This study offers a fresh explanation for the characterisation of the women in Luke 23.27 as mourning. It argues that the uniquely Lukan material of women mourning on the walk to Calvary subtly fashions that walk into a funeral procession. The phrase μὴ κλαίɛτɛ in the following verse, Luke 23.28, recalls accounts of Jesus bringing the dead to life earlier in the Gospel, thereby evoking the concept of resurrection. Luke 23.27-8 works in conjunction with material later in Chapter 23 about the ritual preparation of Jesus’ body, to portray funerary ritual for Jesus conducted in reverse (the funeral procession precedes rather than follows the preparation of the body). This inverted order of funeral allusions adds extra resonance to the endpoint of the Gospel, casting it as the logical culmination of a reverse funeral—the resurrection of Jesus from death to life. The interpretation in this paper highlights one way that lived ritual experiences among the Gospel's readers, in this case, the paradigm of funeral ritual, informed the narrative technique in the Gospel of Luke, complementing other well-recognised uses of Greco-Roman rhetorical devices and literary themes.

This article examines the language of seed reception within the Parable of the Sower in Mark and Luke. The paper argues that Mark's diction introduces reproductive terms into the seed figure and that Luke edits Mark to include even more distinctively gynaecological and reproductive terminology. The result is a parable in Luke that turns the audience into uterine receptacles of the seed/logos.

The article presents evidence for a direct, both formal and contentual, dependence of Jesus’ triple accusation in Luke 23.2 upon Socrates’ triple accusation in Plato's Apol. 24b–c.

Scholarly work on Luke has often noted the significance of Marcion's Gospel for understanding the textual history of the third canonical Gospel. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the past new insights into Marcion's Gospel have led to revisions in the apparatus of the highly influential Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, now in its 28th edition. In view of the precedent for continually updating the Nestle-Aland text and apparatus, this article revisits the apparatus to Luke in the light of recent research on Marcion's Gospel in order to highlight problematic references that should be changed or removed in the apparatus of future Nestle-Aland editions.

For over a century, studies on Marcion have cited a quotation attributed to him in a fragmentary Syriac manuscript: London, British Library, Add. 17215 (fols. 30–3). An English translation of the relevant passage appeared in 1893, but no subsequent study has returned to the Syriac text itself. While this text has hitherto been cited as an anonymous Syriac source, this article identifies it as a letter by Jacob of Serugh (d. 520/1) and offers preliminary remarks on the implications of this identification for future research on Marcion's Gospel and his thought.

The level of scepticism met by the concept of macro-chiasm in ancient literature is noticeably lower today than two decades ago, with sizable agreement coalescing around certain examples. One such example is found in the synoptic double-tradition material as it is preserved in Luke's Gospel, which provides the methodological foundation for the reconstruction of the hypothetical synoptic source document Q. This article explores the study of the macro-chiasm identified in Luke (Q) 3.7–7.35 and its implications for the synoptic problem. It also addresses the methodological considerations advanced by S. E. Porter and J. T. Reed in their NTS article two decades ago, meeting a certain stipulation placed by them upon subsequent scholarship.

In Jesus’ sermon at Nazareth in Luke (4.16–30), his reminder that Elijah had aided non-Jews (vv. 26–7) is met with an unusual death sentence – to throw Jesus from a cliff. This has been conceptually and geographically vexing for scholars. This paper reads the passage beside the Life of Aesop, in which the Delphians condemn the fabulist to the same fate for blasphemy (130–42). Aesop's offence, like Jesus’, is to malign the special status of the Delphians before their god. The Lukan Evangelist's use of the same manner of death for the same type of speech act indicates that the crowd at Nazareth has condemned Jesus for blasphemy.

This article examines the alterations that Luke makes to his citation of Joel 3.1–5 in Acts 2.17–21. It argues that Luke has chosen various Scriptural co-texts to shape the meaning of Joel's prophecy as it applies to the early church. Thus, the various changes that Luke makes to Joel's prophecy reflect Luke's theological vision for the way in which Israel's eschatological restoration is occurring within the community of the early church.

Luke-Acts is strangely silent regarding the sacrificial significance of Jesus' crucifixion. Curiously, too, Acts more closely links the salvific benefits that Jesus provides with his resurrection and exaltation than with his death. Luke, many conclude, is not concerned with explaining Jesus' atoning work in terms of Jewish sacrificial categories. By way of contrast, this article argues that Luke's connecting of forgiveness and purification (i.e. key elements of sacrificial atonement) with Jesus' exaltation indicates that he is aware of the sacrificial aspects of Jesus' work. Jewish sacrifice consists of a hierarchically structured ritual process that cannot be reduced to the slaughter of the victim. In Leviticus, the culminating elements of this process occur as the priests convey the materials of the sacrifice into God's presence (i.e. offer the sacrifice) by approaching and serving at the various altars. Such a perspective on sacrifice is suggestive for interpreting Luke's emphasis on Jesus' exaltation in Acts. Luke has not stressed the sacrificial aspects of Jesus' death, but has highlighted the atoning benefits of Jesus' exaltation because he understands Jesus to have offered his atoning sacrifice as part of his exaltation to the right hand of God.

