Introduction
Jewish historiographical work that has survived from the Second Temple period includes (among other things) the Maccabean books, Jubilees, Pseudo-Philo, the Genesis Apocryphon, Philo’s biographies and Josephus. In addition, fragments of Jewish historians have survived, for example, Aristobulus and Eupolemus. In this essay, we will take these works to be representative of Jewish Historiography and consider whether Luke-Acts is such Jewish history writing.
Genre
The notion of genre is dependent upon the analytical template that is laid across a book. A different genre classification is achieved if a template pertaining to form is applied, than if a template identifying an aspect of content is applied, and again a different result may be obtained if questions of use are given priority. If Luke and Acts are considered separately a case can be made for different genre classifications—Luke would be ‘biography’ and Acts would be ‘history’; but if Luke-Acts is considered as a two-volume work, the issue becomes one of privilege: should the different features of Acts have privilege over those of Luke in an overarching classification. Because of the broader scope of the genre of ‘history’, privilege has been tacitly given by scholars to the features of Acts in a determination of genre for Luke-Acts. To take the two leading candidates for genre, whereas it looks as if ‘history’ could fit Luke, it is less plausible that ‘biography’ could fit Acts. In this way, ‘history’ has become the consensus classification of Luke-Acts.
This ‘either/or’ choice for Luke-Acts can be avoided if the level of analysis is restricted to questions of intended use. Luke and Acts have a Scriptural feel (when compared to Jewish Scripture) and a genre classification of ‘Jewish Scripture’ circumvents issues of history or biography. [1]
Without taking into account the principle of inspiration, a classification of ‘Scripture’ is an appropriate genre for a writer working within a religious tradition, and an appropriate response for readers in that tradition to offer (or not) in agreement.[2] It is here that the genre of Luke-Acts and its history need to be placed. When we factor back in the principle of inspiration, the case for Luke-Acts as ‘Scripture’ is secured. Of course, Luke and Acts may have miscellaneous connections with secular literary conventions, because a human being was involved in the process of them being written (sic)—but this does not negate the argument for Luke-Acts being classified as ‘Scripture’.
Jewish History Writing
Scholars have traditionally argued about whether Luke-Acts is ‘history’ or ‘biography’. Our ‘either/or’ question is different: is Luke-Acts a kind of Jewish history writing or is it Scripture? Our case here is (negatively) that Luke-Acts is not the same as the examples of Jewish history writing that have come down to us; the positive argument that Luke-Acts is Scripture, we have made elsewhere.[3]
Luke-Acts does not share a common kind of concern (content) with Greco-Roman Hellenistic histories, but there is some commonality in terms of shared literary forms and methods. Ahead of any investigation, we might think that Jewish histories are more likely to have common concerns (content) with Luke-Acts, along with common literary forms and methods. Is this the case?
Older Jewish history-writing, such as Samuel-Kings or Chronicles, had Scriptural status for Luke, but such writing lacks points of contact with Classical and Hellenistic histories, such as a concern for method, prefaces, evaluation of sources,[4] and the structural use of speeches. We can distinguish Jewish Scriptural history from Jewish Second Temple history writing to the extent that Second Temple writing uses Classical and Hellenistic methods. Our question therefore becomes: Is Luke-Acts more like Scriptural history or Second Temple history? Our discussion will revolve around the content and function of these Second Temple histories rather than any aspects of form and method.
R. T. France offers a useful classification of later Jewish historiographical writing into, i) writings that retell the Scriptural story; ii) writings that apply Scripture to contemporary history; and iii) writings that record Second Temple history.[5] In addition to France’s categories, (iv) Jewish biographical writing and (v) historical novels should also be considered for their affinities to Luke and Acts.
Of these five categories, it is the application of Scripture to contemporary history and the recording of Second-Temple history, which would seem to offer the greater prospect of locating the genre of Luke-Acts, since these writings might share literary forms, methods, and a content-space with Luke-Acts. Nevertheless, there are problems in linking Luke-Acts with each of these five categories.
We will discuss historical works and leave aside Jewish biographies and novels. This leaves Jewish history-writing for our attention; this writing shares common ethnographic content with Luke-Acts and therefore offers the prospect of being the natural literary home for Luke’s works.
Re-telling Scriptural Stories
The Jewish Scriptures were retold in a variety of ways. The Targums[6] retell Jewish history insofar as they expand Scriptural stories. For our purposes, the genre of the Targums is unrelated to Luke-Acts, because the Targums seek to translate (paraphrase sometimes) the Hebrew text of the Jewish Scriptures and present it for common consumption. Jubilees, Pseudo-Philo and Josephus’ Antiquities, represent further examples of retelling Scriptural stories with expansive additions motivated by theological and/or apologetic aims; and the Genesis Apocryphon incorporates aspects of popular story telling into its retelling of the Jewish Scriptural story: dramatic enhancements, incorporation of legends, journeys and further geographical and ethnographical details.
Luke shows that he is aware of the practise of retelling the Jewish story in Stephen’s speech; however, Luke-Acts is not to be classified alongside these writings because of the difference in content; Luke-Acts is recent history.
Applications of Scripture
While the idea of ‘political commentary’ is anachronistic, it is a useful analogy for those Jewish writings that ‘comment’ upon contemporary scene from a religious perspective informed by the Jewish Scriptures. The Qumran Pesharim comment upon Scripture but do so with an eye on the contemporary relevance of that Scripture.[7] The typical commentary alludes to recent events and relies on an already informed audience to pick up on such cues and how they fit into the Scriptural framework that is being read from the prophetic text. Apocalyptic writings also comment upon contemporary events and predict the future course of events. They incorporate large-scale overviews of history as a backdrop to the more detailed specification of the events that lead up to the eschatological age.
Luke-Acts contains predictions, and recounts events that are to lead up to the inauguration of the eschatological age, but Luke does not include symbolic overviews of Israel’s history in the manner of Jewish Apocalypses. Further, while Luke and Acts apply Jewish Scriptural texts to the events that are being narrated, Luke is not commenting upon those Scriptures per se; the purpose in the writing is the narration of the events.
Second-Temple History
The most obvious group of writings to link with Luke-Acts is comprised of those that relate the events of the time. The principle examples are the Maccabean Histories, Josephus, and some of the Philonic corpus; also, fragments from various Hellenistic Jewish histories have been preserved in other writings.[8] Several points of comparison might be made between these writings and Luke-Acts:
Josephus
Later Jewish historiographical writings share literary forms with Hellenistic models. The obvious example is Josephus, who works with Scriptural materials, other Second Temple Jewish histories, and with a Hellenistic education.
Josephus’ Antiquities and his War illustrate principles of Hellenistic history-writing, albeit with different emphases.[9] The War is a pragmatic military and political history similar to Polybius; the Antiquities is more rhetorical and modelled upon Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Scholars have noted several points of contact between Josephus’ works and Luke-Acts:
1) Josephus uses the convention of a preface to outline his aims and objectives and mentions the patron (Epaphroditus) for his works (Antiquities, Life and Contra Apion), and these conventions are illustrated in Luke. Thus, Contra Apion has a main prologue to the first book and a second prologue at the beginning of the second volume. However, as L. C. A. Alexander observes, the “habit of dedicating a treatise to a named individual was not at all common in historical writing”, and Josephus is the first surviving work to have this feature.[10]
2) Josephus uses sources and investigative methods; in War I.15 he states, “…the industrious writer is not one who merely remodels the scheme and arrangement of another’s work, but one who uses fresh materials and makes the framework of the history his own”. This remark is set within the context of a discussion of ancient historians and their methods, and it supports the observation that Josephus conceived of his writing as history. This bears comparison with Luke’s stated method, “having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out” (parakolouqe,w, Luke 1:3), and scholars have compared the use of sources by Luke and Josephus.[11] Here, Josephus identifies a genre and offers a characterization of that genre, and implicitly claims to participate in that genre; Luke’s shared methodology involves him in that same genre.
3) Josephus’ justification for writing rests on an evaluation of former writers that have covered the same topics; he states, “…the writers in question presume to give their works the title of histories, yet throughout them, apart from the utter lack of sound information, they seem, in my opinion, to miss the mark” (War I.7). This bears comparison with Luke’s juxtaposition of a mention of previous accounts (dih,ghsij) with a claim to perfect understanding (Luke 1:1, 3).
4) Josephus identifies with the history that he narrates as events that took place “among us” and of which he was a participant (War I.1, “wars of our own time”, I.15 “the history of one’s own time”, Apion I.47, “having been present in person at all the events”). This bears comparison with Luke’s credentials, to “to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us” (Luke 1:1).
5) Josephus states that he is concerned with “the origin of the war” (War I.6) as well as its progress, and this compares with Luke’s concern to offer an account “from the beginning” (a;nwqen, Luke 1:3).
6) Josephus’ objective for his readership is couched in terms of dispelling ignorance and making his readers acquainted with the origin, causes and course of the war (War I.6). The same objective is advertised by Luke, “that you may know the truth” (Luke 1:4).
