Theological Questions Research Articles

The Philosophy of Mary Astell: An Early Modern Theory of Virtue by Jacqueline Broad

Reviewed by: The Philosophy of Mary Astell: An Early Modern Theory of Virtue by Jacqueline Broad John A. Dussinger Jacqueline Broad. The Philosophy of Mary Astell: An Early Modern Theory of Virtue. Oxford: Oxford, 2015. Pp. v + 205. $70. In his Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions (1711), Mandeville acknowledged that both men and women possess souls but because of the fundamental difference of their bodies have different mental capacities: “This delicacy as well as imbecility of the Spirits in Women is Conspicuous in all their actions, those of the Brain not excepted: They are unfit both for abstruse and elaborate Thoughts, all studies of Depth, Coherence, and Solidity that fatigue the Spirits, and require a steadiness and assiduity of thinking.” Nevertheless, he goes on to observe that “where the Advantages of Education and Knowledge are equal, they exceed the Men in Sprightliness of Fancy, quickness of Thought and off-hand Wit.” Two years earlier his first English pamphlet, The Virgin Unmask’d (1709), had rendered the ironic dialogue of a spinster advising her niece against ever marrying because of the male’s legal power to deny her any personal freedom under that contract and instead urging her to pursue an education to find independence and happiness. If Mandeville was not impressed by Mary Astell’s prowess as an original thinker, he may have admired her vigorous attack on the oppressive marriage system when writing this dialogue. In her philosophical writings, Astell, however, demonstrates the “steadiness and assiduity of thinking” that women’s natural disposition supposedly lacks. Some thirty years since Ruth Perry’s pioneering investigation of this writer’s unique feminist role, Ms. Broad’s scrupulously researched monograph presents a holistic account of Astell’s oeuvre, one that engages fundamental questions in theology, metaphysics, epistemology, and morality as well as her Tory and High Church politics. As the subtitle implies, the unifying focus is on Astell’s concern with guiding women through a male-dominated world to reach a fulfilling moral judgment and “lasting happiness.” Although mainly allowing Astell’s ideas to come forth within their historical context, Ms. Broad also reminds her readers of their present-day significance and eventually connects them to such recent feminists as Marilyn Friedman (2000), ending her book with a brief postulate about Astell’s theory of freedom. The seven chapters with a thematic title are as follows: “Knowledge,” “God,” “Soul and Body,” “Virtue and the Passions,” “Love,” “Marriage,” and “Moderation.” While patiently recounting her epistemology, Ms. Broad explains that Astell was not an empiricist but fundamentally a rationalist, omitting the senses as a basis of knowing, and adhering [End Page 54] to Descartes’s method of judgment but excluding his radical skepticism about received ideas, including religious faith. The chapter on “God” is almost embarrassingly orthodox in its ontological arguments from Norris and Malebranche and its cosmological arguments based on appealing to a higher cause. If not a metaphysical certainty, we are told, it is at least a moral certainty that the Bible is the word of God because to doubt it would result in “a most untenable and unreasonable position.” In contrast to this rather conventional epistemology and theology, chapter 5, “Virtue and the Passions,” suddenly comes alive while protesting the old assumption about Astell’s dualism: she “acknowledges that her fellow women must learn to negotiate practical moral situations as embodied subjects—as a substantial union of soul and body—and not just disembodied minds.” That said, it may be almost mischievous to ask whether Astell herself would ever accept being embodied with any male, whatever the circumstances. On the contrary, as in Norris’s moral theology, Astell eschews creaturely love while devoting herself wholly to God: “When a man allows his desires to tend toward his fellow mortals, ‘all is unhinged and falls into disorder. . . .’ “ Again, this “distinctly Augustinian approach to the topic of love” does not bode well for any “normal” heterosexual relationship that is the basis of traditional marriage. Given her whole emphasis on mind over body, Astell ignores the murky problems of sexual desire in women as well as in men and finally opts for a marriage arrangement based on friendship and equal...

Truth criterium according to Malebranche

Along with a theological question, the protestat Reformation brought another one, epistemological: what is the criterion of truth? If truth is subjective, the spirit of a believer is the criterion, and one is free for deprehending whatever he pleases from his reading of the Bible. If it is objective, there must be some criterion of truth. At the beginning, catholics adopted skepticism and denied that truth could ever be known. That is why Father Malebranche attacks skeptics. But he also attacks Aristotelians. The present article shows how he solves the epistemological problem through occasionalism, and trows the foundations for English empiricism. At his attack ons skeptics, Malebranche repeats Contra Academicos and bets on the trueness of soul perceptions. On the other side, he shows that these perceptions cannot ever attain that truth of the things in themselves, and that their only utility is to reveal relations between ideas (which may be empirical). The knowledge would be the perception of such relations, without any Cartesian notion of objective causality. As for matters of faith, since they are not empirical, nor purely abstract, they must be subjected to the authority of tradition, and the most credible authority is the chronologically nearest to Revelation.

La cuestión del socialismo en Karl Marx y Fiódor M. Dostoievski

In order to provide the necessary background for the discussion on Marx’s and Dostoevsky’s conception of socialism we delineate a brief history of the French Revolution. Then, we analyze the social conditions of the proletariat and how socialism is defined for both thinkers as a mainly economic doctrine. Later, socialism’s theological question is discussed. We point out how Marx and Dostoevsky defend the thesis that religion is socialism’s first target. To that end, we refer to the Marxist concepts of “alienation” and “emancipation” and Dostoevsky’s predicted union of Catholicism with socialist ideals as it is exemplified in The Great Inquisitor. Finally, Marx’s and Dostoevsky’s conception of man is explained, showing how the materialistic interpretation of the human being realized by Marx is radically rejected by Dostoevsky. Likewise, it is exposed the scientific and violent nature of socialism. As a conclusion, we summarize the main similarities and differences between Marx and Dostoevsky and we treat the question about their prophetic character in relation to the socialist movement in Russia, and particularly to the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Playing the Martyr: Theater and Theology in Early Modern France by Christopher Semk

Reviewed by: Playing the Martyr: Theater and Theology in Early Modern France by Christopher Semk Katherine Ibbett Christopher Semk. Playing the Martyr: Theater and Theology in Early Modern France BUCKNELL UP, 2017. 172 PP. CHRISTOPHER SEMK'S ADMIRABLE NEW BOOK puts sacramental theology at the heart of an evolution in French neoclassical poetics, drawing on the test case of a set of seventeenth-century dramas about Christian Martyrdom. The sudden appearance and disappearance of these Martyr plays on the French stage is often read as an exploration of secular sovereignty and political power. In contrast, Semk's work seeks to account for the innovations of this theatrical mode by placing it firmly within the context of contemporary theological debates. If the seventeenth-century Jansenist Pierre Nicole worried that the writers of Martyr dramas made their leading roles rather more like ancient Roman heroes than saints, Semk suggests that such a jibe underestimates the rich and nuanced ways in which Martyr drama engaged theological questions. In so doing, he argues compellingly for the significance of religious belief to the elaboration of poetics in the French context. Semk's account insists on the theater as a place where things happen: even before we get to his chapter on the actor-Martyr Genesius, he asks "not what Martyrological theater is, but rather what Martyrological theater does" (xviii). Questions about the place of belief and faith in the theatrical experiment permeate his work, and the most refreshing parts of the book, for this reader, come when a sense of faith's wondrous difficulties bolsters his investigations. Semk gives real insights into particular dramatic debates of the period, arguing persuasively that the test case of the Martyrological theater brought Aristotelian poetics up against its limits. But the real strength of the book is that it allows for a broader understanding of the place of the religious within a rapidly professionalizing theatrical scene. Chapter 1 takes up a broad account of relations between church and stage in the period. In echoing today's debates about established religion, its title, "The Separation of Church and Stage," suggests something of what is at stake in taking religion seriously as a cultural matrix for the theater. Semk's opening pages are stirring. He begins with the most concrete of material evidence: a stone escutcheon representing the Passion that, for much of the seventeenth [End Page 171] century, stood over the doorway of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, the leading theater of the day. Semk reads this sacred representation—a remnant of the time before the confraternity who owned the theater had been blocked from performing religious plays—as a "haunting" of the new-model French stage by an older and more openly sacred corpus. From this arresting beginning, he goes on to investigate the complex imbrications of the sacred and the theatrical. This allows him to explore a broader range of representations than those usually encountered in scholarly work on the theater; Semk takes seriously a range of plays from the French provinces—I was especially struck by the examples he draws from François d'Avre's 1668 Dipné, Infante d'Irlande, since one of the virtues of Semk's approach is that it allows us to think more about French theater's relations to non-French textual traditions. This chapter gives a firmly useful overview of seventeenth-century religious responses to the theater, both for and against it, and, most importantly, gives us a more complex picture of the role of faith and belief in debates about fictiveness and poetics. Chapter 2 takes up the question of the place of spectacle within Martyrological theater. In accounting for the success of stories that privilege the Martyr's suffering body at a time when such bodies were largely excluded from the stage, Semk digs into a complex tradition of reading spectacle. Drawing on the Aristotelian tradition, he inquires into the relations between pathos and opsis, often taking issue with translators or scholars today who have not allowed for sufficient nuance in their understanding of that framework. Semk's careful work sets the context for a persuasive reading of the various staged accounts of the death of Saint Eustache, and...

