Luke 1:5-25

First Narrative: Announcement of the Birth of John the Baptist, Luke 1:5-25.

The first words of the narrative bring us back from the midst of Greece, whither we were transported by the prologue, into a completely Jewish world. The very style changes its character. From the fifth verse it is so saturated with Aramaisms, that the contrast with the four preceding verses resulting from it obliges us to admit, either that the author artificially modifies his language in order to adapt it to his subject, and so produces an imitation, a refinement of method scarcely probable, or that he is dealing with ancient documents, the Aramaic colouring of which he endeavours to preserve as faithfully as possible. This second supposition alone appears admissible. But it may assume two forms. Either the author simply copies a Greek document which already had the Hebraistic character with which we are struck; or the document in his hands is in the Aramean tongue, and he translates it into Greek. Bleek maintains the first view. We shall examine, at the seventy-eighth verse of chap. 1, his principal proof. As all the most characteristic peculiarities of Luke's style are found in these two Chapter s, the second alternative is by this circumstance rendered more probable.

But in this case it is asked, Why Luke, translating from the Aramean, did not reproduce his document in purer Greek, as he was perfectly competent to do; comp. Luke 1:1-4. And he is blamed for his servility as a translator.

It is exactly as if M. de Barante were blamed for preserving with all possible fidelity, in his history of the Dukes of Burgundy, the style of the ancient chronicles from which the contents of his narrative are drawn; or M. Augustin Thierry, for “having kept as near as he possibly could to the language of the ancient historians.” So far from deserving the blame of his critics, Luke has shown himself a man of exquisite taste, in that he has preserved throughout his narrative all the flavour of the documents he uses, and has availed himself of the incomparable flexibility of the Greek language to reproduce in all their purity of substance and form, and give, as it were, a tracing of the precious documents which had fallen into his hands.

This first narrative describes: 1. The trial of Zacharias and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-7). 2. The promise of deliverance (Luke 1:8-22). 3. The accomplishment of this promise (Luke 1:23-25).