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

Through Luke’s redaction of his sources, C.H. Talbert finds that there is the existence of anti-
Gnostic overtones in Luke-Acts. He enumerates three motifs which include an implication of
anti-Gnosticism in Luke-Acts: (1) An authentic witness motif reveals that Luke confronts
someone who denied Jesus’ humanity and his physical passion, resurrection and ascension. (2)
The motif of the true exegesis of scripture shows that Luke faces those who denied the
church’s belief that the OT confirms Jesus as the Christ, his suffering and rising from the
dead, and the general resurrection. (3) The motif of the succession of tradition in Acts warned
that false teachers in the sub-apostolic period will arise over against apostolic teaching. 25
Talbert goes so far as to claim along this line, that an anti-Gnostic polemic runs through
John’s Gospel, 1 John, the Pastorals, and 2 Peter. For him Luke’s eschatological timetable
(17:20-37; 21:8-36) is very important in that although much of the timetable had already been
achieved, the End had not yet come. Luke wrote his two volumes to defend a hermeneutical
crisis arising from an overrealised eschatology which is accompanied by a docetic
transformation of christology. 26 For this reason, Luke puts forward the apostolic teaching as
the original teaching of the early church so as to show the corruption of Gnosticism in the
light of it. 27 Still, his thesis, although intriguing, is not acceptable for a few reasons: First of
all, he ignores so much Lukan material that he could misread Luke’s intentions. According to
I.H. Marshall, it is almost impossible to discern whether the emphases are distinctively his,
since Luke blends his own material with that of his sources. 28
Secondly, another problem his
thesis has is that the Gnostic problem in no way is mentioned explicitly in Luke-Acts. None
of the three motifs, the authentic witness, the OT interpretation, and a succession of tradition
refer to the Gnostic problem. In this respect, it is particularly problematic to argue that Luke
sees Jesus’ death by the Jews as a critique of the Gnostic idea of Christian martyrdom.
1-5. A redefinition of relations between Christianity and Judaism
Not satisfied with the claim that Christianity is a legitimate branch of Judaism and is entitled
to the status of a religio licita in the Roman Empire, A.C. Winn suggests an alternative view
that “the rejection of the gospel by the Jewish nation and its acceptance by the Gentiles was
29
not an unforseen catastrophe, but a fulfilment of God’s plan and purpose.” Jewish and
25. Talbert, Luke and the Gnostics: An Examination of the Lukan Purpose, 55-56.
26. Ibid., 15, 209.
27. Ibid., 2-6, 89.
28. Marshall, Luke-Historian & Theologian, 67-68.
29. Winn, “Elusive Mystery: The Purpose of Acts,” 152.
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