John P. Bradbury and Susannah Cornwall (eds), Thinking Again About Marriage: Key Theological Questions

John P. Bradbury and Susannah Cornwall (eds), <i>Thinking Again About Marriage: Key Theological Questions</i>

Hermenéutica pastoral y exégesis polémica. Reflexiones sobre el método en 'Io. eu. tr.’ de Agustín de Hipona (406-407)

In this paper, the author first presents the earliest tractates (or ‘homilies’) on the Gospel of John, delivered in 406-407 A.D. by Augustine of Hippo, in their hermeneutical and polemical context, arguing that Augustine adapts his preaching style to reach members of his audience with distinct educational backgrounds, social identity and degree of knowledge and commitment to the Christian faith. Here, the concern is primarily contextual and lightly linguistic, with attention to the rhetorical strategies and overall presentation that Augustine adapts in delivering this distinct form of the late-antique sermon. The second half of the paper, then, seeks to flesh out in greater detail the implications of such a “middle style”, adapted to suit the homilist’s audience, by reconsidering a central tenet of Augustine’s own anti-Donatist agenda, that of the universality of the Church, and likewise of Christ’s sacrifice. By evaluating this series of theological questions, which arise for Augustine in his reading of and preaching about the Gospel of John yet receive substantial Ímpetus from his pastoral commitment to correct Donatist (“other North African”) forms of ecclesiology, and theology of the atonement and redemption, the paper suggests important features of Augustine’s synthetic approach: to the bible, and to bridging catechetical needs with polemical conditions of his ministry and the experience of his congregation and social setting. The essential implications of this study, therefore, are to further augment current understanding of Augustine’s preaching, interpretation of John’s gospel, and ability to synthesize modes of preaching and levels of discourse effectively.

Kyiv-Mohyla Treatises De Generatione et Corruptione in the Context of Theological Disputes of the 17th–18th Centuries

The article examines treatises De Generatione et Corrutione which were taught at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in the 17th-18th centuries as a component of the philosophical course. The treatises have a historical connection to Aristotle’s book of the same name and are focused on the topics of generation, substantial and qualitative change, and corruption. However, Mohylan professors Stephan Yavorskyi and Theophan Prokopovych also included theological topics in the treatises. Yavorskyi discusses the question of the Eucharistical transsubstantiation, trying to find out how substantial change occurs and when it takes place in the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Rite. He argues that the trans-substantiation occurs during the words of Institution, not the Epiclesis. According to him, most authoritative Eastern theologians taught in the same way. Discussing this theological question in the philosophical course (1691–1693) most probably was a reaction to Moscow Council (1689), which condemned the doctrine of the trans-substantiation during the words of Instantiation. Yavorskyi wanted to defend the teachings common among theologians of Ukrainian Orthodox tradition (Petro Mohyla, Sylvestr Kosov, Inokentii Gizel, etc.). Another professor, Theophan Prokopovych, in his course (1707–09) addresses the question why the relics of the saints buried in the Kyiv Caves are very well preserved. He claims that it happens because of special God’s grace. Moreover, he analyses 16 arguments of the opponents who deny this. The conclusion is that these topics entered in philosophical courses because of their social importance at that time.

