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How to read ambiguity well: Reading ambiguity in Luke and Acts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 April 2025
Abstract
This article offers a hermeneutical account of ambiguity using Luke and Acts as an extended case study. After discussing the difficulties in identifying purposeful ambiguity in biblical texts, verbal ambiguity is distinguished from ambiguity beyond the sentence level, such as ambiguities of plot or character. Instead of approaching ambiguity primarily as a failure of language or a problem to be solved, this article offers a framework for thinking about ambiguity as an invitation to read a text from multiple angles. The discussion is illustrated throughout with a series of examples taken from Luke and Acts. I close with reflections on how this approach to ambiguity is helpful when reading scripture against different cultural contexts and in the study of New Testament Christology.
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press
Footnotes
†
An earlier version of this article was presented at the European Association of Biblical Studies Graduate Conference in Graz, Austria in February 2024. I would like to thank Veronika Burz-Tropper, Matthew Novenson, Christian Einertson, Arthur Rankin, and Joel Butcher for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article.
References
1 All translations of ancient texts are the author’s own unless otherwise indicated.
2 For a discussion of various positions, see C. Kavin Rowe, ‘Luke and the Trinity: An Essay in Ecclesial Biblical Theology’, Scottish Journal of Theology 56/1 (2003), pp. 17–8.
3 Ibid.
4 For example, Jeff Hayes, ‘Intentional Ambiguity in Ruth 4.5: Implications for Interpretation of Ruth’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 41 (2016), pp. 159–82; Paul R. Raabe, ‘Deliberate Ambiguity in the Psalter’, Journal of Biblical Literature 110 (1991), pp. 213–27.
5 Henry J. Cadbury, ‘Commentary on the Preface of Acts’, in F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake (eds.), The Beginnings of Christianity (London: MacMillan, 1922), vol. 2, p. 504. See also Daniel Marguerat, ‘Luc-Actes entres Jérusalem et Rome: Un procédé lucanien de double signification’, New Testament Studies 45/1 (1999), pp. 73–9.
6 As he writes, ‘In a sufficiently extended sense any prose statement could be called ambiguous’, William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity, 3rd edn (London: Chatto and Windus, 1953), p. 1.
7 Shlomith Rimmon, The Concept of Ambiguity: The Example of James (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977), p. x.
8 See the illuminating discussion in ibid., pp. 16–26.
9 Abraham Kaplan and Ernst Kris, ‘Esthetic Ambiguity’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 8/3 (1948), pp. 415–35.
10 Scott B. Noegel, ‘Wordplay’ in Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2021), p. 302.
11 See the helpful discussion in G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 102–8.
12 See the survey of purposes in ancient near eastern literature in Noegel, ‘Wordplay’, pp. 47–154.
13 This is not to say that such ambiguities are always literarily successful. One only has to imagine bad poetry (or bad academic writing) that confuses being unclear with being profound.
14 Raabe, ‘Deliberate Ambiguity’, p. 213. See also the taxonomy of ambiguity in Hayes, ‘Intentional Ambiguity’, p. 168.
15 For example, ‘John sat near the bank and listened to the sound of the water rushing by’ versus ‘John sat near the bank while the robbers escaped with the money’.
16 Hans Förster, ‘Σὺ λέγϵις: Philologische Untersuchungen zur semantischen Valenz der Verbindung eines Personalpronomens mit einem verbum dicendi’, New Testament Studies 67/1 (2021), pp. 38–54.
17 Thomas Farrar, ‘Today in Paradise? Ambiguous Adverb Attachment and the Meaning of Luke 23:43’, Neotestamentica 51/2 (2017), pp. 193–200.
18 Mitchell Dahood, ‘Some Ambiguous Texts in Isaias (30,15; 52,2; 33,2; 40,5; 45,1)’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 21/1 (1958), pp. 41–9.
19 Adam G. White, ‘The Rod as Excommunication: A Possible Meaning for an Ambiguous Metaphor in 1 Corinthians 4.21’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 39/4 (2017), pp. 388–411.
20 So Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998), p. 182; contra F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, rev. edn. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1988), p. 89.
21 James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: OUP, 1961), p. 218. See also the discussion in Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics, rev. edn. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), pp. 25–7.
