Does Luke Compare to Ancient Historians? | James Morgan

In this episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, Daniel Mikkelsen is joined by James Morgan—a deacon, educator, and biblical scholar—for a wide-ranging conversation on how Luke’s Gospel and the Book of Acts compare to ancient Greek historians like Herodotus.

Drawing on years of experience teaching biblical languages across Europe and Africa, James offers a compelling case for reading Luke-Acts as part of the broader tradition of ancient historiography. Together, they explore Luke’s use of eyewitnesses, the role of divine action in historical writing, and the narrative techniques—such as structured speeches and biographical elements—that Luke shares with Greek writers of the classical world.

Whether you're new to the idea of genre in biblical literature or curious about how ancient readers understood “history,” this episode will give you a fresh perspective on the literary and theological sophistication of Luke-Acts—and why it still matters for how we read Scripture today.

📢 Don’t Miss the Next Episode:
In our next conversation, Daniel speaks with Dr Michael Dormandy about how early Christians built and transmitted “a book of books”—and what that means for our understanding of the New Testament (biblical) canon.

🎯 Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction and Opening Remarks
01:37 - Meet James Morgan: Scholar, Deacon, Global Teacher
05:42 - From Rome to Bern: A Life with Biblical Languages
09:32 - Greek Insights That Change How We Read Scripture
26:11 - Why Compare Luke-Acts with Ancient Greek Historians?
33:26 - Who Was Herodotus—and Why Does He Matter for Christians?
40:38 - Why Historical Context Helps Us Read the Bible Faithfully
43:44 - How Luke and Herodotus Both Wrote “History with Meaning”
47:11 - Eyewitness Testimony: How Ancient Historians Used It
54:13 - The Power of Speeches in Ancient History and Acts
56:27 - Is Luke’s Gospel an Ancient Biography (Bios)?
01:03:04 - Luke-Acts: Two Volumes, One Story About Jesus
01:08:04 - Does Ancient History Help Us Read the Gospels Better?
01:12:57 - What This Means for Us: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Story

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Podcast Keywords:
biblical languages, New Testament, Old Testament, Christ, bible study,  Relationship with God, learn biblical languages, Biblical Theology, Christianity, Covenants, New covenant, old covenant, language acquisition, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew.

Transcript

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The best way to understand Luke, literally, is that he's actually, he's representing those two traditions, the Jewish scriptures and also the Greek corpus. I find that fascinating because there were contours about what history writing was and what it isn't. But I think the gospels and acts can be included in classical history writing because two authors, Herodotus and Luke, and to bring them together and say, yeah, there's some similarities there and some obvious differences. They don't have the same theology, that's for sure. But their interest in the divine guiding history is there. Luke talks specifically about eyewitnesses, people who saw, who were with Jesus at the time. So that was obviously in ancient times an important source, people who actually saw the events, who took part in them. You studied the Gospel of Luke at Axe in relation to other ancient historical writers, and especially Herodotus. Why did you decide to do so? Welcome back to another episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, brought to you by NT Greek Tutoring, the place for personalized Greek learning in your spare time. I'm your host, Daniel Mikkelsen, the founder of NT Greek Tutoring and a PhD candidate at the New Testament and Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh. And this podcast exists to make gems from biblical studies accessible to everyday Christians and show how the biblical languages open up scripture. Our aim is to increase your love for God and his word so that you'll become more joyful witnesses for his mission. And... Today I'm joined by James Morgan, who is a lecturer and researcher in biblical studies at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, where he is teaching New Testament, Greek and exegesis. He specializes in the Gospel of Luke and Acts, which he has written many articles and several chapters for monographs.

He has also written the book Encountering Images of Spiritual Transformation: 1:54

The Thoroughfare Motif within the Plot of Luke-Acts He has also recently worked a lot on the Gospel of Luke in light of other ancient historians, especially Herodotus, which we'll be talking much more about further on in this episode. So if you're excited about finding out how Luke compares to other ancient historians, then stick around for that. James has also currently been working on two book projects, a publication of his rehabilitation Project and a commentary in French on the Gospel of Luke for a single volume on commentary in the New Testament. And I had the pleasure of meeting James on a couple of occasions last year, first, the annual Tyndale Fellowship Conference where he presented on the topic we will be talking about today. And then on the annual conference, British New Testament Society Conference, where he's also the co-chair of the Acts seminar. And it's a great honor and a pleasure to have you on my podcast today, James. So welcome here. you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you, Daniel. Thank you. Yeah, wonderful. And is there anything you want to add before we jump into the questions? I think something that might be interesting to your listeners is that I've been a little bit around the world. You can hear already that I have an accent that's not from the European continent. although I have Welsh roots, my family's from the United States. I grew up in the United States. But I'm in Switzerland partially, but mostly thanks to my wife, who is Swiss. And so both of us met in Italy. And that's, I'll tell you a little bit more about that, how I got started with biblical languages. So some countries that are important to us are the United States, Switzerland, Italy, and Niger, West Africa, where we served. And those two countries we served as missionary theologians. So that's, and I've basically done this kind of work teaching the Bible, New Testament, Greek, and Hebrew. in those contexts. And ironically, I have not taught Greek or Hebrew in English in my mother's language. I've always taught it in Italian or French. And once I taught Greek and German for one semester, for one year. So yeah, very much international. And I think that's what appeals to me about, first of all, Luke and Acts, but also Herodotus. Hmm. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Many different languages there as well. So. Yeah. And another thing maybe that could be interesting is that I am a deacon of the Church of England. so our church here in Bern, Bern is just that way, about 20 minutes drive from here. And we are part of the diocese in Europe of the Church of England. It's the only diocese outside of England. And so I serve as a scholar and as a deacon. and I will be priest at the beginning of July. So scholar priest after July. Yeah. And that's my calling in fact, to serve both in academia and in the church. yeah, I very much resonate with that. It's also what I feel like my calling to do a bit of both. we had a couple of Anglican ministers on the podcast in the past as well. Yeah, yeah. So, but how did you get into the study of biblical languages? So that's where Italy comes in. I arrived in Rome, I sound like Paul arriving in Rome in Acts 28. I arrived in Rome in 19, so was it 89? Yeah, it was 89. And I hadn't planned to study the biblical languages there. I was going there mainly as a part of a short-term, short-term missions project, kind of explore my calling as a missionary. And what happened was I was planning to stay there for about three to