Luke's elegant two-volume literary work, the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, is shaped, plot-wise, like a 45 degree angle. At the vertex, the point of departure, is a Jewish girl of a Jewish family, keeping the feasts, expecting the consolation of Israel. She lives within pilgrimage distance of Jerusalem, not obligated like the men to attend the thrice-yearly observances in the holy city, yet pious and devoted to the God who brought her ancestors out of Egypt. Their collective story long antedates the occupying Romans, who are but another checkmark on a long list of oppressors—at this point, anyway, no worse than Philistines or Assyrians or Babylonians.

The temple of the Jews dates back 1,000 years (as the center of righteous worship, if not the building itself), and it is this temple that marks the distance along Luke's angle-shaped story, as the one axis veers further and further from the other. By the end of the historian's tale, the temple, soon to be obliterated, has been left ...

FREE E-Newsletter Sign up for the ChristianHistory.net e-mail newsletter. Discover more about your Christian heritage with this weekly e-newsletter that features key people, topics, and events from the history of Christianity.      RSS Feed   RSS Help