7) Josephus has a clear apologetic purpose in writing War, and this is conveyed in his incorporation of set-piece speeches. Luke’s structural use of speeches in Acts bears comparison in that they also illustrate his programmatic message of showing the forward progress of the movement from its beginnings in Jerusalem to the “ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
8) Josephus shares common motifs and elements with Luke such as prophecies, the miraculous and divine providence. For example, Josephus’ account of Moses’ birth and infancy bears comparison. There are predictions of the birth, dreams from God about his destiny (Ant. II.206, 217), a genealogy (Ant. II.229), theophanies (Ant. II.265-270), and a reference to his “growth in understanding” as exceptional (“wondrous”, Ant. II.230-231). These elements have parallels in Luke (Luke 2:52; 3:23-38).
These similarities are significant and they constitute the case for classifying Luke-Acts as Jewish Hellenistic historiography. Given the paucity of surviving historiographical works, the closer parallels between Luke’s prefaces and Josephus may point to colloquial Palestinian Hellenistic literary customs.
The counter-argument to such a classification is that it ignores the use of Luke-Acts in the early church. Further, the content of Luke-Acts is very different to any of Josephus’ works. Josephus is concerned with matters to do with the nation and the state; he is apologetic and seeks to present the Jews favourably to the Romans. Luke-Acts is concerned with life and work of a prophet and those who established communities in his name. It is a social history; not a history of nation or state. In terms of deciding what genre Luke-Acts is, we should weight any shared methods and literary forms less than the use made of the two-volume work and the nature of its content.
Maccabean Histories
Scholars have identified parallels between Luke-Acts and the Maccabean Histories:
1) The preface to 2 Maccabees (2:19-32) bears some comparison to Luke’s prefaces: i) it refers to other writings (v. 23); ii) it summarises its scope; and iii) it points up inadequacies in other writings and their failure to meet the needs of readers (v. 24). However, it also advertises its objective which is “that they that will read will have delight”, which differs from Luke’s objective.
2) Scholars have observed[12] that 1 Maccabees is heavily influenced by Jewish Scriptural phraseology, whereas 2 Maccabees is more like Hellenistic story-telling. The Scriptural style of 1 Maccabees forms a precedent for Luke’s acknowledged Scriptural style.
3) D. E. Aune suggests that the 1 Maccabees might have been intended as a sequel to the Chronicler’s history.[13] Although it commences with the significant events in the reign of Antiochus IV, rather than continue the Chronicler’s history, it does have an opening summary of history from Alexander the Great to Antiochus. This bears comparison with Luke-Acts insofar as Luke continues the Jewish story in his account. However, the basis of continuation is different: 1 Maccabees relives the days of Joshua with battles up and down the land; Luke-Acts continues the story of Israel from the prophetic perspective.
4) 1 Maccabees also illustrates the device of imitating Scriptural episodes. For example, Mattathias kills in a public display like Phinehas (1 Macc 2:23-26; Num 25:7-11), he delivers a death-bed exhortation to faithfulness in the face of adversity like Moses (1 Macc 2:49-65; Deut 33:1-29), the succession from Matthias to Judas Maccabeus resembles the succession of Joshua (1 Macc 3:1-2; Deut 34:9), Judas Maccabeus exploits are summarised in similar terms to Joshua’s conquest of the land (1 Macc 3:3-9), he reduces the size of his army in the same manner as Gideon (1 Macc 3:56, Jud 7:5-6). This practise is similar to Luke’s evocation of Scriptural story details in his narrative.
5) H. W. Attridge comments that the history in both 1 and 2 Maccabees serves a theological purpose. The apologetic aim in 1 Maccabees is one of justifying the Hasmonean dynasty, and this is secured by affirming that they are God’s representatives (e.g. 1 Macc 5:62), functioning in traditional ways as priests and judges over Israel. Attridge also notes that 1 Maccabees portrays the Hasmoneans as fulfilling “the traditional expectations of Israel” and thus inaugurating “a period of eschatological bliss”.[14] This characterization bears some similarity to Luke-Acts in the portrayal of the apostles as ‘judges’ and in conflict with the Jerusalem Priests, representing an alternative authoritative source of teaching as representatives of God through the holy Spirit. However, whereas 1 Maccabees is political and military in its story, Luke-Acts is a story of proclamation and discipleship.
6) However, the speeches in 1 Maccabees are generally shorter and more in the nature of discourse; they are not set piece speeches in a rhetorical style. In keeping with Scriptural style in Samuel-Kings, the narrative is dominated by discourse and battle narrative. This contrasts with Luke-Acts where the speeches are discursive (Acts) or aphoristic (Luke and Acts).
We can see from (1)-(6) above that 1 Maccabees is quite different from Josephus’ works. We might say that whereas Josephus is a secular writer, the author(s) of 1 Maccabees is doing something religious. Given that the Catholic Church regards 1 Maccabees as Deutero-canonical, there is some argument to be had about whether it is ‘Scripture’. The upshot of this is that we cannot include Luke-Acts or 1 Maccabees in the category of secular Jewish Hellenistic history writing.