six months. I stayed two years. And during those two years, I studied both Hebrew and Greek because where I was staying, there was a local Bible school or a Bible college. And it's still there. It's called Istituto Biblico Evangelico Italiano, IBEI, and I served I also served there Let's see eight years as a teacher, but that goes more into 1998 2006 so started studying Hebrew and Greek at that time two years and One of the positive things was that I had studied three years of Latin in high school and my father was a was a Latin teacher so Having that basis really helped me, especially with Greek, because I understood the different nomenclature, the case system, various things. And so I had a certain advantage, even though I wasn't an Italian mother tongue speaker, I was able to follow the course on Greek very, very well. Hebrew presented some challenges, especially early on because it's a very different language. But once I caught up, I was doing pretty well. So that's where it started. I think from that point on, I knew that the biblical languages were going to be an important part of my life. And I even considered the idea of becoming a Bible translator, which never really happened. You could say that my life from the 90s, 1995, is when I actually started my teaching career. So it's been 30 years. In the 90s, I started teaching Greek and Hebrew regularly. I mean, that was an important part of my own contribution to the different schools where I taught. Yeah, yeah, I think that those like teaching the languages and Bible translation, they almost go hand in hand. There is, because you then see the value of it. And that probably like, segue into the next question is like how you experience to like knowing the biblical languages that open up scripture for you. Because I think that that is where it ties in. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, in fact, the teacher who taught me Greek and Hebrew was the translator of the main translator, not the only one, the main translator of a revised version of an Italian translation. And so I benefited greatly from that because he gave us examples of how translation does make a difference. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. he and his team finished that in the early 90s. It's called La Nuova Riveduta. And so it was an excellent translation. Yeah. So. Yeah, but what is your experience been with that and maybe a couple of examples of how you have seen Greek, maybe Greek in particular, but you're also welcome to give a Hebrew example if you like. Yeah, there's so many examples. And sometimes, you know, when someone asks you that, you're like, well, let me think. And then you're kind of embarrassed because you don't have anything. But these are things that happen once you've learned Greek and Hebrew well. You see them all the time. So you might not write an article on it or, you know, you might not dedicate five minutes in a sermon about it. But it's something that really just helps you to engage with scripture, I would say on a deeper level. Now, having said that, it doesn't mean that people who have a good translation or even better, plural, good translations can't study the Bible. That's wrong. But if you know, if you've got a good understanding of Hebrew and Greek, can explore things on your own and you're less dependent on commentaries. or things that people say and you're not able to check or control. So I think an example, which I think is kind of a fun example, so I try to be playful at times in my teaching too, and not just be a, because I can be a good, boring Greek teacher too, but sometimes it's good to see things which highlight the beauty of the Greek language. And I think that the New Testament authors, also enjoyed showing some of their flair. Not just showing their great ideas, but showing how they depict or to express their ideas in a way that's attractive, beautiful, literarily, and just enjoyable. So the examples that I have are taken from the letters of Paul and For those who are interested, they could go to my website and there's a specific video on this. So I'm not going to do the whole script on that, but it's about the use of a literary triad. And a triad is something that we actually see everywhere. I think in Europe and I'm pretty sure around the world, the triad is used especially in marketing. When you want to market a product, you want to show its essential qualities. how good it is, you You often choose three different characteristics of it. And I challenge your viewers to see that, have a look, because you see it on billboards, you see it on publicity. Often you have the product and then you'll have one, two, three. Even for churches, you'll often see it on church websites. And the reason for that is it's, well, first of all, it's a very old literary device. And one example is Vitruvius, who was an architect. He described the objectives of architecture as solidity, utility, and beauty. So that's something from ancient times. And the three examples that I have, I've chosen three because I have to use three and not four. The first one, would be in Galatians chapter five, verses 22 to 23. And what we find there is the fruit of the spirit. Those of you who are listening might know that passage well where Paul follows a list of the works of the flesh. So he gives several examples of the works of the flesh. And then he follows that list – those are things that you should not do – by things that are characterized by the work of the spirit and the believer, so the fruit of the spirit. And what we find there is a group of three, of three things. So I'll read it in English first and maybe we can listen to it in Greek as well. So he says, but this is the fruit of the spirit. And the first group is love, joy, peace. Second group, patience, kindness, benevolence. The third group, faithful, sorry, faith or faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things, there is no law. So in Greek it reads like this. I'll just read it quickly. Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 and 23. ὁ δὲ καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἀγάπη χαρὰ εἰρήνη, μακροθυμία χρηστότης ἀγαθωσύνη, πίστις πραΰτης ἐγκράτεια· κατὰ τῶν τοιούτων οὐκ ἔστιν νόμος. So one of the things if someone wants to look in the Nestle Aland 28th edition, you actually find commas after each group. So the first comma comes after Eirene. And then there's another comma after Agathousune. And then you have Pistis Praeutes in Cratea. And then you have a point at the top there that shows a slight pause or a break. And what I think is interesting is that in the original text, we didn't have commas, most likely. And so it seems like at some point in the history of the text, someone put those commas. And I think it's to show us that those are triads. They belong to each other, those three there. And one of the things also about The benefits of knowing Greek and also using the Nestle Aland or another critical addition is that you can check textual variante. And there is a variant that's very interesting, which comes at the very last part of the last triad, which follows Encrathia. You see a T, a raised T at the top, which signals in the Nestle Aland edition. it's a, sorry, French is coming to mind. an addition, something that has been added to the text. And the word is ἁγνεία (hagnēya), ἁγνεία (hagnēya), which means something like moral purity or chastity. Well, the funny thing about that is if you add ἁγνεία (hagnēya) to the third group, well, you don't have a triad anymore. somehow it raises the question of Did someone want to bring in ἁγνεία to kind of insist on the moral importance of the gospel, you know, to kind of, I think it's not an important textual variant, but it does disturb the sequence of the third triad there. So what is the importance of this? Obviously, if you know about triads, then you can see this in your English translation or another language if they're represented that way. But they probably should be represented graphically to show first triad, second triad, third triad. And