Abraham, Ancestry, and Ethnicity in Luke's Gospel

Abraham, Ancestry, and Ethnicity in Luke’s Gospel: From These Stones explores how Luke employs ancestry—especially descent from Abraham—to recategorize believers and nonbelievers. Capitalizing on the surprising slipperiness of race antiquity, Luke offers a new layer of ethnic identity to gentile believers, as Abraham’s extended family. What happens to the racial identity of those who follow Jesus? Abraham, Ancestry, and Ethnicity in Luke’s Gospel: From These Stones explores how Luke employs the concept of ancestry—especially descent from Abraham—to recategorize believers and nonbelievers. Luke’s use of the patriarch is informed by his function in Second Temple literature, as the ancestor of the Israel, but also the father of several other races, and a point of surprising contact between Jews and gentiles. In his gospel, Luke offers a new layer of ethnic identity to gentile believers, as adjunct members of Abraham’s family tree.