Conclusion
In the above review of Jewish historiographical works, our argument is leading towards a classification of Luke-Acts as ‘Scripture’ on the basis of its intended use. If we put this classification to one side, then we might classify it as the ‘religious Jewish history’ of a founder and his subsequent movement. It is not like the Jewish Hellenistic histories of nation and state, and a comparable history of another movement has not survived for us to compare with Luke-Acts.
The subject-matter is a Jewish social history and the location is primarily Palestine. As Aune observes of Jewish Historiography, “…events in Israel (centering in Jerusalem) occupy centre stage…In spite of Israel’s extensive experience in exile after 721 B.C., no historical work seriously treats experience outside of Palestine”.[15] This comparison is valid for Luke and the early part of Acts, but from Stephen’s speech onwards, the history shifts to the Diaspora.
The intertextual relationship between the Hebrew Scriptures and Luke-Acts places it within a ‘Scriptural’ genre. Its target audience and intended use is not that of a Greco-Roman or Jewish Hellenistic history. The apologetic aims of Jewish Hellenistic histories serve to present the Jews in a positive light and persuade Gentiles of the value of the Jewish faith. Thus, variously, Eupolemus presents Moses as the genius behind Egyptian culture,[16] as does Philo in his Life of Moses. Philo illustrates God’s providential care for the Jews in Flaccus and in On the Embassy to Gaius.
Luke is looking inside the nation not outside; he is presenting Jesus and the church in an evangelistic light as the remnant of Israel with a mission to the Gentiles. Luke-Acts cannot be considered a re-telling of Jewish historical traditions, nor can it be considered a history of the Jews in recent times. Rather, we should assign it to the same genre as the Hebrew Scriptures.
[1] We use the expression ‘Jewish Scriptures’ to cover both Hebrew/Aramaic and the Old Greek. See R. T. McLay, The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 5-9, for the terminological background. It is beyond the scope of this essay to consider whether Luke personally used Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek texts in any particular case. However, any decisions on that question do not affect the theological argument that the Spirit quotes, alludes and echoes the Hebrew/Aramaic original that was inspired.
[2] The Pseudepigrapha and Apocryphal works, as well as the Gnostic gospels, are attempts to write ‘Scripture’.
[3] A. Perry, Biblical Investigations (Sunderland: Willow Publications, 2011), 82-104.
[4] Thus, T. E. Duff observes in his treatment of Herodotus, the “father” of classical historical writing, “…neither in Homer, nor in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, some of which were being written roughly at the same time, is any acknowledgement given to the problem of sources and bias”, The Greek and Roman Historians (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 2003), 16.
[5] R. T. France, “Jewish Historiography” in Gospel Perspectives: Studies in Midrash and Historiography: Volume III (eds. R. T. France & D. Wenham; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1982), 99-127.
[6] For an overall introduction to the Targums, see P. S. Alexander, “Jewish Aramaic Translations” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. M. J. Mulder; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 217-254.
[7] For an introduction see J. H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).
[8] For a list see H. W. Attridge, “Jewish Historiography” in Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters (eds. R. A. Kraft and G. W. Nickelsburg; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 311-43 (311-316). Attridge comments that these histories were ‘apologetic’ in that they reinforced a “sense of identity and worth in communities confronted with the challenge of Hellenic culture” (316). As such, they had missiological value in converting Gentiles to Judaism.
[9] See H. J. Thackeray, “Introduction” to his translation of Josephus, (Loeb; Cambridge, MT: Harvard Univ. Press, 1957), ix-xix. All citations are from this edition.
[10] L. C. A. Alexander, “The Preface to Acts and the Historians” in History, Literature and Society in the Book of Acts (ed. B. Witherington III; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 73-103 (85).
[11] G. Downing, “Redaction Criticism: Josephus’ Antiquities and the Synoptic Gospels (I)”, JSNT 8 (1980), 46-65 and “Redaction Criticism: Josephus’ Antiquities and the Synoptic Gospels (II)”, JSNT 9 (1980), 29-48. Downing’s main argument is that Josephus’ treatment of sources is comparable to the Synoptists in that they modify sources for similar reasons. He affirms that Luke is following “procedures similar to those discernible in Josephus” (II, 30). Through a comparison of Josephus’ treatment of the Letter to Aristeas and the Jewish Scriptures, Downing shows that Josephus doesn’t make up stories even if he modifies his sources.
[12] D. E. Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), 105.
[13] Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment, 105.
[14] Attridge, “Jewish Historiography”, 318.
[15] Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment, 97.
[16] Attridge, “Jewish Historiography”, 322.
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