Loading...In my previous post I tried to argue that the longer version of the account of Jesus’ Last Supper in Luke could have been created by a scribe who wanted to make the passage sound more like what is familiar from Matthew, Mark, and John, and to stress the point made in those other accounts as well, that Jesus’ broken body and shed blood are what bring redemption. The passage, as you recall, reads like this:
17 And he took a cup and gave thanks, and he said: “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you that from now on I will not drink from the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.” 19 And taking bread he gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body that is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 Likewise after supper (he took) the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood that is shed for you. 21 But see, the hand of the one who turns me over is with me at the table….”
The words that are in bold and underlined are
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In which manuscripts is the phrase ‘which is given for you’ / ‘shed for you’ absent?
Codex Bezae and several old Latin manuscripts.
Do you think that Acts 20:28 shines any light on this question?
It certainly muddies it! It is the one verse (well, the one-fifth of one verse!) that has been used to argue that Luke had a doctrine of teh atonement. But I think if read carefully, it is not that. It says that God “obtained” or “acquired” the church through Jesus’ blood. That’s not “atonement” becuase it’s not saying that Christ “paid the penalty” or “took the punishment” for others to cover their sins — that is, satisfied a demand of God. It says that God himself purchased the church. He isn’t being paid, he’s paying. Very odd. It’s a very difficult verse to interpret, but my sense is that it means that the death of Jesus is the price God had to give up “his own” (it actually doesn’t say “his own son,” just “his own”) in order to acquire the church. In the context of Luke-Acts, that appears to mean that this is what it took — the death of Jesus, the prophet of God who wsa completely innocent — to compell people to recognize their sinfulness before God and turn back to him so he could finally forgive them.
Do you think this theological difference can inform us about the dating of Luke’s composition? I’ve seen some theories that it may have been much after Matthew, and even after John. I’m not familiar enough with the study of 1st/2nd century soteriology to know how a non-atonement position fits in.
Good questoin. The problem is that we cannot date books based on their theology alone, since some people have views that later became widely popular but weren’t at their time, and others hold views that most others now consider outdated. Dating Luke for that reason ends up being tricky. In particular because the idea of “atonement” appears to have been the dominant view for almost the entire history of the early church, not just at one time or another.
I’m curious – if Luke didn’t believe Jesus’ death was an atonement and Paul did believe it was an atonement, why did Luke portray Paul as a heroic figure in Acts? It seems like Luke would want to downplay the importance of someone whose teachings differed from his own beliefs on such a fundamental point.
It’s a great question. Two of the leading choices seem to be that he didn’t really understand Paul’s theology (that’s my view: and I don’t think he was actually one of Paul’s traveling companions) or that he knew what Paul taught and changed it in his account because he wanted to celebrate the importance of Paul as a missionary but not for the particular views he had.
The phrase “Luke gets rid of…” is rhetorically loaded. It implies three things we cannot demonstrate: Intentional rejection (Luke knew atonement doctrine and decided to oppose/suppress it). Theological discomfort (Luke found substitutionary language problematic). Corrective revision (Luke’s editing/correcting another stream of Christianity).
That’s alot of psychological/historical weight in one phrase. And we simply don’t have access to Luke’s motives at that level.
We can say Luke emphasizes forgiveness of sins. He connects forgiveness with Jesus’ suffering/death/resurrection (Luke 24:46–47). He portrays Jesus as righteous/rejected servant. He includes Isaiah 53 in Acts 8 (That passage contains substitutionary language- “he bore the sin of many”, though Luke doesn’t pause to analyze its mechanics). What we cannot demonstrate is Luke is opposed to atonement theology. Silence/difference of emphasis ≠ repudiation.
It’s just as plausible (and frankly more restrained) to say Luke emphasizes another dimension of the same event.
You might instead say Luke doesn’t foreground substitution the way Paul does. He frames the cross primarily in vindicatory and prophetic-fulfillment terms. He may assume forgiveness flows from the death/resurrection without unpacking its mechanism. And he integrates Jesus’ death into a larger story of rejected prophets/covenant fulfillment.
We can also say that Luke changes the wording of his source-text in a way that eliminates its view of atonement.
It’s undeniable Luke modifies his source material. But difference doesnt equal disagreement.
It’s plausible Luke and his audience were familiar with Mark’s presentation of Jesus’ death and agreed with it. If so, Luke wouldnt need to restate every theological dimension Mark foregrounded. He may’ve chosen to emphasize aspects that required fresh attention.
Take the centurion’s confession.. In Mark, Jesus is declared “Son of God.” In Luke, Jesus is declared “innocent”/righteous”. That doesnt mean Luke denied Jesus’ divine-sonship. Luke elsewhere affirms that identity. The change may reflect a narrative/apologetic emphasis.
Throughout Luke–Acts Roman authorities find Jesus/followers innocent. Pilate declares no guilt. Herod finds no fault. Paul is acquitted again and again. Luke seems concerned to establish the Jesus movement isn’t criminal/seditious. Highlighting Jesus’ innocence may function as a rebuttal to accusations that his execution was justified.
In other words, Luke’s changes need not be read as him “getting rid of” rather, an expansion of the theological picture.. foregrounding Jesus’ innocence/vindication/injustice of his death alongside (not instead of) salvific significance.
The NT refuses to reduce the cross to a single explanatory-model. Mark foregrounds ransom. Luke emphasizes innocence/repentance. Paul stresses participation/curse-bearing. John emphasizes glorification/exaltation. This diversity doesn’t suggest contradiction, but theological richness.
I would think if he wanted to expand Mark’d view of atonement he would have kept it and added to it, not removed all traces of it.
If omission necessarily implies disagreement, then why does Luke omit the centurion’s confession that Jesus is the Son of God rather than expand it.. perhaps by having him declare that Jesus is both innocent and the Son of God.. especially when Luke elsewhere clearly affirms Jesus’ divine sonship?
It appears he wants to emphasize his innocence, a key emphasis of Luke and Acts (more so than anywhere else). Most critics would see this not as an omission but an alteratoin (though, as with most alterations that aren’t simply additions, it means an “omission” of sorts happened. For Luke it is not that Jesus is shown to be the Son of God at his death. He was already that. For Mark it’s a big deal.
If the strongest explanation for Luke’s alteration/omission of the centurion’s declaration that Jesus was the Son of God at the crucifixion is that he wants to anchor Jesus’s divine sonship at least as early as his birth, then why does he later associate that same divine sonship AND innocence with Jesus’s death and resurrection in Acts 13?
Yes indeed! It’s one of the major questions to be addressed about Luke’s Christology. Why does he state that Jesus became Son of God at his conception (1:35); at his baptism (3:21 — the original textr probababy); and at his resurrection (speeches in Acts). I deal with the issue in Orthodox Corruption in my discussion of the texztual variant of 3:21. . Luke is combining a variety of early traditions that are at odds at WHEN it happened in order to stress that he really WAS the Son of God. (Similar problem in Luke-Acts with other titles for Jesus as well: Christ and Lord. He gets *made* those at the resurrection but is *already* those before he dies!)
Luke would not have denied that Jesus was Son of God at his death; in Mark this is the point at which someone *realizes* it, a problem you don’t have in Luke because he has gotten rid of a good bit of the messianic secret of Mark. He wants to emphasize, though, that it is not the death that *shows* he’s the son of God, as in mark; for luke the poinbt is that he was wrongly executed: he was completely innocent. You can see that especially by comparing carefully Mark and Luke’s trials before Pilate, where the innocence is unmistakably heightend in significant ways.
I spent four years in Bible College, and one of the books that was studied in depth was Luke’s gospel. At no time did any instructor or commentary that we used ever pick up on this theme. When I came across it first, listening to Yale lectures by Dale B. Martin I was struck dumb so to speak. I read all of Luke and Acts, and found this theme to be true. Luke deleted the atonement theme. I became angry at myself for not noticing before. It goes to show that readers often read a text with a preconceived idea of what the text says.
