Yeast (3:20-21) and his story of Martha (10:38-42), each with
its busy housekeeper.
t. Masters, Slaves, Money, and Divorce (Deuteronomy
23:15-24:4; Luke 16:1-18)
Luke skips Deuteronomy 22:5-23:14, a catch-all.
Luke
appears to have used the Deuteronomy 23 provision for the welcoming of an
escaped slave to live in one’s midst as the basis for his parable of the
Dishonest Steward, who must soon leave his master’s employ and so manipulates
his master’s accounts as to assure he will be welcomed into his grateful
clients’ midst after his dismissal.
Luke has
nothing particular to say concerning cult prostitutes (“priestitutes,” one
might call them) and vows, but the Deuteronomic discussion of debts and usury
inspires him to accuse the Pharisees of being “lovers of money.” Greed like
theirs is an “abomination” (bdelugma) before God, a word he has borrowed from the same
Deuteronomic passage’s condemnation of a man remarrying his divorced wife after
a second man has also divorced her. On the question of divorce, Luke oddly
juxtaposes against the Deuteronomic provision the diametrically opposite Markan
rejection of divorce, even while adding that the Torah cannot change!
u. Vindication of the Poor, of Lepers; Fair Judges
(Deuteronomy 24:6-25:3; Luke 16:19-18:8)
Inspired by Deuteronomy’s injunctions concerning fair treatment
of the poor, Luke has created the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, probably
basing it upon both the Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers, where the postmortem
fates of two men are disclosed as a lesson for the living, and the rabbinic
parable of the tax-collector Bar-Majan (Hagigah, II, 77d), whose single
act of charity (inviting the poor to a banquet when his invited guests, the
respectable rich, did not show up) accounted karmically for his sumptuous
funeral, but failed to mitigate his torments in hell afterward.
Luke
places the Q saying about the millstone (Luke 17:1-2//Matthew18:6-7) to match
the Deuteronomic mention of a millstone as the irreplaceable tool of one’s
trade (24:6), a mere catchword connection.
The
provision for a leper’s cure and certification (Deuteronomy 24:8-9) prompts
Luke to create another pro-Samaritan story (with Deuteronomy 24:14’s counsel to
treat the sojourning foreigner fairly also in mind). It is the story of the
nine Jewish lepers whom Jesus cures without thanks versus the single Samaritan
who returns to thank Jesus. The centrality of the motif of praising/thanking
God for a miracle, elsewhere Luke’s redactional addition to older miracle
stories, brands this one as completely Lukan.
Deuteronomy
24:17-18, 25:1-3 concern fair judgments rendered on behalf of the poor and fair
treatment of widows. Luke required no more inspiration than this to create his
parable of the Unjust Judge who delays vindicating a widow too poor to bribe
him till she finally wears him out. This he uses to advocate patience in
prayer: if even a corrupt judge will at length give in to a just petition,
cannot the righteous God be expected to answer just prayers in his own time?
v. Confessing One’s Righteousness (Deuteronomy 26;
Luke 18:9-14)
Luke skips Deuteronomy 25:4-19, about Levirate marriage,
false weights, etc.
Deuteronomy
26:12-15 allows that one offering the firstfruits of his crops may confess his
own perfect obedience to the commandments, provided one has done so, and thus
may rightly claim God’s blessing on the land. This must have struck Luke as
pretentious and presumptuous, and he satirizes the section in his parable of
the Pharisee (whose self-praise in the guise of prayer echoes that of
Deuteronomy) and the Publican (counted righteous by virtue of his humble
self-condemnation).
