In this eleven session LifeGuide® Bible Study, Ada Lum leads you to discover that Luke's message of hope and joy is for you!

In this book, the author draws on two original sources, on a Greek biographer, historian, and rhetorician, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as well as on Pompeian domestic art and architecture. Generally, NT scholars read texts, but Greeks and ancient Romans loved beauty. The walls and floors of their houses were decorated with thousands of colorful frescoes and mosaics, art that two millennia later is still on display in Pompeii. Christians lived and worshipped in those typical houses; relating the art to NT texts generates many intriguing new questions! What stories/myths did Greeks and Romans see every day? What were their sports, and how violent were they? Many NT scholars know as much or more Latin than they do Greek, and they therefore cite the Latin historian Livy rather than the Greek Dionysius, who wrote a century before the first Christian historian, Luke. Dionysius’ rhetoric expressed values shared across cultures, by Greeks, Romans, and Jews (e.g., by the historian—and rhetorician—Josephus), some values that Luke also shares. Dionysius makes clear that cities and ethnic groups had to praise how they treated emigrant foreigners, questions handled differently by Josephus and by Luke. This enables new interpretations of Jesus’ inaugural speech in Luke 4 and of Peter’s second Pentecost speech in Acts 10.

This highly original commentary, part of the New International Commentary, is unique for the way it combines concerns with first-century culture in the Roman world with understanding the text of Luke as a wholistic, historical narrative.

Like all skilful authors, the composer of the biblical books of Luke and Acts understood that a good story requires more than a gripping plot - a persuasive narrative also needs well-portrayed, plot-enhancing characters. This book brings together a set of new essays examining characters and characterization in those books from a variety of methodological perspectives. The essays illustrate how narratological, sociolinguistic, reader-response, feminist, redaction, reception historical, and comparative literature approaches can be fruitfully applied to the question of Luke's techniques of characterization. Theoretical and methodological discussions are complemented with case studies of specific Lukan characters. Together, the essays reflect the understanding that while many of the literary techniques involved in characterization attest a certain universality, each writer also brings his or her own unique perspective and talent to the portrayal and use of characters, with the result that analysis of a writer's characters and style of characterization can enhance appreciation of that writer's work.

Literary Studies in Luke-Acts is a collection of essays by a group of distinguished biblical scholars who use literary-ciritcal analyses in the study of Luke-Acts. The variety of literary-critical approaches to Luke-Acts, as compiled uniquely in this volume, provides a needed resource by presenting methodological options for approaching biblical narrative texts with literary questions and considerations. Contributors include: Arthur Bellinzoni, C. Clifton Black, Darrell L. Bock, John A. Darr, William Farmer, Mikeal Parsons, Vernon Robbins, Jack Sanders, Charles Talbert, Robert Tannehill, and Victor Paul Furnish.

For decades scholars have reached no consensus on the writing order of Luke's gospel. The author, through a thorough study of the word "orderly" in Luke 1:3; a comparison of Luke's writing methodologies with those of the Greco-Roman historians; and a detailed investigation of the differences in the narrative accounts among the Synoptic Gospels, concludes that Luke writes in chronological order. The author also explains how Luke has employed writing methodologies commonly used by Greco-Roman historians to write the prefaces in Luke-Acts and divide the Gospel into sections, and the implications of these writing methodologies on Luke's writing order. He explicates the possible reasons behind the differences in the writing style between the "travel" section (9:52b to 19:44) and the rest of the Gospel, proposes the central theme of Luke-Acts, and assesses the possible implications for accepting Luke's chronological writing order on biblical studies.

The four canticles of Luke's birth story--the Magnificat, Benedictus, Gloria in excelsis, and Nunc dimittis--are taken to be integral components of the narrative and a sustained lyrical prelude to the author's two-volume historical work. Each composition is analyzed in three steps: proximate context; text; and macrocontext, the last displaying, in each case, a graded contribution to the cumulative preview of Luke's overall argument that the songs constitute. The summary impression made by this argument is of the author's decisive role in the creation of these passages, of which--save, perhaps, for the Benedictus--his is the originating hand.

This book touches on the fundamental contributions of Luke's two-volume work revealing how a small Jewish sect became a worldwide movement in one generation. It recognizes the essential unity of Luke-Acts by showing how Luke prepares for the book of Acts. Luke's story of how the gospel moves from the particular to the universal gives insights on the missiological dynamics of early Christianity and provides models for the church and missions today.

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scrolls -- Philo, Josephus, and Classical Greek Sources -- Index of Modern Authors

This is a fascinating, lucidly presented work offering fresh insights into a number of key passages in the Gospel and showing the fruitfulness of examining Luke's usage in the light of Judaism. Whatever their level of expertise, students of Luke and of the use of Scripture in Scripture will find useful and challenging material in this comprehensive volume. I. Howard Marshall, King's College Luke and Scripture is an important contribution to the study of comparative midrash and the role and function of authoritative, sacred tradition in the life of the early Christian community. This book sharpens the definition of midrash criticism in relation to other methods both in theory and practice and in the process sheds further light on Luke's understanding of Jesus, the origin of early Christianity, and his own experience in terms of Israel's sacred tradition and institutions. Mikeal C. Parsons, Baylor University