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The Occasion of Luke III:1–2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Robert M. Grant
Affiliation:
Columbia University

Extract

Various views have been held in the past concerning the purpose of the sixfold chronology in Luke. “The breaking of this oppressive silence [since the time of Malachi] by the voice of the Baptist caused a thrill through the whole Jewish population throughout the world. Lk. shows his appreciation of the magnitude of the crisis by the sixfold attempt to give it an exact date.” From this we may pass to a somewhat calmer later view. “The evangelist is using here a form which he has taken over from an alien sphere. … It is derived from secular historiography, which has the habit of making prominent important events, especially those with which the principal narrative begins, by means of circumstantial datings and synchronisms.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1940

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References

1 , Plummer, St. Luke (1896), p. 80Google Scholar.

2 Schwartz, E. in ZNTW, xi (1910), p. 102Google Scholar.

3 Klostermann, E., Das Lukas-Evangelium (1929), p. 50Google Scholar.

4 Riddle, D. W. in Journal of Religion, x (1930), pp. 545–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Manson, W., The Gospel of Luke (1930), p. xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

6 Streeter, B. H., The Four Gospels (1930), p. 209Google Scholar.

7 There is little evidence that a similarly confusing passage, John ii. 20, had any influence; but cf. Augustine, De Doctr. Chr. ii. 28.

8 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. ii. 22; cf. , Chapman in JTS, viii (1907), pp. 5961Google Scholar.

9 Luke iii. 23.

10 The Epideixis is found only in an Armenian version, but its teaching is elsewhere so orthodox that I cannot suppose a substitution.

11 Texte und Untersuchungen, xi. 1 (1893), pp. 148–49Google Scholar ; Irenaeus himself preferred 20 years.

12 Eusebius, H. E. v. 18. 14; Acta Petri c. Simone v.; Pistis Sophia, etc. The apostles alone are found in Kerygma Petri (in Clem. Alex., Strom, vi. 5. 43).

13 He has corrected Preuschen's view (in ZNTW, xv (1914), p. 96Google Scholar ) that this date came through Christians; but his own theory of a Jewish source seems equally difficult. His argument from the tenth century interpolation of Yosippon (cf. Lévi, I. in Rev. des études juives, xci (1931), pp. 135–54Google Scholar ) does not seem improved by the remark that “par endroits il s'appuie sur des traditions anciennes qu'il deforme d'ailleurs” (p. 547). The result is a singularly confused document which shows Jesus crucified at Tiberias in the presence of Caligus (= Caligula) and also visiting Claudius in Apion's place. I may add that Streeter once said that the only extra-biblical notices we have of early Christians were in his opinion from police reports.

14 , Justin, Apology i. 32, 38, 48Google Scholar.

15 , Eusebius, H. E. i. 9 (cf. i. 11 and ix. 5)Google Scholar.

16 More probably, as Lipsius, Die Pilatus-Acten (1886), p. 31, pointed out, the “seventh year” is Eusebius' own error; the author Theotecnus intended A.D. 31 but relied on the Fasti Idatiani which wrongly place the fourth consulship of Tiberius there.

17 Descensus ad inferos, xiii (in Tischendorf, Ev. Apocr., p. 413); Acta Petri et Pauli (in Tisch., Acta Apost. Apocr., p. 16).

18 Collated by , Chapman in JTS, vii (1907), p. 591Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., p. 598.

20 Syncellus, Chronogr. (ed. , Dindorf), p. 597Google Scholar. He argues against Panodorus, who gives 5493 (= 7 B.C.), p. 592.

21 Ibid., p. 607; he also gives Tiberius XIX, as Chapman notes. Here the Nero date may reflect the 46 years of John ii. 20; or it may be mere error.

22 Epiphanius, , Adv. Haer. li. 29Google Scholar.

23 Perhaps only the consular list; and additional confusion came from the two ways of reckoning the years of Augustus: from 44 and from 81.

24 Another attempt at control was made by Phlegon (in Origen, Contra Celsum ii. 33), who tried to date the passion by an earthquake in Bithynia in 32-33. The success of the Lucan date is no guarantee of its accuracy; the thirty years of iii. 23 are deduced from iii. 1 and ii. 2 (perhaps in opposition to John viii. 57), but Irenaeus quotes Papias t o the effect that our Lord was at least forty (Adv. Haer. ii. 22); and any commentary will show the errors of the synchronism. Cf. , Goguel in Rev. de l'hist. des rel. lxxiv (1916), pp. 911Google Scholar.