Luke and Judaism
It is often the case that scholars who study Second Temple Judaism prefer to talk about "Judaisms" (in the plural) rather than "Judaism" (in the singular). The reason for this is that there were so many different kinds of Judaism in the ancient world, and some of these "Judaisms" differed from one another quite significantly.
In its early stages, the people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah comprised a Judaism. Put differently, the first followers of Christ (even for some time after his death) were a Jewish group, and only gradually did "Christianity" come to be regarded as a separate faith.
By the time that Lk's gospel was written, Christianity could no longer really be considered a Jewish sect. As the church grew, it came to be increasingly composed of gentiles. Lk's church seems to have been a predominantly gentile church that was working out its relationship to Judaism.
These Christians of Luke's church may have had questions such as:
- How do we relate to Judaism?
- Are we to live in relation to the Jewish laws?
- How does Jewish history affect our self-understanding?
- How may we participate in a religion whose central figure is Jewish?
In Lk, the Jews reject Jesus' message, but Lk wants to maintain a connection with Judaism. The promises are fulfilled for Israel, but not for all Israel. Those Jews who accepts the message are the "true Israel." They form the bridge between Israel and the Gentiles. Those from Israel who follow Jesus, then, are the true Israel who will provide the link between Jewish salvation history and the Gentile church.
For Lk, Jesus is the fulfillment of OT prophecy. Consider 4.16ff, in which Jesus reads the scriptures in the synagogue in Nazareth:
He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed to free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
Lk recounts in several places the Jews' rejection of Jesus' message. This is all part of Lk's working-out of the relationship between the gentile church and Judaism. The Jews reject Jesus, and so the message about Jesus is spread to the gentiles. We see this theme developed much more fully in Acts.