Masonic reading of Luke-Acts

I am finishing up Steve Mason's book, Josephus and the New Testament (second edition; Peabody, MA: 2003). This may be one of the best books I've read recently; it's easy-to-read, original in its reading of Josephus and his texts, and well-structured around its central purpose (to explore how to capitalize on Josephus' value for New Testament and Christian origins scholarship). I recommend this book to anyone interested in the New Testament, first-century Christianity, or Josephus.

Without diminishing the praise I have for this book, however, I think Mason's thesis in chapter six, "Josephus and Luke-Acts" (251–95) suffers serious flaws. His overall point in265– this chapter lies squarely in the mainstream: that Luke-Acts and Josephus rely on common written and/or oral traditional sources. But Mason opens the door to the idea that Luke-Acts "builds its case with knowledge of Josephus's advocacy of Judaism" (252), an idea of which I am not yet convinced. But some key features of his analysis of the generic similarities between Josephus and Luke-Acts—"they are both histories, written in Greek according to the conventions of their period, which we may loosely call Hellenistic" (252)—strike me as oddly lacking in nuance.

For example, Mason says more than once that both the author of Luke-Acts and Josephus "write from the margins of society, using their accounts to convey essential features of their communities' values" (252; see also 265–67). While this is generally true, Mason does not clarify the very important differences between Josephus' and Luke-Acts's location "at the margins" and their relation with Roman centers of political, cultural, and social power. Anyone familiar with the Greek of both authors—and Mason is intimately familiar with their Greek—knows that these texts come from very different worlds and, despite Luke's nod toward his literary patron (κράτιστε Θεόφιλε [Luke 1.3]), are written for very different audiences.

As a result of his blurring the differences between Josephus and Luke-Acts, Mason distorts a number of Lukan features. As an example, he spends some time aligning Luke-Acts more closely with Josephus than with the other canonical gospels, despite real problems raised by this realignment.

Mark (3:6) and John (5:18) place Jesus in dire conflict with the Jewish authorities almost from the beginning and, in their different ways, make Jesus' own Jewish identity ore or less irrelevant to his role as savior. In Luke-Acts, however, Jesus operates comfortably within the Jewish world throughout the entire gospel, attending temple and synagogue (2:21, 41, 49: 4:16), consorting in a friendly manner with popular Jewish teachers (7:36; 11:37; 14:1), and debating with other teachers the correct interpretation of Sabbath law. (256)

This is a terrible reading of Luke. Luke's Jesus is indeed thoroughly Jewish, but even here, as a Jewish teacher in a Galilean synagogue, Jesus is nearly shoved off a cliff at the very beginning of the narrative (4.28–29). Indeed, Luke's Jesus is barely a week old when the old man Symeon sounds an ominous note of opposition over the baby's future (2.34–35). Notice that I agree with Mason that Luke's Jesus "operates comfortably within the Jewish world," but I fervently disagree with him that this is different than in the other gospels, especially Mark and John.

Additionally, in his effort to demonstrate affinities between Luke-Acts and Josephus, Mason turns to the preface of Luke's second volume. (I should disclose here that my doctoral supervisor, Loveday Alexander, has published multiple researches on the prefaces of Luke-Acts. Obviously this doesn't make me an expert on these prefaces, as if by association. But I do clearly have alliances in this discussion.) As Mason reads Acts,

Like Josephus, Luke glides easily from a summary of his earlier work to his present book. Whereas the former history had dealt with Jesus' actions and teachings, this one will recount the actions and teachings of his apostles. (257)

Again, this isn't the most helpful reading of Luke-Acts. Yes, "Luke glides easily from a summary of his earlier work to his present book." In fact, unlike the gospel (the preface of which clearly ends after 1.4, with a new section beginning at 1.5), Acts's preface doesn't so much end as fade into the scene of the risen Jesus eating with "the apostles." But Luke describes his "former book" [πρῶτον λόγον] as an account "of those things which Jesus began both to do and to teach" [ὧν ἤρξατο ὁ Ἰησοῦς ποιεῖν τε καὶ διδάσκειν (1.1; my emphasis)]. Thus Mason's distinction between Luke and Acts—the former an account of Jesus' teachings and life, the latter an account of Jesus' followers' teachings and lives—is blurred in the preface, which frames the Acts as the account of what Jesus continued to do and to teach through those he sent out to the ends of the earth (1.8).

Problems also attend Mason's reading of the Lukan Paul vis-à-vis the Paul of the epistles. This is certainly a complicated and controversial subject, but Mason's position here needs some refinement.

