Date of Award
5-1967
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Theology
First Advisor
Bernard Cooke
Second Advisor
Thomas Caldwell
Third Advisor
William J. Kelly
Abstract
For the Christian, the death and resurrection of Christ is the central datum of faith. This is obvious. It is equally obvious that Christianity is not Judaism. The death and resurrection of Christ accomplished something revolutionary: in him the religion of Israel was superseded by being fulfilled. The primary and constitutive action of God toward Israel, the exodus-covenant event, is transformed intervention of God in her history. The death and resurrection of Christ is the new Passover, now commemorated in the Christian Eucharist. But in the New Testament literature, each of the evangelists approaches the event from a slightly different viewpoint, with slightly different preoccupations, addressing himself to a different audience. It will be our purpose to examine the gospel of St. Luke, to see if we can determine his particular point of view in his presentation of the death and resurrection of Christ, and precisely how and why he sees Christianity as a new religion. The study then does not so much intend to demonstrate that the Passover mystery is central to the gospel. We propose, rather, to determine how Luke has used it in his presentation of the person and work of Christ. It is our thesis that the principle of exodus-promised land, re-interpreted in terms of suffering-glory, death-resurrection, functions as one of the main structural bases for the gospel of Luke, and also as the interpretive principle of his Christology.