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

narrative as a Christian Deuteronomy follows the content of the instruction of Deuteronomy
during Israel’s journey towards the Promised Land. Six themes which compose of three
couplets, he contends, pervade the narrative. Luke unveils Jesus as follows: Jesus as
journeying banquet guest and rejected prophet; the journey to peace and justice; the journey
leads to conquest and judgment of evil. For him, these themes present the influence of the
Deuteronomic entrance and conquest traditions. It is striking that the first theme in each
couplet is connected to the next. That is to say, the journeying Guest/Banquet Lord brings the
gospel of peace in the sense that he destroys Satan and his arsenal of evil. The rejected is also
the prophet of justice in that his word becomes judgment on those who reject the banqueting
guest and the gospel of peace. This influence of Israel’s way to land-conquest traditions is
also continued in Acts in that the spread of the Gospel into the Gentile world presents the ruin
of Satanic power. Given all these features, Swartley feels, it is obvious that the travel
narrative has been influenced by Israel’s way to land-conquest traditions. 62
Swartley’s reductionism regarding the common threefold structure in the Synoptic
Gospels raises many problems about its validity. He is not even consistent in structuring the
material. He refers to a “Galilee-journey-Jerusalem”-structure, and later to the “Galilee-
Jerusalem”-structure or “Galilee-journey-Jerusalem-Return to Galilee”. It seems absurd to
equate Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem with the journey to the Promised Land and the conquest of
the Promised Land. If in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is the divine warrior, as alleged by
Swartley, the real victory is achieved in his death and resurrection, not on the way to
Jerusalem in the travel narrative.
In a recent monograph on the Davidic Messiah in Luke-Acts, M.L. Strauss’ evaluation of
the Deuteronomy hypothesis is surely right in that Moessner lays too much emphasis on the
Moses typology, and he connects the motif of the rejected prophet too exclusively with the
Book of Deuteronomy too. In contrast to Moessner, he claims that Luke portrays Jesus’ role
and destiny in terms of the entire prophetic tradition, such as Moses, Elijah, David and
Suffering Servant. In addition, for Luke, Jesus’ approach of and entrance into Jerusalem have
royal and Davidic implications. He believes that the travel narrative is modeled on Deutero-
Isaiah rather than the book of Deuteronomy. The exodus memory in the Book of Consolation
(Isa 40-55) has gone through a prophetic transformation and reinterpretation, an experience
which the imagery of the exodus from Egypt is used to picture the eschatological return of the
exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem. In so doing, this return is described as a new exodus to the
62. Ibid., 126-145.
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