Luke’s Jewish Eschatology: The National Restoration of Israel in Luke-Acts

Luke, the eponymous author of the gospel that bears his name as well as the book of Acts, wrote the largest portion of the New Testament. Luke is generally thought to be a gentile. This book addresses a question raised by Jesus’s disciples at the very beginning of Acts: Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? The question is freighted with political and national significance as it inquires about the restoration of political sovereignty to the Jewish people. This book investigates Luke’s perspective on the salvation of Israel in light of Jewish restoration eschatology. It situates Luke-Acts in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The author of Luke-Acts did not write the Jews off but still awaited the restoration of Israel. Luke conceived of Israel’s eschatological restoration in traditional Jewish terms. The nation of Israel would experience liberation in the fullest sense, including national and political restoration. Luke’s Jewish Eschatology builds upon the appreciation of the Jewish character of early Christianity in the decades after the Holocaust, which has witnessed the reclamation of the Jewishness of the historical Jesus and even Paul.