[A]ccording to Acts, out of all the possible Scriptures that one could cite as proof texts, Peter and Paul choose the same ones and use them in the same way. . . . In his letters [however], because he writes as the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul spends no time at all proving that Jesus is the Messiah or recounting Israel's history in any connected way. Indeed, the absence of Jewish content in his gospel is what provoked a response from his Jewish-Christian opponents. (263)

Mason offers Romans as "only a partial exception" to this observation. A lot depends on how we read his qualifier, "in any connected way." Certainly the epistolary Paul does not offer an exegetical presentation of the gospel akin to that found in Acts 13. But Paul's own thinking relies so firmly on categories, images, and narratives drawn from Hebrew biblical traditions that the discordance between the epistolary and the Lukan Pauls is less pronounced than Mason suggests. Romans certainly argues about as well as through Jewish texts and traditions (esp. Rom. 2–5; 9–11); we find similar arguments in 1 Cor. 1–2; 10; 15; 2 Cor. 6; Gal. 3, 4; Phil. 2 (and others besides). This may not represent a "connected" presentation of the gospel or argument that Jesus is Israel's Messiah, but the generic differences between Paul's letters and Acts's narrative account for these differences. Indeed, the same Lukan Paul who gave a strikingly "Petrine" sermon in Acts 13 gives a non-biblical sermon in Acts 17. I'm not arguing that there aren't any differences between Luke's Paul and the Paul of the letters. But these differences are not solely the result of Luke's literary and rhetorical interests having their effect upon his presentation of Paul. Portraying a historical figure in literature, no less than presenting a self-portrait, is complicated business.

I have other issues with Mason's reading of Luke-Acts, but my discussion thus far suffices to demonstrate the kind of thing I don't like about this chapter. Even so, these criticisms should not detract from my endorsement of Josephus and the New Testament as an excellent book. Mason offers us an impeccably responsible demonstration of how to take Josephus on his own terms and allow him to shed his own light upon the history and literature of earliest Christianity. The danger of proof-texting Josephus in order to bolster or question this or that NT text plagues scholarship at least as doggedly as the danger of proof-texting the NT itself to bolster or question this or that doctrine plagues popular Christianity (of whatever theological position). Mason provides vital context for understanding Josephus first and then bringing his writings to bear upon early Christian texts.

SECSOR: Day Two (pt II)

Well . . . I feel a bit sheepish. My participation in the afternoon New Testament session was, well, unimpressive. So this is more a confession of the papers I didn't hear. C'est la vie. Even so, yesterday afternoon/last night was perhaps my best SECSOR experience to date. More anon.

• The first paper, "Lord, Lord: Jesus' Use of the Divine Name in the Synoptics" (Jason Staples, UNC Chapel Hill), springboarded from Bart Ehrman's claim (on The Colbert Report!) that the synoptic Jesus never claimed divine status for himself. Staples analyzes Jesus' self-referential use of the double address κύριε κύριε ("Lord, Lord"; Matt 7.21, 22; Luke 6.46; see also Matt 25.11) against the backdrop of the Semitic אדני יהוה (’adōnay YHWH; "Lord LORD"), which is often—though by no means always—is translated with the double κύριος κύριος, especially in the vocative. Staples's case is (i) first that אדני יהוה would have been vocalized Adonai Adonai, and (ii) that second that "a first-century reader (or author) would most likely read Jesus' use of κύριε κύριε as an application of the Name to himself, directly identifying hiself with/as the God of Israel."


• The second paper, "The Economics of Friendship: An Interpretation of the Narrative Summaries in Acts 2:41–47 and 4:32–35" (Douglas A. Hume, Pfeiffer University) . . . well, the second paper was the second paper after lunch, so I missed most of (qere: all of) Hume's paper since it was, apparently, my nap time. When Hume was finished, I left so as not to be so rude to the remaining presenters.


• The third paper was "And They Threw Him Out of the Vineyard: An Analysis of the Parable of the Wicked Tenants" (Michael Zolondek, Florida International University).


• The fourth paper was "A Theology of Mutuality" (Alan Knox, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary).

There are more papers Sunday morning, though I'm planning on being a section tart. I'll let you know how it goes.

SECSOR: Day Two (pt I)

The theme of this morning's New Testament session was "The Gospels," and as it turns out the four papers, between them, touched on all four canonical gospels.

• The first paper, "John's Use and Disuse of Matthew" (James W. Barker, Vanderbilt University), argued that in at least three specific instances the Fourth Evangelist knew and responded to Matthean redaction: John's reference to forgiving/retaining sins (20.32; see Matthew's binding/loosing tradition); John's account of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and his citation of Zech 9.9 (see Matthew's account; cf. the Markan and Lukan parallels); and Jesus' "evangelization" of Samaria in John 4 (cf. Matthew's refusal to allow Jesus entry into Samaria). I'm predisposed against Barker's thesis because of my suspicions vis-à-vis redaction criticism (and so the probative value of asking whether John knew "Matthean redaction"). But Barker does address a very interesting issue standing between synoptics and Johannine scholarship; i.e., How John came to be read alongside and included with the other three gospels. In Barker's reading, such was the intention of the Johannine author (specifically with regard to Matthew's gospel).


