Luke the Historian of Israel’s Legacy, Theologian of Israel’s ‘Christ’

Luke is the first New Testament author to reflect on the Jewish scriptures as written rolls bunched together along a twofold (“Moses and all the prophets”), or threefold collection (“the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms”) that point together severally, and as a whole to the “Messiah Jesus who must suffer.” Thus Luke is already conceiving a proto-Bible that anticipates the “book” of the third/fourth century CE when the first Christian Bibles or codices of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus will have emerged. As the first ‛biblical’ theologian Luke construes scriptural texts as encompassed by an overarching principle of divine “plan.” As a Hellenistic historian, Luke’s “plan of God” epitomizes the divine activity and ‛control’ of ‛historical’ development. As biblical theologian and Hellenistic historian, Luke perceives in both the whole and the parts of “the scriptures” a coherent rationale of divine intent and action for Israel that comprehends all of Israel’s history. Luke’s divine ‛plan’ is thus ‛arranged’ into a narrative plan that re-presents the divine fulfillment as a scriptural necessity in the life, death, and exaltation of Israel’s Christ (Luke) and witness of Messiah through his followers ‛to the end of the earth’ (Acts).