Sunday, June 16, 2019

Luke T. Johnson's Remarks About Luke 17:21

The kingdom of God is among you: This saying is unique to Luke and has been interpreted in several ways. The critical problem is the understanding of entos hymon. Some read this as "within you" as though the rule of God were a spiritual awareness. This fits the sense of the Greek adverb (cf. e.g., Matt 23:26), but it does not do as well with the plural pronoun "you," or the narrative context of Luke, in which such a statement to the Pharisees would be unthinkable. The present translation follows the majority opinion that the adverb entos with the plural pronoun should have the sense of "among you." This makes good sense of the narrative context: Jesus tells the Pharisees that the kingdom is forming around the prophet even in their midst, yet they cannot see it for what it is.

Source: Luke T. Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (Sacra Pagina Series), page 263.

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