This article argues that Luke intends to delineate the changes of social distance between the character “centurion” and Paul throughout the voyage in Acts 27. The social location of the centurion consistently moves from outsiders towards the group...
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Index theologicus der Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen
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This article argues that Luke intends to delineate the changes of social distance between the character “centurion” and Paul throughout the voyage in Acts 27. The social location of the centurion consistently moves from outsiders towards the group “we” in the narrative. The story functions as a thought experiment for first readers to encourage them to establish trusting relations with Roman officials in times of trial. It conveys Luke’s commission to the first readers for gospel witness..
Luke’s account of Jesus’s healing of the man enslaved to the centurion exhibits a number of unusual and unexpected features: a gentile centurion in a small Jewish village, an odd mixture of miracle and pronouncement stories, striking variations from...
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Luke’s account of Jesus’s healing of the man enslaved to the centurion exhibits a number of unusual and unexpected features: a gentile centurion in a small Jewish village, an odd mixture of miracle and pronouncement stories, striking variations from the precedent story of Elisha, surprising twists in the plot, and others. Rhetoricians of Luke’s day discussed various effects that unexpected elements could have on an audience, and some of these are reflected in this account. Luke has used the multiple unexpected elements of this story to make it interesting to his audience, to intensify it alongside the raising of the dead, to re-engage his audience after the Sermon on the Plain, and to cement this episode in his audience’s memory as a precursor to Cornelius and the larger gentile mission in Acts.