22 See Silva, Biblical Words, p. 150.
23 Jeremy W. Barrier, ‘τὰ στοιχϵῖα τοῦ κόσμου Again: Interpreting Cosmos in Gal 4,3 and 9 as Prespuce (or Foreskin)’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 114/1 (2023), pp. 102–22; Stephen C. Carlson, ‘No, Galatians 4:3 τὰ στοιχϵῖα τοῦ κόσμου Does Not Refer to a Schmuck’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 115/1 (2024), pp. 114–24.
24 Carlson, ‘No, Galatians 4:3’, p. 117.
25 On this latter point see Christian Blumenthal, ‘Die Mehrdeutigkeit der Gottgleichheitsaussage in Phil 2,6 und ihr argumentationsstraegisches Potential’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 113/2 (2022), pp. 180–201.
26 See the criteria discussed in Naphtali S. Meshel, ‘Too Much in the Sun: Intentional Ambiguity in the Samson Narrative’, Hebrew Studies 62 (2021), pp. 61–3. See also June F. Dickie’s work with reception among modern audiences, ‘Using Performance (with Audience Participation) to Help Translators Discern Ambiguity in Texts: An Empirical Study Based on the Book of Ruth’, The Bible Translator 71/2 (2020), pp. 192–208.
27 See Michael Wolter, The Gospel according to Luke, trans. Wayne Coppins and Christoph Heilig (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017), vol. 2, p. 503.
28 While this discussion is focused on ambiguity in narrative, the same principles would apply equally well to non-narrative texts such as poetry, letters or law. To be precise, ambiguity beyond the sentence-level occurs whenever the ambiguity concerns not the meaning of words but the meaning of the things to which the words refer, such as people, events, things, places, ideas, metaphors and so on.
29 Paul Danove, ‘The Narrative Rhetoric of Mark’s Ambiguous Characterization of the Disciples’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 70/1 (1998), pp. 21–38; Susan E. Hylen, Imperfect Believers: Ambiguous Characters in the Gospel of John (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2009).
30 Chelcent Fuad, ‘The Curious Case of the Blasphemer: Ambiguity as Literary Device in Leviticus 24:10–23’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 41/1 (2019), pp. 51–70.
31 David H. Aaron, Biblical Ambiguities: Metaphor, Semantics and Divine Imagery (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
32 Suzanna R. Millar, ‘Did Job Live “Happily Ever After”? Suspicion and Naivety in Job 42:7–17’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 17/1 (2023): pp. 77–91.
33 Rimmon, Concept of Ambiguity, pp. 26–58.
34 See the insightful analysis in this regard in Kathy Reiko Maxwell, Hearing Between the Lines: The Audience as Fellow-Worker in Luke–Acts and Its Literary Milieu (London: T&T Clark, 2010).
35 See Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), pp. 38–40.
36 For example, James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2015), p. 272.
37 For example, Wolter, Luke, vol. 1, p. 219.
38 Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 188.
39 Sternberg, Poetics of Biblical Narrative, p. 224, n34.
40 Christopher A. Frilingos, ‘Parents Just Don’t Understand: Ambiguity in Stories about the Childhood of Jesus’, Harvard Theological Review 109/1 (2016), p. 54.
41 See the discussion in I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Exeter: Paternoster, 1978), p. 110.
42 For example, Frederick W. Danker, Jesus and the New Age, according to St. Luke: A Commentary on the Third Gospel (St. Louis, MO: Clayton, 1972), p. 27.
43 See the discussion in C. Kavin Rowe, Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), pp. 50–4.
44 Millar, ‘Suspicion and Naivety’, p. 78.
45 Ibid., p. 90. See also Rimmon, Concept of Ambiguity, p. x.
46 At this point it is helpful to reiterate that the ambiguity in view here is distinct from what Rimmon calls ‘the subjectivity of reading’: ‘“Ambiguity” should first be distinguished from the multiplicity of subjective interpretations given to a work of fiction.… The essential difference between this phenomenon and ambiguity proper is that while the subjectivity of reading is conditioned mainly by the psyche of the reader, ambiguity is a fact in the text – a double system of mutually exclusive clues’ (Concept of Ambiguity, p. 12). Of course, sometimes these two kinds of ambiguity are more difficult to separate in practice, see Amy Kalmanofsky, The Power of Equivocation: Complex Readers and Readings of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2022).
47 Avinoam Sharon, ‘Height Theology: The Theological Use of Lexical Ambiguity in the David and Goliath Story’, Jewish Bible Quarterly 45/4 (2017), pp. 243–52.
