Luke

27 Episodes

Luke is a polished Greco-Roman gospel that reshapes earlier Jesus traditions into a more orderly literary and theological narrative. It is especially marked by attention to the poor, women, foreigners, and other marginalized figures, while also developing distinctive infancy material and re-situating inherited traditions within its own compositional agenda.

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Why this book matters

Luke recurs on the show as the gospel that most self-consciously reorganizes inherited material while foregrounding the vulnerable, the outsider, and the socially marginal. Discussions of Luke often turn on how it reframes earlier traditions to emphasize neighbor-love, generosity, social reversal, and the moral claims of the kingdom on wealth, status, and exclusion.

It also returns as a major site of historical and literary scrutiny. The hosts repeatedly use Luke to discuss the secondary character of the nativity material, the census problem, tensions with Matthew’s birth narrative, and the way Luke can displace sayings from earlier contexts and give them new rhetorical work inside Luke-Acts.

Where to start

Start here for the strongest listening on Luke.

Quotes from the Data

“We're in Luke 10, Gospel of Luke. And. And I think it's important to point out at the beginning that the Gospel of Luke is most concerned out of all the gospel authors for representing the marginalized and the oppressed. For instance, Jesus talks about and talks to women more frequently. ... we see the foreigner represented. We see the poor represented more favorably in the Gospel of Luke.”

Dan McClellan Episode 97

“Because, you know, it calls Dinah parthenos in the Septuagint after she has been violated. ... and then the, the author of the Gospel of Luke, I think, is probably just picking up that football and running with it, uh, writing as they are after. And, and the Nativity account in Luke chapters 1 and 2, I think, is probably even later than the rest of Luke.”

Dan McClellan Episode 141

“The whole point of the census is, "Who's living and working where so we can tell the people who are governing that place, this is how much we want from you in taxes." So the notion that you would just go wherever you were from to register is just bafflingly, just asinine, just ahistorical. That would not have happened.”

Dan McClellan Episode 141

“Yeah, so the likely catalyst for [Luke's unforgivable-sin] statement has been displaced. ... for the author of Luke anyway, he just wrenches it out of context but still kind of leads into it with this deny me kind of thing.”

Dan McClellan Episode 148

All episodes

Every episode currently tagged with Luke.