‘The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable’ (Rom 11:29): A Theological Reflection

In 2015 the Commission for Religions Relations with the Jews published a document called ‘The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable’ (Rom 11:29): A Reflection on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic–Jewish Relations on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of ‘Nostra Aetate’ (no. 4). In this article I will focus in particular on some of the theological questions that are addressed in sections 3 through 6—questions that have increasingly moved into the foreground in the dialogue in recent decades. In particular, I will explore the relation between the old and new covenant, how the uniqueness and universality of salvation in Christ are related to the recognition that God’s covenant with Israel has never been revoked, and the question of the mission to the Jews. In presenting the document and grappling with it, (1) I will glance back briefly and outline the theological status quaestionis, I will then (2) analyze what new developments The Gifts formulates. Finally, moving beyond the document, (3) I will engage it in discussion.

Space forming a community, community forming a space

The identity is expressed in a self-picture, which has visible and immaterial marks. The church architecture is the essential appearance form of this, because it represents not the individual but the community. It gives an account of the self-identity conscience of the church through the community. In this way, architecture gets a great task: physically visualising this immaterial identity. This picture is formed with respect to the technical and aesthetic knowledge.Does the basically recognizable protestant form exist? Are there ground-plans or spatial form elements, which are the obligate characteristics of these churches? Reflected well on the theological questions, we seek to detect what can determine the identity of the protestant churches in an aesthetic sense by a research highlighting the most important decesions on theological background and churches built in a term of a century.

Pondering “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World”: A Protestant Missiological Reflection

AbstractThe article explores “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World” (MOCT), one of the six official documents issued by the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church that took place on the island of Crete in 2016. It is the first official Orthodox statement on mission ever published. The aim of the present article is to offer a reflection of MOCT from a Protestant missiological perspective. The article argues that MOCT interprets mission as the service of the church to the world, motivated by love. It goes on to discuss six major thematic areas of the statement, namely, the dignity of the human person; freedom and responsibility; peace and justice; peace and the aversion of war; the attitude of the church toward discrimination; and the mission of the Orthodox Church as a witness of love through service. The article seeks to provide a constructive critique of MOCT, assessing both its weaknesses and its assets. It concludes by saying that despite certain theological question marks, the new Orthodox mission document represents an invaluable contribution to the ecumenical discussion on mission and evangelism.

Творча репліка Л. Толстого до М. Костомарова в жанрі мідквел

The article is devoted to an actual problem of genres in perspective of supertext relations. In particular, the functionalities of midquel as one of the genres based on intertextual relations are regarded. The subjects of the study were features of interaction of midquel texts of L. Tolstoy “The End of the Little Russian legend "Forty years", published by M. Kostomarov in1881”and its pretext – stories by M. Kostomarov “Forty Years”. Deep philosophical and theological questions in unison with spiritual and creative pursuits of the Russian classic are considered through the grid of raised moral and ethical problems in the story of M. Kostomarov. The motif of punishment, which takes a key place in the story “Forty Years” of M. Kostomarov, is embodied through the loss of God by a man, leading to his moral decay. The lack of faith creates emptiness and spiritual blindness. Punishment is unnoticed for a man in this life. Tolstoy interprets the motif of punishment, he puts new meanings, entering with the author of pretext into polemics. In the interpretation of Tolstoy the lack of faith raises no emptiness but the feelings of constant fear and loneliness. Thus, awareness of punishment comes to a man in this life. The motif of punishment is combined with the motif of insight that opens a person who has lost God. So the pretext of M. Kostomarov “Forty Years” and the midquel of L. Tolstoy “The End of the Little Russian legend "Forty years", published by M. Kostomarov in1881”are based on the same philosophical grounds, but have different ideological orientation. The problem of God's punishment is solved by writers in different ways, and their texts form a dilogy, which aims to demonstrate ambiguity and unpredictability of the laws of human being and to give the reader a space for reflection and research.

Christ-Haunted: Theology on The Road1

In this paper I argue that it is Cormac McCarthy’s grappling with theological concepts that best explains The Road’s (2006) haunting power and beauty. Far from being a borrowed and merely aesthetic authority, McCarthy’s work evokes the Bible in a way that forces the astute reader to return to it. In its brutal plot and metaphysical tone, The Road most closely parallels the book of Job, and thereby foregrounds all of its theological questions regarding personhood, suffering, the existence of God, and the purpose of creation. As a result of this parallel, the novel’s beauty is best explained not by an effort on McCarthy’s part to replace God’s authority with beautiful prose. Instead, like the book of Job itself, the novel must be beautiful to the extent that it is answerable to the essential goodness of man being made in the image of God. The Road is under what Hans urs von Balthasar has called the “demand of the beautiful,” and it pulls its readers—however unwittingly—into answerability to that demand.