it might have been written down like that in Greek, maybe. It's a conjecture, of course. But what I like about this is that as most triads do, it really zooms in to the very kind of essential characteristics of the fruit of the spirit. It doesn't mean that other things that are not in the list here are not important. For example, you don't see the word grace, which is curious. You have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, benevolence, faith, gentleness, self-control, but some other characteristics or qualities you don't find. But I think the great thing about a literary triad is it really helps you to focus on what the author considers essential. Yeah. And the other two examples I can give briefly without going into it, you know, in depth, 2 Corinthians 13 13, which a lot of you know, you have three groups. And so one is the Lord Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. So God the Father being the second element. But what's interesting is that Paul chooses three attributes or qualities that go with each of the members of the Trinity. So may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. So there you have a triad of three qualities, grace, love, and fellowship. And each one corresponds to one of the members of the Godhead. Grace being χάρις (charis), the love or charity, is ἀγάπη (agape), and then κοινωνία(koinonia), the fellowship. So there again, it raises the question, why did Paul choose those particular qualities for those, for Jesus, the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit? So I think those are, they just raise questions. The third example is 1 Corinthians 13.13. which I would call the triad of the Christian life. And there in the Greek text, I can read that quickly. Νυνὶ δὲ μένει That's the first triad. πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη. Second triad. τὰ τρία ταῦτα· Third triad. μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη. So I'll read it in English now. Now therefore these three things abide. Faith, hope, love. But the greatest of these things is love. So in the Greek text, you have three groups of three words. And then you have the of like the punchline at the end where Paul says, now, okay, if we have to really choose between the three, it's this one, it's agape, you know? So I think that's an interesting thing. He's trying to kind of boil down to the bare essentials what the Christian life is. And he gives pistis, elpis. and agape. I mean, if we had to choose other characteristics, maybe we'd choose other ones, but he, at that time, he felt that those were the most essential things to write. so. And there again, yeah, sorry, just gonna say, and there again, you can also, in a Bible translation, you could represent that graphically so that it kind of stands out better. And also in a translation, you might not be able to to do this, you know, nuni de me ne, you might need more words to represent that, you know, which is the case here. Yeah. That one's difficult to present at least in English with three words. Yeah. I just wanted to circle back to the first example and how you look at the triads here because. So what do you think that. these each these triads is trying to communicate like with the different like characteristics that they are that are highlighted in each triad. Yeah, that's a great question. Love, joy, and peace. Now, I know that there's a lot of work on this. So I'm not a Pauline scholar. I've written a little bit about it, but I've never published on this except for my video and also my teaching. But I think when we look at love, joy, and peace, it could be things that we maybe It's what the Holy Spirit produces in us and perhaps what we experience more internally. Love, joy and peace. It's not necessarily feelings, it's things that we have experienced with God on a personal level. I don't want to make this strictly a personal, you know, it's just me and God type thing. It could be that this is about how we experience God collectively as a church, as a body of Christ. or even within a close relationship like husband and wife or a family. Is there love, joy and peace? The second group, patience, kindness, benevolence. There, I think it's pretty clear that it's the Holy Spirit working through you to have an effect on others. Do you show patience? Do you show kindness and benevolence? How is the Holy Spirit working in you to develop those qualities? most Christian readers or non-Christian readers, they can look at this list and say, well, I've got some progress to make here. I haven't got it all worked out. So I think it's good to look at this list occasionally. Patience, everybody struggles with patience sooner or later. So the third group, faith. So I mentioned briefly in my translation that Pistis could be faith or faithfulness. So faith could be, you know, how, you know, how the Holy Spirit is helping me to have greater confidence in God, or it could be the Holy Spirit working in me to be more faithful in my walk with Christ. That could be because Pistis is used in both ways. But placing it next to gentleness and self-control, It could be that might boost, know, push it on to the other side where it's actually how the Holy Spirit is producing faithfulness within me. And then gentleness and self-control, think it's kind of qualities that God is growing in us. And the one, know, self-control, mean, enkratia is the word in Greek. I mean, that is something that has to speak to any generation. How are you growing in the area of self-control? Because people don't like that. We kind of resist it. Don't tell me what to do. Self-control is learning to. to be wise, really. Things that you know are good for you, you should do those things. The things that are not good for you or for others, you should not do them. And that's where self-control comes in. It's being, yeah. So it's a very challenging list. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, yeah, especially parts of Western culture in particular, can mostly speak of that because that's where I grew up and where I live is really like that, especially the hedonistic characteristics of our culture. like seeking pleasure is actually the opposite of this. Yeah. Well, you could also say, OK, seeking pleasure in what ways? And you could say, well, I mean, is that something, is that a good source of pleasure for me? Is it helpful to me? Is it helpful to others? But I understand exactly what you're saying. It's kind of like, no limits. Whatever you like to do, go for it. And, Yeah. Unfortunately, sooner or later you find out that that's just not a good philosophy usually. Because it's a selfish, in the end it's typically a selfish way of living where it of just spins around you. yeah, sooner or later, it affects the relationships you have. And if you believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in you, like, Paul is especially the one who teaches us that. You as a believer, you will feel the uncomfort, I think, that the Holy Spirit is not, there isn't a pleasure there. There's conviction. So, that speaks to me in that way. definitely. And, you know, we could go into long exegesis of the remaining parts of actually Galatians in this, I think that's what this actually talks about. At least one side of it. But maybe we should actually move to talk a little bit about, as I mentioned earlier, you studied the Gospel of Luke and Acts in relation to... other ancient historian, historical writers, and especially Herodotus. And why did you decide to do so? Yeah, so. It's a part of my journey... as a teacher and an exegete theologian. When I started working on my dissertation, I had actually had more experience in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. And there are advantages and disadvantages to that because my first master's degree was in the area of Old Testament. And I started doing more teaching. in the Old Testament, and then gradually I started doing more teaching in the New Testament. So I had a lot of knowledge coming from the Jewish scriptures, and then some understanding of