48 Some distinguish a third reading where τοῖς is read as a masculine article referring to people. However, this has found few proponents with the exception of Julius Döderlein, ‘Das Lernen des Jesusknaben’, in Ludwig Lemme (ed.), Neue Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie (Bonn: Weber, 1892), vol. 1, pp. 609–19. René Laurentin has the most complete survey of views on this verse, Jésus au temple: Mystère de paques et foi de Marie en Luc 2, 48–50 (Paris: Gabalda, 1966), pp. 38–70.
49 For similar phrases see 1 Cor. 7:32–34; 1 Tim. 4:15. Advocates include David Lyle Jeffrey, Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2012), p. 50; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), p. 61.
50 For similar phrases, see LXX Gen. 41:51; Esth. 7:9; Job 18:19. Advocates include Laurentin, Jésus au temple, p. 56; Marshall, Luke, p. 129.
51 See the assessment of Henk J. de Jonge, ‘Sonship, Wisdom, Infancy: Luke II. 41–51a’, New Testament Studies 24 (1978), p. 331.
52 For example, ibid.; Dennis D. Sylva, ‘The Cryptic Clause en tois tou patros mou dei einai me in Lk 2:49b’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 78 (1987), pp. 132–40; Mark Coleridge, The Birth of the Lukan Narrative: Narrative as Christology in Luke 1–2 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), pp. 202–3.
53 See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke (Garden City: Doubleday, 1981), vol. 1, pp. 443–4.
54 See Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, 2nd edn (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 476.
55 De Jonge, ‘Sonship, Wisdom, Infancy’, p. 332.
56 Ibid., p. 334. Of course, Laurentin points out that it is not necessarily the ambiguity of the word τοῖς that confuses Mary and Joseph (Jésus au temple, pp. 77–81). This is another gap in the narrative.
57 Silva, Biblical Words, p. 151.
58 Sylva, ‘The Cryptic Clause’, p. 134.
59 Coleridge, Birth of the Lukan Narrative, pp. 202–3.
60 In this respect see J. K. Elliott, ‘Does Luke 2:41–52 Anticipate the Resurrection?’, Expository Times 83/3 (1971): pp. 87–9.
61 See Gregory R. Lanier, ‘Luke’s Distinctive Use of the Temple: Portraying the Divine Visitation’, Journal of Theology Studies, n.s., 65/2 (2014), pp. 433–62.
62 See also Isaac W. Oliver, Luke’s Jewish Eschatology: The National Restoration of Israel in Luke–Acts (Oxford: OUP, 2021).
63 Note that this passage was particularly significant for the Arian controversy, see, for example Athanasius, Against the Arians II.15; Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius V.2–3. See also the discussion in C. Kavin Rowe, ‘Acts 2.36 and the Continuity of Lukan Christology’, New Testament Studies 53/1 (2007), pp. 38–41.
64 For example, C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (London: T&T Clark, 1994), vol.1, p. 151.
65 Rowe, Early Narrative Christology, p. 191.
66 For example, Arie W. Zwiep, Christ, the Spirit, and the Community of God: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp. 139–56.
67 For example, Rowe, ‘Acts 2.36’, pp. 37–56.
68 Sternberg, Poetics of Biblical Narrative, p. 227.
69 Even when they do not, many resolutions of difficult cases of ambiguity are best understood as issues of probability and are therefore provisional. Even when one reading is judged to be more probable than another, interpreters do well to be honest about the relative probability of the readings they analyse. For example, see Farrar, ‘Today in Paradise?’, p. 200.
70 Again, see Millar’s excellent article, ‘Suspicion and Naivety’.
71 See, for example, Jan Willem van Henten and Joseph Verheyden (eds.), Early Christian Ethics in Interaction with Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
72 See, for example, Oliver, Luke’s Jewish Eschatology, pp. 134–5.
73 See Marguerat, ‘Luc-Actes entres Jérusalem et Rome’, pp. 73–9.
74 Ibid., pp. 74–5.
75 Ibid., pp. 76–8.
76 See the literature review in Brandon D. Smith, ‘What Christ Does, God Does: Surveying Recent Scholarship on Christological Monotheism’, Currents in Biblical Research 17 (2019), pp. 184–208.
77 For example, Joshua E. Leim, Matthew’s Theological Grammar: The Father and the Son (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015).
78 Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014), p. 96. See also Camille Focant, ‘Une christologie de type “mystique” (Marc 1.1–16.8)’, New Testament Studies 55 (2009): p. 20.