Regeneration, restoration and resurrection: scholastic inquiries into the nature of bodily growth and decay

Beginning in the twelfth century, a renaissance in Western European learning took place as law, medicine, natural philosophy and theology began to emerge as academic disciplines. Functioning in the context of a Christian world view, concerns over the ‘truth of human nature’ and the status of the body led numerous scholastic writers to focus on matters of the body, its growth and decay, ageing and longevity, life and death. Such issues that had long preoccupied the world of antiquity were re-oriented by the juxtaposition of medicine, philosophy and theology in the schools of Bologna, Montpelier and Paris. Stimulated in part by theological questions concerning the state of the body at the time of creation, after the fall and its re-constitution at the resurrection, the introduction of newly translated works by Aristotle, Avicenna and Galen saw these concerns expand into systematic attempts to explain ageing, longevity and the preservation of health. Within this tradition, Arnold of Villanova’s treatise on the radical moisture serves as an important illustration of these developments. While his writing was rooted in classical medicine and philosophy, less orthodox undercurrents can be detected seeking to preserve youth and extend life by alchemy and magic. Such treatises vied with the orthodoxies of Aristotle and Avicenna, while claiming the authority of the learned doctors themselves. This paper concludes by suggesting that both traditions–the orthodox and the heterodox–are evident to this day, even if couched in different terminologies.

Theology Facing Religious Diversity: The Perspective of Latin American Pluralist Theology

Life is plural and diverse, biodiverse. This reality has always provoked philosophy, the sciences, and also theology. But how does theological thinking reflect on this eco-human diversity? What about religious diversity? Are diversity and pluralism the same phenomenon? These questions express the aim of this article: to reflect on theology in the face of diversity and pluralism. With the methodology of bibliographic analysis, the article begins by discussing the challenges of this reality. Then it deals with how theology confronts diversity and pluralism. In the end, it reflects on the possibility of Latin American Liberation Theology being conceived as pluralist, articulating itself with the Theology of Religious Pluralism—especially from the 1990s. One of the exponents of the Latin American Liberation Theology that justifies such a paradigm shift is the theologian Leonardo Boff. With his outputs, Latin American theology starts to realize, from the ecological paradigm, the articulation between liberation and dialogue, then being called pluralistic liberation theology. The conclusions of the article point out that cultural change, the ecological paradigm and, recently, the questions of decolonial theology, have led theological thinking to transform more, facing the socio-environmental challenges of diversity, conflicts, and interreligious dialogue, accepting even more the awareness of pluralism.

Praying for Rain?: Reformed Perspectives from the Southern African Context

AbstractThis contribution addresses the question raised in this volume whether praying for rain is an appropriate response to the impact of climate change from a Southern African perspective. It commences with a missionary story from Chipata in Zambia, reflects on subsequent contextual changes, and raises some theological questions on discerning the movement of the Spirit, divine action, and providence. It addresses such questions with reference to material developed for a “Season of Creation” from within the Western Cape, namely on the theme of “God and El Niño: What can we expect from the God of Exodus?” It concludes that praying for rain is a rather limited ecclesial response to climate change that raises more questions than it can answer.

Politics and Miracle: Radical Democracy and Non-Interventionist Divine Action

ABSTRACTThis paper elucidates Nancey Murphy's theology of special divine action in order to show its unique coherence as well as explore some political implications of this theory. Besides showing itself to be a fruitful conceptualization of both “the miraculous” and the natural world, this paper argues that Murphy's insights can be extended to address a pressing question in contemporary political theology: the nature and function of power in increasingly pluralistic societies. The upshot, drawing on the connection between conceptualizations of miracle and sovereignty made by Carl Schmitt, is that Murphy's non-interventionist theory of divine action at the quantum level “fits” with an equally non-interventionist account of political authority from below, at the level of an active, democratically engaged citizenry.

