Luke's Semi-Triumphal Entry

Another paper, this one on Luke from a narrative perspective:

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A SEMI-TRIUMPHAL ENTRY: FATES AND DECISIONS IN JESUS’ ENTRY TO THE TEMPLE

The goal of this paper is to examine some aspects of the role of Luke 19:28-48 in the larger Lukan narrative, particularly the ways in which it deals with Jesus’ fate and the various reactions to him.  In the course of this endeavor I will be arguing for the thesis that we can successfully read this passage as portraying Jesus’ visitation as the catalyst which seals his and others’ fates by means of their reactions to his coming. 

To motivate my main thesis, I will be performing three tasks: first, I will offer some initial considerations in favor of the suitability of reading 19:28-48 as a unified narrative in the first place, carrying Jesus to his fate, a prerequisite for the sort of reading I am proposing.  Second, I will examine some aspects of the way in which the three sections of the narrative characterize the characters surrounding Jesus in terms of their various reactions to him.  Third, I will examine some of the ways in which the various reactions to Jesus’ entry serve to seal the fates of the various characters in the story.  My conclusions will then follow finally on the basis of the results gained from these three tasks.  None of these tasks will be exhaustive in their examination of the evidence,[1] but there will be enough data to successfully provide motivation for the reading I am proposing. 

The Unity of Luke 19:28-48

In this section I will offer some preliminary considerations in favor of viewing Luke 19:28-48 as a narrative unity.  This passage provides us with a single, complex narrative which portrays Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as a single, complex event spanning initial preparation in the form of procuring a mount up to his dramatic temple actions and their fallout.  Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem thus sets the stage for the final sections of the Gospel and ends the long journey to Jerusalem. 

As others have noted, this passage fits roughly into a broader ancient story pattern or type-scene of a royal visit to a city, a parousia (παρουσία).[2]  Such type-scenes help to set up expectations of what is supposed to happen in the narrative in accordance with the type-scene so used.  As David Catchpole notes,[3] the structure of this sort of story is played out through the following elements:

(a) A victory already achieved [and/or] a status already recognized for the central person. (b) A formal and ceremonial entry.  (c) Greetings and/or acclamations together with invocations of God [or gods].  (d) Entry to the city climaxed by entry to [the t]emple, if the city in question has one.  (e) Cultic activity, either positive (e.g. offering of sacrifice), or negative (e.g. expulsion of objectionable persons and the cleansing away of uncleanness). 

Brent Rogers Kinman adds somewhere in Catchpole’s (b) or (c) that the officials, elites, and others of the city are to come to meet the one arriving outside the city.  Following (c), the visiting figure is to be escorted into the city.  Ultimately, however, failure to respond properly could mean disaster for a city, as is also perhaps reflected in the disciples’ reactions in Luke 9:51-56.[4]

Our current passage does indeed represent a kind of parousia, but one where things do not go entirely well.[5]   First of all, it fits nicely with (a) in that Jesus is not going to Jerusalem in order to be made king; rather, his status is already firmly in place and has even been recognized as such – in 18:35-42, for instance, we see Jesus’ messianic status as “Son of David” explicitly affirmed by the blind man, who ironically sees Jesus’ identity better than those who can physically see (see also, e.g., 1:32-33; 19:11-27).[6] 

Following closely to (b) now, we have the passage begin with the enactment of a ceremonial procession towards Jerusalem.  A particular mount is chosen, one in some sense set aside for Jesus’ particular use (perhaps following a Near Eastern royalty motif), and the occasion for a display of Jesus’ royal authority both in the requisition of the mount and in his coming to enter upon it.[7]  The omission of any pledge to return the animal perhaps even further emphasizes Jesus’ royal status.[8] 

This is where (c) and being greeted by the leaders of the city would naturally come into the story.  However, most of the leaders of the city do not yet appear on the stage and we here lack any scene of universal acclamation by the city’s inhabitants, as will be further explained in the following section of the paper.  Those who do acclaim Jesus, however, explicitly affirm his royal status.[9] 

Following the mixed reception and Jesus’ response to it ending in verse 44, we get (d) and (e) in the final verses, along with the repercussions of this messianic parousia, thus bringing the entry narrative to a close (I will discuss these verses further in later sections).  This passage therefore seems to conform to a version of the parousia narrative pattern. 

Even without knowledge of the parousia story structure, however, we would still have reasons from within Luke to think of Jesus’ temple actions as the culmination of his entry rather than as a separate, subsequent event.   Jerusalem, after all, is the center of national and religious life and the temple the symbol, power center, and religious focal point of Jerusalem.  Jerusalem and its temple therefore function in Luke as the center of his narrative world, from which the narrative proceeds and to which the narrative invariably returns, not only in the Gospel but in Acts as well.  The Gospel, and many of the stories of Jesus’ early life, begins there, and it is here that Jesus must return in order to fulfill his mission. 

The Gospel begins in the temple in chapter 1; he is dedicated there in 2, where his identity is prophetically proclaimed and where in 2:34-35 it is foretold that he would divide the people and reveal their hearts.  He then is involved in a teaching session at the temple, his Father’s house, in 2:41-52.[10]  In 4:9-13 the culmination of the devil’s temptations involves bringing Jesus to Jerusalem, to the temple, where he is to assert the prerogatives seemingly appropriate to his identity in a dramatic fashion, something which he refuses, then going on to pursue his mission and act out his identity in his own way, not the devil’s.[11]  Chapter 9 then commences the long journey to Jerusalem, where he will die and rise again, the true culmination of his mission and identity, something which will happen later in Luke but is in the meantime the subject of a number of prophecies on the part of Jesus (e.g., in 13:31-35).  The broader Lukan narrative therefore seems to move one towards Jerusalem and the temple in particular, his Father’s house to which he must, as messiah and in accordance with his properly understood identity and mission as such, return.[12] 

The narrative of 19:28-48 itself, by its very wording, focuses us on Jerusalem and the temple in particular.  It piles up verbs of motion and geographical references, pacing the narrative and taking its time as the narrative is brought to its geographic goal, thus creating tension as Jesus comes nearer and nearer to that goal.[13]  This gives time to describe the entry and the reactions to it, increasing the sense of divine purpose by virtue of Scriptural quotations in verse 38.[14]  Following the introduction in verse 28, forms of the verb ἐγγίζω (to come near) form a backbone for the progress of the narrative, appearing in 29, 37, and 41, with a culmination as Jesus arrives at his destination at the temple (no separate mention is made of an arrival into the city apart from this) in 45, where the verb is no longer ἐγγίζω but rather a form of εἰσέρχομαι (to enter).  The effect of all this, then, is to create the impression of an inevitable, focused progression of purpose towards the final goal, the place which will draw things to their divinely-ordained close, the dramatic tension building as we wait to see how the next group will react to Jesus.

The move from outside and into the temple, then, represents a single event of entry, a transition between the travel narrative proper and the pause before the storm in chapters 20-21.[15]  The entry is not complete until Jesus comes to the temple.  Verse 28, a hinge between this section and the last, starts the action off by moving Jesus and the action finally to Jerusalem, which culminates in verses 45-46.  But then why include 47-48 in this narrative, since they take place following Jesus’ temple action, the culmination of his entry?  I think it is helpful to include them precisely because they describe the direct consequences of Jesus’ actions and tell us the reaction of the city and temple leaders, who were previously absent, to Jesus’ entry and actions.  The description of the entry, which showcases the reactions of various people to his entry to the city, then, is not as complete without the inclusion of the response of the leaders of city and temple themselves.  These verses then form a hinge between this section and the next, where Jesus teaches at the temple, cementing the reactions of Jerusalem to himself and the consequences thereof prior to the Passion narrative.[16]  What we have, then, can be read as a single narrative of Jesus moving inexorably towards his fate.  The readings given in the sections that follow I believe will only further confirm the unity of this passage.

Reactions to Jesus’ Entry

In the previous section, I gave some motivation for reading 19:28-48 as a single narrative bringing Jesus to his fate.  The narrative, however, also features various responses to Jesus which will help to seal both Jesus’ and others’ fates.  Indeed, as we will see, the pattern of reactions serves to illustrate narratologically Jesus’ movement towards his fate on the cross, culminating in the rejection by the city and temple leadership.  In the current section, my focus will be on the reactions themselves; in the next section of the paper, I will discuss the consequences of these reactions. 

In 19:28-48, our narrative revolves around Jesus, all other characters being defined or determined solely in terms of their responses to him, to his person, his actions and his words.  No single person is named in this narrative but only given generic designations – they are all of only secondary importance next to Jesus and their only role and importance in the story are their reactions.  Whereas the man born blind and Zacchaeus (along with a lack of opposition through large chunks of the travel narrative) might have given some hope for a positive reception, the parable of the minas (Luke 19:11-27) muddies the expectations somewhat – the coming of a king may bring either rewards or, if he is rejected, disaster.  Thus, despite warnings that he is to die in Jerusalem, the reader, like the disciples, may be left with a slight narrative opening as to the possibility that something positive may in fact happen.  Will Jesus’ coming be met with acceptance or rejection – will it bring blessing or judgment? 

What we find in the narrative, then, is a progressive dashing of hopes, a plunging of the narrative into rejection and ambivalence to Jesus, thus reaffirming Jesus’ earlier predictions as to his fate.  The reactions of the characters thus move slowly from positive to negative as we progress.  Verses 28-35 begin with only two disciples.  We are not told which two disciples – whether these belong to the Twelve, the Seventy(-Two), or some larger, more inclusive group.  The Twelve and the Seventy(-Two), however, were the only ones previously sent out (Luke 9:1-6, 10; 10:1-24), their ministries characterized positively with success and boldness.  Since something similar happens here, we can similarly see the disciples as acting as envoys at this point of Jesus himself and hence envoys of peace, Jesus being the one who brings the message of peace.[17]  Elsewhere, the disciples (in chapter 12 in particular) do not necessarily understand Jesus’ mission or his fate, but are still generally portrayed in close relationship with him as genuine followers (at this point Judas’ betrayal has yet to occur).  Anticipating the accolades of the disciples in the following verses, the expectation is therefore set up of an acceptance of Jesus by the populace to which he is coming.  These two disciples obey Jesus without question and the owners of the colt are not even given a response when it is declared that Jesus needs it – the colt is simply taken directly to Jesus.  We can notice, then, that in contrast to those who might reject the mission of the Seventy(-Two) in Luke 10:10-16, these two disciples are not rejected and hence, as Jesus’ envoys, neither is Jesus rejected by the owners of the colt.[18]

In the following verses, up to 38, we have all of Jesus’ disciples acclaiming him as king.  Positive expectations are overturned, however, as some Pharisees in 39 object to this, while the rest of the crowd to which the Pharisees belonged remains silent in the narrative.  Elsewhere the Pharisees often oppose Jesus, though they can at times perhaps be ambiguous as they sometimes approve of Jesus’ words or engage in table fellowship with him (hence, perhaps, the “some” here, which may leave some ambivalence among the Pharisees as well).[19]  We have thus gone from an overwhelming positive reaction to Jesus to one of mixed positive, negative, and ambivalent reactions. 

In the final verses, however, all positive reactions have melted away.  The leaders of city and temple have decided to kill Jesus as a result of the event of his entry and the crowds, though more engaged, yet remain ambivalent in their reaction – though they are said to “hang onto” or “listen intently” (ἐκκρεμάννυμι) to what Jesus says, nowhere is it affirmed that the crowds ever in fact accept Jesus or his words here, contra many commentators who see the crowds’ responses as positive.[20]  The crowds or people (ὁ ὀχλός or ὁ λαός, which seem to be used interchangeably) have previously had mixed reactions towards Jesus, often wishing to see and hear him and benefit from his healing (e.g., 5:1, 15; 6:17-19), but also at times evincing a more negative reaction to Jesus’ doings (e.g., 19:7).  The crowds are indeed interested in Jesus, but to what end?  Before the Gospel ends, they will side with the leaders in 23:18-24 in rejecting Jesus.[21] 

Appearing here in the Gospel for the first time, the sellers, meanwhile, do not even get a voice – they are cast out of the temple, implicitly perhaps aligned with the temple leaders rather than Jesus, a fact which would seem to precipitate some of the reaction against him following his actions.[22]  The city as a whole is treated by Jesus as if it were a character itself in 19:42-44 (using, for instance, the singular personal pronoun σύ) – that is, as a collective character embodying both the crowd and Pharisees as well as the sellers and leaders (see also 13:34-35, where Jerusalem is treated similarly).  This city will as a whole have rejected Jesus before it is all done, with disastrous result as predicted in 19:41-44.  The narrative thus draws us from positive acclaim to final rejection unto death.

Consequences of the Reactions

The consequences of the reactions of the various parties to Jesus’ entry confirm the fates of both Jesus and city and temple.  This is the burden of the current section to illustrate.  In response to some Pharisees’ apparent rejection in 19:39, Jesus in the very next verse indirectly both affirms his disciples and rebukes these Pharisees (rather than the other way around as these Pharisees had wanted).  Presumably the disciples, thus affirmed, will (or will have the chance to) escape whatever judgment may be forthcoming. 

As seen in the previous two sections, only the disciples have firmly come out on Jesus’ side and, whereas one ought to expect the city and its leadership to meet their king with acclaim and acceptance, the response from them ranges from mute to hostile.  Like the hostile subjects in the parable of the minas, set right before our current narrative, they have not accepted Jesus’ kingship.  There is therefore then some expectation thereby generated that this must ultimately end in disaster. 

In verses 41-44 this disaster for Jerusalem is precisely what Jesus confirms as a result of their actions, the actions of those Pharisees acting as proleptic for those of the city as a whole.[23]  In 19:42, 44, Jesus connects their failure and subsequent judgment with a kind of metaphorical blindness, thereby creating an ironic contrast with the blind man from 18:35-43 – those who should have seen, do not.  In the Greek, the “visitation” of God, against which Jerusalem is blind, is expressed by the Greek word ἐπισκοπή, which, particularly in an Old Testament context of divine visitation, can have either a positive or negative valence[24] – it could be a visitation unto blessing or a visitation unto judgment.  The tragedy is that it could have and should have been a visitation of blessing (1:68; 7:16), but the blindness of the city and its leadership has led it to the opposite. 

Peace has been held out to Jerusalem, a potential proclaimed at the very start of the Gospel (1:79; 2:14),  but they have rejected it in the person of Jesus and unwittingly chosen ways that will lead to the destruction of the city at the hands of enemies (who historically will turn out in the year 70 to be the Romans), this being foretold in such a way as to echo the great prophets who foretold the destruction of city and temple at the hands of Babylon.[25]  Underlining the tragic nature of this turn of events, Jesus does not exult over Jerusalem or call down judgment himself but rather weeps over it and its choice as he proclaims its fate, the results of their own fateful decision.  In 13:34-35, on his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus similarly lamented over Jerusalem and proclaimed that they would not see him until they proclaimed the words of Psalm 118:26.  When Jesus arrives at Jerusalem, however, the city is blind – they do not see.[26]  Instead of the city proclaiming these words, it was the disciples in 19:38.  Rather than being, “a house of prayer” as it was earlier, a place where Jesus’ true identity might have been acclaimed, the house of his Father (see Luke 1-2), even the temple itself has been made a “den of robbers” (19:45-46), its leaders blind to the ways of peace which might have otherwise come.[27]

Since it is Jesus who is the bringer of peace (see, e.g., 7:50; 8:48; 10:5-6), the proclaimer of the things towards peace (τὰ πρὸς εἰρήνην) spoken of in 19:42, the rejection of Jesus can mean nothing other at this point in the story than utter tragedy.[28]  Whereas at Jesus’ birth in 2:14 peace had been proclaimed on earth and “glory in the highest”, the proclamation of “glory in the highest” is instead paired in 19:38 with peace in heaven, perhaps with the narrative effect of thereby functioning as a prolepsis of the rejection of peace by Jerusalem, peace being a gift of heaven, the promise of which those on earth have (at least for now) rejected.[29]  The following section of Luke in chapters 20-21, between our current narrative and immediately prior to the Passion narrative, serves simply to confirm the opposition to Jesus and coming judgment upon Jerusalem and its temple already put into motion in 19:28-48 (see also 23:27-31).[30]

Jesus’ driving out of the sellers in the temple, continuing on from the predictions in verses 41-44, has the effect of a declaration of judgment on those who are in charge of the temple and, by extension as its representative, Jerusalem itself – the leaders of city and temple.  Jesus has upset the corrupted order he has found in his Father’s house and, until his own fate comes, he will model what the temple was meant to be in contrast with how the leaders have made things.[31]  In keeping with the parousia scene, Jesus culminates his entry into Jerusalem with a negative demonstration at the temple, thereby casting a negative outlook on the city and its leaders.  The symbolic words and actions of Jesus against the city are complete – they have not recognized him, preferring to pursue their own ways, and will suffer judgment as a result.  These words and actions of Jesus, in turn, both seal his own fate[32] and that of the leaders of the city, who thereby confirm the negative judgment upon the city by plotting to kill him in 19:48.

