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

Promised Land. The Lukan exodus motif is in reality made on the basis of Isaiah’s diction of
the eschatological new exodus as the primary OT motif. With this understanding, Strauss
asserts that the travel narrative is a new exodus where Jesus as the Isaianic eschatological
deliverer guides God’s people, defeating the forces of sin and Satan. Moreover, in Isa 11,
rather than in Isa 55:3, the coming Davidic King performs the eschatological regathering.
According to Strauss, Isaiah’s portrait of eschatological salvation pervades Luke’s work. In
comparison with the first exodus in which Yahweh leads his people out of Egypt to the
Promised Land, the Isaianic new exodus is the glorious return of Yahweh to his people,
thereby gathering and leading them. For him the quotation of Isa 40:3-5 in Lk 3:4-6 is
meaningful for the universalist tune for the Gentile mission, and the reference to a road
prepared for the coming of the Lord who brings salvation. This description is certainly
parallel with the Isaianic description of the new exodus that through Yahweh’s messianic
envoy he comes to his people to deliver them. Just as the goal of the new exodus in Isaiah is
Jerusalem where Yahweh’s glory will be revealed as well reign as king, so Jesus’ goal in Luke
is also Jerusalem where he fulfills his , his death and exaltation. As a result, the new
exodus which is a time of salvation inaugurated with the coming of Jesus, functions as a
metaphor for the eschatological time of salvation throughout Luke, not only the Lukan travel
narrative.
Even though the term refers to death, 63 it is doubtful that the term also presents
the subsequent events of resurrection and ascension which take place in Jerusalem. What is
clear is that the term refers to Jesus’ death, as texts like 2 Pet 1:15; Wis 3:2; 7:6 and
Jos. Ant. 4, 8, 2, 189 show. But in the biblical traditions, particularly the LXX, the term
, as S.H. Ringe remarks, 64 refers to the beginning event of that journey, not to its
conclusion. On the other hand, Nolland sheds light on the understanding of the term’s
meaning, suggesting that in the correlation between and , they both convey
the end of the earthly career of Jesus in different ways: Where the puts the accent on
his death, the focuses on his ascension to glory. 65
In addition, it is difficult to
attest to the fact that Luke would be influenced by only one tradition, since the motif of the
exodus permeates throughout the OT.
63. For those taking this viewpoint, see J. Mánek, “The New Exodus in the Books of Luke,” NovT 2 (1958), 8-
23; S.R. Garrett, “Exodus from Bondage: Luke 9:31 and Acts 12:1-24,” CBQ 52 (1990), 652-680.
64. Ringe, “Luke 9:28-36: The Beginning of An Exodus,” 94.
65. Nolland, Luke, 500. See also the same author’s “Feuillet,” RevThom 77 (1977), 191.
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