The Preface of Luke-Acts and Historiography

It has long been almost taken for granted that Luke-Acts is a historical work. Recently, however, C. H. Talbert has argued that Luke-Acts is biography rather than history, thereby re-opening the question of the genre of Luke-Acts. In what follows I will discuss one feature of Luke-Acts which does no...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Callan, Terrance 1947- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 1985
In: New Testament studies
Year: 1985, Volume: 31, Issue: 4, Pages: 576-581
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Summary:It has long been almost taken for granted that Luke-Acts is a historical work. Recently, however, C. H. Talbert has argued that Luke-Acts is biography rather than history, thereby re-opening the question of the genre of Luke-Acts. In what follows I will discuss one feature of Luke-Acts which does not support the contention that it is biography. I will argue that the preface of Luke-Acts resembles the prefaces of histories more than those of biographies or any other ancient prose writings. And I will further attempt to specify what historical prefaces it most resembles, and thus what sort of historian, on the evidence of the preface, the author of Luke-Acts was Comparison of prefaces cannot by itself settle the question of the genre of Luke-Acts, but it may make an important contribution. It is often true (and certainly true in the case of Luke-Acts) that the author speaks most directly in his preface. Because of this the preface may provide the best indication of the writer's own understanding of what he is doing, which is an important consideration in addressing the question of genre.
ISSN:1469-8145
Contains:Enthalten in: New Testament studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500012108