The Preface to Luke's Gospel

Completely re-evaluates the backgound to and provenance of the preface to Luke's Gospel.

Loveday Alexander (Author)

9780521018814, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 October 2005

268 pages
21.5 x 13.8 x 1.6 cm, 0.654 kg

Luke's two-volume work begins with a formal preface unlike anything else in the New Testament, and it has long been academic orthodoxy that Luke's choice of style, vocabulary, and content in this short passage reveal a desire to present his work to contemporary readers as 'History' in the great tradition of Thucydides and Polybius. This study challenges that assumption: far from aping the classical historians, Dr Alexander argues, Luke was simply introducing his book in a style that would have been familiar to readers of the scientific and technical manuals which proliferated in the hellenistic world. The book contains a detailed study of these Greek 'scientific' prefaces as well as a word-by-word commentary on the Lucan texts. In her concluding chapters, Alexander seeks to explore the consequences of this alignment both for the literary genre of Luke-Acts (is it meant to be read as 'history'?) and for the social background of the author and the book's first readers.

Abbreviations
Foreword
1. The Lucan preface: questions and assumptions
2. On the beginnings of books
3. Historical prefaces
4. Scientific prefaces (1): origins and development
5. Scientific prefaces (2): Structure, content & style
6. Luke's preface
7. Hellenistic Jewish prefaces
8. The Social matrix of Luke's preface
9 The appropriate form of words for the occasion
Appendix A: selected scientific prefaces
Appendix B: bibliographical notes on texts studied
Short bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG]