The Formal Education Of The Author Of Lukeacts Steve Reece by Steve Reece; 9780567705914, 0567705919 instant download after payment.

The emperor Julian (“the Apostate”) once proclaimed sardonically that Christian teachers who do not believe in the Greek gods should cease teaching the Classics—Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates, and Lysias—and instead go off to their Galilean churches and expound on Matthew and Luke (Epistulae 61c in J. Bidez’s Les Belles Lettres edition). I am a Christian teacher of the Classics who does not believe in the Greek gods, and I intend, even more than sixteen centuries later, to abide by the emperor’s proclamation. But, perhaps to the emperor’s dismay, I shall be expounding on the New Testament by viewing it against the literary backdrop of these very Classical predecessors.

I was trained as a Classical philologist, with specialization in Greek linguistics and literature, and my research has resided largely in those fields. I have from time to time ventured into the world of New Testament Studies—a monograph on Paul’s letter-writing techniques, some articles on textual and philological matters—but I remain fully aware of the perils of wandering too far outside one’s comfort zone. I shall no doubt on occasion display my naiveté and even—though hopefully not too often—my ignorance of areas already well trodden by specialists in the New Testament.