David Paul Moessner - Luke the Historian of Israel’s Legacy, Theologian of Israel’s ‘Christ’: A New Reading of the ‘Gospel Acts’ of Luke

Praise for David P. Moessners, Luke the Historian of Israels Legacy, Theologian of Israels Christ.

A New Reading of the Gospel Acts of Luke

David Moessners collection of learned essays impressively synthesizes his sustained scholarly exploration of Luke-Acts as a coherent narrative. Moessner portrays Luke as simultaneously a Hellenistic historian embodying Greco-Roman literary theory and practice and a biblical theologian deeply engaged with interpretation of Israels Scripture. No other scholar has so carefully delineated the implications of reading Lukes work as a fusion of these streams of tradition. This book is essential reading for interpreters of Lukes Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.

R ICHARD B. H AYS, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament , The Divinity School, Duke University

This volume brings together previously published essays by David Moessner, a leading and distinctive voice in Lukan studies for over three decades. But this is more than a collection of disparate and occasional essays; by providing contextualizing introductions to each of the five parts and re-configuring each of the essays, Moessner offers an internally coherent and brilliantly compelling thesis: Luke the Hellenistic historian and biblical theologian has deployed various rhetorical conventions and a configuring and re-configuring of Israels scriptures and things that have come to full flowering among us to present the plan of God who intends to act salvifically through Israels suffering Christ for Israel and the world. This volume demands and deserves a hearing with every serious student of Luke and Acts.

M IKEAL C. P ARSONS , Professor and Macon Chair in Religion , Baylor University

Moessners essays, spanning over 30 years of study of the Lukan writings, profoundly affect ourunder-standing of Lukes literary and theological achievements. The insistence on seeing Luke and Acts as a single whole (Gospel Acts), the comparisons drawn between Luke and other historians of the time, especially those writing large-scale histories, and the analysis of the fundamental importance of Jewish scripture for Luke, are timely and compelling. The resulting picture of Luke as a biblical theologian, precisely as a historian, is hugely impressive in its scope and detail. Moessners work will be essential reading for all engaged in Lukan studies for many yearsto come.

C HRISTOPHER T UCKETT, Emeritus Professor of New Testament Studies , University of Oxford

Professor Moessner has for many years made significant contributions to our understanding of Luke-Acts, contributions based in part on his deep learning in ancient literary theory, in part on his close exegesis of Luke's language, and in part on his firm grasp of the theological framework within which Luke works. The present volume of studies enables scholars who may have been aware only of scattered essays to appreciate the full range and depth of his scholarship.

L UKE T IMOTHY J OHNSON , Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins , Emory University

David Moessner has devoted decades to puzzling out the narrative poetics and biblical theology of the double-work, Luke-Acts. These rich and insightful essays are filled with the important results of his research, both in Hellenistic historiography and in patient reading of the Lukan work itself, in conversation with scholarship on ancient historiography, rhetoric, and narrative poetics, contemporary narrative theory, and biblical theology. The present volume offers a fresh and comprehensive picture of the compositional praxis and results of the work of the first biblical theologian with which all New Testament scholars will want to contend.

M ARGARET M. M ITCHELL , Shailer Mathews Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature , The University of Chicago

We have here, in this important collection, the fruits of a life-time of informed reflection on Luke and Acts in their original literary setting. The exegetical proposals are argued with exceptional care, the comparisons with Hellenistic literature are uniformly insightful, and the attempt to read Luke-Acts through Greco-Roman historiography is convincing.

D ALE C. A LLISON , Jr. , Princeton Theological Seminary

David Moessner setzt bei den Aporien des Zueinanders von Lukasevangelium und Apostelgeschichte an. Da er die Einheit der beiden als antiken Vorgaben folgende Erzhlung ernst nimmt, gelingt es ihm, viele Aporien bisheriger Forschung einer Lsung zuzufhren. Moessner beschreibt Lukas konsequent als rhetorisch begabten Theologen, dessen Werk nicht als antike Biographie, sondern als historia zu deuten ist: Das lukanische Doppelwerk versteht Moessner als Erzhlung ber das Ziel der Schriften Israels, welches durch den Gesalbten Israels, Jesus von Nazaret, in Szene gesetzt wird. Der Text ist Schrift ber den Plan Gottes mit Israel und derWelt. Moessner hat hier weit mehr als eine Sammlung von Aufstzen vorgelegt, nmlich das gewichtige, hoch spannend zu lesende Resultat der Forschung vieler Jahre. Wer sich mit dem lukanischen Doppelwerk beschftigt, sollte an diesem Buch nicht vorber gehen.

T OBIAS N ICKLAS , Universitt Regensburg

David Paul Moessner

Luke the Historian of Israels Legacy, Theologian of Israels Christ

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

Edited by

James D. G. Dunn, Carl R. Holladay, Hermann Lichtenberger, Jens Schrter, Gregory E. Sterling and Michael Wolter

Volume 182

ISBN 978-3-11-025539-3

e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-025540-9

e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-039196-1

ISSN 0171-6441

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet ber http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar.

2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

www.degruyter.com

Dedicated to a Beloved Son

Whose Lord was at his right hand continually

David Stevenson Moessner (19882015)