The Past as Legacy: Luke-Acts and Ancient Epic
Overview
This study addresses the genre and interpretation of Luke-Acts in the light of its contemporary social, literary, and ideological milieu, particularly as these elements are reflected in the Latin epics contemporary with Luke-Acts and in their famous Augustan prototype, Virgil’s Aeneid. Literary evidence indicating that Virgil’s works had been translated into Greek prose by the middle of the first century makes this line of inquiry especially promising. Interpreting Luke-Acts as a prose adaptation of heroic or historical epic provides a hermeneutical model that is both universal in its theological message and essentially popular in its narrative presentation.
Beginning with the question of literary occasion, Marianne Palmer Bonz introduces the particular configuration of historical circumstances that produced the great foundational epics of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and Odyssey, as well as the Aeneid, and suggests that the historical situation for the composition of Luke-Acts was closely analogous in key respects, for example: literary structure, epic journey, divine mission, prophecy, and reversal of destiny.
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- Addresses Luke-Acts in the light of its contemporary social, literary, and ideological milieu
- Interprets Luke-Acts as a prose adaptation of heroic or historical epic
- Introduces the particular configuration of historical circumstances that produced the great foundational epics
This significant book by Marianne Palmer Bonz seeks to answer the scholarly debate regarding the literary genre of Luke-Acts. . . . Bonz’s study is convincing. . . . Careful readers can gain valuable insights into Luke-Acts by focusing on Chapter 4, ‘The Dramatic Unfolding of Prophecy and History in Luke-Acts,’ and Chapter 5, ‘Luke-Acts Reconsidered,’ in which she surveys the major sections of both volumes for their stylistic features and dramatic movement. Pastors have much to learn from Bonz regarding the character and scope of Luke’s historical and theological vision.
—James L. Bailey, emeritus professor of New Testament, Wartburg Theological Seminary
Bonz has shown that, whatever Luke’s own intentions may have been, his first readers and hearers would have been well prepared to receive his words as those of an epic with cosmic significance. Beyond this, she has argued plausibly and with great detail that being read and understood as ‘epic’ was precisely Luke’s intention. I found myself convinced by Bonz’s description of the role played by such features as extensive use of repetitions and parallelism—along with ambiguity and reversal—in the epic tradition that Luke intentionally adapted as the genre for his rhetorical strategy. Bonz synthesizes a convincing rhetorical and social setting for reading Luke-Acts. I am strongly persuaded by her evidence and arguments.
—S. Scott Bartchy, professor of Christian origins and the history of religion, University of California
- Title: The Past as Legacy: Luke-Acts and Ancient Epic
- Author: Marianne Palmer Bonz
- Publisher: Fortress Press
- Print Publication Date: 2000
- Logos Release Date: 2013
- Pages: 240
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Virgil › Aeneid; Bible. N.T. Luke › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Bible. N.T. Acts › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Bible. N.T. Luke › Criticism, textual; Bible. N.T. Acts › Criticism, textual
- Resource ID: LLS:SLGCYLKCTSNCNTP
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-02-12T06:03:30Z