Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Luke Timothy Johnson is Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Christian Origins at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He won the 2011 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity. Johnson's many other books include The Revelatory Body; Brother of Jesus, Friend of God; The Writings of the New Testament; and the two-volume work The Canonical Paul.

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PROPHETIC JESUS, PROPHETIC CHURCH

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Contents

Preface.................................................viIntroduction............................................11. The Literary Shape of Luke-Acts......................82. The Prophetic Shape of Luke-Acts.....................233. The Character of the Prophet.........................394. The Prophetic Spirit.................................525. The Prophetic Word...................................726. Prophetic Embodiment.................................967. Prophetic Enactment..................................1308. Prophetic Witness....................................166Scripture Index.........................................187

Chapter One

In order to hear the distinctive witness of Luke-Acts as a unitary literary composition, it is necessary to gain a firm sense of how it is put together and how its form helps shape its meaning. The best preparation for following the argument of this book is a repeated reading of Luke-Acts in its entirety and in sequence—the way Luke wrote it to be read (see Luke 1:3)—before entering into my examination of specific passages and themes.

This first chapter can serve as a companion for such preliminary reading. It briefly sketches what biblical scholar H. J. Cadbury memorably called "the making of Luke-Acts." The point of this presentation is not to develop hypotheses about Luke's possible sources, but to use synoptic comparison—that is, analyze Luke over against Mark and Matthew—as a way of sharpening our perception of how Luke tells his story. I begin with the most rudimentary sort of material analysis, showing what pieces Luke includes and how he fits them together. I move then to a stylistic analysis, in order to alert readers to the implications of Luke's ability to speak in several dictions. I then consider the question of the genre of the two-volume work and what it suggests about Luke's purposes, before turning finally to one of the ways in which Luke provides specific structural shape to his narrative.

Material Analysis

The most obvious source that Luke uses for the first part of his story is the Gospel of Mark. Like Matthew, he uses the basic Markan plot line, extending from the baptism of Jesus by John to the burial and empty tomb. Luke therefore presents Jesus' ministry in the same basic sequence that we find in Mark: he begins in Galilee, travels to Judea, and experiences his passion and death in Jerusalem. We do not know how a copy of Mark reached Luke. But it is clear that he treated Mark with considerable respect; where he follows Mark, he follows him more closely than does Matthew. Because Mark is extant, present-day readers can observe the way that Luke uses this source. More than that, we can compare Luke's usage to that of Matthew, and this added dimension of comparison sharpens our perception of Luke's particular literary and religious interests. If Mark were not extant, however, it is also the case that we could not reconstruct his source with precision. Luke uses his source respectfully but camouflages it thoroughly through his editing. He also alters Mark's account through subtraction and addition of material.

Luke's most impressive subtraction is found in his "great omission" of the material that is found inMark 6:45–8:26. Although it has sometimes been suggested that Luke may have used a copy of Mark lacking that section, the more likely explanation is that Luke deliberately excluded it because of a concern for the contents. Three aspects of this part of Mark may have caused Luke concern: (1) it contains doublets (such as the feeding of the four thousand (Mark 8:1-9) in addition to the feeding of the five thousand (6:34-44) and Luke tends to avoid such obvious repetition; (2) it tells two stories (the healing of the deaf man in 7:31-37 and the blind man in 8:22-26) in which Jesus displays techniques that might be associated with magic, and Luke wants to draw a clear distinction between the powerful deeds done by Jesus and his followers and magic; (3) it portrays Jesus' disciples in strongly negative terms (as in 7:17-19; 8:14-21), while Luke's presentation of them tends to be more positive.

Like Matthew, though in a distinctive fashion, Luke extends Mark's story by adding narrative material at the beginning and end of the Gospel account. By their construction of an infancy narrative, both Matthew and Luke connect the story of Jesus more explicitly to the story of Israel. Matthew does this through a genealogy and a series of scenes with Joseph as hero, showing how the events of Jesus' birth, escape to Egypt, and return to Nazareth all were "in fulfillment" of specific prophetic texts. Luke connects Jesus to Israel in a more complex fashion, with a series of scenes that juxtapose John (and his family) and Jesus (with his family), using canticles recited by characters to provide the interpretation of events as the continuation of God's loving care towards his people.

By telling of explicit resurrection appearances, the two evangelists also connect the story of Jesus to the life of the church. In Matthew, the flight of the women from the empty tomb finds its term in an encounter with the risen Lord, and Matthew's final scene has Jesus commanding the eleven to make disciples of all nations, "teaching them all that I have commanded you" (Matt 28:20). Luke has a more elaborate set of appearance accounts, together with reports of other sightings of the Lord. The risen Jesus comes among his followers and interprets Scripture with reference to his suffering and death (Luke 24:25, 44) and promises them a powerful gift of the spirit (24:47-49). He concludes the narrative with a short account of Jesus' departure from his followers into heaven (24:51).

Matthew and Luke both insert substantial amounts of discourse material — passages that provide explicit sayings of Jesus — within the Markan story line. They do this, however, in distinctive ways. Matthew constructs discrete "sermons" by Jesus (in chs. 5–7, 10, 13, 18, 23–25) that interrupt the narrative flow and enhance the portrayal of Jesus as the teacher of the church. The amount of this material in Matthew can be appreciated when we realize that the contrast between sixteen chapters in Mark and twenty-eight chapters in Matthew is only part of the story: Matthew systematically reduces the number of words used to tell the stories he shares with Mark. This narrative reduction increases the perception of Matthew's Gospel as dominated by the speeches of Jesus. Luke also inserts large amount of discourse material into the story of Jesus. Much of this discourse material is found also in Matthew and is conventionally designated as "Q" material (from the German word "Quelle," or "source"). But a substantial amount of discourse — including the most distinctive and beloved of Jesus' parables—is found only in Luke (and is designated as L material).

Luke follows a different approach to the inclusion of this mass of material than does Matthew. He does not construct formal and internally-organized discourses. Instead, he inserts Jesus' sayings into biographically more plausible situations: Jesus speaks as he walks, as he performs deeds, as he eats with others. There...