Table Of ContentTHE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY
ON THE
NEW TESTAMENT
General Editors
NED B. STONEHOUSE
(1946-1962)
F. F. BRUCE
(1962-1990)
GORDON D. FEE
(1990- )
The Gospel of LUKE
JOEL B. GREEN
© 1997 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /
P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.
www.eerdmans.com
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 11 10 9 8 7 6 5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-8028-2315-1
The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard
Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education
of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of
America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 1 on p. 60 is from Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification
by Gerhard E. Lenski. Copyright 1966, 1984 by the University of North Carolina
Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
CONTENTS
Editor’s Preface
Author’s Preface
List of Interpretive Asides and Figures
Abbreviations
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
1. Reading the Gospel of Luke
1.1. The Gospel of Luke as “Narrative” (διήγησις)
The Genre of the Gospel of Luke
1.2. The Unity of Luke-Acts
1.3. Method in Reading the Gospel of Luke
Some Key Terms
Narrative, History, and Historicity
1.4. What of the Question of Authorship?
2. The Purpose and Theology of the Gospel of Luke
OUTLINE OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE (WITH PAGE REFERENCES)
TEXT, EXPOSITION, AND NOTES
1. The Prologue
2. The Birth and Childhood of Jesus (1:5–2:52)
3. The Preparation for the Ministry of Jesus (3:1–4:13)
4. The Ministry of Jesus in Galilee (4:14–9:50)
5. On the Way to Jerusalem (9:51–19:48)
6. Teaching in the Jerusalem Temple (20:1–21:38)
7. The Suffering and Death of Jesus (22:1–23:56)
8. The Exaltation of Jesus (24:1-53)
INDEXES
Subjects
Modern Authors
Scripture References
Early Extrabiblical Literature
EDITOR’S PREFACE
This replacement commentary (the eighth) represents another milestone for the
New International Commentary on the New Testament, in that it replaces the
first commentary to appear in the original series, that by Norval Geldenhuys in
1951. For that volume, the first editor, Ned Stonehouse, wrote a general
foreword introducing the series, while F. F. Bruce, who would eventually
succeed Stonehouse as its second editor, wrote a foreword to Geldenhuys’s
commentary in particular. Reading these two forewords can be instructive with
regard to the evolution of the series.
That the proposed seventeen- (now nineteen-)volume series would “appear
with some regularity” is our yet-to-be-realized hope, which now looks to the turn
of the century for final realization (Matthew, the Pastoral Letters, and 2
Peter/Jude are outstanding but in process). Whereas the international scope of
the series has been maintained, its original Dutch and South African flavor has,
with the present volume, now been lost. So also under Bruce’s editorship the
intentionally Reformed perspective of the series envisioned by Stonehouse
began to wane. The present volume, the second in the series by a Methodist
(along with I. Howard Marshall’s Johannine Epistles) is another indication of
the cooperative, broadly based, cross-confessional dimension of the evangelical
tradition that has emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. But the
goal of the series has been maintained throughout all of this evolution: “to
provide earnest students of the New Testament with an exposition that is
thorough and abreast of modern scholarship and at the same time loyal to
Scripture as the infallible Word of God” (Stonehouse, p. 3 in Geldenhuys’s
Luke).
Two further reflections from those first forewords are of interest regarding the
present volume: the pointedly pastoral dimension of the Geldenhuys volume,
and its way of being “abreast of modern scholarship.” The first matter, very
frankly, disappeared from most of the succeeding volumes until it was
reintroduced in my First Corinthians (1987); and I have urged current authors to
work hard at maintaining this dimension of the series. The present commentary
happily does so, although not in the more fixed form that Geldenhuys (or Fee)
did.
The second matter is the more significant one regarding the present volume;
for in some ways Geldenhuys and Green, at the midpoint and the end of the
present century respectively, represent two considerably different approaches to
these matters, while in both cases going against the grain of the atomistic
approach to Synoptic studies that has so long held sway. In his foreword
Professor Bruce noted that Geldenhuys maintained a “healthy scepticism”
toward “some parts of the critical stock-in-trade” of the academy, which made it
look a bit obscurantist for its time, despite Bruce’s demurrer to the contrary.
