The livetweet of Luke will follow in this thread below.

It was a little overly ambitious to think I'd be live-tweeting Luke in the afternoon. It's the last day before stuff shuts down here, so I went to the office to gather my books and notes before I couldn't anymore. Then I went home and literally ate and slept.

But things are going to be ok. A friend mentioned recently that he thought this live-tweeting of the Gospels was 'intriguing and, I think, not untrue, vector for meditating,' and I feel he may be right. But it's not meditative; it's disciplined free association.

I want to talk about, just like I think it emerged in Matthew and Mark, how I came first to encounter Luke, just to get my bearings straight. Truth is, if I don't do this, I might not even crack open the book.

My dad studied the hell out of Luke when he was in seminary. He had this amazing New Testament prof, Joel B. Green, in Berkeley, and he was writing his massive NICNT commentary on it. So Dad took every class he could with Green.

It wasn't till later when I was flirting with theological study that I learned what Green was famous for: his 'monist' understanding of the New Testament, as opposed to the dualism that frankly if you look at my Mark tweets esp you'll see I'm rather flirtatious about.

For Dad, Green's classes were about the good news to the poor, which I suppose you could say is the argument of the commentary. It was the Magnificat, the rich and poor, Lazarus and the rich man.

And he preached all that, like in the normatively health/wealth Chinese church.

Later when I went to university, I had my own encounter with Luke. My higher education is almost entirely secular, whereas my chlidhood schools were not (this tension is the source of my intellectual perversion), but the historiography prof put I. Howard Marshall on the syllabus.

Marshall, whom I later learned was Green's teacher, was an evangelical scholar, and he was optional reading in the session where we dealt with Greek historiography, from Herodotus to Thucydides to Luke. It showed me that the lines of the secular academy can be blurred.

I was very taken by this approach, and also that both Marshall and Green were known Arminian opponents to the New Calvinists I was finding myself as an insecure young Christian being drawn to. In fact, Green was denounced around that time by Driscoll et al. on atonement.

I just realized that it's poetic because it's Great and Holy Week to arrive in this pre-livetweet of Luke with this journey because while I desperately wanted a theological home then, the truth was that I lived in this tension of Marshall/Green with the New Calvinists.

I don't think this fight is really remembered, as most now will discuss the tomes that we were written in the N.T. Wright-John Piper battle royale around the New Perspective on Paul, a debate that all the Paul-within-Judaism folks looked with only morbid and perverse curiosity.

But this is honestly the baggage that I, now much later as an Eastern Catholic, bring to Luke, whom I have read enough of in the intervening years, as he is so good with the Theotokos. I have not really interrogated whether this ideological background colours my approach to Luke.

More, then, after dinner. I thought I'd get this all out first, because my theological baggage definitely came to the fore while reading Matthew and Mark, and this process, I would say, is why this exercise has been deeply psychoanalytical.

I'm back, finally. Let's read Luke.

'Since many have set their hands to laying out an orderly narrative'?

Um, I've read two? How many of these are there out there?

'the events that have been brought to fulfillment among us.'

oooh something's happening.

Oh wait, is he actually taking a cheap shot at those other accounts? Lots of people have written orderly accounts. Luke's gone to the eyewitnesses. Now Theophilus can judge the reliability of all the other narratives.

At this point, I don't even care if Theophilus is a real person anymore. When I was a kid and really needed inerrancy to be a thing, I cared a lot. Then I grew up and learned how ancient manuscripts work.

But I do care now about the potshots Luke is taking at the other accounts!

Gosh, we don't read this opening paragraph enough in our church. We always start with the Zechariah story.

This opening para is everything.

Herod. This guy.

Why are we always talking about this guy?

LOL. Luke is really going for the jugular for the reliability of his account. Zechariah's priestly order is spelled out; so is Elizabeth's lineage.

And contextualized by Herod. That guy.

I feel like the trip I'm getting from reading the four Gospels in order is that Matthew's told us so much about Herod that I'm like -- HEROD AGAIN?!

...which is to say that my impression of these narratives so far is that Matthew's told us a lot about Herod. Mark too, for that matter ('the yeast of the Herodians').

HEROD.

They were conducting themselves impeccably before God.

In Gospel universe, this sounds like the setup for a very bad joke. Like the one on the young man with many possessions.

'To burn incense.'

Did you know they had to explain to us what this was in Sunday school because Chinese Christian me absolutely did not grow up Anglican, Latin, or Orthodox?

I'd be alarmed if I saw an angel by the side of the altar. This kind of thing hasn't happened since Isaiah was in the temple after Uzziah caught leprosy from doing the wrong thing with the incense burner.

The angel says to Zechariah, 'Do not be afraid, Zechariah.'

HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME??

I always forget that Zechariah and Elizabeth are John the Baptist's parents. They seem so sane, middle-class even.

'I am Gabriel.'

Right, I have read the Book of Daniel. I know who this guy is. But I am neither Isaiah nor Daniel. Why, one must feel with Zechariah, is this happening to me?

It's almost magic realism, this scene. Here Zechariah's in the temple having this Isaiah/Daniel universe experience, and outside they're all waiting for him, like what's going on, and holy cow, why can't he talk now?

Oh, and now Gabriel is sent by God again. Doesn't this only happen in like Daniel and Tobit? How is this happening to ordinary people?

Like, I'm thinking about this from the perspective of Luke saying he's got a reliable narrative. He says that, and goes right into all the call-backs from apocryphal and wisdom literature, all the stuff that may or may not be fiction.

The response is: wait, Gabriel, he's real?

This almost feels like saying Santa is real. Not only is Santa real, but he is in your house, and no, you did not see mommy kissing him.

But he does announce to your mom that she's pregnant. While a virgin.

'And she was greatly distressed at his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.'

Exactly. I also wonder if she feels this way every time I pray a Hail Mary.

Even the language Gabriel uses is like taken right out of apocalyptic literature. The juxtaposition between these very ordinary folks and this character right out of the old stories who is appearing to them in real life is a lot.

You know he's not cosplaying either. He makes an in-universe reference now to Elizabeth, who is very real and very ordinary.

Wait, Elizabeth and Mary are related?

Gosh, I keep forgetting that too. Don't take my Orthodox card away from me.

Wait, the second half of the 'Hail Mary' is out of Elizabeth's mouth?

Balthasar forgot to tell me this.

And Mary goes full Hannah.

Ordinary woman who can pray and sing. Triple threat.

This song is definitely a pull from another end of prophetic literature. This reliable narrative seems like it's more about genre mixing of all the greatest hits.

That's right. Zechariah prophesied. Because that is what is happening here. Everybody's prophesying. Everybody's getting these angelic visits.

Prophecy is for everybody. This is why it was once said, 'Is Saul also among the prophets?'