Second Temple literature, but not a whole lot at that point. So when I came to the New Testament, mean, you could say that the New Testament are Jewish writings. I mean, if you look at it, most of the writers were from the Jewish people. We don't know exactly. who Luke was. We have an idea who he might have been, he might have been Jewish, but most people say he was probably Greek, but we don't know. But most of the authors in the New Testament were from the Jewish people. And so the New Testament writings are so full of motifs and themes and just knowledge of the story of Israel. It wasn't hard for me to start to see things, know, patterns in Luke and Acts, you things that a lot of people had already seen, right? So in my, I'll just mention my dissertation here at this point. We can look at it later if we want. That's the cover. And what I noticed there was the use of expressions indicating paths, ways, streets, ways, yeah, things that can be under the semantic family or group called thoroughfares, right? And I thought, well, that's definitely Jewish. But as I started looking at some other writings outside of the Bible, I started to see that these are... actually expressions that are, these are words that are used very often in other metaphors. And so when you, know, in Greek, the main word that is used in Luke and Acts is ὁδός(hodos), right? ἡ ὁδός the way, or the path, depends on how you translate it. And from that word, we also have esodos and exodos, you know? So entry and exit or departure. And so I started to look at how those were used in other texts and I found that there was a lot going on there. And I think what happened at a certain point in my studies was that I started to understand Luke not only as someone who was trying to connect with the Jewish scriptures, but also because of his background. Whether he was Jewish or not Jewish, he learned Greek studying and writing texts from the Greek corpus, so the Greek literature from Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Plato, et cetera, Sophocles, Euripides. He was just familiar with that. That was his literary milieu. So I think... The best way to understand Luke, literarily, is that he's actually representing in those two traditions, the Jewish scriptures and also the Greek corpus, the Greek literature corpus, which is vast. And I find that fascinating because... the Jewish people was not a, as far as population goes, it was not a huge people. Hmm. Yep. a lot of texts and they conserved them. They kept them. They preserved them from, know. And the Greeks also just produced an incredible amount of literature, most of which is lost, unfortunately. So I think that's very interesting that Luke really is, you can connect him to both traditions. And he doesn't seem to have any complex about that. And I think he does this because he knows Greek so well. And he's writing to an audience that knows Greek well, but they can also just understand it, even though they may not be intellectuals. Anybody who can listen to it can enjoy the story. And I think that's one of the strengths of Luke is that he knows how to write an enjoyable story, and not just a deep story, something about that's very important to him. But he can also do it in a way that's captivating and and just enjoyable. So I think that's really what drew me initially to exploring the Greek part, not just the Jewish part. Very interesting journey and a way into that. I've been reading Luke, sort of my quiet time recently, he does use very different, like, the way he writes is if there's quite some unusual terms that you don't find in the other gospels. And what I'm more familiar with is Paul and his Greek. it's not the same kind of way of writing, although it's technically Koine Greek, both of it. all of it is Koine Greek, but it's just very different. And his literary style is definitely. most hapax legomenon in the New Testament. It shows, you know, they had a great grasp of the Greek language. You may not put him at the same level as Plutarch or someone else, but his writings are evidence of someone who arrived at a certain level of his studies. and it was able to write these two volumes. Maybe with the help of someone else too, because we know that writing in antiquity was often a collective effort. But I mean, the personality behind Luke and Acts is someone who's intriguing, mean, very bright and perceptive and just enjoyable to read. Yeah, definitely, Yeah. the Gospel of Luke, if you look at the things that you only find in the Gospel of Luke and not in Mark or Matthew, they're beautiful. The first two chapters of Luke are only found in Luke. The Emmaus Road episode is beautiful. The Prodigal Son, for example, things like that, parables you only find in Luke. They're really exceptional. Yes, very much. Maybe just for people who are not familiar with Greek historical writing, particular, Herodotus and his writings, can you sort of give a brief overview, I think we could talk a lot about it, but just a brief overview about who he was and what he wrote and why he is important, and also as a comparison to Luke. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt the episode, but if you're enjoying the content, please consider subscribing and leaving a like. It really helps the algorithm and helps the podcast grow. Thank you for your support and now back to the episode. for people who are not familiar with Greek historical writing, particular, Herodotus and his writings, can you sort of give a brief overview, about who he was and what he wrote and why he is important, and also as a comparison to Luke. Yeah. So going back to kind of my own intellectual journey, what I decided to do, it was after meeting, actually reading, John Moles, if someone was interested in John Moles, M-O-L-E-S. He was a classicist at Newcastle University, one of the founders of Histos Online, which is a wonderful website for classical studies. And John started to publish on things of the New Testament as a classicist. I fortunately, I was able when I came to, when we came back to Switzerland in 2012, I started to pick up these things that he been writing. And I contacted him in 2012, 2013. And I was just captivated by his, his perception, mean, the depth that he brought in understanding Luke and Acts especially. And so when I kind of caught that, I said, okay, to understand Herodotus, who is considered the father of Greek history writing, the thing is you can't understand Herodotus well unless you go back to Homer and Hesiod and also read the especially the tragedians, so Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. So I started to read all those works, you know, to understand what Herodotus' literary milieu was, the influences on him. And then I started to read Herodotus all the way down. Herodotus, Lucidides, Xenophon, all the way down to the second part of the first century in which Luke wrote his writings. So Herodotus, I had to, in order to understand him, needed to read the things that were contemporary to his period, but also the things that went before him. But Herodotus is especially, I think, especially interesting, not only because he's kind of considered the first real historian of Greece, or the Hellenes, the Greeks those times, because there are city-states in those times, is that he writes about human history. So we're talking about the fifth century before Christ. So he was born around 485 and died around 425, maybe even 415. And what was important about the fifth century was that there were two major wars. One was the Greco-Persian Wars. So the Greeks against this huge Persian empire. And the Greeks actually were able to push back the Persians. And that's what Herodotus wrote about. So in describing that history of this amazing victory against this crushing empire was that he includes perceptions of the divine. So they're either his perceptions or perceptions of the divine of his characters, the people that he describes. So they might be things that they considered what the gods did or that the gods said through an oracle or through signs, through