7. The Ascension (24:49-53)
Luke’s ascension narrative (the only one in the gospels)
is based primarily upon the account of Elijah’s ascension in 2 Kings 2 (Brodie,
p. 254-264), though he seems to have added elements of Josephus’ story of
Moses’ ascension as well (“And as soon as they were come to the mountain called
Abarim..., he was going to embrace Eleazar and Joshua, and was still
discoursing with them, [when] a cloud stood over him on the sudden, and he disappeared
in a certain valley” Antiquities V. 1. 48, Whiston trans.). In 2 Kings
2:9, Elijah and Elisha agree on the master’s bequest to his disciple: Elisha is
to receive a double share of Elijah’s mighty spirit, i.e., power. Likewise,
just before his own ascension, Jesus announces to his disciples his own
bequest: “the promise of my father” (Luke 24:49). It will be a “clothing” with
power, recalling Elijah’ miracle of parting the Jordan with his own rolled-up
mantle (1 Kings 2:12). Both Elijah and Jesus are assumed into heaven (1 Kings
2:11; Luke 24:50-53: Acts 1:1-1), the former with the aid of Apollo’s chariot,
but both are pointedly separated from their disciples (2 Kings 2:11; Luke
24:51). After this, the promised spirit comes, empowering the disciples (2
Kings 2:15; Acts 2:4). And just as Elijah’s ascent is witnessed by disciples,
whose search failed to turn up his body (2 Kings 2:16-18), so is Jesus’ after
they find only an empty tomb (Luke 24:3; Acts 1:9-11).
E. The Gospel of John
1. Nathaniel (1:43-51)
As all commentators agree, this episode is based on
Jacob’s dream of the ladder/stairway between heaven and earth, with angels
going up and down along it (Genesis 28:11-17ff). Nathaniel is to be a New
Testament Jacob, lacking the shrewd worldliness of his prototype.
2. Water into Wine (2:1-11)
Though the central feature of this miracle story, the
transformation of one liquid into another, no doubt comes from the lore of
Dionysus, the basic outline of the story owes much to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings
17:8-24 LXX (Helms, p. 86). The widow of Zarephath, whose son has just died,
upbraids the prophet: “What have I to do with you, O man of God?” (Ti emoi kai soi, 17:18).
John has transferred this brusque address to the mouth of Jesus,
rebuking his mother (2:4,
Ti emoi kai soi, gunai). Jesus and Elijah both tell people in
need of provisions to take empty pitchers (udria in 1 Kings 17:12,
udriai in John
2:6-7), from which sustenance miraculously emerges. And just as this feat
causes the woman to declare her faith in Elijah (“I know that you are a man of
God,” v. 24), so does Jesus’ wine miracle cause his disciples to put their
faith in him (v. 11).
3. The Samaritan Woman (4:1-44)
As Robert Alter notes (p. 48), this scene is a variant of
the “type scene” which frequently recurs in the Bible of a young man leaving
home and coming to a well where he meets young women, one of whom he marries.
Other instances and variants include Genesis 24 (Abraham’s servant meets
Rebecca), Genesis 29 (Jacob meets Rachel); Exodus 2 (Moses meets Zipporah):
Ruth 2 (Ruth meets Boaz); and 1 Samuel 9 (Saul meets the maidens at Zuph). But
Helms (pp. 89-90) adds 1 Kings 17, where, again, Elijah encounters the widow of
Zarephath, and it is this story which seems to have supplied the immediate
model for John 4. Elijah and Jesus alike leave home turf for foreign territory.
Each is thirsty and meets a woman of whom he asks a drink of water. In both
stories the woman departs from the pattern of the type scene because, though
having no husband as in the type scene, she is mature and lacks a husband for
other reasons. The woman of Zarephath is a widow, while the Samaritan woman has
given up on marriage, having had five previous husbands, now dead or divorced,
and is presently just cohabiting. In both stories it is really the woman who
stands in need more than the prophet, and the latter offers the boon of a
miraculously self-renewing supply of nourishment, Elijah that of physical food,
Jesus that of the water of everlasting life. Just as the widow exclaims that
Elijah must have come to disclose her past sins (“You have come to me to bring
my sin to remembrance,” 1 Kings 17:18), the Samaritan admits Jesus has the
goods on her as well (“He told me all that I ever did,” John 4:39).
5. Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene (20:1, 11-18)
This story owes much to the self-disclosure of the angel
Raphael at the climax of the Book of Tobit (Helms, pp. 146-147). When Tobias
first saw Raphael, he “did not know” he was really an angel (Tobit 5:5), just
as when Mary, weeping outside the tomb, first saw Jesus there, she “did not
know” who he really was (20:14). Having delivered Sarah from her curse, Raphael
reveals himself to Tobit and his son Tobias and announces, his work being done,
that “I am ascending to him who sent me” (Tobit 12:20), just as Jesus tells
Mary, “I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God”
(John 20:17). Why does the risen Jesus warn Mary “Touch/hold me not, for I have
not yet ascended to the father” (20:17a)? This is probably an indication of
docetism, that Jesus (at least the risen Jesus) cannot be touched, not having
(any longer?) a fleshly body (the story was not originally followed by the
Doubting Thomas story with its tactile proofs, hence need not be consistent with
it; note that in 20:17b Jesus seems to anticipate not seeing the disciples
again). The reason for seeing docetism here is the parallel it would complete
between John 20 and the Raphael revelation/ascension scene, where the angel
explains (Tobit 12:19), “All these days I merely appeared to you and did not
eat or drink, but you were seeing a vision” (i.e., a semblance).
F. Acts of the Apostles
1. Pentecost (2:1-4ff)
The whole scene comes, obviously, from the descent of the
Mosaic spirit upon the seventy elders in Numbers 11:16-17, 24-25, with an
assist from Euripides’ The Bacchae, where we read “Flames flickered in
their curls and did not burn them” (757-758), just as tongues of fire blazed
harmlessly above the heads of the apostles (Acts 2:3). Ecstatic speech caused
some bystanders to question the sobriety of the disciples, but Peter defends
them (“These are not drunk as you suppose” Acts 2:15a), as does Pentheus’
messenger: “Not, as you think, drunk with wine” (686-687).
2. Ananias and Sapphira; the
Martyrdom of Stephen (5:1-11; 6:8-15)
The conspiracy of Ahab and Jezebel to cheat the pious
Naboth out of his vineyard (1 Kings 20:1-21:21) has provided Luke the raw
material for two of the most exciting episodes of Acts, those of Ananias and
Sapphira and of Stephen (Brodie, pp. 271-275). Ahab finds himself obsessed with
Naboth’s vineyard, which seems more desirable to him, since he cannot possess
it, than all his royal possessions. Jezebel advises him to take what he wants
by devious means. Luke has punningly made Naboth into the righteous Barnabas,
and now it is the latter’s donation (rather than possession) of a field that
excites a wicked couple’s jealousy. Ananias plays Ahab, Sapphira Jezebel. Only
they do not conspire to murder anyone. That element Luke reserves for the
martyrdom of Stephen. The crime of Ananias and Sapphira is borrowed instead
from that of Achan (Judges 7), who appropriated for himself treasure ear-marked
for God. Ananias and Sapphira have sold a field (wanting to be admired like
Barnabas), but they have kept back some of the money while claiming to have
donated the full price. They have no business keeping the rest: it is
rightfully God’s since they have dedicated it as “devoted to the Lord.” Peter
confronts Ananias and Sapphira, just as Joshua did Achan (Joshua 7:25) and as
Elijah confronted Ahab (1 Kings 20:17-18). Luke takes the earlier note about
Ahab’s disturbance in spirit (20:4) and makes it into the charge that Ananias
and Sapphira had lied to the Spirit of God (Acts 5:3b-4, 9b). Elijah and Peter
pronounce death sentences on the guilty, and those of Ananias and Sapphira
(like Achan’s) transpire at once (Acts 5:5a, 10a), while those of Ahab and
Jezebel delay for some time. Fear fell on all who heard of Ananias’ and
Sapphira’s fate, recalling the fear of God sparked in poor indecisive Ahab by
Elijah’s doom oracle (1 Kings 20:27-29). Not long after the Naboth incident we
learn that the young men of Israel defeated the greedy Syrians (21:1-21), a
tale which likely made Luke think of having the young men (never in evidence
elsewhere in Acts) carry out and bury the bodies of the greedy couple (Acts
5:6, 10b).
