Date

4-17-2024

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Chair

Ron C. Fay

Keywords

Coherent Chiastic Oeuvre, Unity of Luke-Acts, Two Volumes Conjoined, Single Book, Luke-Acts, Luke and Acts

Disciplines

Christianity | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

A thorough examination of the life and works of Saint Luke has always been an interest and desire to survey, and because of his eruditeness, which produced two amazingly inspired books in the New Testament resulted in the reason behind this dissertation project. Another important thing for this research is animated from the perspective that Luke is the only gentile writer in the NT. It encourages the world that God placed gentiles on equal footing with Jews of the Old Testament era. Unlike the additional three inspired Gospel writers (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and John), Luke did not take it for granted that gentiles were familiar with God’s version of history according to the Jews of the OT from the beginning of time, which resulted in him doing something unique. He traced the genealogy of Jesus back to Adam to show that the entire human descendancy is ontologically connected to God through Adam. When Luke’s background is studied, he seems to not be as appreciated as much as Paul or perhaps as other first-century biblical writers that physically walked with Jesus during His earthly ministry and mission. It is also highly likely that Luke had never seen Jesus in the flesh. Such introspection comes behind this endeavor to provide another perspective on this great author, historian, theologian, and man of God, but specifically on his two works, the Gospel and Acts. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are presently two separate books in the final authority, their completion, and place in the NT canon. It is the way they appear in Bibles since the formation of the canon and today. The last chapter of Luke and the first chapter of Acts sew or stitch the Third Gospel and Acts together as a single work. In addition, Luke’s work manifests connection features that join both of volumes together while demonstrating that he originally intended them to be read as a single book. In Acts 1:1, the author refers to a former book, essentially referring to the Gospel cleped as Luke. Modern translations of the Bible render the Third Gospel and Acts as separate books, as independent works, and divides them between the Gospel of John. This dissertation provides sufficient research and evidence that both were written by the same author whom the apostle Paul in Colossians 4:4 called “the beloved physician.” Throughout Acts, he is widely recognized as the physician and companion of Paul the apostle. He was a brilliant and capable historian and wrote these works as the Holy Spirit inspired him. These works were not deemed historically accurate based on biblical inspiration, but on their acceptance into the canon, which beforehand substantiated such as authoritative Christian doctrine for and by the church. There is also evidence that they were not the result of some anonymous persons pretending to be Luke. This is another area this dissertation will examine because it is important to biblical inspiration. No great amount of sustainable historical evidence conjecture that Luke’s Gospel and Acts were written anonymously, nor that they were originally intended to be independent and separate works. To the latter, they are connected in several ways. Their coherent literary design reveals a structure in the author’s narration that flows in how the events are recorded and unfolded as those narratives progress. Luke probably recorded his work chronologically. It demonstrates how he intended both volumes (the Gospel designated as Volume I and Acts designated as Volume II) to be read as a single story. The ascension story of Jesus Christ was intentionally placed at the end of the Gospel and the beginning of Acts using a chiastic design structure; however, mainly in these two ascension narratives of Christ’s ascension, the chiasmus brings both volumes together in an unbroken hinge and bridges the Gospel of Christ with the early history of the church. Christ’s ascension, which is at the center of both works and is also central to the progression and flow of Luke’s historicity and theology, is the focus of this dissertation.

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