'The Transformation of Characters in Luke 24. A Narrative Investigation'

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MrMacSon
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'The Transformation of Characters in Luke 24. A Narrative Investigation'

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'The Transformation of Characters in Luke 24. A Narrative Investigation' by Matteo C Rimella
SUMMARY
At the beginning of the gospel (cf. 1:4) Luke declares his intention: to make known the validity of the elements of faith in which Theophilus had already been instructed. At the end of the book, through the process of identifying the characters the narrative brings to closure the transition from lack to realized recognition of the risen Jesus, and it indicates how this came about, namely by faith.

Conclusion
... the reader is called to enter into a process of veridiction in order to ascertain personally the validity of the teachings that were received in his or her initial fundamental instruction (or catechesis). At the end of the work, through the process of identifying the characters (in which the Eleven are accompanied by anonymous “others” and one of the two disciples of Emmaus, who is not identified), the narrative brings to closure the transition from lack to realized recognition of the risen Jesus, and it indicates how this came about, namely by faith ... the risen Jesus is the one who was crucified. As Tannehill asserts: “The resurrection narrative tells how disciples who previously could not understand Jesus’ prophecies of death and resurrection (cf. 9:44-45; 18,31-34) not only encounter the risen Messiah but also finally come to understand, when instructed by Jesus, the ironic way that God’s purpose is being achieved through the rejection and death of the Messiah” [The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts, p.349].

With this paradoxical but fundamental connection between death and resurrection, the narrator insists again and again on the necessity of the passion and stresses it. Thus, it follows that such recognition is only possible by trusting in the word of Jesus, which establishes that the risen Jesus and the one crucified are identical. This word [of Jesus], in coherence with the whole of Scripture, brings about the transformation of the disciples in the story, of the implied reader, and of the real reader.

https://www.academia.edu/39374712/The_T ... view-paper

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