Returning
to the hapless Naboth, he has become Stephen, Acts’ proto-martyr. Naboth was
railroaded by the schemes of Jezebel. She directed the elders and freemen
to set up Naboth, condemning him through lying witnesses. Stephen suffers the
same at the hands of the Synagogue of Freedmen. Stephen, like Naboth, is
accused of double blasphemy (Naboth: God
and king; Stephen: Moses and God) Both are carried outside the city limits and
stoned to death. When Ahab heard of the fruit of his desires, he tore his
garments in remorse. Luke has carried this over into the detail that young Saul
of Tarsus checked the coats of the stoning mob.
3. The Ethiopian Eunuch (8:26-40)
The story of the Ethiopian eunuch and of Philip the
evangelist recalls several key features of the story of Elijah and Naaman the
Syrian (2 Kings 5:1-14) (Brodie, pp. 316-327). The Elijah narrative depicts
both healing (from leprosy) and conversion (from Syrian Rimmon-worship), while
the Acts version tells only of conversion (from Godfearer to Christian). Luke
was apparently reluctant to strain plausibility or good taste by having Philip
physically restore a eunuch! Both Naaman and the Ethiopian are foreign
officials of high status, both close to their monarchs (2 Kings 5:5; Acts
8:27c). Naaman came to Samaria to ask the king’s help in contacting the prophet
Elisha. The Ethiopian for his part had journeyed to Jerusalem to seek God in the
Temple worship, but the need of his heart remained unmet. This he was to find
satisfied on his way home (like those other Lukan characters, the Emmaus
disciples, Luke 24:13ff). The Israelite king fails to grasp the meaning of the
letter Naaman presents to him, but a word from the prophet supplies the lack,
just as Luke has the Ethiopian fail to grasp the true import of the prophetic
scroll he reads till the hitchhiking evangelist offers commentary. In both
cases salvation is to be sought by immersion. Naaman initially balks, but his
servant persuades him. Luke has this temporizing in mind when he has the
Ethiopian ask rhetorically, “What prevents me from being baptized?” (Acts
8:36). Healing and/or conversion follow, though in both cases the official must
return, alone in his faith, to his heathen court.
4. Paul’s Conversion (9:1-21)
As the great Tübingen critics already saw, the story of
Paul’s visionary encounter with the risen Jesus not only has no real basis in
the Pauline epistles but has been derived by Luke more or less directly from 2
Maccabees 3’s story of Heliodorus. In it one Benjaminite named Simon (3:4)
tells Apollonius of Tarsus, governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia (3:5), that
the Jerusalem Temple houses unimaginable wealth that the Seleucid king might
want to appropriate for himself. Once the king learns of this, he sends his
agent Heliodorus to confiscate the loot. The prospect of such a violation of
the Temple causes universal wailing and praying among the Jews. But Heliodorus
is miraculously turned back when a shining warrior angel appears on horseback.
The stallion’s hooves knock Heliodorus to the ground, where two more angels
lash him with whips (25-26). He is blinded and is unable to help himself,
carried to safety on a stretcher. Pious Jews pray for his recovery, lest the
people be held responsible for his condition. The angels reappear to
Heliodorus, in answer to these prayers, and they announce God’s grace to him:
Heliodorus will live and must henceforth proclaim the majesty of the true God.
