A new book on Luke-Acts and ancient historiography
Butticaz, Simon, Luc Devillers, James M. Morgan & Steve Walton, eds.
Le corpus lucanien (Luc-Actes) et l’historiographie ancienne: Quels rapports?
Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2019. ISBN 978-3-643-90954-1. €39.90.
I’m delighted to announce the publication of a valuable book which I’ve co-edited on Luke-Acts and historiography. Here’s the brief description:
In biblical research, consensus is rare. Formulated by Dibelius at the beginning of the 20th century, the thesis that Luke is “the first Christian historian” is one such. Among the authors of the New Testament, Luke is alone in tracing the future of the Church after Easter, composing a two-volume work (B.W. Bacon; H.J. Cadbury). If this action is original, it does not escape influences from ancient historiography. It is to explore these links that this volume is dedicated.
The book grew out of a conference held at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, co-sponsored by my then-employer St Mary’s University, Twickenham. The essays engage in multiple ways with the question of what kind(s) of historiography help us understand Luke’s project. They’re a mixture of English, French and German. On the publisher’s page for the book there is a link to a Google preview of the book. Here’s a link to the table of contents, and a link to Luc Devillers’ preface (pre-publication version), which includes summaries (in French) of each of the essays.
My own essay argues that Luke sees his work in continuity with biblical (i.e. Old Testament/Hebrew Bible) historiography, particularly by his understanding that God is intimately involved with the ministry of Jesus and the developing life of the early believing communities.
