The Delineation of the Lukan Travel Narrative within the Overall Structure of the Gospel of Luke. (original) (raw)

In the sixties I had the opportunity of preparing my doctoral dissertation under the competent and stimulating guidance of Professor Frans Neirynck, who trained me thoroughly in the "Louvain" exegetical methods. My research focused on Lk 13,22-35, an important section of the Lukan travel narrative 1 . One of the questions treated there was the delineation of the Lukan travel narrative: where does it begin and end? Like most scholars, I marked the beginning at Lk 9,51. This verse marks in the most solemn way the moment when Jesus resolves to go up to Jerusalem. But against the majority opinion of that time, I considered verse 19,44 rather than 19,27 or 19,28 as the end-mark of the travel narrative. In a Flemish periodical, bearing the melodious Latin name Collationes Brugenses et Gandavenses, in which Frans Neirynck also started publishing the first fruits of his long exegetical career, I published (in 1968-69) the results of my study of the Lukan travel narrative 2 . The Flemish language being much less known than Flemish painting, my article and the arguments adduced there in support of 19,44 as the end of Luke"s travel narrative remained unnoticed, with a mere handful of exceptions, one of them being Frans Neirynck, from whose all-seeing eye nothing published in the field of Synoptic research can escape 3 ! Structure of Luke"s Gospel, in JETS 25 (1982) 33-39; J. LEAL, El plan literaria del III Evangelio y la geografia, in Estudios Eclesiásticos 29 (1955) 197-215; ID., La geografia y el plan literario del III