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The Relation of Luke i and ii to Hebraic Sources and to the Rest of Luke-Acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Extract

In his recent article, ‘The Birth and Infancy Stories of the Third Gospel’ (New Testament Studies, Vol. i, No. 2, pp. 111–21) Dr Paul Winter adheres to the Semitic source hypothesis for Luke i, ii and one Hebrew document is apparently envisaged (‘a document written in Hebrew formed the basis of this part of the Third Gospel’ (p. 113)). Moreover, he maintains that ‘the theory that the editor…was the author of the first two chapters…and that he wrote these chapters in Greek whilst intentionally adopting a Hebraizing style is untenable’ (p. 121). The article does not allow the possibility that the use of Hebrew sources went hand in hand with consultation of the LXX, nor consider the question whether the evangelist himself translated the Hebrew or whether he found the document in its present Hebraized Greek form. Such questions are fundamental to the problem posed by the article, namely the reason for the ‘barbarous’ language. Thus, in a brief summary of this question, Professor Matthew Black gives due weight to the possibility of the evangelist's indebtedness to the LXX, and suggests that the LXX was an ‘aid’.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1955

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References

1 An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts 2, pp. 207, 256.Google Scholar

1 An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts 2, pp. 111–16, 125f.Google Scholar

1 Attention has been confined, in Acts, to the ß-text. But on the suggestion put forward by Professor M. Black (op. cit. p. 214) that this text may represent a revised redaction, revised in the direction of more idiomatic Greek, the argument to be developed at this point in the present article is strengthened rather than weakened. I have taken the less Semitic ‘redaction’ and, if this is less original than σ, my case for the Semitic quality of St Luke's own Greek is a fortiori strengthened.

2 Under subordinate verbs I have not included infinitives. Also άποκριθείς, which is Semitic, has not been considered for this purpose to be a participle of precedent action.

1 Grammar of New Testament Greek, ii, p. 418.Google Scholar

2 I include only main clauses, except questions and direct imperatives, as Kieckers. The position of the verb in the sentence is not considered absolutely, but in relation only to subject, object, or complement.

3 Cf. Black, M., op. cit. pp. 231et al..Google Scholar

4 Pap. Paris 26 and 51; Pap. Oxy. 294. These can be found together in Selections from the Greek Papyri, ed. G. Milligan, (Cambridge, 1927), pp. 13 ff., 19 ff., 34 ff.

1 Grammer of the Greek Old Testment, p. 5.Google Scholar

1 Black, M., op. cit., pp. 70ff., 78ff.Google Scholar

2 ibid. p. 74.

3 Luke i. 5 bis, 11, 15, 16, 17 bis, 25 bis, 27, 35 bis, 36, 51 ter, 63, 66, 69 bis, 70, 71, 72, 74, 76 bis, 77 bis, 78 bis, 79 bis, 80 bis, ii. 4 bis, 9 bis, 11, 13, 23, 24, 25, 32 ter, 34, 36 bis, 39, 40, 46; Luke xiv. 1 bis, 5 bis, 21, 35 bis, xx. 24, 36 bis, 37, 38, 41, 42, 44, xxiv. 7, 13, 20, 21, 47; Acts iv. 4, 6, 9, 10, 25 bis, 27 bis, 34, 36, xix. 4, 20, xxvii. 1, 12, 21, 23, 27.

4 Moulton, , Grammar of New Testament Greek, i, p. 226.Google Scholar

5 Luke i. 7, 10, 18, 20, 21, 22, 42, ii. 8, 26, 33, 36, 51; Luke xiv. 1, 8, 14, 18, xx. 6, xxiv. 13, 21, 32, 38, 53; Acts iv. 24, 31, 36, xix. 14, 32, 36 (xxvii. 33?).

1 Incidentally, this figure makes it the more difficult to accept Thackeray's view that the same translator was at work here as in Ezekiel α. The Septuagint and Jewish Worship (London, 1923), p. 39.

2 These figures strongly support Thackeray's case for a division here of α and β. Op. cit. pp. 29 ff., 116f