Let me just comment briefly on the resurrection within Luke’s Gospel outside the actual resurrection accounts of Luke--for dealing with all the intricacies of the harmony's and disharmony's of Luke and Acts are too extensive to delve into with a Blog like this...
Other than the Johannine corpus (The Gospel of John; 1, 2 and 3 John and Revelation), Luke is the most extensive when it comes to the resurrection. I do not only mean when it comes to the resurrection narrative itself, but that throughout his Gospel it is regularly in view.
The prodigal son story (Luke 15.11-32) is about, a return from exile. A people called back, by a father, to relationship from a foreign land. The message of which is that it is this thing that is happening in the ministry of Jesus (Jesus is calling Israel back from exile). But there are some (the Pharisees) that, like the older brother, do not like the way it looks and thus refuse to celebrate. Of course, this message of return from exile is not new— when it was spoken of in the OT the metaphor that was used was that of resurrection from the dead (Ezekiel 36-37; Hosea 6).
Jesus says: "for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.' And they began to celebrate.
Again Jesus say: 'But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.'"
Another picture of the same vein is found in Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.19-31. I call it a parable, and not a description of the ‘after life’ not least because it actually draws attention away from the afterlife with its focus upon the injustice of the coexistence of rich and poor, also because it is in the form and context of other parables and because it is making precisely the same point as Luke’s other parables have (like the prodigal son): that resurrection is happening in and through Jesus’ ministry and the Pharisees cannot see it.
Jesus closes the story off with:
(16.30) father Abraham, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!'
and again,
(16.31) 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'" (Maybe with a wink of his eye?)
Luke, like we will see in John, drops hints off this theology all the way through his Gospel and through his second volume, the book of Acts. In Luke he gives the impression that all the resurrection sightings happened in one day. But in Acts they are extended to over 40 days. Has he contradicted himself? It is important to realize that in the ancient world, unlike journalism today it was not imperative to tell every detail at ever telling of the story: it is almost like Luke tells it focusing on some details and then gives later details in Acts, not contradicting but purposely filling it all out.
Other than the Johannine corpus (The Gospel of John; 1, 2 and 3 John and Revelation), Luke is the most extensive when it comes to the resurrection. I do not only mean when it comes to the resurrection narrative itself, but that throughout his Gospel it is regularly in view.
The prodigal son story (Luke 15.11-32) is about, a return from exile. A people called back, by a father, to relationship from a foreign land. The message of which is that it is this thing that is happening in the ministry of Jesus (Jesus is calling Israel back from exile). But there are some (the Pharisees) that, like the older brother, do not like the way it looks and thus refuse to celebrate. Of course, this message of return from exile is not new— when it was spoken of in the OT the metaphor that was used was that of resurrection from the dead (Ezekiel 36-37; Hosea 6).
Jesus says: "for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.' And they began to celebrate.
Again Jesus say: 'But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.'"
Another picture of the same vein is found in Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.19-31. I call it a parable, and not a description of the ‘after life’ not least because it actually draws attention away from the afterlife with its focus upon the injustice of the coexistence of rich and poor, also because it is in the form and context of other parables and because it is making precisely the same point as Luke’s other parables have (like the prodigal son): that resurrection is happening in and through Jesus’ ministry and the Pharisees cannot see it.
Jesus closes the story off with:
(16.30) father Abraham, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!'
and again,
(16.31) 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'" (Maybe with a wink of his eye?)
Luke, like we will see in John, drops hints off this theology all the way through his Gospel and through his second volume, the book of Acts. In Luke he gives the impression that all the resurrection sightings happened in one day. But in Acts they are extended to over 40 days. Has he contradicted himself? It is important to realize that in the ancient world, unlike journalism today it was not imperative to tell every detail at ever telling of the story: it is almost like Luke tells it focusing on some details and then gives later details in Acts, not contradicting but purposely filling it all out.
No comments:
Post a Comment