the role of the lukan parables in terms of the purpose of luke's gospel

simplifies the geographical outline in his Gospel and Acts. With this in mind, searching for
where the events took place exactly is futile. What is important in the travel narrative is not a
chronicle, but a logical succession in the history of salvation.
In recent years, inspired by Girard’s work, 10 A.B. Baum takes up the historical
interpretation, referring to the historical literature of Antiquity, so as to emphasize Luke’s
historical credibility. He mentions that the classical authors had a great deal of responsibility
for conveying precise chronological and topographical information within their works. He
sees the Lukan prologue as a historiographical and programmatical statement which contains
his investigation method and the purpose of his work. He believes that Luke discarded the
topographical details for the sake of his readers, not because of ignorance about the location
of the passages. But by means of content and speeches in the section, Luke does correct the
indefiniteness of time and space. Baum considers the travel narrative as a journey through
Perea, since the population there consisted mostly of Jews, and Jesus had not yet ministered
in their region. With respect to the relationship between Luke’s and John’s journey of Jesus to
Jerusalem (John 7:10, 10:22, 11:17, 54), he mentions that, even though Luke’s travel
narrative is not inconsistent with the historical date in John, establishing a clear combination
is not possible. For Baum the main emphasis of the travel narrative is not only on the
preparation of the disciples for the time between the ascension and the parousia, but also on
the judgment on the people that are not willing to follow Jesus on his last journey. As a result,
he comes to a conclusion that the travel narrative in the Gospel of Luke is the work of a
historian who, as historians of antiquity, provides a real and chronological narrative of Jesus’
last journey to Jerusalem. 11
However, we must take into consideration the fact that Luke was
influenced not only by classical historiography, but also by rhetoric and biblical
historiography. Luke can be viewed as an historian of salvation history in the sense that he
depicts the Jesus event in the light of historical facts, and portrays the way of Jesus and the
Church in successive spheres of activity. Apart from Markan priority, Baum does not
compare the affinity in the threefold and twofold tradition. Instead, he depends on the seventy
missionaries, or Philip the Evangelist as an eyewitness mentioned in the Lukan prologue. On
the basis of the We-passages (Acts 20:3-21:18), he conjectures that Luke may have had the
opportunity to meet a lot of eyewitnesses, and hear from them during that journey. In so
10. L. Girard, L’Évangile des voyages ou la section Lc. 9:51-18:14 de saint Luc (Paris, 1951).
11. A.B. Baum, ‘Lukas als Historiker der letzten Jesusreise’ (PhD dissertation, Kampen, 1993), 26, 103-149,
192, 196, 211, 307-308, 310, 400-401. I am indebted to the analysis and evaluation of Noël concerning Baum’s
hypothesis, see Noël, The Travel Narrative in the Gospel of Luke: Interpretation of Lk 9:51-19:28, 140-82.
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