My latest book review was published this past Leap Day on Michael Kochenash’s revised dissertation, Roman Self-Representation and the Lukan Kingdom of God (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020), by Rhea Classical Reviews. Please follow the link to read my review of Kochenash’s book, which explains his method and the connections he makes between Rome, Aeneas, Jesus, Octavian, and a number of other worthy and interesting subjects.
This review continues a theme of my fascination with Luke-Acts, which collectively looms large over the New Testament as a whole, but also on the typical ways that Christians have understood the history of the Jesus movement. Kochenash has written extensively on Luke’s contributions to Christian knowledge, some of which may be the author’s innovations. Independently of this, mainly for lecture preparations on Luke-Acts and the Synoptic Problem, I have been recently dipping my toes into the ouevre of Michael D. Goulder, who coins an important term for Luke’s compositional activity that I have found appealing: scriptural embroidery. In fact, I have written a short article, appealing to the bygone scholarship of Goulder, that may be of interest to scholars wishing to introduce a non-Q perspective into their Gospel of Luke readings while also explaining his method on a characteristic Lukan parable, that of the Good Samaritan.
Anyway, back to Kochenash: I also interviewed Michael for the New Books Network in the fall of 2023. It was an enlightening conversation and I hope you will listen to our chat! (See also Michael’s website, here.)
Robert D. Heaton, Ph.D. 