Feasting and Social Rhetoric in Luke 14

Abstract

The writer of the Gospel of Luke is a Hellenistic writer who uses conventional modes of narration, characterisation and argumentation to present Jesus in the manner of the familiar figure of the dinner sage. In this original and thought-provoking 1995 study, Willi Braun draws both on social and literary evidence regarding the Greco-Roman élite banquet scene and on ancient prescribed methods of rhetorical composition. He argues that the Pharisaic dinner episode in Luke 14 is a skilfully crafted rhetorical unit in which Jesus presents an argument for Luke's vision of a Christian society. His contention that the point of the episode is directed primarily at the wealthy urban élite, who stand in most need of a transformation of character and values to fit them for membership of this society, points up the way in which gospel writers manipulated the inherited Jesus traditions for the purposes of ideological and social formation of Christian communities.