The Return of Proto-Luke

It was not too long ago that Stephen Carlson announced “Scholarly support for proto-Luke has always been tepid with the notable exception of Vincent Taylor and virtually neglected today.” I did not make a note of the date of this earth-shattering news but did note that Thomas Brodie probably was a proto-Luke adherent. On Saturday, September 04, 2004, Mark Goodacre reported some of the BNTC 2004 highlights with comments on a paper delivered by Bart Ehrman the day before. “Although he balked somewhat at the term "proto-Luke", no doubt because of the baggage it carries with it, his argument was that the Birth Narratives were added after the first edition of Luke in a bid to bring it more clearly into conformity with emerging proto-orthodox views.” Goodacre concluded his remarks by stating: “But it was the kind of the paper that got the imagination going, lucidly presented, and with the kind of liveliness that ensures you hear every word.”

Then in November 2004, Sheffield Phoenix Press announced the publication of The Birthing of the New Testament: The Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings. The publication burb includes an invitation “to entertain the following thesis: Everything hinges on Proto-Luke, a history of Jesus using the Elijah–Elisha narrative as its model, which survives in 10 chapters of Luke and 15 of Acts. Mark then uses Proto-Luke, transposing its Acts material back into the life of Jesus. Matthew deuteronomizes Mark, John improves on the discourses of Matthew. Luke-Acts spells out the story at length. Add the Pauline corpus, the descendant of Deuteronomy via the Matthean logia, and the NT is virtually complete.”

If it "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck", then it is a theory of Lucan Priority.

Copyrighted 2005

Religion

Gospel of Luke