New Light On Luke

This radical new interpretation reveals many connections between Luke and Johannine traditions. Comparision of pericopae shared by Luke and John suggests that the usual assumptions of Lukan priority may be mistaken; instead his may be chronologically the fourth gospel. Luke neverthless treats his sources in different ways, his response being both critical and creative. He aims to give security to Christians by including as much as possible and reconciling conflicting traditions, while firmly excluding heretical misinterpretation. Shellard also includes a consideration of Luke's use of possible sources, both canonical and extra-canonical, and places Luke-Acts in its literary context, noting among other things the presentation of Rome as a facilitatator of evangelization and a promoter of co-existence. This is volume 215 in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement series.

The literary relationships among the Synoptic Gospels have long attracted scholarly attention which has now generally coalesced into the predominant Two- (or Four-) Source Hypothesis and leading alternatives, the Griesbach (or Two-Gospel) Hypothesis (Mark used Matthew and Luke) and the Farrer Hypothesis (Luke used Mark and Matthew). Thomas J. Mosbo here argues that no theory of Synoptic relations is adequate unless it can satisfactorily explain the extensive middle third of Luke’s Gospel, the so-called Travel Narrative (9:51–19:27), where Luke departs from the order shown in either Matthew or Mark and assembles stories and sayings that develop themes concerning discipleship that are important to Luke. Mosbo examines this narrative as a composed narrative, not merely an assembly of “materials,” and finds that Luke has reordered materials taken from Matthew and from Mark in a very particular manner. He then examines Luke’s purposes in the Gospel as a whole, then addresses objections raised by Q advocates to the hypothesis that Luke knew Matthew. At length Mosbo offers his own hypothesis of Synoptic relationships, including the relationship between Matthew and Mark.

An engaging defence and critique of the various arguments from both science and religion on the fine-tuning of the Universe.

In the spirit of Ludolph of Saxony (c. 1295–1378) and Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), The Fourfold Gospel invites the reader into the mystery of God’s redemption in Jesus Christ. All the parallel passages in the Gospels are glossed together, along with the unique material, using a medieval interpretive approach called the Quadriga or the acronym PaRDeS in Hebrew. Meditating on the literal, canonical, moral, and theological senses of Scripture offers a scaffolding for the spiritual formation of the reader. This volume, in addition to a thorough introduction to the method and the Gospels, focuses on the beginning of the story—the birth, baptism, and temptations of Christ.

What do the books of Luke and Acts teach us about God, Jesus, and the early church? How do these two books relate to each other? And what do they mean for us today? In this accessible and compelling introduction, Michael Bird draws us into the wide-ranging narrative of Luke-Acts to discover how Luke frames the life of Jesus and of the first disciples who set out from Jerusalem to "the ends of the earth" proclaiming the Good News. Bird shows us how these two books, when read together, tell a cohesive narrative about Jesus, the Church, and the mission of God—with implications for the whole of our lives today. Situating both books in their historical and literary context, Bird moves through an exploration of their central theological themes and culminates with consideration of the books' relevance for contemporary social issues.

Serving as a sequel to Professor Burkill's Mysterious Revelation (Cornell University Press, 1963), these closely related essays not only develop and clarify points made in the previous work, but also break new ground. The author supplements his earlier observations on Mark, and in an exegetical chapter, he discusses Mark's philosophical views and the antinomies within the gospel. An analysis and critique of the work of Etienne Trocmé, a distinguished New Testament scholar, is offered in the final chapter.

A combination of two classic discussions in New Testament scholarship, the contributions in this volume shed light on the still unsolved synoptic problem by using the well-coined concept of rewriting to describe the relationship between the synoptic gospels. The contributions work with the hypothesis that the synoptic tradition can be conceived of as a process of rewriting: Matthew rewrote Mark and Luke rewrote Mark and Matthew. This approach to the synoptic problem dismantles the grounds for the otherwise widely accepted two-source theory. If it can be shown that Luke knew Matthew's Gospel the Q-hypothesis is superfluous. One group of articles focuses on the general question of Luke's literary relation to the other gospels. In these essays, the concept of rewriting describes Luke's use of his sources. The second part of the collection examines a number of texts in order to shown how Luke rewrites specific passages. In the final section the contributions concern Luke's relation to Roman authorities. It is shown that Luke's literary creativity is not limited to his predecessors in the gospel tradition. Rewriting is his literary strategy.

"This book had its genesis at a conference held in Cambridge"--Pref.