5 - The law

Summary

Introduction

In recent years the question of Luke's attitude to the Jewish law has begun to attract increased attention in the scholarly community, as exemplified by the writings of J. Jervell, S.G. Wilson and C.L. Blomberg. Before these incursions into the field, the subject tended to be treated only in passing in Lucan commentaries and in works on more general topics, such as the law in the Synoptic Gospels. Underlying this widespread indifference among New Testament scholars is a belief that the Jewish law was of little or no interest to the Third Evangelist, primarily because he wrote for what was predominantly a Gentile audience. This opinion had an early champion in F. Overbeck and is represented more recently in the works of E. Haenchen, H. Schürmann and R. Banks, to name only a few. Allied to this belief is the common notion that Luke does not offer a consistent treatment of the law, especially in his Gospel. B.H. Branscomb subscribed to this view, and it has now been taken up by S. G. Wilson, who has argued that the law was not a problem for Luke, at least at the time he composed his Gospel, and that he was able to use inconsistent material to emphasize different themes in connection with the law – prophetic, practical or Christological – without feeling obliged to unify them.