Luke-Acts contains two short formal prefaces unlike anything else in the New Testament, and this is a study of the literary background of these prefaces. After surveying the different types of preface in ancient Greek literature, Dr Alexander concludes that the closest parallels to Luke's are to be found in Greek scientific and technical manuals of the hellenistic and Roman periods. This has important consequences for our understanding of the literary genre of Luke's Gospel and Acts, and casts new light on the social context of the author and the book's first readers. SOCIETY FOR NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES MONOGRAPH SERIES General Editor: Margaret E. Thrall 78 THE PREFACE TO LUKE'S GOSPEL The preface to Luke's Gospel Literary convention and social context in Luke 1.1-4 and Acts 1.1 LOVEDAY ALEXANDER Department of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521434447 © Cambridge University Press 1993 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1993 This digitally printed first paperback version 2005 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Alexander, Loveday. The preface to Luke's Gospel: literary convention and social context in Luke 1.1—4 and Acts 1.1 /Loveday Alexander. p. cm. — (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series; 78) Revision of the author's thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Oxford, 1978. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 521 43444 0 (hardback). 1. Bible. N. T. Luke I, 1—4 — Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. N. T. Acts I, 1 - Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. II. Series: Monograph Series (Society for New Testament Studies); 78. BS2589.A44 1993 226.4'066-dc20 92-19062 CIP ISBN-13 978-0-521-43444-7 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-43444-0 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-01881-4 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-01881-1 paperback The refinement of our historical sense chiefly means that we keep it properly complicated. History, like science and art, involves abstraction: we abstract certain events from others and we make this particular abstraction with an end in view, we make it to serve some purpose of our will. Try as we may, we cannot, as we write history, escape our purpo- siveness. Nor, indeed, should we try to escape, for purpose and meaning are the same thing. But in pursuing our purpose, in making our abstractions, we must be aware of what we are doing; we ought to have it fully in mind that our abstraction is not perfectly equivalent to the infinite complication of events from which we have abstracted. I should like to suggest a few ways in which those of us who are literary scholars can give our notion of history an appropriate complication. Lionel Trilling, The Sense of the Past (1970), p. 194 CONTENTS Acknowledgements page xi Abbreviations xiii 1 The Lucan preface: questions and assumptions 1 2 On the beginnings of books 11 The task 11 Luke's preface: an objective description 13 Prefaces in biblical and Jewish literature 14 Greek prefaces in rhetorical theory 16 Explanatory prefaces in Greek literature 18 3 Historical prefaces 23 General features 23 Formal characteristics 26 Recurrent topics 31 The convention of autopsia 34 4 Scientific prefaces: origins and development 42 The place of prefaces in the scientific tradition as 42 a whole Personal prefaces: the texts studied 46 The roots of dedication 50 Functions and development of dedication 56 The influence of rhetoric 63 5 Scientific prefaces: structure, content and style 67 General characteristics 67 Structure and content 69 Style 91 Phraseology and vocabulary 94 IX Contents 6 Luke's preface 102 Introduction 102 Verse one 106 Verse two 116 Verse three 125 Verse four 136 Acts 1.1 142 7 Prefaces in hellenistic Jewish literature 147 A stylistic hybrid? 147 II Maccabees 2.19-32 148 Ecclesiaticus: the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira 151 The 'Letter of Aristeas' 154 Philo of Alexandria 157 Josephus 160 Conclusions 164 8 The social matrix of Luke's preface 168 Isolated phenomenon or historical pattern? 168 Language 169 Literature 172 Culture and social class 176 9 The appropriate form of words for the occasion 187 The social occasion: Luke and Theophilus 187 The literary occasion: preface and text 200 Conclusions 210 Appendix A Structural analysis of Luke 1.1-4 and 213 selected scientific prefaces Appendix B Bibliographical notes on scientific 217 prefaces Select bibliography 230 Index of scientific authors 239 Index of ancient authors and names 241 Index of modern authors 245 Index of subjects 249