The present commentary is anything but obscurantist. But it is different from
most Synoptic commentaries in its approach to the evangelist Luke, showing
very little concern for traditional form-critical and redaction-critical issues.
Professor Green is fully aware of these matters, but leaves the reader to consult
other commentaries for their details. His concern, and it is a refreshing and
exciting concern, is that the reader capture Luke’s narrative of Jesus on its own
right. Here at last is a commentary on Luke that tries to help the reader to see
how the narrative “works,” how Luke’s own obvious concerns drive the
narrative from beginning to end (including Acts), how one should read Luke as
its first reader would have read it — without cross-referencing to Matthew or
Mark. Thus I am pleased to commend this superb reading of Luke to both the
primary audience of the series — the working pastor and teacher, as well as
students — and its secondary audience in the academy. Read it and learn — and
enjoy,
Also belonging to the newer generation of evangelical scholars (see my
preface to Doug Moo’s Romans), Joel Green is especially well-equipped for this
task. Since the completion of his Ph.D. in New Testament in 1985 (from
Aberdeen, Scotland), he has maintained a vigorous schedule of publications,
especially on Luke-Acts (see the entries in his bibliography), as well as serving
as editor (or co-editor) for a whole variety of projects (Catalyst, a quarterly for
seminarians; the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels [IVP]; the I. Howard
Marshall Festschrift; and others). He also already has a distinguished teaching
career at New College (Berkeley) and the American Baptist Seminary of the
West (Berkeley). As of the publication of this volume (Fall 1997) he begins his
appointment as Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury
Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky. However, throughout all of his
academic life, both as a student and teacher, he has also maintained an active
pastoral life in the church. This combination of passion for scholarship and the
life of the church has come to a splendid fruition with the present commentary.
GORDON D. FEE
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
If the name of Hans Conzelmann is associated with the massive shift in Lukan
studies characterizing the decades reaching from the 1950s to the publication of
Joseph Fitzmyer’s two-volume commentary on the Third Gospel in the 1980s,
any survey of more recent exploration of the Gospel of Luke would highlight the
work of such scholars as Robert Tannehill and Luke Johnson on the literary side,
and Halvor Moxnes and Philip Esler on the social-scientific. My own
introduction to serious study of Luke coincided with this latter shift, marked by
the waning of the hegemony of historical study (historical criticism, tradition
criticism, redaction criticism, and the rest) and the blooming of so-called
“newer” approaches (e.g., new literary criticism, narrative criticism, new
historicism, and the like). At the time, even the idea of writing a commentary
seemed to present too many problems of method and presentation; indeed, more
than one person pronounced a plague on all commentary writing! My decision to
undertake this project was grounded in my belief that those involved in the
church’s ministry continue to be helped most by commentaries on whole books,
written from the perspective of a fundamental reverence for the biblical text and
from a position of critical engagement with academic biblical studies and active
involvement in the life of the church. I also believed that discussion about
method in the study of the Gospels need not lead necessarily into a cul-de-sac,
and that recent innovations in method had as their natural outcome the
possibility of making the Gospel of Luke and its message come even more alive
for contemporary readers.
How I have navigated the sometimes difficult, always exciting waters of
interpretive method will become clear to any who actually(!) read the
Introduction. It will become equally clear that, in spite of the size of this volume,
I have made no attempt to address the whole spectrum of questions that might
possibly be put to the Gospel of Luke. This has never really been possible, and it
is even less so today. This is not for me a cause of despair, but rather reason to
rejoice, and to reflect on the multivalency of the Gospel, which can address in so
many ways the diverse needs of the historic and global church.
A project of this magnitude is not brought to completion without a crowd of
witnesses and participants. Above all, I want to record my gratitude for the
encouragement and support of Pamela, Aaron, and Allison — my family; no