Heliodorus offers sacrifice to his Saviour (3:35) and departs again for Syria,
where he reports all this to the king. In Acts the plunder of the Temple has
become the persecution of the church by Saul (also called Paulus, an
abbreviated form of Apollonius), a Benjaminite from Tarsus.
Heliodorus’ appointed journey to Jerusalem from Syria has become Saul’s journey
from Jerusalem to Syria. Saul is stopped in his tracks by a heavenly visitant,
goes blind and must be taken into the city, where the prayers of his former
enemies avail to raise him up. Just as Heliodorus offers sacrifice, Saul
undergoes baptism. Then he is told henceforth to proclaim the risen Christ,
which he does.
Luke has
again added details from Euripides. In The Bacchae, in a sequence Luke
has elsewhere rewritten into the story of Paul in Philippi (Portefaix, pp.
170), Dionysus has appeared in Thebes as an apparently mortal missionary for
his own sect. He runs afoul of his cousin, King Pentheus who wants the
licentious cult (as he views it) to be driven out of the country. He arrests
and threatens Dionysus, only to find him freed from prison by an earthquake.
Dionysus determines revenge against the proud and foolish king by magically
compelling Pentheus to undergo conversion to faith in him (“Though hostile
formerly, he now declares a truce and goes with us. You see what you could not
when you were blind,” 922-924) and sending Pentheus, in woman’s guise, to spy
upon the Maenads, his female revelers. He does so, is discovered, and is torn
limb from limb by the women, led by his own mother. As the hapless Pentheus
leaves, unwittingly, to meet his doom, Dionysus comments, “Punish this man. But
first distract his wits; bewilder him with madness... After those threats with
which he was so fierce, I want him made the laughingstock of Thebes” (850-851,
854-855). “He shall come to know Dionysus, son of Zeus, consummate god, most
terrible, and yet most gentle, to mankind” (859-861). Pentheus must be made an
example, as must poor Saul, despite himself. His conversion is a punishment,
meting out to the persecutor his own medicine. Do we not detect a hint of
ironic malice in Christ’s words to Ananias about Saul? “I will show him how
much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16).
5. Peter’s Vision (10:9-16)
To prime the reluctant apostle for his visit to the
dwelling of the Roman Cornelius, God sends Peter a vision, one recycled from
the early chapters of Ezekiel (Helms, pp. 20-21). First Peter beholds the
heavens open (thn
ouranon anewgmenon, 10:11), just like Ezekiel did (hnoicqhsan oi ouranoi,
Ezekiel 1:1 LXX). Peter sees a vast sheet of sailcloth containing every kind of
animal, ritually clean and unclean, and the heavenly voice commands him, “Eat!”
(Fagh,
Acts
10:13), just as Ezekiel is shown a scroll and told to “Eat!” (Fagh, Ezekiel 2:9
LXX). Peter is not eager to violate kosher laws and so balks at the command.
“By no means, Lord!” (MhdamwV, Kurie, Acts 10:14), echoing Ezekiel verbatim,
MhdamwV, Kurie
(Ezekiel 4:14 LXX), when the latter is commanded to cook his food over a dung
fire. Peter protests that he has never eaten anything unclean (akaqarton) before
(10:14), nor has Ezekiel (akaqarsia, 4:14 LXX).
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Lilian Portefaix, Sisters Rejoice: Paul’s Letter to the
Philippians and Luke-Acts as Seen by First-Century Philippian Women.
Coniectanea biblica. New Testament series, 20. Stockholm: Almqvist &
Wicksell, 1988.
Wolfgang Roth, Hebrew Gospel: Cracking the Code of Mark.
Oak Park: Meyer-Stone Books, 1988.
William R. Stegner, “The Baptism of Jesus: A Story Modeled
on the Binding of Isaac.” In Herschel Shanks (ed.), Abraham & Family:
New Insights into the Patriarchal Narratives. Washington, D.C.: Biblical
Archaeology Society, 2001.
Rikki E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark.
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 88. Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1997.
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