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Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation

Luke–Acts as Rival to the Aeneid

Dennis R. MacDonald

Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation: Luke–Acts as Rival to the Aeneid argues that the author of Luke–Acts composed not a history but a foundation mythology to rival Vergil’s Aeneid by adopting and ethically emulating the cultural capital of classical Greek poetry, especially Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Euripides's Bacchae. For example, Vergil and, more than a century later, Luke both imitated Homer’s account of Zeus’s lying dream to Agamemnon, Priam’s escape from Achilles, and Odysseus’s shipwreck and visit to the netherworld. Both Vergil and Luke, as well as many other intellectuals in the Roman Empire, engaged the great poetry of the Greeks to root new social or political realities in the soil of ancient Hellas, but they also rivaled Homer’s gods and heroes to create new ones that were more moral, powerful, or compassionate. One might say that the genre of Luke–Acts is an oxymoron: a prose epic. If this assessment is correct, it holds enormous importance for understanding Christian origins, in part because one may no longer appeal to the Acts of the Apostles for reliable historical information. Luke was not a historian any more than Vergil was, and, as the Latin bard had done for the Augustine age, he wrote a fictional portrayal of the kingdom of God and its heroes, especially Jesus and Paul, who were more powerful, more ethical, and more compassionate than the gods and heroes of Homer and Euripides or those of Vergil’s Aeneid.

Lexington Books / Fortress Academic

Pages: 278 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-9787-0138-0 • Hardback • October 2018 • $122.00 • (£94.00)

978-1-9787-0139-7 • eBook • October 2018 • $115.50 • (£89.00)

Subjects: Religion / Christian Theology / General, Philosophy / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, Religion / Biblical Studies / New Testament / General, Religion / Education, Religion / Ethics

Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation

Luke–Acts as Rival to the Aeneid

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation: Luke–Acts as Rival to the Aeneid argues that the author of Luke–Acts composed not a history but a foundation mythology to rival Vergil’s Aeneid by adopting and ethically emulating the cultural capital of classical Greek poetry, especially Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Euripides's Bacchae. For example, Vergil and, more than a century later, Luke both imitated Homer’s account of Zeus’s lying dream to Agamemnon, Priam’s escape from Achilles, and Odysseus’s shipwreck and visit to the netherworld. Both Vergil and Luke, as well as many other intellectuals in the Roman Empire, engaged the great poetry of the Greeks to root new social or political realities in the soil of ancient Hellas, but they also rivaled Homer’s gods and heroes to create new ones that were more moral, powerful, or compassionate. One might say that the genre of Luke–Acts is an oxymoron: a prose epic. If this assessment is correct, it holds enormous importance for understanding Christian origins, in part because one may no longer appeal to the Acts of the Apostles for reliable historical information. Luke was not a historian any more than Vergil was, and, as the Latin bard had done for the Augustine age, he wrote a fictional portrayal of the kingdom of God and its heroes, especially Jesus and Paul, who were more powerful, more ethical, and more compassionate than the gods and heroes of Homer and Euripides or those of Vergil’s Aeneid.

Details

Lexington Books / Fortress Academic

Pages: 278 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-9787-0138-0 • Hardback • October 2018 • $122.00 • (£94.00)

978-1-9787-0139-7 • eBook • October 2018 • $115.50 • (£89.00)

Subjects: Religion / Christian Theology / General, Philosophy / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, Religion / Biblical Studies / New Testament / General, Religion / Education, Religion / Ethics

Author

Dennis R. MacDonald has taught New Testament and Christian origins at Goshen College, Iliff School of Theology, and the Claremont School of Theology.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1. A Mimetic Commentary on the Gospel of Luke

Part 2. A Mimetic Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles

Conclusion: Mimesis Criticism and Luke’s Politics of Homeric Imitation

Appendix 1. Luke’s Retention of Mark’s Homeric Mimesis

Appendix 2. The Sequence of Imitations in Luke-Acts

Reviews

As in his earlier publications, MacDonald demonstrates enviable mastery of the biblical and classical Greek source material, and so this book will also be a useful addition to libraries serving readers interested in early Christian narratives, the reception of classical Greek poetry, and/or Greek literature produced under Roman rule.

— Religious Studies Review

Yet another heroic scholarly feat from Dennis R. MacDonald! With this book, his fourth major contribution to mimesis criticism in many years, MacDonald solidifies his standing as the world’s foremost pioneer and leading scholar on the imitation of Homer and Virgil within the Gospels and Acts. Many of the imitations detailed here have never before appeared in scholarship. Even those mentioned previously in MacDonald’s earlier works find far richer explanations and quotations in this book. Classicists, New Testament scholars, and anyone curious about the foundations of early Christianity will find just how deeply they rest on the bedrock of Greco-Roman epic and myth.
— Mark G. Bilby, California State University, Fullerton

Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation

Luke–Acts as Rival to the Aeneid

Dennis R. MacDonald

Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation

Luke–Acts as Rival to the Aeneid

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