Luke. Diane G. Chen
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fits the occasion of Jesus’ baptism, with the Holy Spirit descending upon the Son of God, who is commissioned to a kingly role to judge not only Israel but the nations as well.
Genealogy of Jesus (3:23–38)
Jesus is about thirty years old at this point of the narrative (3:23a). Joseph was thirty when he became Pharaoh’s second-in-command (Gen 41:46), and David was thirty when he began his reign as king in Hebron (2 Sam 5:4). This is the age of a fully grown man, appropriate for public service (Num 4:3, 23). Here Luke provides another validation of Jesus’ identity and status with an unusually formatted genealogy (3:23b–38). Typically, genealogies trace the lineage of families and legitimize the status of individuals or the kinship group as a whole. When social status is at stake, genealogies tend to put the family’s best foot forward by removing questionable members from the listing of generations.
Luke’s genealogy of Jesus reads very differently from the one in Matthew (Matt 1:1–17). The less problematic issue is the way in which Luke’s genealogy begins with Jesus and works its way up the generations, even though this is an unconventional format among biblical genealogies.104 More perplexing is any attempt to reconcile the details in Luke’s genealogy with those in Matthew’s. For starters, Luke has seventy-eight names compared to Matthew’s forty-two, because he includes names from Adam to Abraham as well. There is considerable overlap between the names listed from Abraham to David.105 While both genealogies pass through David, Luke identifies Nathan as a son of David (3:31), but Matthew has David as the father of Solomon (Matt 1:6). Beyond that, the names between David and Jesus are almost entirely different, so much so that Luke identifies Joseph’s father as Heli against Matthew’s Jacob (3:23; Matt 1:16). The majority of names in Luke’s genealogy are not mentioned elsewhere in the OT, making it impossible to verify the existence of these ancestors and their place in the family tree. Scholars have put forth various hypotheses to explain the differences, ranging from each genealogy representing the family line of Joseph and Mary respectively, to an appeal to levirate marriage as justification for moving through a different branch in the family tree. None appears satisfactory and free of conjecture.106
Historical conundrum aside, several observations point to the theological impulse behind Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ genealogy in this unusual manner. First, drawing from God’s affirmation of Jesus as the divine Son, the genealogy culminates, after a string of seventy-odd names, in a crescendo to hail Jesus as “son of Adam, [who is] son of God” (3:38). Second, the parenthetical note at the beginning of the list, that Jesus was “the son (as was thought) of Joseph” (3:23), makes a distinction between the reader’s knowledge of Jesus’ divine conception and the ignorance of many in the narrative (4:22). It is as though the author was winking at his readers, saying, “That’s what people think, but you know who Jesus’ real Father is!” Third, on the human level, in spite of the many unrecognizable names in Luke’s genealogy, the naming of Abraham and David supports both Jesus’ Jewish identity and his royal pedigree (3:31, 34). Finally, by taking the names beyond Abraham all the way back to Adam (3:38), Luke situates Jesus in the family of Israel within all humanity. This speaks to Luke’s universalism, that Jesus is Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world.
78. Jer 1:1–3; Ezek 1:1–3; Mic 1:1; Hag 1:1; Zech 1:1.
79. Tiberius co-ruled with Augustus starting 11/12 CE, so John could have begun his ministry as early as 26/27 CE (Garland 2011: 151). On Tiberius, see Grant 1975: 83–107.
80. Jesus calls Herod Antipas a fox (13:32). Antipas disrespected Jewish sensitivities, built the city of Tiberius on a graveyard (Josephus Ant. 18.36–38), and installed pagan images in public places (Josephus Life 65–66).
81. On Pilate, see Philo Embassy 299–305; Josephus Ant. 18.35, 55–62, 85–89; Tacitus Ann. 15.44.
82. Cf. Isa 31:6; Jer 15:19; Ezek 14:6; 18:30.
83. See Job 20:16; Isa 14:29; 59:5.
84. Keener 2005: 6–7.
85. See Zeph 1:14–15; 2:1–2; Mal 3:2–3.
86. Cf. Ps 1:1–3; Jer 17:7–8; Luke 6:43–44.
87. The image of a tree being cut down denotes divine judgment. See Isa 10:33–34; Ezek 31:10–12; Dan 4:14.
88. E.g., Isa 58:7; Ezek 18:7; Tob 1:17. Cf. Acts 4:34–35.
89. Corbin-Reuschling 2009: 71–72.
90. Tax collectors are often mentioned together with sinners (5:27–30; 7:29, 34; 15:1; 18:10–14; 19:1–10). Next to murderers and thieves, tax collectors represent the class that all Jews, even those of low status, would write off as disgraceful, unclean, and irredeemable. See Edwards 2015: 111–12.
91. Guesses include Jewish soldiers tasked to protect tax collectors or Herod Antipas (Nolland 1989: 150; Marshall 1978: 143), or non-Jewish troops from Syria working for the Romans (Keener 2014: 188).
92. See p. 21, n. 20.
93. Deut 18:18–19 (a prophet like Moses); Mal 3:1–3; 4:5–6 (an eschatological Elijah). See Collins 2010: 128–31.
94. See p. 22.
95. Isa 32:15; 44:3; Ezek 36:27; 37:14; Joel 2:28–29.
96. Isa 1:25; Zech 13:9; Mal 3:2–3.
97. Klassen-Wiebe (1994: 398) distinguishes between John’s traditional understanding of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and fire as an event at the end of time (Isa 4:4), and Luke’s interpretation that this eschatological event has been fulfilled when the Spirit is given at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4).
98. Dunn 1972: 86.
99. Prov 20:8, 26; Isa 41:16; Jer 15:7; 51:2.
100. Webb (1991: 103–11) argues that the Greek noun ptuon refers to a winnowing shovel and not a winnowing fork (thrinax). The specific farming action in 3:17 is not winnowing (the separating of the grain from the chaff) but the clearing of the threshing floor afterwards. Even though the end result is the same,