Anyway…that’s my comment. Ken
These recent posts on a lack of atonement in Luke’s writings are great. I’m looking forward to the next post on ACTS and I’m still evaluating the synoptic/ACTS atonement stuff myself. In reading through the speeches in ACTS, there is no evidence for an atonement-based theology, so I agree about that. But I’m wondering what you think Luke’s soteriology is (perhaps it is clearer in the original Greek) since I’m puzzled in my English reading of 2:37-38, 4:12, and 10:43. Even though Luke’s soteriology says the death of Jesus wasn’t an atonement, do you think Luke is saying that salvation can be attained by repentance alone or is a belief in Jesus also required?
I’d say that Luke certainly thinks one must “believe in Jesus,” but it’s not completely clear what Luke actually means by that. It is not that you need to accept his atoning sacrifice. Does it mean you need to trust that he shows the way to God, he alone? Luke never says.
Part of the problem is that Luke uses many different oral and written sources and sometimes they are difficult to reconcile with each other. Not just in factual details, such as what happened at Paul’s “conversion” (recounted with conflicting details in Acts 9, 22, and 26), but also in major theological themes. Famously: when did Jesus “become” the son of God? His birth (Luke 1:35)? His baptism (Luke 3:22); His resurrection (Luke 13:33)? So too with his view of salvation. He definitely gets rid of atonement language; but then what does it mean that a person needs to “believe in Jesus”?
This is really helpful, thanks. Do you think that Luke believes that when Yahweh forgives a person for all their sins, they have salvation? That seems to me to be what Luke and Acts are suggesting but, as you point out, there is ambiguity as to what the conditions are to obtain forgiveness. Perhaps there is more than one way, in Luke’s soteriology, for people to have their sins forgiven and, thus, acquire salvation. Luke 19:1-10 seems to say that simply choosing to be righteous and making amends for past wrongdoing is one way. Another way seems to be being baptized in the name of Jesus and that itself is “calling upon the name of the lord” in the Old Testament prophecy which states that all who call upon the name of the lord shall be saved. This idea seems to be that the name of Jesus has special incantation like powers. Just using that name can bring salvation even if people don’t know or believe anything about Jesus. Acts 3:19 says “Repent, therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out” suggesting simple repentance and turning to Yahweh is sufficient. What’s your thoughts?
Yes, I think that’s Luke’s view, but not the view of most of the other authors of the NT (Matthew, Mark, Paul, etc)
Thank you Dr Ehrman. This is a fascinating thread. But I’m still not entirely clear on why Luke thinks Jesus had to die if not for some kind of atonement. If you take away the sacrificial/paying a penalty element, then presumably Jesus didn’t need to die at all. How does Luke get around this?
Ah, that’s my next post!
Was Luke’s Greek better than the Greek of the other gospel authors? Is there a rank order for the quality of the Greek compositions of the NT?
For the most part it’s pretty good but not at a high literary level (apart from 1:1-4); the best is usually said to be the book of Hebrews. The worst is Revelation, by far.
I’m a little late in reading this post. Are you familiar with Burton H. Throckmorton, jr’s “Gospel Parallels, a comparison of the synoptic gospels” (fifth edition)? I found it very useful in following your discussion on the Luke text issues. He lists the text variants in question as footnotes. The layout of the NSRV in parallel columns makes it easy to see what you are talking about. Where applicable, he lists noncanonical and church father parallels.
Yup, it’s very handy. I usually use a Greek version by Kurt Aland which also includes the fourth Gospel and parallels in others non-canonical Gospels. But Throckmorton is a tried and true resource!
One of your points, that Luke’s omission of Mark 10:45 is meant to correct Mark’s idea that “Jesus’ death ransoms others from their sins, and allows them, then, to stand in a good relationship with God”. This interpretation of 10:45, specifically 10:45b, is vigorously debated. What does “ransom” mean here? Why is there no direct reference to sin? Can you elaborate on your interpretation of 10:45b and whether/if your argument stands on a specific, narrow interpretation?
The Greek term (LUTRON) is used typically to refer to someone purchasing a slave from slavery or ransoming someone kidnapped. It entails one person paying a price to deliver another. A compound form of the root (APOLUTROSIS) is used several times to refer to a sacrifice needed for redemption, as in Romans 3:24 and Ephesians 1:7.