various ways that the gods communicate to people. And Herodotus brings that in pretty consistently throughout the nine volumes of his work. And others have done this, but I've done it too in my habilitation work is to connect those things to see, there's actually a thread going here. from beginning to end so that you can see how he seems to understand that the gods were involved in bringing history, making it happen in this way, in the way it did, and helping the Greeks push back the Persians. So that's what Herodotus did. And my argument in my work here is that from Herodotus all the way to Luke, this interest in divine activity, whether by deeds, divine works, divine interventions, or by divine communication, all of the historians in between Herodotus and Luke had some interest in that. So I'm not saying that everybody in between wrote with that so much interest as Herodotus and Luke, but you can see how there is a consistent bringing the gods or the divine into describing human history. And that might not sound too radical to us, might not sound surprising, but one of the things that happened in history not so long ago is that history, the studies of history and the studies of theology, they kind of went in... different ways, you know? And so the historians would say, well, whatever has to do with the divine or gods, that's for the theologians. We don't do that. so what has happened is there's kind of like a cleavage between the two so that they're not working together as much as they used to in the past. And I think that's unfortunate because if we look at the world, the context that all the historians wrote in, there was, you you don't You don't really, I know that some people say that they were atheists of those times, but not in the modern sense. It was just expected that there was some kind of divine influence that there's something greater that was guiding human history. So that's what I'm working, I worked on in my habilitation and I hope to publish it this year. And my intention is to bring historians and biblical scholars together to consider two authors, Herodotus and Luke, and to bring them together and say, yeah, there's some similarities there and some obvious differences. They don't have the same theology, that's for sure. But their interest in the divine guiding history is there. yeah, I think that's what I would say about Herodotus. And the ones that followed him were Thucydides and Xenophon. Those were the two who came directly after him. Thucydides wrote about the Peloponnesian War, so the great war between Athens and Sparta and their allies. It was a terrible war because it was between fellow Greeks. And then Xenophon finished the work that Thucydides was not able to accomplish for some reason. He might have died. So those are the three great historians of the Classical period. Hmm. Yeah, that's helpful. Sort of like giving an overview and understanding what's going on in that period, because most people have not read those works. They might be familiar with the works. But although they are great works in many respects, it's not something we read so much. Unfortunately, of course, it's more important to read the Bible than to read these things and compare them. I think that there are... There are lots of things to be said and learned from how things were. I've been working on resurrection and tracking that in Greco, or in Greek mythology. And that also comes up in Herodotus as well, because he alludes to that all the time. Yeah, yeah, and I think that it really pays off if you take time. I mean, you can you can take Herodotus on, know, and read him while you're on the beach somewhere, you know, or, you know, it's not that I think it's it's really worth it's not reading that instead of the Bible. It's really just, you know, getting an understanding that history writing had been going on for a long time, you know, among the Greeks and also among the the Jews. And so it really adds another depth to your studies, your understanding that certain things were already being talked about, you know. And so I think for one example, I'll just raise this here is, why is it that history writing among the Greeks seems to always focus on some kind of conflict, you know, some kind of military political conflict? especially wars and everything. then, so you say, okay, well, it makes sense because those are the things that really were worth writing about, you know. Of course, they wrote about, they also wrote some biographies that came later on in Greek history writing. But when you look at the gospels, what's interesting to me is that they are also, all four of them, really highlight the conflicts that Jesus had. Even though all four of the gospel writers know that Jesus is victorious at the end, they still represent, they tell the story with this tension that Jesus is going to be challenged by the devil. He's going to be challenged by Jewish religious leaders, going to be challenged by Roman leaders. So there's... There's something there that history writing is kind of done like this. And there was kind of like this expectation that it was an enjoyable story. And to see who was the victor, I guess that's something that everybody wants to know. Who won in this battle and why? So I think that helps to put some perspective in. Because we assume that all the Gospels, all four Gospels had to be written like this, but maybe they didn't. Maybe someone could have said, hey, we can write this as a happy story from beginning to end. So yeah, interesting. that's interesting. So that ties into the question. that's one of the things we can learn from comparing. Is there other things that we can learn from like comparing Luke in particular and Herodotus' histories? Hmm. So I think some comparisons. One of the things with Herodotus in particular, and not just his successors, is that he really has an intense interest in the different peoples. he's obviously, he grew up in Halicarnassus, which is modern day Turkey. Bodrum is the city today. And it's on the... that's on the west coast of Turkey. And he grew up in that, on that area where the Greek colonies were. And at some point it seems that he and his family had to leave, probably because the Persians were coming. And he just has an, and he starts to travel and we don't know exact, the exact stages. But it seems that he just traveled and he noted down things. And in the way he tells his story about the Greco-Persian wars was that as he does that, not every point, but when he mentions a particular people, he starts to talk about their history, where they came from, what are they like and everything. So he has an intense interest in and the way people's developed, you know. I don't use the word nations because it's, you know, a little bit anachronistic, but he's interested in their politics. He's interested in, you know, their culture. So you could almost say that Herodotus produces, you know, one of the first ethnographic studies, along with telling about the Greco-Persian Wars. So I think his interest in all these peoples, and I think that's a very interesting parallel with Luke and Acts because from the first chapters of the Gospel of Luke, we see that Luke has an intense interest in telling Theophilos and those, the readers like Theophilos that Jesus did not come to be the savior only of Israel, but also of the other peoples. and you see that, you the trajectory is from Jerusalem. to Rome. And I think if Herodotus had lived in Luke's times, he probably would have liked that. He might not have liked that Luke is telling a story of a savior from the Jews. I don't know. But the fact that he has this interest, which is so broad and concerns so many different peoples, and Luke goes, he shows how Paul goes into these different regions, announces the gospel. and communities start to develop. And I think that's an interesting parallel. They both had very, big perspectives geographically and culturally. And pretty accurate in what they depicted as well. So in the beginning of Luke's Gospel, he lays down how he has got hold of