Thursday, February 5, 2015

NT: Luke Chapters 21 - 24

The Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 21, is brief and is dominated by more foreshadowings of the End Times. You can almost feel the Big Finish coming! This chapter is largely associated with the Olivet Discourse, as it contains many passages and pericopes that are found in the discourse of the same name from Matthew.

Chapter 22 further builds towards the Resurrection, with Satan entering Judas and (presumably) causing the betrayal of Jesus. We are also treated to the Last Supper, Jesus in Gethsemane, Jesus’ arrest and the prediction of Peter’s denial.

Luke Chapter 23 gives us (in my humble opinion) the ultimate narrative of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion.Jesus Christ - The Movie It’s almost like it was written for a musical or a movie! With just a few gaps and mismatches, Luke 23 is consistent with related passages in Matthew and Mark.

The final chapter of Luke (Chapter 24) brings us the Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven. Again, mostly consistent *in broad outline* with Matthew and Mark.

Parallels


These last 4 chapters of Luke let us do a last look at how the Jesus Story climaxes. The Synoptics all contain most of the Olivet Discourse, while John does not. The Synoptics’ Passion Narrative generally match each other, but John omits a large swath and adds a large swath not found elsewhere. Please refer to the Gospel Parallels web site for details.

Some day in the future, I’ll have a go at the details of the Ascension, and work backward from there into the Resurrection, Crucifixion and Passion, so that I may piece together my personal observations and compare to external positive and negative criticisms of the story.

I have to say that I’m looking forward to The Gospel According To John, since it allegedly imparts a bold new personality to the Jesus character.

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