The Literary Form of Luke 19:1-10
About the Author:
Rev. Robert F. O’Toole, S.J. a native of St. Louis, Missouri entered the Society of Jesus in 1954 and was ordained in 1967. In 2003, he was elected president of the Board of Trustees of the Gregorian University Foundation, and took office in September of the same year. Prior to this election, he completed six years of being Rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, where he received his Licentiate and Doctorate.
He authored several books: The Christological Climax of Paul’s Defense, The Unity of Luke’s Theology: An Analysis of Luke-Acts, and Who Is a Christian? A Study in Pauline Ethics. He has also written dozens of scholarly articles for many publications.
Bibliographic Data:
JBL 110/1 (1991) 107-116
Outline of the Article:
I. Literary Forms Proposed for Luke 19:1-10
II. But Which Literary Form Applies to Luke 19:1-10
III. Proposed Structure for Luke 19:1-10
IV. Luke 19:1-10 Constitutes a Diptych
V. Conclusion
What the article is all about:
The article used a form of redaction-composition criticism to accurately identify the literary form of the Zacchaeus story. Several literary forms have been proposed for Luke 19:1-10. D. Hamm viewed it as a conversion story. R. Bultmann classified it as a biographical apophthegm. M. Dibelius said it is a genuine personal legend where the deeds and experiences of an individual was rewarded and honored by God. V. Taylor considered it to be a story about Jesus “because the interest appears to lie in the incident itself rather than in the words of Jesus and because more detail is supplied than is usual in pronouncement stories†(pp.107-108). R. White said it is a vindication story. C.H. Talbert sees it as a conflict story similar to the narrative of Levi in Luke 5:27-32. Finally, R.C. Tannehill regards the Zacchaeus narrative as a quest story, which is a type of a pronouncement story.
But some of the literary forms suggested do not simply apply, and some are similar with the others. The author in his article argues for Tannehill’s claim that the Zacchaeus story is a quest story, a type of pronouncement story.
To prove this, he first delves into the proposed structures of the passage. E.E. Ellis sees the structure as “brief and pointedâ€. E. LaVerdiere sees another structure in the passage but “fails to record how the beginning of the pericope looks to its end†(p.110). R. Meynet on the other hand sees in the story a chiasmic form, but really this covers only three verses, vv.2-3, 10. The author concludes that Luke 19:1-10 constitutes a diptych where vv.2-5 and vv.6-10 contain a series of four similar elements, with two scenes joined together by “hook-words†in vv.5-6.
It is obvious that Luke, in this story, dialogues with his readers. At the beginning of the section, Luke draws the readers’ attention to recognizing or seeing who Jesus is. Hence, quest story is the best description for this section. There is an invitation to have the same eagerness as Zacchaeus to see Jesus, but to realize that Jesus is actually the one who does the seeking and the saving.
On August 4, 2007 at 3:04 am jason gulan Said: