Politically sensitive material in Luke–Acts

For several generations the extensive material in Luke–Acts bearing upon the relationships between Rome and Christianity has excited much critical attention. Luke's unmistakable sensitivity to the involvement of Jesus and the early Christian missionaries, especially Paul, in the political and judicial realities of the Roman empire is a significant aspect of his theology, given that by ‘theology’ we mean the unique way in which he has shaped the sources and traditions at his disposal. The aim of this chapter is to describe and explain the political motif in Luke–Acts in order to determine the extent to which Luke's outlook has been shaped by social and political pressures upon the members of his community. During the course of this investigation it will emerge that Luke's political awareness extends to areas of the text with which it has not hitherto been associated, above all, in his appreciation of the political significance of presenting Christianity as an ancestral religion.

The Roman empire in Luke–Acts

Luke presents Christianity and the Roman empire as interacting on a number of distinct, although related, levels. The first level consists of the synchronisms which Luke, alone of the Synoptists, establishes between dates in imperial history and significant events in the beginnings of the Gospel. Thus, the birth of Jesus occurs during the worldwide census ordered by Augustus (Lk 2.1–7), and John the Baptist begins his ministry in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea (Lk 3.1–3).