Luke/Acts and the End of History (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

Luke/Acts and the End of History investigates how understandings of history in diverse texts of the Graeco-Roman period illuminate Lukan eschatology. In addition to Luke/Acts, it considers ten comparison texts as detailed case studies throughout the monograph: Polybius's Histories, Diodorus Siculus's Library of History, Virgil's Aeneid, Valerius Maximus's Memorable Doings and Sayings, Tacitus's Histories, 2 Maccabees, the Qumran War Scroll, Josephus's Jewish War, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch.

The study makes a contribution both in its method and in the questions it asks. By placing Luke/Acts alongside a broad range of texts from Luke's wider cultural setting, it overcomes two methodological shortfalls frequently evident in recent research: limiting comparisons of key themes to texts of similar genre, and separating non-Jewish from Jewish parallels. Further, by posing fresh questions designed to reveal writers' underlying conceptions of history-such as beliefs about the shape and end of history or divine and human agency in history-it challenges the enduring tendency to underestimate the centrality of eschatology for Luke's account, which is derived particularly from post-war assumptions about Luke as focusing on history instead of eschatology in light of the delayed parousia. By contrast, viewing Luke/Acts within a broader range of texts from Luke's literary context highlights his underlying teleological conception of history. The resultant insight into history in Luke/Acts clarifies not only Lukan eschatology, but related concerns or effects of his eschatology: Luke's politics and approach to suffering.

This monograph thereby offers an important corrective to readings of Luke/Acts based on established exegetical habits, and will help to inform interpretation for scholars and students of Luke/Acts as well as classicists and theologians interested in these key questions.