Luke and the Torah

Some of my previous posts have hopefully shown that the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in the New Testament is rarely, if ever, in mere terms of predictions that came true. The Old Testament references and allusions recorded in the New Testament are more akin to "parallels" than they are to "predictions." Events in the New Testament are echoes or reiterations of events in the Old Testament. This includes events from every genre of Old Testament literature and not just the prophetic books.  

John Shelby Spong's book, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes is indispensablele for showing how the Gospels employ the Midrashic principle of offering rabbinic-style commentary on the Old Testament. Spong says that the Gospels are liturgical, written for use in early Jewish-Christian worship. In the assembly, the Gospels demonstrated how Jesus fulfills what was written in the Law as Gospel pericopes were paired with the weekly Torah readings. 

The Midrashic principle and the liturgical theory for Gospel origins lead Spong to rightly conclude that there is Jewish content in almost every verse of the New Testament. The Jewish content in the Gospels gives us a perspective for reading the entire New Testament through a Jewish lens. 

Following Goulder, Spong showed how the structure of Matthew's Gospel followed five major Jewish festivals. Moving to Luke, Spong shows how each section of Luke's Gospel follows the Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy). Jesus' Journey to Jerusalem in Luke 9:51-18:14, for example, is remarkably parallel to the Book of Deuteronomy. Some highlights:

• Whereas Moses sent out emissaries (Deut. chapter 1), Jesus sends out disciples (Luke 10:1ff)
• The contrast between living on bread alone as opposed to living by the Word of God (Deut. 8:1-3) is aptly parallel in the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42). Martha was making preparations while Mary was listening to Jesus.
• The year for canceling debts (Deut. 15:1-18) is echoed in the story of a woman released from eighteen years of crippling bondage (Luke 13:10-21).
• The rebellious son (Deut. 21:18-21) is somewhat parallel to the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).

While these allusions to the Old Testament texts aren't always made explicit by the New Testament authors, they are too uncanny to be coincidental. 

Midrashic elements abound throughout Luke even apart from his overall structure which parallels the Torah. The birth narratives in Luke 1 and 2, for example, bear striking resemblances (in some instances) to the birth narratives of Isaac and Jacob in Genesis. Spong further contends that Luke relied heavily on the story of Hannah and Samuel while composing the birth narratives of Jesus and John the Baptist. The parallels abound there as well (compare 1 Samuel 1-2 to Luke 1-2).

There are similarities between the Josephs of the Old and New Testaments. Also tantamount to Luke's Gospel is his representation of Jesus as both a prophet like Moses and an Elijah-type figure. Jesus' ministry included a miraculous feeding, raising a widow's son from the dead, and a miraculous ascension to heaven which paved the way for his spirit to indwell his followers.

Spong has shown how the Gospel authors made use of the Old Testament, other Gospel authors, and of the Jewish liturgy in their composition. And equally intriguing is Spong's insistence that Acts is a midrash on Luke as events in the early church are reflections of events in the ministry of Jesus.  

For all of these insights, I applaud Spong's contribution to New Testament scholarship. But I'll show where I part company with him in my next two posts as we ask some hard questions about the Gospels.        

Comments

[preacherman]

Wade,
I find this so interesting and strengthening to my faith in the gospels.

[Wade Tannehill]

Thanks Preacherman,

Me too!

[Lisa]

looking forward to more!

[Wade Tannehill]

Thanks Lisa,

I was beginning to wonder if Preacherman was the only one reading this. I don't know if it's too long, too heady, too much strange vocabulary, or maybe folks are just taking some time to chew on it. But if my main goal was to see how many comments I could get, I guess I'd be writing about American Idol--which I have never seen.

But anyway, the stuff I'm writing about fascinates me and helps me to see the continuity between the Testaments making both come more alive for me. Hope it does the same for some others.

[Vicki]

We are still here...waiting for your next post! This is much more interesting than American Idol! (A Christian won...it's over...so maybe you'll have more activity.) :)

[Lisa]

For the most part after reading your past few posts, I just wanted to wait & see what else you would write and didn't feel the need to comment. Maybe that's what others are doing too. But when I saw that you only got one comment I thought maybe you'd be encouraged by knowing others were reading too. :o)

Btw, I've never seen the parallels between Luke and Deuteronomy like that -- I'm embarrassed to admit that considering most of your readers are ministers & probably thought, "duh." That's pretty interesting, though!

[Gary Cleveland]

Wade,
Great to catch up with your blog and your life transitions. You have put together a great series on Spong's views and I might add, you've done it with economy of words and elegant clarity. If you can get this old Alabama boy on board with Midrash, you've done something! Seriously, I have always appreciated your skills along these lines. I put a link to yours from my Southmoon blog and I hope people take my advice and check your recent posts out.

For Jesus,

Gary Cleveland

[Wade Tannehill]

Thnaks Gary,

Great to hear from you! Thanks for reading and for the compliments. That really helps me to see if I'm communicating clearly.

[Tina]

wade,
I just asked our Rabbi ( messianic congregation)if there are any books written parallelling the new covenant writings with the Torah or original covinent writings. Your post is fascinating. Our Rabbi has been saying much of what I read tonight on your post. Tina

[Wade Tannehill]

Tina,

Thanks for your comment. It's good to know someone actually reads this stuff. :-)
Anyway, sorry I'm just now responding. I've been swamped.