Luke-Acts and 'Tragic History': Communicating Gospel with the World

✍ Scribed by DooHee Lee

• Publisher: JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck)
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 321
• Series: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe; 346
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume is the result of an interdisciplinary study that delves into both ancient historiography and the New Testament. DooHee Lee surveys characteristics of the 'tragic history' style employed by ancient Greek, Jewish, and Latin historians such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Phylarchus, Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Josephus, Livy and more. Readers will learn what the 'tragic history' style is about and how popular it was among ancient historians. After this, the author examines how Luke-Acts adopts this particular historiographical style as an effective means of communication of the Gospel message to the world. Overall, this book will enable its readers to experience history and the New Testament simultaneously. Many stories excerpted and described by DooHee Lee will be interesting to readers in general as well as to researchers of Greco-Roman historiography and the New Testament.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Preface
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Genre Issue of Luke-Acts and Previous Scholarship about ‘Tragic History’
1) The Genre of Luke-Acts: Biography, Novel, Epic or History?
2) Incomplete Understanding – or Misunderstanding of ‘Tragic History’
2. An Introduction to ‘Tragic History’
1) What Is ‘Tragic History’ About?
2) The Origin of Tragic History
3) Concluding Remarks
Chapter I: ‘Tragic History’ in Greco-Roman Historiographical Tradition
1. Tragic Style in Herodotus’s Histories
1) The Atys/Adrastus Episode
2) The Gyges/Candaules Episode: Choice between Two Necessities as a Tragic Motif
3) Croesus, a Paradigmatic Tragic Figure: His Late-learning ὀψιμαθία) as a Tragic Motif
4) The Defeat of Xerxes and the Persian Armies by the Greeks
2. Tragic Style in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War
1) Thucydides’ Tragic Perspective on a Reversal of Fortune
2) A Mini-Tragedy of Cleon and Athens at Amphipolis in Chalcidice
3) A Tragic Downfall of Athens in Sicily (Books 6–7)
4) A Tragic Sensitivity of Thucydides: An Emphasis on Pathos
3. Duris of Samos and Phylarchus of Athens
1) Duris of Samos
2) Phylarchus of Athens
4. Tragic Style in Polybius’s Histories
1) Polybius’s Comparison of History with Tragedy: Is Polybius Arguing That His Historiography Is a ‘Truly’ Tragic History?
2) Tragic Reversal of Hasdrubal’s Fortune
3) Vivid and Emotional Presentation
4) Concluding Remarks
5. Tragic Style in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s Roman Antiquities
1) Tragic Combat between the Kinsmen, the Horatii and the Curiatii (Roman Antiquities 3.1–22)
2) Tragic Sequel: Horatius’s Murder of His Own Sister
3) Tragic Elements in Dionysius’s Coriolanus Episode
6. Tragic Style in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives
1) Reconsideration of the Concept of Literary Genre in the Ancient World: Is Biography a Genre Sharply Distinct from Historiography?
2) The Life of Alexander
3) The Life of Demetrius
4) The Lives of Pyrrhus and Marius
5) The Life of Crassus and Euripides’ Bacchae
Excursus: Clothes as Symbols of Fortunes and Hubris in Plutarch
6) Concluding Remarks
7. Tragic Style in Livy’s Ab urbe condita
1) The Tragedy of the Sabine Women (Ab urbe condita 1.9–13)
2) Tragic Dilemma in the Story of Horatius (Ab urbe condita 1.24–26)
3) A Tragic Dilemma in the Episode of Titus Manlius (Ab urbe condita 8.7)
4) Livy’s Portrayal of Hannibal as a Tragic Hero (Hannibal’s κόρος – ὕβρις – ἄτη)
5) Vivid Representation of Scenes: ἐνάργεια
6) Another Literary Device of Livy for ἔκπληξις of the Readers
7) Concluding Remarks
Chapter II: ‘Tragic History’ in Jewish-Hellenistic Historiography: Flavius Josephus
1. Josephus’s Tragic Style in Bellum Judaicum
1) The Siege of Jerusalem and Its Temple
2) The Cannibalism of Mary and the Destruction of the Temple
3) The Group Suicide at Masada
2. Josephus’s Tragic Style in Antiquitates
1) Sarra and Pharaoh
2) Noah’s Flood and the Tower of Babel (Ant. 1.72–119)
3) King Amaziah as a Tragic Figure (Ant. 9.186–204)
4) Haman as a Tragic Figure (Ant. 11.273–283)
5) Heightening of Dramatic Suspense
6) Graphic and Vivid Description of the Korah Rebellion
3. Concluding Remarks
Chapter III: ‘Tragic History’ in Luke-Acts
1. Tragic Language and Allusion to Greek Tragedy in Luke-Acts
1) The Phrase “to Kick against the Goad (πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν)” in Acts 26:14
2) The Term θεομάχος in Acts 5:39
3) The Prison-Escape Scenes in Acts 12 and 16
4) The Popularity of Euripides’ Bacchae in the Hellenistic Period
5) Concluding Remarks
2. Tragic Disasters in Luke-Acts Caused by ‘Greed for More or What Is Not One’s Own (πλεονεξία)’
1) Luke’s Special Concern with Possessions
2) The Tragedy of Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:15–20)
3) The Tragedy of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11)
4) Reversal of Fortune of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31)
5) Concluding Remarks
3. Luke’s Tragic Style in the Portrait of King Herod (Acts 12)
1) Reminder of Parallels in Greco-Roman Historiography
2) Josephus’s Portrait of Herod Agrippa I in Antiquities (19.343–352)
3) Luke’s Portrait of Herod Agrippa I in Acts 12
4. Tragic Style in Paul’s Journey to Jerusalem (Acts 20:1–21:16)
1) Exceptional Appeal to Emotions as a Trace of the Tragic Style in Acts
2) Dilemma between Two Conflicting Causes: Human Cause vs. Divine Cause?
5. The Tragedy of Israel in Luke-Acts
1) Luke’s Tragic Vision of Israel Recognized in Speeches by Peter and Paul in Acts
2) Luke’s Jerusalem Narrative as a Tragedy of Israel (Luke 19:28–24:53)
3) The Tragedy of Israel Repeated in Their Rejection of the Apostles?
4) Concluding Remarks
Conclusion: Reconsideration of the Literary Genre of Luke-Acts
Bibliography
Index of Sources
Ancient Authors
Old Testament
New Testament
Other Jewish Writings
Index of Modern Authors
Subject Index