the sources he's been writing. His sources, how he got the Gospel and how does that laying out saying, I got the sources, I'm meticulous about this. How that compared to how ancient historians brought those things down. Right, so one of the interesting, another parallel, but we don't have to go into depth on this, is if you compare the preface of the Gospel, so the very first four verses, it's actually one paragraph in Greek, and in most translations, I think it's also just one paragraph. It's very long. If we look at the beginning of Herodotus' histories. It's also very short and it's 39 words, whereas Luke's preface is 41 words. And those can be compared, and I do that in my work here. Neither one says God or the gods specifically, but one of the things that they highlight is the great things, the great and marvelous works Herodotus says. And Luke also says in his first, the first lines, he says, since many have set their hand to compile an account concerning the events that have taken place or accomplished among us. So they're focusing on things that are worth exploring. And I think that's an interesting parallel there. Luke talks specifically about eyewitnesses, right? So he talks about, as the eyewitnesses from the beginning who also became servants of the word handed down or transmitted to us. So there he is focusing on something that was very important, people who saw, who were with Jesus at the time. So that was obviously in ancient times an important source, people who actually saw the events, who took part in them. As you can imagine, it was not always easy for a historian to interview people, especially if Herodotus was probably writing in maybe the 430s about a war that had already been finished for 40 years. So it wasn't impossible that he could have interviewed some people who had actually taken part in the Greco-Persian Wars. But he also could have received things. through hearsay, things that were passed down verbally, orally, and he received those. And he did interviews with people. For example, when we think he went to Egypt, has the book two of Herodotus is entirely focused on Egypt. And the way he presents it, it sounds like he's doing, basing the account on interviews with, especially with priests who were the, know, the of the historians of this. They were the ones who kept chronicles. So that's very interesting. So you have eyewitnesses and people who have heard things and passed down. And then you also have inscriptions. You have monuments that were still around. You know, if you could go visit the places where major battles took place. or to go to sanctuaries, oracles, like Delphi, because very often in the oracle centers, they not only kept a lot of things that were given as ex voda offerings, things to thank the gods for a victory or some other, something that happened to them in response to their prayers. So there were different ways that they could compile their histories. I think it's mind-blowing how these historians did their work. It really is amazing. Just one thing that might interest some is that Thucydides is one of the first to say now about speeches, specifically speeches in history writing. So how do you know what Someone said in a speech if you were not there So you might have a written source somehow if you're lucky, you know, like a court Recording or proceeding that was really hard to get you know Even impossible in certain cases or you might be able to do an interview with someone say, okay that guy was there Tell me what he said If you didn't have that with Thucydides says I know approximately what they said given the context, given the people that I know, he composed speeches based on what he probably said. so that raises the question about the things that we have in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles where we find speeches, either, for example, in the first two chapters, you have the prayer of Zechariah, the prayer of Mary, what Simeon says to Mary and Joseph. And then you have Jesus teachings and then the Acts of the Apostles you have some speeches Peter Stephen Paul Barnabas and so you Historiographically you could yeah, you should ask. Well, what were his sources? How did he get those things? How did he know exactly what Mary said when she prayed, you know when it was the angel who came to her and she responded in that way and prayed so responded and then responded by that prayer. So those are things that are interesting. How much freedom did the evangelists have in composing the speeches that we have? I mean one thing is for sure, most likely in the Acts of the Apostles, we don't have the full text. When Paul speaks before Festus or Felix, And the longest speech that we have in Acts is actually the speech of Stephen. So I mean, it was probably longer. so I think that helps us if we study the gospels and the Acts of the apostles in light of history writing, it was acceptable to do that kind of thing. know, say, OK, these are the things that were probably said. But we don't want to exclude, you know, for Luke, Matthew, Mark, and John. they may have had their sources either written or verbal or oral sources. So yeah, I think that's an interesting thread to follow in history writing. it's very fascinating. Yeah, possibly even might have interviewed people that have been there or some of the people that have have longer speeches from. They might have talked to them. Maybe not so much Zachariah because he might have passed away by the time. But maybe people who heard him say it. Sure, yeah. So there a lot of things like that, questions that are raised. And one of the importance of speeches in history writing cannot be underestimated. It shouldn't be underestimated because historians often will break the narration of a narrative and bring in some kind of conversation. might be between two individuals, or they might be a debate, a political debate, maybe discussing, what should we do? How should we react to this situation? Should we go into war? Should we go face the Persians as Greeks? There's a famous scene in that, Herodotus. So these are really, important. They show the importance of the influence of rhetoric. writing discourses, writing speeches was so important in antiquity that we see that it has a huge influence on historians. And I think they show their flair that they're able to produce speeches that are engaging. So, yeah. like see, Josephus have some quite long ones. Exactly, yeah. Because sometimes we forget historians have made their choices. They could represent a speech in one or two sentences. Said, is more or less what he said. But what they do is they kind of stage it. They actually give the word to someone. They say, OK, now you can imagine a scene on the stage where they say, OK, now, Peter, you're going to talk. These are things that we forget because we take them for granted. We just assume, that's the way, you know, but historians made choices just like anyone who writes a story. You can either tell it, describe it briefly or you can make it quite long. those are important choices, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. And there may be also in terms of like the gospels are often compared to the bio or bios-genre, although they don't necessarily completely fit into that category. And how would you say that the Luke's writings fit into this type of literature that was used by other ancient historians? And maybe also sort of a more other question like tipped in with that is that Is it actually useful to compare or put Luke's writings into this category? Yeah, so we know that there were history writings that focused on individuals. So they're often called bioi or bios. They are lives of certain individuals. One of the most important works was Plutarch's Lives, where he compared two individuals, one from the Greeks and one from the Romans. And he composed that to make a comparison. And so you have this focus on individuals. And there were different ways of doing that. So one of the questions that is being debated, and I can't consider myself a specialist in this area. So