Thomas Brodie’s Reconstruction of Proto-Luke
Brodie’s hypothesis has made Proto-Luke freshly relevant to contemporary scholarship. It challenges the dominant paradigm of tradition historical analysis by crafting a history of gospel origins which is literary and inter-textual.
35 In doing so, it brings together historical and literary readings of the Bible, which in current practice sit in an uneasy dichotomy. Further, this reaffirms the
Semitic nature of the New Testament. An ‘orientalising revolution’ is taking place in the understanding of Greek culture, and New Testament studies cannot afford to lag behind here.
36 Even more significantly, Brodie brings narrative critical concerns to bear on the issue, and in doing so, he opens up a way for PLH to be verified.
Brodie achieves this fresh approach by analysing the New Testament through the process of
mimēsis, the ancient method ‘reworking’ texts. The entire reconstruction hangs on Proto-Luke, which he builds from Acts-Lukan material parallel to the Elijah/Elisha narrative. So, for example, the ascension is a
mimēsis of Elijah’s rapture, and Acts 15 is a reworking of the restoration of the temple (2 Kings 12—13). Brodie’s hypothesis (PLH-B) does represent a departure from the classical PLH on a number of critical passages, as seen in Table 2.4 [3.4?]
Table 3.4
B.H Streeter's Proto-Luke | Thomas Brodie's Proto-Luke |
| omits | 1—2 (infancy narratives) |
| 3:1—38 (Jesus and John) | 3:1-38 (omits 3:7-9, brood of vipers) |
| 4:1—13 (temptation) | omits |
| 5:1—11 (miracles of fish/call of Peter & John) | omits |
| 6:14—16 (The Twelve) | omits |
| 6:20—8:3 (centurion, widow, & ministering women) | 7:1—8:3 (omit 6:20—49) |
| 9:51—18:43 The 'greater interpolation' | yes, but omits
...10:21-15:32 (discourse & healings)
...16:10-18 (sayings)
...17:1-10 (sayings)
...18:9-43 (parables and healings) |
| 19:1—10 (Zacchaeus) | 19:1—10 |
| 19:11—27 (the parables of the pounds) | omits |
| omits | 22:1—13 (the plot to kill Jesus & prepare for Passover) |
| 21:18, 34-36 (a few apocalyptic saysings) | omits |
| 22:14—30 (the Supper) | 22:14—30 |
| 22:31—65 (final words to the disciples) | omits |
| 22:66—24:53 (crucifixion and resurrection) | 22:66—24:53 |
| omits | Acts 1—1537 |
34 Marie-Émile Boismard, L’évangile de l’enfance (Luc1-2) selon le Proto-Luc (Études bibliques 35; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1997), 7
35 Brodie, The Birthing of the New Testament, (Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2004), 1-79 esp. 73-74
35 Ibid., 72-3
37 Thomas L Brodie, Proto-Luke: The Oldest Gospel Account (Limerick, Ireland: Dominican Biblical Institute, 2006)
Unlike Streeter, Brodie omits Q, which he thinks is Matthew’s
mimēsis of
logoi in Deuteronomy. Brodie’s also includes the infancy narratives. Using the principle of
mimēsis, Brodie suggests the following story of the birthing of the New Testament:
- Screenshot 2022-07-13 153147.png (62.12 KiB) Viewed 823 times
In order to decide between the classical PLH (as proposed by Streeter and re-worked by Boismard), and Brodie’s hypothesis which I shall designate ‘PLH-B’, I will begin by examining the most unique aspects of Brodie’s hypothesis, his unique redaction history of the Galilean ministry narrative. Instead of assigning the entire narrative to Proto-Luke, Brodie gives a more intricate version in which some sections of the narrative are Proto-Lukan, and others (3:7-9, 4:1—13 and verses 22b—30 of the rejection at Nazareth) are Matthean in origin.
Brodie’s reconstruction is based on three methodological steps. First, the text is identified by its use of septuagintisms. Brodie argues that the septuagintisms indicate a stream of texts which is on some level set apart.
38 The second step of Brodie’s argument is to notice that the resulting text has a structural unity – much like the structural unity of the Elijah/Elisha narrative in 1/2 Kings. The third step in the reconstruction is to notice the problem-solving ability of Proto-Luke – it yields a convincing history of the New Testament, which does not need Q, but instead sees Mark as transforming Proto-Luke into a Hellenistic
bios, and so creating the genre of gospel.
Brodie’s particular reconstruction of Proto-Luke is unique in its ability to explain the formation of the Gospel genre through an intertextual (rather than oral) process, and also in its ability to ground the Greek text of the New Testament in Jewish literature. The skeletal structure of the Elijah/Elisha narrative is clearly and convincingly present in the narrative: at the beginning, middle and end. Luke has many references to Elijah. Jesus compares himself to Elijah, specifically mentioning the widow of Zarephath in Luke 4:26 (although Brodie removes Luke 4:22b—30 from classical Proto-Luke). The Elijah narrative opens with the account of the widow, whose ύιός Elijah from the dead (1 Kings 17). Luke 7 is a parallel story. It ties the healing of the centurion’s servant with the raising of a widow’s μονογενής ύιός.
Luke-Acts also parallels the Elijah/Elisha narrative at its central point. 2 Kings 1—2 recounts Ahaziah’s death, Elijah’s assumption, and the pouring out of the spirit on Elisha. So Luke 22—Acts 1, the centre of Luke-Acts, has the same narrative sequence. The death of Jesus is followed by his ascension, and subsequently the Spirit is poured out on his successors the apostles.
Brodie claims the septuagintisms in Acts end at chapter 15. As Brodie points out, this chapter has a clear similarity to the final image of the Elijah/Elisha narrative: the Temple being restored at the end of Elisha’s ministry. Finally, Brodie demonstrates the similar proportions of the two texts by demonstrating that both Proto-Luke and the Elijah/Elisha narrative can be divided into eight blocks of text, and that each block is a diptych of two balancing panels.
39
Having argued from the existence of septuagintisms, and from the similarity of Proto-Luke to the Elijah/Elisha narrative both in structure and content, Brodie’s third argument is to claim that his reconstruction is verified by the problems it solves, for instance it eliminates the need for Q, and provides a single coherent history of the New Testament’s origins, which he represents with Table 3.5.
38 Brodie, Birthing, 109-124
39 Ibid., 100-3
Critique of Brodie’s Arguments: 1st argument
The first distinctive aspect of Brodie’s approach is that he identifies Proto-Luke by isolating passages that contain septuagintisms, rather than identifying passages which are free from Marcan influence as in the classical PLH. Brodie has used this method to identify a workable text of Proto-Luke, but he does not provide any justification why this particular way of generating the text is preferable to classical PLH’s method. If it is the case that both Proto-Luke and canonical Luke were redacted by the same author, we would expect his stylistic preferences to be seen at every level of composition. So the presence of septuagintisms in Luke 1—2 for instance is no reason to think they were not added at the final phase of composition. If Luke is using a source closely (such as Q), there is no reason to think that the source material should have septuagintisms in it even if it were part of an early phase of composition, so Brodie’s methodology does not justify his exclusion of the double tradition material, such as 3:7—9, the ‘brood of vipers’ saying, or the temptation narrative, 4:1—11.
Since the abrupt absence of septuagintisms in 3:7—9 and 4:1—11, compared with the surrounding verses can easily be explained by their Q origin, compared to the L origin of the other verses, it only remains to be seen whether 4:22b-30 should be included in Proto-Luke. Brodie’s argument for the exclusion of this section is that Luke’s distinctive usage of the Septuagint stops at 22a, and resumes at 7:1.
40 He claims that the transition is smooth, from v. 22a:
[Greek to be inserted]
And everyone was bearing witness to him and they were wondering about the words of grace which proceeded from his mouth
to 7:1
[Greek to be inserted]
After he finished these sayings in the hearing of the people, he went to Capernaum.
It is unlikely that Luke would call Jesus’ speech first λόγοις and then ρήματα, in such close context. Luke usually uses ρήματα to refer to ‘sayings’ (i.e. 1:65; 2:17; 18:34 and especially Acts 20:35), and while 4:18—19, 21 do fit the criteria, the section directly preceding 7:1, (the Sermon on the Plain) seems like a more probable candidate for the ρήματα of 7:1.
According to Brodie, it is in the section of 7:1—8:3 that the words spoken in Capernaum are fulfilled by healing and remission of sin. According to the classical PLH, Brodie’s ‘smooth transition’ would be broken by the rejection at Nazareth (4:22b—30), the call of the disciples (5:1-11) and the Sermon on the Plain (6:20-49). However, classical PLH’s order can also be interpreted as a narrative device. Jesus was rejected at Nazareth, so he regroups by calling disciples, and attracting a crowd of followers, and then in chapter 7, goes into Capernaum where he is more successful. As Brodie says, “in this section (7.1—8.3), the words said in the synagogue become reality”,
41 but with the intervening sections which Brodie omits functioning as a believable explanation as to why the prophecy is being fulfilled in a different town.
And there are even some problems with the flow of the narrative according to Brodie’s version. In 2:51 (which Brodie includes in Proto-Luke), Jesus is still in Nazareth. In 3:21, he is baptised, but Luke does not specify where or by whom. It is in 4:1 (which Brodie excludes) that it is then made clear that Jesus is returning from Jordan to the wilderness. In 4:14 he returns to Galilee in the power of the spirit, where the great deeds in Capernaum mentioned in 4:23 must be supposed to have happened and finally to Nazareth in 4:16. But Brodie’s Proto-Luke does not specify where Jesus was baptised, and also has no period in the wilderness. Brodie is left with a lengthy description of Jesus returning that seems totally unjustified because Jesus has not gone anywhere. Since the criterion of narrative unity does not support PLH-B as clearly as Brodie claims, and narrative unity can be made to work very well for classical PLH, 4:16-30 should certainly be viewed as a unity as it is in Classical PLH.
Brodie’s second line of evidence for dividing this section, i.e. that the septuagintisms stop at 4:22a, also does not bear scrutiny. Of Fitzmyer’s classical list of 25 septuagintisms common to Luke,
42 4:16—22a only has one examples, i.e. πρός + acc. after a verb of speaking in 4:21, λέγειν πρός αύτούς, as well as the catena of LXX scriptures in vv. 18—19. But the part of the pericope that Brodie removes has two septuagintisms in it. πρός + acc. after a verb of speech occurs in v. 23, εΐπεν πρός αύτούς; and the septuagintal participle αωαστάωτες in v. 29, as well as a paraphrase of an LXX story, including a direct quotation in v. 25—27. The calling of the first disciples in 5:1—11 also has two clear septuagintisms. In v.1: Εγέωετο δέ έω τώ τόν όχλοω έπικείσθαι αύτώ and in v.5 άποκριθείς Σίμων έίπεν...
If Brodie’s only reason for excluding these passages from Proto-Luke is that the septuagintisms end at 4:22a, then their inclusion should be more certain to him than the inclusion of 4:16-22a.
40 Ibid., 98
41 Ibid.,
42 Fitzmyer, Luke-I-IX, 114-116
Critique of Brodie's Arguments: 2nd argument
The skeletal framework of the Elijah/Elisha narrative is clear in Luke, and can be seen in reconstructions of Proto-Luke whether PLH or PLH-B is followed (although admittedly, PLH would have to be viewed together with by some material from Acts, perhaps ch. 1—15). [tbc]
