25-08-2017
1. Interpreting Luke
Luke-Acts remains a storm centre in New Testament studies. According to Luke, who is Jesus? Which scriptures speak of his death and resurrection? What does Luke mean when he uses the word “fulfilment”?[1] Addressing such questions, this monograph focuses on two Lukan passages, Luke 24:25-27 and 24:44-49.[2] Their message is “according to the scriptures”; their content is that the Messiah must suffer and be raised from the dead, or enter into his glory.
Why this focus?[3]
Many commentators addressing these verses, and noting that Israel’s scriptures know nothing of a Messiah who must suffer and be raised from the dead,[4] then seek Luke’s synthesis of “Messiah” with another descriptor, e.g. “suffering servant” or “prophet”, who suffers according to the scriptures.[5] But, what if Luke’s critics are mistaken and he wrote to demonstrate that what Luke-Acts reports is what he understood that scripture said? Luke twice attributes a form of this saying to Jesus himself, who then unpacks for his followers those scriptures that constitute this claim, which in turn becomes the heart of their preaching.[6]
These focal verses are central to an understanding of Luke’s narrative and to the way that one reads his text to give an account of its Christology. Readers are commonly impressed by the narrative siting, density, and significance of references to scripture in these few verses, and by the varieties of ways in which they have been interpreted. Their significance lies in how they are linked with Luke’s protagonist, Jesus, and with his commonest descriptor,[7] “Messiah”, and how in Acts these verses relate to the apostles and their preaching. Luke’s concept of “Messiah” in these verses is much-disputed. Notably, narrative self-referents by Jesus, these verses raise important questions about Luke’s uses of scripture, and the narrative function of kerygmatic-exegetical speeches[8] in Acts.
Luke says, however, only what early Christian tradition said. For example, in Ro 1:1-4 Paul’s summary of “his gospel” focuses on the resurrection of David’s seed, God’s Son, as the prophets had said.[9] At the heart of his scripturally-based discussion of Israel’s role in God’s economy of salvation, Paul’s “confession” highlights Jesus as “Lord” and a core trust that “God raised him from the dead.”[10] In another appeal to “tradition”,[11] Paul reports Messiah’s death (“for our sins”) and resurrection from the dead, both “according to the scriptures”. He then emphasises the centrality to Christian proclamation of Messiah’s “resurrection from the dead,”[12] before turning first to his long exposition of what such proclamation might mean within their shared eschatological timescale,[13] then to his explanation of the kind of body that God might give those who are “made alive in Messiah.”[14] Given such Pauline appeal to “tradition” it makes doubtful sense to speak of Paul’s “emphasis” on Messiah’s suffering.[15]
These focal verses are central to that form of retelling Jesus’ story that Luke deemed appropriate to Theophilus’s need of assurance[16] – in that story God has fulfilled promises.[17] So what might have prompted Luke to write to Theophilus as he did?[18] All comment on Luke-Acts presupposes some purpose or purposes for Luke’s having produced his work.
Luke the Apologist: a proposal
What follows is a working “purpose” derived from having reflected on multiple, detailed readings of Luke-Acts. This proposed purpose accounts for principal features of Luke’s narrative,[19] and leads to its conceptual framework. This proposal can be verified only by the coherence of a reading of Luke-Acts from the perspective proposed here – Luke’s reasoned focus on Jesus’ resurrection.
Theophilus is possibly a person.[20] Probably Jewish and a Sadducee,[21] personally interested in the Jesus-movement, Theophilus is Greek-speaking, at home in Israel’s scriptures, and possibly still resident in Jerusalem.[22] He has been “instructed” about “the things fulfilled among us,” but is uncertain about that instruction, eliciting from Luke a systematic narrative offering “security” (ἀσφάλεια). From Luke’s narrative we may infer three related strands within Theophilus’ need for security:
· How did we (the Jewish world) get to where we are, divided over Israel’s hope (e.g. Acts 28:16-28)? Luke begins and ends here: his prologue is a Jewish world filled with hope and expectation, with good people, yet with hints of upheaval to come.[23] His final scene is of that world further divided.
· Was this Paul a genuine representative of the Jesus movement (that is everywhere spoken against[24])? Paul’s prominence in the final quarter of Luke-Acts, and the apparently divisive nature of his activity,[25] together with the narrative force of his Antioch sermon, suggest this question hanging over this former persecutor’s work.
· Were Christian claims about Jesus truly grounded in Israel’s scriptures?[26] Luke’s “things fulfilled among us”[27] assume a new perspective in the presence of six exegetical speeches in Acts; his drawing attention to scriptural debates, particularly with synagogues; and his focus in Paul’s Antioch sermon on God’s fulfilled promises. Luke-Acts sends readers to Israel’s scriptures as its context for Jesus’ story.
