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The Parable of The Unjust Judge and The Eschatology of Luke-Acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

C. E. B. Cranfield
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Extract

At the present time a considerable amount of attention is being paid to the eschatology of St. Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, largely as a result of the publication in 1954 of Professor Hans Conzelmann's Die Mitte der zeit,1 which has recently been made available in English under the title, The Theology of St. Luke.2 In addition to this work, Professor C. K. Barrett's Luke the Historian in Recent Research3 must now be mentioned.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , September 1963 , pp. 297 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1963

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References

page 297 note 1 Tübingen, 3rd (revised) ed. 1960.

page 297 note 2 London, 1960.

page 297 note 3 London, 1961.

page 297 note 4 op. cit., pp. 40–46.

page 298 note 1 The Parables of Jesus (London, 1954), pp. 115–119.Google Scholar

page 298 note 2 op. cit., p. 117.

page 298 note 3 op. cit., pp. 77 and 84.

page 298 note 4 Die Gleicknisse Jesu 3rd (revised) ed. (Hamburg, 1956), p. 235.Google Scholar

page 299 note 1 Jeremias has suggested (op. cit., p. 116) that should here be translated ‘suddenly’ or ‘unexpectedly’ rather than ‘soon’, appealing to LXX Deut. 11.17; Josh. 8. 18f; Ps. 2.12 (cf. Grässer, E., Das Problem der Parusiever zögerung in den synoptischen Evangelien und in der Apostelgeschichte (Berlin, 1957), p. 38, n. 3)Google Scholar. But in the first and second of these passages represents for which (when used adverbially) Brown, Driver and Briggs give the meanings ‘hastily’, ‘quickly’. In both cases the RV has ‘quickly’. In the third passage the Hebrew is for which Brown, Driver and Briggs do not give the meaning ‘suddenly’ at ail, and the RV has ‘soon’. In none of these passages does the context, as far as I can see, require the meaning which Jeremias suggests. It is to be noted that Liddell and Scott do not give ‘suddenly’ or ‘unexpectedly’ as a possible meaning either of or of the various adverbial phrases which use the noun . Similarly W. Bauer's dictionary gives no hint of the possibility of meaning ‘suddenly’ or ‘unexpectedly’. I take it, therefore, that in Luke 18.8 it means ‘quickly’ or ‘soon’.

page 299 note 2 It is significant also that Luke has placed this parable immediately after the eschatological passage, 17.22–37.

page 299 note 3 op. cit., p. 103.

page 300 note 1 Jeremias takes the words to refer to God's listening patiently to the cries of His elect (p. 116); but Manson, T. W. (The Sayings of Jesus (London, 1949), p. 3O7f)Google Scholar is surely justified in thinking that ‘this is a very lame interpretation. The elect do not want a patient hearing: they want redress. They do not want God to go on patiently listening to their outcry: they want God to take action which will make their crying unnecessary.’ Manson thinks, however, that this is the only meaning the Greek as it stands can give. So he suggests that an Aramaic expression meaning ‘removes his wrath to a distance’ (i.e. postpones it in mercy) has been mistranslated. Leaney, A. R. C. (The Gospel according to St. Luke (London, 1958), p. 233)Google Scholar translates: ‘while he is slow to help them’ (cf. Liddell and Scott, 1940 ed., p. 1074). Creed, J. M. (The Gospel according to St. Luke (London, 1930), p. 223)Google Scholar, on the other hand, follows Wellhausen in translating: ‘does God restrain his anger … in the case of the elect’. I suggest that we should follow Creed in taking to mean ‘in the case of, ’with regard to’, but not in taking the whole clause as a second rhetorical question parallel to . The clause as a whole is rather, I think, to be explained (with Leaney, p. 235f) as continuing the description of the elect which begins with (the being Semitic). For meaning ‘in reference to’, ‘with regard to’, see Liddell and Scott under , B.I.c.

page 301 note 1 I have tried to expound this view of the Naherwartung more fully elsewhere, e.g. in this journal, vol. VII, pp. 284–99; The Gospel according to St. Mark (Cambridge, 1959), p. 408Google Scholar: 1 and 2 Peter and Jude (London 1960), pp. 110–13 and 187–90.