Abraham, Ancestry, and Ethnicity in Luke's Gospel - by Andrew Benko (Hardcover)

About the Book

Abraham, Ancestry, and Ethnicity in Luke's Gospel: From These Stones explores how Luke employs ancestry-especially descent from Abraham-to recategorize believers and nonbelievers. Capitalizing on the surprising slipperiness of race antiquity, Luke offers a new layer of ethnic identity to gentile believers, as Abraham's extended family.

Book Synopsis

What happens to the racial identity of those who follow Jesus? Abraham, Ancestry, and Ethnicity in Luke's Gospel: From These Stones explores how Luke employs the concept of ancestry--especially descent from Abraham--to recategorize believers and nonbelievers. Luke's use of the patriarch is informed by his function in Second Temple literature, as the ancestor of the Israel, but also the father of several other races, and a point of surprising contact between Jews and gentiles. In his gospel, Luke offers a new layer of ethnic identity to gentile believers, as adjunct members of Abraham's family tree.

Review Quotes

"In this richly detailed, elegantly written, and thoughtful book, Andrew Benko explores Luke's "racial reasoning" using an "ethnos-conscious approach". Setting his analysis of Luke in the context of other Jewish, Greek and Roman writings, Benko explores the various ways in which Luke appeals to ancestry, and especially to Abraham, to construct the identity of Christ-believers as well as to configure their relationship to (other) Judeans. He also conducts this primarily historical enquiry with a sensitivity to its contemporary implications, and to the ambivalent legacy that such texts bequeath to us." --David G. Horrell, University of Exeter, UK

"With this deeply researched and timely book, Benko continues his interrogation of the complex way that race functions in the Gospels. He makes a compelling case that the competing interpretations of the figure of Abraham provides a critical window into how 2nd Temple writers, include Luke, constructed racial identity and established racial boundaries. Benko provides both a powerful model for exploring such challenging questions as well as a powerful reading of Luke's gospel. I recommend this book for readers of the Gospels as well as for those interested in the diverse ways that race functions in the ancient world." --Shawn Kelley, Daemen University

"In Abraham, Ancestry, and Ethnicity in Luke's Gospel, Andrew Benko skillfully explores how Luke reimagines lineage and belonging, offering a fresh but needed perspective on the rhetoric of race within Luke's narrative. With keen attention to ancestry and lineage in antiquity, Benko unpacks how the genealogical connection to Abraham is destabilized and expanded. This is a very timely and rich exploration of race, lineage, and belonging in the ancient world. His rigorous scholarship invites readers to see Luke's Gospel and Acts as a story of radical inclusion, where God can also form a new people "from these stones," that is, beyond the limitations of lineage. This is an essential read for anyone interested in the intersections of Abraham, race, and lineage in Luke's writings." --Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, Vanguard University

"The ancestor Abraham was frequently employed in the ethnic reasoning of Second Temple Judaism, and is mentioned considerably more often in Luke than in the other synoptic Gospels. Focusing on these ancient uses of Abraham, and building upon the best of recent scholarship on ethnicity, race and racialization in antiquity, Benko offers up an insightful reading of how Luke/Acts creates space for Gentiles as children of Abraham within the Roman empire. Importantly, Benko does this without sugar-coating passages which denigrate non-believing Jews. Instead, he asks readers hard questions about how Christian texts such as Luke/Acts have contributed to Christian anti-Semitism, while also offering pastoral insights into the way forward. I highly recommended this book." --Shelly Matthews, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University

About the Author

Andrew Benko is Academic Dean of the Iona School for Ministry and serves as a priest in the Diocese of Texas (Episcopal).