you might want to interview someone who has a better grasp on that, is that The difference between a major work like Herodotus' histories or Thucydides' histories is that they're focusing on much a broader scale involving people, a people, and other peoples. But biography focuses typically on one individual and how he or, it's usually not she, I was about to say he or she, but normally it's on a male who had an impact on his. For example, a philosopher who had an impact on his followers, his disciples, his students. You find that. And the difference is, if you think in terms of modern categories, that's where we often get, it becomes a problem. say, well, biography should be like this, and therefore it should be like this in the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of Matthew or the Gospel of any of the Gospels. Hmm. we see that it's not like that. They're very focused on the main events that characterize Jesus, who he was and what he taught. And the idea is to really show how great he was. mean, that's it. So some people have compared it to an encomium. In other words, it's way of exalting someone through a speech. That's an interesting thing. But they don't really go into like, well, what was Nazareth like? And then you go into explore the geography and the population and the sociohistorical. The gospel writers are generally not too interested in that. So that's a big difference when you think of in terms of what we think biographies should be and what the gospel writers thought. So there is a definite focus on the individual. who is Jesus and his impact on his followers. But they tend to not go into great depth in exploring the context. Could even Jerusalem, for example. You just don't get that. Whereas you find that in Josephus when he's talking about the geography of Galilea, things like that. The gospel writers are just kind of much more focused on the person. what he said and what he did. So can you consider that a bios in ancient terms? I think there's enough overlap to say yes, but there are obvious differences. So now when you move to the second volume of what I consider the second volume of Luke's work, because I talked about Luke and Acts together. Some people don't like that because there's a difference. And the first volume focuses on Jesus. The second volume seems to focus on his followers, which is very much true. The thing is, Jesus doesn't disappear in the second volume. so that's a point where you say, maybe if, and that's where, for me, narratology helps a lot, is that if you put the two volumes together, which seems to me, what Luke wants to do is that in the end, you have to ask from a narratological perspective, who is the hero? About whom is the story about? About whom is it, how is it being developed? in my dissertation, I argue that pretty extensively where I say, in the end, it's still Jesus in the second volume. because as much as we might say Paul is the protagonist of the second volume, he is on a certain level, but in the end, it's not really about him. It's more about how the word, the message about Jesus arrives in Rome. So if you take, for example, the resurrection, the ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit out of the thing, out of the three, then it breaks down. Without those three events, you don't have Luke and Acts together. And I think Luke has connected them that way. So the resurrection, as you're studying, is the focus on Luke's side, on Gospel Luke. And then you have the ascension that connects the two. And then you have the descent of the Holy Spirit, which was promised, we read in Luke chapter three, John the Baptist says, and he will baptize you in the fire and the spirit. Is that the right words? I'm paraphrasing here. And so there you say, oh, OK, it hasn't come yet in the gospel of Luke, but it does come in Acts. And so it's really Jesus who is baptizing through the Holy Spirit. So that's one way of exploring it. I'm not saying it's the only way, of course. But I think. I think it is interesting to see that Jesus does not disappear in the second volume. In fact, he appears periodically. And the story is about him. So it's not a bios in the second volume in that sense, but it's still about him. it doesn't map on nice and tightly to the genre of bios But on the other hand, one of the things that I've learned, I'm just going to show you a few volumes that I find really helpful. And your viewers might find it. One author that I really like is John Marincola. I mentioned John Moles. John Marincola wrote this volume. And it's called On Writing History from Herodotus to Herodion. And there you have excerpts of most of most of the historians. He doesn't have Luke. I hope he does that in his next edition. And then this one, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography, also by John Marincola. And what he shows in this work and in other works that he's written, he's one of the great teachers of ancient history writing, right? So he shows, like others do, that there were not just clear This was the only way to write history. There were contours about what history writing was and what it isn't. But I think the gospels and acts can be included in classical history writing. So that's my opinion. Because... there wasn't just one way of writing. There wasn't a school of history writing. Hmm, yeah, it's not quite as narrow-focused as we think in our modern days. And that's the problem when we say, are the gospels history, history writing? And often we are saying, okay, history writing in these days and our times is this. Therefore the gospels should be this. Well, what if history writers of those times didn't think that way? And there was much broader way of writing history according to their own interests and the interests of their readers. And there's no reason to say that those were not works of history. Now, you might say, OK, well, I agree with you on that. But how do you know that the resurrection of Jesus was historical? Well, there you go. I mean, you can raise that question on millions of things that are reported by the historians. Of course, the resurrection is special. you try to understand, OK, how do they perceive it? How do they describe it? And is it plausible? You can't prove something 100 % to satisfy everybody's wishes that something was historical or not. So that's one of the challenges, obviously. it is Peter Williams, who have formulated this way in once in the debate with Bart Ehrman, actually, where he said that I'm not trying to prove this as like, as a history department would like, say this is historical proof, but I'm trying to argue that is this reasonable to believe in? And which he says, think that it is and he's like the demonstrating argument for it and evidence for that. is reasonable to believe the Gospels depiction of history? Yeah, and common ground that you can have with historians who might not share your beliefs is they generally agree. Now, there some who are still kind of radical about this. They will say, well, we recognize that there was a group of people who believed in this and believed in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And they started to preach it. And they started to form communities called Jesus Followers. That's common ground that you can work on because you have enough information not only in the Gospels and the Acts, but also in other documents to show this expansion of Christ Jesus communities. That's where you can work together on things. Now, one side believes, the other side does not believe, but you can still work with the idea that something happened and what explains that. I like Larry Hurtado's work. Really, I found very interesting when I read it back in the early 2000s. I thought that was very interesting just to, how do you explain the great, the wide expansion in such a short amount of time of these Christ communities, know, this messianic movement that was going on, something, you know, what is it, what are the reasons, you know? And some people say, well, they're socioeconomic. The Jesus movement