This study surveys the numerous and diverse powers and authorities to which the gospel is addressed in Luke-Acts, including major Jewish institutions and officials, Herodian rulers, Roman military officers, Greco-Roman officials, diverse officials, and pagan cults and supernatural powers. Well over half the references to authorities in Luke-Acts occur nowhere else in the New Testament. The frequent and diverse references to powers defend Christianity in a preliminary and obvious way from charges of political sedition. In a broader and more important way, however, they redefine power itself according to the standard of the gospel.

Jesus' preaching at Nazareth in Luke 4 is usually read as the rejection of a prophet because he is too familiar to his home town, as is the case in Matthew and Mark. This reading puts Luke's text under heavy strains that make it seem inconsistent or misconstrued. We propose that it should rather be read as Jesus refusing to be used for his home country's benefits, based upon a reconsideration of Luke 4.24 in the light of Luke 4.19. We then put this reading in synoptical perspective.

The two books under review here are remarkably similar, although (it would appear) entirely independent of each other. Further, I must say right at the start that, in many respects (perhaps the most important respect), I am entirely in agreement with many of their conclusions, and their manner of reaching those conclusions. So maybe this ‘critical’ review is not critical enough!

• - Both authors are English; and both books come across (to me) as very ‘English’: the argument is cautious, fully acknowledging caveats, never overstating the case, etc.

• - The prime issue addressed in both is the relationship between Thomas and the Synoptics.

• - Both argue for a broadly similar conclusion – that Thomas is dependent (whether directly or indirectly: see below) on at least Matthew and Luke.

• - Both reach this conclusion via an almost identical methodology: seeking to identify possible elements of Synoptic redactional activity in Thomas as an indication of Thomas’ dependence.

• - Some (but not all) of the evidence cited is common, e.g. Th 5 / / Luke 8:17; Th 14 / / Matt 15:11; Th 31 / / Luke 4:24. (However, other examples do not overlap.)

• - Both are reticent about relying too much on theories about Q (perhaps surprisingly, Goodacre less than Gathercole).

• - Both see Thomas as potentially mystifying, not necessarily aiming at clarity, but demanding hermeneutical effort on the part of the reader.

• - Both emphasise the importance of taking seriously the evidence of the Greek fragments, and indeed both at different points use the Greek evidence closely.

• - Both offer powerful critiques of the older form-critical ‘norms’, or ‘laws’, about the development of the tradition, both effectively denying that such rigid ‘laws’ have any validity at all.

• - Both address in detail the more general arguments of others defending Thomas’ independence, e.g. on order, the apparent lack of ‘much’ agreement with the Synoptics, the possibility of assimilation in the textual transmission, etc.

• - Both also offer good arguments referring to the possibility of being misled by the phenomenon of the Synoptic Gospels about what level of agreement might be expected in a case of dependence. (The Synoptics may be highly unusual in the high level of agreement (in wording and order) they display.)

• - Both emphasise the danger of polarising the debate prematurely, of simply claiming that one's own theory has ‘won the day’ and ignoring others who disagree. Certainly both authors here take on, and engage with (in my view very fairly) the views of others who disagree.

This article argues that Luke influences the Gospel of Thomas, on the basis of an examination of those places where redactional material in Luke not in Mark is found in Thomas. This has been argued already by various scholars, but the present study aims (a) to refine further the method used to argue this position and (b) to expand the catalogue of those Thomas sayings which can be shown to indicate Lukan influence. Furthermore, it proposes (c) to respond to recent scholarship arguing that Thomas influences Luke, as well as to scholars maintaining the independence of Thomas and the Synoptics.

This article explores the interconnection between intellection and life in ancient theology and philosophy by means of a reexamination of Paul's famous Areopagus discourse. Instead of reading the speech as an attempt at theological rapprochement, this essay interprets the speech as a place where fundamentally different grammars for the whole of life come into conflict.

The study examines bioi by two Greco-Roman authors (Plutarch and Philostratus), two Jewish authors (Philo and Josephus), and finally, the Third Gospel, in the light of the progymnastic topic lists, arguing that all the bioi employ topic lists as a compositional template, guiding the narrative in its overall structure and content. The study shows, moreover, that the Third Evangelist employs the lists with rhetorical skill comparable to the most educated of the biographers surveyed, Plutarch and Philo.