• The second paper, "Jonah, Jews, Jesus, and Gentiles: Matthew's Appropriation of the Sign of Jonah Saying in Light of the Gentile Mission" (David Moffitt, Duke University), approached Matthew's use of the Sign of Jonah via an intertextual reading of the larger Jonah tradition. I'm often wary of intertextual analyses on the basis of John Miles Foley's criticism that, despite the broadened field of vision, intertextuality still privileges discrete, bounded entities ("texts") at the expense of larger traditional dynamics. Moffitt, I think, avoids this problem. His analysis explored the polyvalent connections that the Sign of Jonah enabled early Christian tradents (here, Matthew) to make without insisting that he make all of them or even that he make specific and predetermined uses of them. In other words, Moffitt took into consideration the Jonah tradition as he read the Jonah text. (If memory serves, I also enjoyed Moffitt's paper at last year's SECSOR, which focused [I think] on Hebrews).


• The third paper, "Mark, the Jerusalem Temple and Jewish Sectarianism" (Tim Wardle, Wake Forest University), analyzed Mark's references to the Temple in Mark 11–15. His analysis raised some interesting questions and rightly, I think, emphasized the Jewish critique of idolatry in the Septuagint's use of ἀ/χειροποίητος ("[not] made with hands"). I think Wardle makes too much of the use of ἱερόν ("temple") and the fact that Mark only refers to the Jerusalem ἱερόν in chapters 11–16. This allows him to (i) ignore the clear reference to the Jerusalem Temple in Mark 1.44 ("Go, show yourself to the priest [τῷ ἱερεῖ] and offer [προσένεγκε] for your cleansing the things Moses commanded, as a testimony to/for/against them"). Despite the difficulties that still attend the precise interpretation of this verse (including the dative αὐτοῖς ["to/for/against them"]), Mark 1.44 is clearly not a critique of the Temple like Wardle legitimately finds in Mark 11–16. (ii) Second, his focus on ἱερόν allows him to read some passages in Mark 11–16 as connoting negatively for the Temple, such as the widow's offering in Mark 12, or even Jesus' lament that the Temple should have been (but wasn't) a "house of prayer for all nations" in Mark 11. As you can see, Wardle's paper raised some interesting questions for me.


• The fourth paper, "Locating Luke 6:5d: Toward a Social Context for the Sabbath Worker" (Jason Robert Combs, UNC Chapel Hill) sought a social location for the reading at Luke 6.5 in Codex Bezae. In the majority of manuscripts (and likely in Luke's "original"), Jesus in Luke 6.5 "says to them, 'The Son of Man is Lord also over the Sabbath'" [κύριός ἐστιν τοῦ σαββάτου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου]. In Bezae, however, this reading is postponed until after the healing of the man with the withered hand (Luke 6.6–11), and 6.5d has encounter a man working on the Sabbath: "On the same day, when [Jesus] saw a certain main working [ἐργαζόμενον] on the Sabbath, he said to him, 'Man, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you do not know, then you are cursed and a transgressor of Torah'" [τοῦ νόμου]. Combs locates this variant as part of the mid- to late-fourth century debates about Sabbath, knowledge, and work. I was reminded of the last chapter of Chris Keith's similar investigation into the socio-historical context that might explain the interpolation of the Pericope Adulterae at John 7.53–8.11 (Keith's book, BTW, has received the John Templeton Award for Theological Promise).

That was it for the morning session. More later, of course, as time permits.

Mary, Martha, and the Good Samaritan?

Yesterday I heard a short talk on the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10.38–42. I've spoken briefly about this passage myself, so this isn't an unfamiliar story for me. I have to admit, however, that I had never read this story in its textual context. In fact, I find it a little discomfiting that the immediately preceding story, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, is actually one of my favorite stories to speak on, and yet I had never considered its effect on its literary neighbor! And this despite my criticism of those who read Luke's account of this parable apart from the discussion in 10.25–28, of which the Good Samaritan is the answer.

So the question I have, and which I would love to get some response on, is this: How do the stories of (a) the Good Samaritan and (b) Mary and Martha inform and balance each other? How can Jesus, according to Luke, go immediately from telling a story in which the failure of those serving God in the Temple serves as the foil for the Samaritan's service to a stranger to a story in which Mary's failure to serve Jesus and her other guests is praised, even above the service of her sister, Martha?

As a potential spoiler, the speaker yesterday morning likened both stories to the two commandments of Luke 10.27: Love the Lord, and, Love your neighbor. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is, in this light, commentary on the second commandment, while the story of Martha and Mary is commentary on the first. I like this reading, except that at least as it was presented yesterday it depended on the parallel text in Matthew's gospel, especially the reference to "the first and greatest" and "the second" commandments. I don't think Luke had Matthew 22 in mind. So how, within the dynamics simply of Luke's gospel, do these two traditions inform one another?