spoke to people of different classes, and they were able to break those barriers and come together and worship Jesus together. But something happened to cause these people like Paul and Peter and the others to go into other regions to talk about this person. I think. That allows us to work together with historians of different faiths or who don't have faith at all. Yeah. I think two more questions. it's, looking at Luke in relation to ancient history helps us see his message about Jesus more clearly? I think I'll pick up some of the threads that I threw out there. The way history writing was done was definitely focused on things that happened, right? And if you read Aristotle's book, which is called The Poetics, it's a very short, I recommend that reading. anybody. It's called the poetics, know, la poétique in French. And what he says there, he says writers of basically theater, theatrical productions, so tragedies or comedies, those are things that could happen, but history writing is about things that did happen. So that's kind of the, he says that, so this is, you know, fourth century before Christ. The difference is this. So history writing is about things that people perceived and from their perspective, their view, these things happened. And they try to show it. And they try to show proofs, give examples or evidence of how they believe that these things happened. And I read from the preface of Luke's gospel, the very opening lines, he says, since many have set their hand to compile an account, concerning the events. So in Greek it says, Ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν, διήγησιν being the account, concerning περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων, so the things that were done, the deeds, the works. think that's the kind of, you know, history writing needs to be focused on that. They're not typically philosophical writings, a treaty on a certain subject. And that's where you could see, OK, we see a difference between history writing and also tragedies. Now, tragedies, like literature today, fictional literature today, they often have things that actually happened. But history writing should be generally focused on the things that are perceived to have happened. And you build. you know, from beginning to end. And the Gospels and the Acts, that's from their perspective. For them, these things are real, they happened. And so I think that's the main, probably the main thing that draws, that links, helps us to link the Gospels and the Acts to ancient Greek and Roman history writing, is that they're focusing on the deeds, the works. things that happened, occurrences. Now you might say, don't agree with that. I don't believe that. Well, that's their perspective, not yours. And then you might share it as you start to study the gospels. But I think that's very helpful because we know that there are other literary genres began to develop also from the fifth century, philosophical and even treaties on specific interests, for example, medicine, certain practices, certain fields of study. And so when you read those types of genre, you see very clearly, okay, this is not history writing. You might have excerpts that reflect history writing, but that's not what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. this in the New Testament when you read Revelation, that even if you're a beginning reader, it's like, wait a second. I read the Gospel of Mark. I read Paul's letter to the Ephesians. This is different. So you've got those three main genre in the New Testament, Gospel, Acts, so history writing, if you want to call it that, narratives. And then you've got the letters. And then you've got the revelation, which apocalyptic literature. Or even the letter of Hebrews, I say that to my students. Maybe this is something different. Maybe this is actually a sermon that's put in within literary, how do you say that, epistolatory writings, epistolatory writings, sorry, conventions. the beginning and then the end. But it reads very much like a sermon. It's an amazing sermon. Can you imagine putting that together for a Sunday morning? So what I'm saying is that genres existed for a long time. They had existed a long time before the gospel writers put their pens to paper. That's a very helpful way of looking at this. But we might want to ask you how can we then apply these things we've been talking about. I think we could have been talking a lot more about this. I think it's very fascinating and there's more to be talked about this because I think that there's so much to learn from doing this kind of study and comparison. But... How can we apply this to each of the listeners or viewers of this podcast? How can they apply our conversation today to the everyday walk with Christ? Yeah, I mean, there's so many ways you could answer this question, but I think I'll suggest two, and I might come up with three, but two, one is for Christian living, obviously engaging with scriptures is so important. And fortunately in our times, we have access to scriptures through so many different means, including our iPhones and whatever. But the tip, that I would give, advice that I would give to any reader is to read a writing. Choose one of the texts in the New Testament and read it from beginning to end. So you could choose the gospel mark. It's the shortest of the gospels. Read it from beginning to end. Try to avoid jumping from one text to another. You can do that. Obviously, we all do it. You're reading a passage and then you say, that makes me think of this passage. And then you go, and that's fine. You're connecting texts. But when we read texts, whether they're ancient or contemporary, we really need to understand the big picture before we study individual passages. I think that's really important. So to read, and so for those of us who love Luke and Acts, put the two together. Read the Gospel of Luke. then read the Acts of the Apostles. Put down some notes, even just a few paragraphs, and see the connections that Luke is making there. I think that's huge. And I'll just segue in from that by saying that we're invited to not only to explore the story of those times, but also how we fit in the big picture. How was this ancient text? the gospel Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, inviting me to put into practice certain values that are coming through the texts, certain practices. Luke is one who talks about the breaking of bread. Early on, the disciples in Jerusalem, they met together and they were meeting to pray, to listen. to teaching and to break bread together, which is, we think, the communion, or agapes, the, you know, to eat together, to have communion. And I think, I mean, probably any Christian community should have those elements, know, element of teaching and preaching, an element of fellowship and the breaking of bread, the communion. Our church in Byrne, we have communion every Sunday. Some people don't feel comfortable having it that often, but I find it very enriching that we come back every Sunday, we come back to the gospel story and we're invited to enter into that story. And as we come to the table to receive the body and blood of Christ symbolically, we were reminded of what he's done for us. And I think just placing ourselves within that bigger frame, historical framework, and that Christ's presence is still with us, and not only on Sundays, of course. I think those are the two things that I would like to pass on that have struck me. Yeah, that's very, very helpful and I think that's a good challenge to us as readers and to read and to remember the fellowship with Christ and with each other when we meet together for corporate service. Thank you for this wonderful discussion and God bless you. pleasure. Thanks for inviting me Daniel. You're welcome. Thank you. But before you go, if you enjoyed this podcast and you want more people to see it, please subscribe and leave a like. It really helps us create more episodes like this one. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day and I'll see you in the next one.