Conclusion

Given the readings of the textual data proposed in the three main sections of this paper, I think we can safely say that the reading I introduced at the beginning of the paper is indeed a well-supported one.  Based on our evidence, in other words, we can plausibly read Luke as portraying Jesus’ visitation as the catalyst which seals his and others’ fates by means of their reactions to his coming.  We can read 19:28-48 as a single narrative of a royal visit or parousia, per the first section of the paper – a narrative which, through various techniques and connections with the surrounding text, gives the effect of an inevitable movement towards Jesus’ divinely-ordained fate.  Per the second, we saw that Jesus is the focus of the narrative as he goes on to his fate, other characters being defined in terms of their relations to him.  The city of Jerusalem and the leaders of both the temple and the city do not come out positive and the negative undertow of the reactions to Jesus simply build up through the narrative, guaranteeing that disaster is to come.  And, as we saw in the third section, the various reactions to Jesus on the part of Jerusalem are portrayed as sealing its fate in terms of destruction by enemies as well as sealing Jesus’ fate as he proclaims and acts out that negative judgment against Jerusalem, thereby confirming that very judgment.  From all of this, then, we see that we can successfully read in 19:28-38 a narrative portraying several impending dooms as a result of increasingly negative reactions on the part of Jerusalem to Jesus, their rightful king.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bock, Darrell. Luke, Volume 2: 9:51-24:53. BECNT. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996.

Catchpole, David. “The ‘Triumphal’ Entry.” In Jesus and the Politics of His Day, edited by E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 319-334.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Ellis, E. Earle. The Gospel of Luke. NCB. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1974.

Evans, Craig A. “Jesus’ Action in the Temple: Cleansing or Portent of Destruction?” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 51 (1989): 237-270.

Fitzmyer, Joseph. The Gospel according to Luke X-XXIV. AB. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1985.

Green, Joel. The Gospel of Luke. NICNT. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Gospel of Luke. SP. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1991.

Kinman, Brent Rogers. “Parousia, Jesus’ ‘A-Triumphal’ Entry, and the Fate of Jerusalem (Luke 19:28-44).” Journal of Biblical Literature 118 (1999): 279-294.

Kurz, William S. Reading Luke-Acts: Dynamics of Biblical Narrative. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1993.

Marshall, I. Howard. The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text. NIGTC. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978

Sanders, James A. “Prophecy and Polemic: Jews in Luke’s Scriptural Apologetic.” In Luke and Scripture: The Function of Sacred Tradition in Luke-Acts, edited by C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders, 171-211. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Spencer, F. Scott. The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008.

Talbert, Charles. Reading Luke: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Third Gospel.  Macon, Georgia: Smyth & Helwys, 1991.

Tannehill, Robert. The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation, Volume One: The Gospel according to Luke. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986.

_____.  “The Story of Israel within the Lukan Narrative.” In Jesus and the Heritage of Israel: Luke’s Narrative Claim upon Israel’s Legacy, edited by D. P. Moessner, 325-339. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press, 1999.

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[1] For example, I have had to leave out a fuller consideration of Jesus’ identity and connections with the temptation narrative in Luke 4:1-13 as well as any treatment of the “stone” (λίθος) motif found throughout Luke and which makes a marked appearance in my chosen passage.

[2] For examples of this kind of story in ancient literature, see David Catchpole, “The ‘Triumphal’ Entry,” in Jesus and the Politics of His Day, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 319-321.  Jesus’ Second Coming, also thought of on the model of a royal visitation, thus gains in Christian theology the standard label of parousia.  I Thessalonians 4:13-18 contains an early example of Christ’s return probably being portrayed as a parousia.

[3] Catchpole, “‘Triumphal’ Entry,” 321.  See also Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997), 692; Charles Talbert, Reading Luke: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Third Gospel ( Macon, Georgia: Smyth & Helwys, 1991), 209-212.

[4] Brent Rogers Kinman, “Parousia, Jesus’ ‘A-Triumphal’ Entry, and the Fate of Jerusalem (Luke 19:28-44),” Journal of Biblical Literature 118 (1999): 280-283.  Notice that the Lukan travel narrative is framed by rejections – first by a Samaritan settlement, then by a Jewish one in the current passage (see Joseph Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke X-XXIV  (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1985), 1246).  In the former, Jesus repudiates his disciple’s predilection for bringing disaster.  In the latter, Jesus predicts disaster will come as an inevitable consequence.  Cf. 19:11-27, which connects with these passages in interesting ways, including a royal arrival and punishment for those not welcoming.  Hence, in some ways, it directly foreshadows 19:28-48 which follows directly on it.

[5] Hence a number of scholars question whether “triumphal” is the best description of such an entry.  See, e.g., E. Earle Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1974), 223; Kinman, “Parousia,” 279

[6] Cf. Green, Luke, 681, 683; Kinman, “Parousia,” 285.

