Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?: Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles

Rating:
Summary: Rigourous but not complete
Review: MacDonald transformed the field of New Testament interpretation in 2000 with his 'The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark'. Of the various recent books doing a close reading of the New Testament and finding influences from Greek and Roman writings, this was the most rigorous.

Since then MacDonald has applied his same technique to the Book of Tobit and the Acts of Andrew, and he has already published 4 articles in Journals re The Acts of the Apostles. The book is not much more than four more articles published as a book. It would have been more of a convenience to the reader if he had put all 8 articles in the book (especially given the high price of his books and the fact that his more recent books don't seem to come out in paperback).

There are alternate readings, especially of Mark, finding parallels to hagiographies of Julius Caesar (Gary Courtney) and the campaigns of Titus as told in Josephus (Joe Atwill). Admittedly, neither Courtney nor Atwill are as rigorous as MacDonald is, nor do they have his command of ancient Greek. However, as their parallels translate more strongly into English and are less dependant on Greek philology, they do demand attention. MacDonald ignores them. He does however discuss Bonz' 'The Past as Legacy: Luke-Acts and Ancient Epic' which finds parallels mainly in Virgil's Aeneid.

Nor does he engage with the question: If the author of Luke and Acts are the same, why are all the Homer parallels in the second book. Given the influence of Homer at the time as MacDonald describes it (with which I have no argument) it can hardly be the case that "Luke" read Homer between book 1 and book2. It is a question that deserves comment.

Both Bonz and MacDonald assume that it was unusual if Luke were able to read Latin, and therefore he needed Polybius' Greek translation of the Aeneid. This is, of course, an assumption that Luke was from the Eastern Empire, but Luke is the one Gospel writer that even the most heterodox critics take not to be Jewish. If, as in Robert Eisenman's 'James the Brother of Jesus', we assume that like the other Gospels, Luke and Acts were written at the Flavian Court, then it is highly likely that he had good Latin.