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The Sense of Audience in Luke: a Literary Examination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Cornelia Cook
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‘Sir, is it to us that you are addressing this parable, or to all men also?’ Peter asks this question of Jesus at almost exactly the mid-point of Luke’s gospel. The question alerts us to the importance of audiences in this gospel. A reading of the received text as a literary whole discovers that a ubiquitous and significant sense of audience distinguishes Luke’s gospel. Jesus’s mission defines itself in Luke’s gospel through a dynamic relationship with his audiences, and the evangelist’s project of witness, of instruction of conversion, too, accomplishes itself through the creation and manipulation of audiences.

From its outset Luke’s gospel acknowledges a sense of audience as well as asserting a care for purposeful narrative structure. The gospel is introduced by a formal prologue to ‘most excellent Theophilus’, who was apparently undergoing or had recently undergone instruction in the faith.

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you might know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed. (RSV)

Things that have been accomplished among us are the marvellous events of the life, death and resurrection of Christ which have led to the rise of the new Christian church of which Luke’s Theophilus is, or aspires to be, a member.

Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 72 , Issue 845 , January 1991 , pp. 19 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Goulder, Michael D., Luke A New Paradigm, Sheffield, 1989, vol. 1, chapter 5 (pp.147–177)Google Scholar.

2 Goulder notes that the settings of Luke's parables reflect the ‘middle‐class world of Luke's own experience’ (ibid., pp. 98–99), and elsewhere supposes a Roman middle class element in his audience (p. 131).

3 I consider the material around the parables an essential and significant part of the narrative's working. Whatever the sources of Lukan material, and whether or not the author of the received version is ‘Luke’ or a redactor, the organisation of this narrative is coherent, its characteristic features consistent, and it achieves an internally consistent significance. See also Goulder, ibid., p.123.

4 I disagree with Robert C. Tannehill's view (The Narrative Unity of Luke‐Acts: A Literary Interpretation, Philadelphia, 1986, vol. 1, pp. 143–163Google Scholar) that Luke's crowd moves uniformly from support to hostility, culminating in the demand for Barabbas's release. I find it significant that the group shouting for Barabbas is not referred to as ‘the crowd’ho ochlos—the usual designation or ‘the people’ho laos—the usual designation for Jewish worshippers. An anonymous phrase is used anēkragon de panplēthei—‘they all shouted together’. Many people are around—chief priests are there, when Jesus is led away ‘women’ and ‘a great company of the people’ follow. A visiting Cyrenian is caught up in the events. The crowd as usual is split, and it is perhaps not farfetched to attribute the shouts for Barabbas's release to a loud, loutish section of the crowd probably bussed in by the chief priests for the purpose.

5 As has often been noted, repentance or recognition in Luke is a ‘turning’—turning from worldly attachments, turning to follow him, turning back from Emmaus. It is amusing, therefore, to find Jesus accused before Pilate of ‘turning’ the people apostrephonta ton laon. The irony is fulfilled, I think, when we recognise that the purpose of the witnesses, the new church, the gospel is to continue Christ's work of ‘turning the people’.