[7] Daniel Bock, Luke, Volume 2: 9:51-24:53 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 1554; Green, Luke, 685; Kinman, “Parousia,” 286-287; F. Scott Spencer, The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008), 190.

[8] Kinman, “Parousia,” 287.

[9] See, for instance, Green, Luke, 686.  The terminology of the one coming (ὁ ἐρχόμενος) or who is coming (ἔρχεται) perhaps also links back to 3:15-17 and 7:19-20, where Jesus’ identity and mission is also in view.  Here, then, the coming is actually occurring and we get to see Jesus’ identity proclaimed and we will see what sort of messiah he truly is.

[10] As Green, Luke, 691 notes, “Then, he asserted the divine necessity of his being in his Father’s house – claiming the temple as the abode of God and prefiguring his own teaching ministry in it [begun in 19:47].”  Cf. William S. Kurz, Reading Luke-Acts: Dynamics of Biblical Narrative (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 54.

[11] I here understand the basic idea of the temptations to involve alternative ways to pursue Jesus’ mission and understand his identity which are outside of the way of the cross. 

[12] Cf. Green, Luke, 691-692; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 14; Kurz, Luke-Acts, 54; Talbert, Reading Luke, 212

[13] Bock, Luke, 1553; Green, Luke, 689; Kurz, Luke-Acts, 54.

[14] Bock, Luke, 1547.

[15] Cf. Fitzmyer, Luke, 1242.

[16] We can see an inclusio formed by 19:47 and 21:37, for instance.  Cf. Ellis, Luke, 225; Kurz, Luke-Acts, 54; Talbert, Reading Luke, 221.

[17] See the following section for more discussion of peace in this passage.

[18] Thanks to some comments from William Noe which suggested to me that there might be a connection between this section and the sending of the Seventy(-Two).

[19] For some of the interactions, see, e.g., Luke 5:21-30, 33-34; 6:1-11; 7:30, 36-50; 11:37-44, 53-54; 12:1; 13:31; 14:1; 15:1-2; 16:14-15; 18:1-14.

[20] Hence I side with Bock, Luke, 1557, 1560; Kinman, “Parousia,” 291; Robert Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation, Volume One: The Gospel according to Luke (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 158 ; contra, e.g., Green, Luke, 686; Johnson, Luke, 300; Robert Tannehill, “The Story of Israel within the Lukan Narrative,” in Jesus and the Heritage of Israel: Luke’s Narrative Claim upon Israel’s Legacy, ed. D. P. Moessner (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press, 1999), 331.

[21] Compare the role of the crowds during Paul’s analogous final trip to Jerusalem, where he is arrested and goes on trial.  See, for instance, 21:27-35.  Though the crowds often react positively to Luke-Act’s protagonists, they are also at times ambivalent or hostile. 

[22] In any case, they are certainly aligned with evil or uncleanness and opposition to Jesus, as evidenced by Jesus’ actions against them and the fact that the narrator uses a form of the word ἐκβάλλω to express Jesus’ casting them out of the temple, the same word used for exorcisms, for Jesus’ casting out demons.  Cf. Green, Luke, 692.

[23] Cf. Green, Luke, 689.

[24] On this, see Green, Luke, 689; Johnson, Luke, 299; I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978), 717.

[25] On this, see, e.g., Bock, Luke, 1547; Johnson, Luke, 300; Spencer, Luke and Acts, 191, 197-199.

[26] Cf. Bock, Luke, 1547; James A. Sanders, “Prophecy and Polemic: Jews in Luke’s Scriptural Apologetic,” in Luke and Scripture: The Function of Sacred Tradition in Luke-Acts, ed. C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 178-179.

[27] Cf. Green, Luke, 693.

[28] Cf. Bock, Luke, 1561; Johnson, Luke, 298; Marshall, Luke, 717; Tannehill, Narrative Unity, 160.

[29] Fitzmyer, Luke, 1251; Green, Luke, 687.

[30] Cf. Tannehill, “Story of Israel,” 332.

[31] Green, Luke, 692; Fitzmyer, Luke, 1260, 1266, 1269; Johnson, Luke, 300.

[32] Bock, Luke, 1572; Fitzmyer, Luke, 1269; Green, Luke, 692.  Cf. Craig A. Evans, “Jesus’ Action in the Temple: Cleansing or Portent of Destruction?” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 51 (1989): 249, 269.