Patterns of Divine Commitment in Luke-Acts

As several surveys (G. Saß 1995, K. Conway 2014) of the language of divine commitment have shown, it was uncommon to speak of God or a god making commitments in the form of promises in Greek literature prior to the 1st c. AD. Within the 1st century, however, in the writings of Philo, Josephus, and the authors of the New Testament, it became relatively common to speak of the God of Israel committing himself to his people not only in the form of oath, covenant, and word, but specifically in the register of promise (ὑπόσχεσις, ἐπαγγελία). Previous studies, building on this insight, have shown the unique character of the exclusive use of ἐπαγγελία language in the New Testament and the way in which this language can be distinguished from other forms of divine commitment in the Pauline corpus ((K. Conway 2014) and in Hebrews (D. Stevens 2020). In this paper, I examine the distribution and usage of the various registers of divine commitment (word, promise, oath, and covenant) in Luke-Acts and demonstrate that Luke’s use of promise language semantically reflects the Pauline use, while it distributionally and rhetorically supports the particularly Lukan presentation of salvation history within Luke-Acts.