R. S. 토머스 시에 나타난 신의 속성

This paper aims at understanding the attributes of God that R.S. Thomas describes in his poetry. R. S. Thomas thinks that man is unwilling to believe in invisible God because he is accustomed to scientific knowledge demanding verification. In his own way, Thomas raises various theological questions about the nature of God; “Who, what, and where is God? Why does He allow, or even demand sufferings in man? Why does petition go unanswered?” As many thoughtful men may think, Thomas wants evidence to vindicate his faith. First, Thomas follows the traces of God and tries to meditate. And then, Thomas wants to analyze and reveal God as scientists do so in the modern technology. The poet reveals God with human character; God is not only furious, jealous, or malicious but anguished or weak-minded. However, God can’t be seen as a real man. For that reason, Thomas desires to perceive and analyze the invisible attributes, namely, the silence, emptiness, and gaps of God. In conclusion, Thomas analyses the absence of God and tries to prove the presence of God.

Zen-Christian Dual Belonging and the Practice of Apophasis: Strategies of Meeting Rose Drew’s Theological Challenge

Abstract An important subset of the phenomenon of multiple religious belonging is that of Buddhist- Christian belonging: people who claim to belong to, owe allegiance to or believe in both the Buddhist and Christian faiths. This phenomenon has not yet been the subject of much normative theological investigation, as opposed to descriptive and empirically-oriented social scientific study. Recently, however, two theological studies have appeared on dual Buddhist-Christian belonging: Rose Drew’s Buddhist and Christian? and the collection of essays Buddhist-Christian Dual Belonging. From a theological point of view, is it possible to be authentically both Buddhist and Christian? Rose Drew has formulated two demands that can be applied in investigating such a theological question. In this article, I will first critically assess several possible strategies for dealing with those two demands, and then explore an approach to Zen-Christian dual belonging that focuses on the practice of apophasis.

Norbert Peters - svědek postoje katolických biblistů k hypotéze evolučního vzniku člověka na přelomu 19. a 20. století

The study is part of a research project focused on Catholic theologians and scholars who either accepted the evolutionary origin of the human body in accordance with Mivart’s thesis or denied it in years 1871–1910. The author presents the Padernborn exegete Norbert Peters (1863–1938) and a critical analysis of his book Glauben und Wissen im ersten biblischen Schopfungsbericht (Gen 1:1–2:3), Paderborn: Verlag von Ferdinand Schoning, 1907. The above-mentioned author reacts to both the academic and popular writing of E. Haeckel. He argues as a biblical scholar that the description of the creation of man, as it is found in the first chapters of Genesis, is not an obstacle to openness to an evolutionary origin – the creation of the human body. Being a specialist in the Bible, however, he does not dare state whether this hypothesis is actually viable. The issue of the means of creation of the human body is, in his view, only a marginal question in theology. A methodologically highly disciplined approach can be observed, however, which is in many respects similar to the approach of contemporary Catholic theologians.

Luke–Acts and Jewish Historiography: A Study on the Theology, Literature, and Ideology of Luke–Acts. By Samson Uytanlet

Samson Uytanlet begins this detailed analysis of Luke–Acts (a revision of his doctoral thesis, submitted to the London School of Theology and supervised by Joel B. Green) with the astute recognition of an unhelpful methodological division within Lukan studies. While many recent studies consider Luke–Acts in relation to either non-Jewish Greco-Roman texts (when discussing literary features) or Jewish texts alone (when addressing theological questions), Uytanlet rightly seeks to bring together a broader representation of Luke’s literary context. He examines both Jewish and non-Jewish Greco-Roman texts (predominantly, but not exclusively historiographies), to illuminate his investigation of the theology, literary style, and ideology of Luke–Acts. He goes on to assert that, despite various similarities, Luke’s strongest affinities lie with Jewish texts in each of these areas. The study is comprised of five parts. Part I (introduction) recounts the history of Lukan interpretation through the lens of what Uytanlet dubs ‘The “Great Divide”’ of history and theology (p. 4). Here he traces the dual focus on history and theology in twentieth-century Lukan scholarship first through studies that consider Luke as a Jewish theologian and then Luke as a Hellenistic writer, before turning briefly to those that Uytanlet suggests address Luke as ‘Hellenistic-Jewish Ideologist’, such as Sterling’s account of apologetic historiography. For Uytanlet, assessing the theological, literary, and ideological features of Luke–Acts all require a knowledge of both Greco-Roman and Jewish textual traditions, but ‘the Jewish writings, particularly Israel’s Scriptures, have the dominant influence on Luke’s work in these three areas’ (p. 22). This is the thesis he seeks to support in Parts II–IV, with a short conclusion in Part V.