Shaping the Past to Define the Present

Interpretation
“Highly informed, cohesively argued, and persuasively presented. . . . Demonstrates clear awareness of and appreciation for scholarly dialogue over the last three decades.”

Theology
“A varied and highly readable collection of fascinating new perspectives on Luke’s Gospel and Acts.”

Review of Biblical Literature
“[Shaping the Past to Define the Present] is well worth reading, and Lukan scholars will doubtless find much food for thought and many points on which to build in future work.”

Religious Studies Review
“Sterling’s work exhibits keen methodological tact and would be a worthy addition to the libraries of scholars, clergy, and students of early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism.”

“For the past three decades, Greg Sterling has illuminated many aspects of Luke-Acts and helped modern readers appreciate it as an example of ancient apologetic historiography, in which a member of a societal subgroup deliberately Hellenizes its traditions so as to redefine itself within the context of the larger world in which the group now lives. All nine of the essays that comprise this new book—six revised and three new essays—usefully continue Sterling’s project of helping us see how the author of Luke-Acts has shaped the past to speak to the present by defining Christian identity in ways both new and fascinating. Highly recommended.”
—John T. Fitzgerald
University of Notre Dame

“Combining several previously published but substantially revised essays with some new essays, Sterling has produced a tightly argued, exegetically rich monograph that further strengthens his argument for locating Luke-Acts within the tradition of apologetic historiography that had been honed in the East as an alternative to Greek traditions of history-writing. Clear, methodical argumentation, command of the ancient sources, energetic engagement of recent classical and biblical scholarship, and intimate familiarity with key interpretive questions relating to Luke-Acts ensure that Shaping the Past will take its place alongside other field-defining works (Dibelius, Dupont et al.).”
—Carl Holladay
Emory University

“Professor Sterling provides both scholars and general readers with a clear and careful case to upend the division between a ‘Gospel of Luke’ and ‘Acts’ as a founding story of how the apostles spread Christianity from Jerusalem into the cities of the Roman world. Instead both ‘scrolls’ belong to a single literary work, an ‘apologetic history’ that shows despised believers how to identify themselves as heirs to a lineage from ancient Israel to Jesus and the Church. Combining examples from comparable Jewish and Graeco-Roman historians and careful literary analyses of Luke and Acts, this book makes important contributions to both classics and biblical studies.”
—Pheme Perkins
Boston College

“Not every age produces a Mommsen or Momigliano—writers who laid new groundwork for research on ancient history. Gregory E. Sterling's monumental 1992 Historiography and Self-Definition is just such a work, identifying, for the first time, ‘apologetic historiography’ and illuminating, with respect to a range of important texts, its distinctive traits and aims. This indispensable sequel—now including treatment of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History—updates and develops the thesis with fresh insights, illustrating how reconstructions of past events respond to various debates in the lives of their authors. A must-read for anyone interested in the history of the early church.”
—Clare K. Rothschild
Lewis University / Stellenbosch University

“Building on his earlier study Historiography and Self-Definition, Gregory Sterling develops a model for interpreting Luke-Acts as ‘apologetic historiography.’ By comparing Luke’s work with Josephus’s Antiquities and Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, Sterling shows that they shared a concern for antiquity, but at the same time differed in the ways they presented history to their readers. Focusing on specific sections of Acts, Sterling shows that Luke wrote a continuation of the Septuagint and understood God’s action in history through Jesus and the church as a period of fulfillment. This is an important study on Luke-Acts and ancient historiography by a world-leading scholar that will be read with great profit by scholars and students.”
—Jens Schröter
Humboldt University