Dodd crystallised such issues for scholars by pointing out that in the diversities of the NT’s major writings, their shared tradition about the Jesus-event has come to us ready-wrapped in its place in Israel’s story.[28] Our problem is to identify and understand Luke’s packaging of it.[29]
Offering “security”, Luke’s work is a whole narrative (διήγησις), a reasoned apologia[30] for Theophilus concerning “the things fulfilled among us,” not a patchwork from sources. A “Christian” writer, Luke is indebted to oral and written traditions about Jesus;[31] to his story’s rootedness in Jewish history and scripture; to concerns about this sect raised through continuing debates with synagogues;[32] to traditions of Jewish arguing from the scriptures;[33] these are all elements implied by Luke’s narrative. Luke is a creative theologian and writer who presents his distinctive, coherent account of “the things fulfilled among us”[34] – in and through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and witnessed to by Paul.
My aim is to let Luke be Luke, my thesis generated by multiple readings of Luke-Acts.
Luke’s Argument
Given that proposal for Luke’s purposes, and with such resources for his work, Luke wrote to reassure[35] Theophilus on at least three counts. First, what Christians were claiming about Jesus[36] was supported by witnesses and rooted in scripture; from beginning to end, Luke’s story is about Jesus, his narrative’s focal event. Through six exegetical speeches in Acts 1-15, speeches examined in detail below, Luke demonstrates the “things fulfilled among us”. Second, it was indeed written that the Messiah must suffer and be raised. Paul’s strategically sited Antioch sermon[37] exemplifies Luke’s understanding of how Paul might have defended his gospel,[38] “proving” that God’s raising Jesus from the dead was, in fact, “written”. Here, the manner of Paul’s arguing, as well as his choice of intertexts, was in the interest of “fulfilment”.[39] Third, Israel’s hoped-for Messiah was truly Jesus, David’s seed.[40] Luke’s Messiah-concept is controlled by his reading of Nathan’s oracle,[41] his base-text[42] from which many developments of the David-promise had emerged.[43] Consequently, my approach places great weight on Luke’s two Jesus-centred angelophanies[44] in his Prologue.
Luke’s base-text.
To boost Theophilus’s confidence, Luke’s implied foundational argument is that God fulfilled the ancient, often reworked promise to David through Nathan – of Messiah. That promise, Luke’s base-text, shapes the thought-world, the reference-frame, within which he retells Jesus’ story, a shaping clarified for readers by four distinctive narrative “moments”.
(i) Luke’s Infancy Gospel
My argument takes seriously Luke’s distinctive way of introducing Jesus to readers, sharply distinguishing him from John.[45] Gabriel’s words to Mary evoke Nathan’s oracle (Luke 1:26-38),[46] and the angelophany to shepherds echoes Ezekiel’s oracle to Israel’s shepherd-Rulers.[47] Each annunciation implies the fulfilment[48] of a David-promise. In his Prologue’s three-scene[49] introduction of Jesus, Luke offers Theophilus the appropriate reference-frame within which to read his following narrative. For Luke, this is who Jesus is, fulfilling two versions of God’s David-promise.
(ii) God’s anointing of Jesus
Luke’s distinctive narrative[50] of Jesus’ anointing as Son of God[51] is programmatic, recalled at significant moments in Acts.[52] The genealogy, appended to Luke’s account of Jesus’ anointing,[53] indicates that while, like everyman, Jesus is a son of God (3:38), his familial descent is through David (3:31) but not through Solomon.[54] He is tested as “Son of God.”[55]
Then, this anointing governs one’s reading of Jesus’ inaugural sermon at Nazareth.[56] This decision marks my distance from many other interpreters. Luke’s Christology undoubtedly lives within a thought-world where the David-promise is re- shaped by the hopes of the Exilic prophets,[57] however, rather than the Servant who introduces himself.[58]
In Chapter 6B, reflecting on Paul’s Antioch sermon, I argue the case for an inclusio formed by (a) Luke’s distinctive portrayal of God’s anointing Jesus and proclaiming him -- in words drawn from Ps 2:7 -- as Messiah,[59] and (b) Luke’s summary of the scriptural promise for raising up Messiah in Israel, and from the dead.[60] For Luke, God first fulfils the David-promise by bringing Jesus on to Israel’s stage in words that evoke both David’s story and Nathan’s oracle. From his anointing forward, Jesus, David’s seed, is God’s Messiah.
(iii) Resurrection: Luke’s hermeneutical key[61]
Chapter 3 examines Luke’s distinctive resurrection narrative (Luke 24). Many have noted that Luke highlights Jesus’ resurrection rather than the death of the Messiah; we shall return to this observation.[62] Here, we simply note that in Theophilus’s world, as in ours, the report of God’s having raised Jesus from the dead would have met with scoffing: by Gentiles, as at Athens;[63] by Jews who looked to a resurrection of the dead at “the End” [64] and by those who, like Sadducees, altogether refused the notion.[65] Everyone dies; death is our expected event. Stories of a dead man raised, however, are beyond human experience, so tend to be rejected. Consequently, Luke needed to argue this case – that it is written that the Messiah must suffer and be raised from the dead.[66] Wright’s work[67] on the uniqueness of this “event” is basic to my argument; this event is Luke’s hermeneutical key, particularly to the unprecedented transition in Luke 24 from Son of man to Messiah,[68] and to Paul’s Antioch sermon. It is this hermeneutical key, God’s ἀναστήσω, that this present study seeks to verify.
(iv) Paul’s Antioch sermon
This key, ἀναστήσω, is good reason for paying particular attention to Paul’s Antioch sermon.[69] Its essence is that God has now fulfilled what was promised to the fathers (13:32). Luke-Acts’ final argument from scripture -- forming an inclusio with Luke 1-3 -- re-interprets the David-promise in the light of God’s having brought Jesus to Israel as Saviour and raised him from the dead.[70] This sole example of Paul’s characteristic activity crystallises Luke’s essential case for Theophilus. Paul’s sermon exemplifies where and how “it is written” that the Messiah must suffer[71] and be raised from the dead forever. Luke is thus responsible for readers’ being able to grasp how early belief in, and proclamation of God’s having raised Jesus from the dead transformed the re-interpretation of long argued-over scriptural material about David for those who followed Jesus.
Summary
What binds together those four narrative “moments” is their rootedness in David’s story. As I noted in an earlier study,[72] Luke’s retelling resembles a comparative biography of David and Jesus. His retelling, however, is not simply synkrisis, but a demonstration of “things fulfilled among us,” especially those of his base-text which in an OGT twice bears God’s promise, ἀναστήσω. Like others, I am wary of reading too much into what may be coincidence. However, taking heart from Wright,[73] and weighing coincidence against authorial purpose, I re-read Luke-Acts’ narrative, recording enough evidence to explore further possibilities presented by Luke’s hermeneutic key -- Jesus’ resurrection. This word ἀναστήσω appeared significant for him. Luke stands in a Jewish interpretative tradition,[74] not a twenty-first century critical tradition.
Luke and ἀναστήσω
My “sufficient evidence” lies primarily in the structure of Luke’s argument that comprises four distinct, and distinctive, examples of God’s ἀναστήσω promises,[75] culminating in Paul’s Antioch sermon. Interestingly, two of them[76] parallel the 4Q174 sequence, suggesting that before drafting his work Luke may have had in mind a range of scripture that already crystallised Israel’s hope.[77] Luke never directly cites any of those promises.[78] Cumulatively, however, the effect of these four resembles that of a synagogue sermon[79] whose text is obvious but never quoted.
Luke’s Infancy Gospel
Two of Luke’s four examples appear in his Infancy Gospel; each an angelophany, each pointing to God’s fulfilling a David-promise. First, Gabriel’s announcement to Mary[80] before Jesus’ conception evokes Luke’s base-text:[81] καὶ ἀναστήσω τὸ σπέρμα σου μετὰ σέ... Heaven’s announcement to shepherds following the birth of the Saviour[82] evokes Ezekiel’s David-oracle[83] with its vision of a covenant of peace:[84] καὶ ἀναστήσω ἐπ̓ αὐτοὺς ποιμένα ἕνα …τὸν δοῦλόν μου Δαυιδ ….
The siting and the function of Luke’s distinctive triptych[85] give Luke’s introduction of Jesus great narrative weight, the Tel Aviv school’s primacy effect. Together, these two scenes form Luke’s frame of reference, his pact with his reader.[86] Luke’s framing is very different from that in Matthew – save for its David reference.[87] Notably, among the prophets of the Exile, Ezekiel alone reworks the Davidic base-text to include God’s initial promise, ἀναστήσω…and that roots Jesus, Luke’s protagonist, in God’s purpose to seek and to save.[88]
James at Jerusalem
Luke’s third example of an ἀναστήσω-promise concludes both Luke’s David-trajectory[89] and his arguing from scripture – the “raising up” of David’s fallen house.[90] This extract features also in 4Q174. Adapted from OGT, it serves a very different function in Luke-Acts –
…so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—
even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called.
At this point, Luke has completed his theological-scriptural narrative for Theophilus. David’s fallen house has been “raised up”; that is where Luke began[91] and where his promise-reasoning ends.[92] I discuss later the detail of Luke’s adaptation of Amos’s oracle, which, in OGT, reads:
ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ ἀναστήσω τὴν σκηνὴν Δαυιδ τὴν πεπτωκυῖαν
καὶ ἀνοικοδομήσω τὰ πεπτωκότα αὐτῆς
καὶ τὰ κατεσκαμμένα αὐτῆς ἀναστήσω
καὶ ἀνοικοδομήσω αὐτὴν καθὼς αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ αἰῶνος… [93]