Children as Gift in the Gospel of Luke

Abstract

Luke's Gospel contains a number of passages involving children. Already its first scene (1:5–25) narrates the well-known story of a childless priestly couple, whom God endows with offspring, as shown by a mention of Elizabeth's pregnancy that concludes the narrative. The child, John the Baptist, whose birth the evangelist describes in 1:57–66, thus emerges as God's gift to Elizabeth and Zechariah. Luke's narrative then includes several pericopes that are similarly concerned with parents deprived of children. This defective status results not only from the loss of an only child, as in the case of both Nain's widow (7:11–17) and Jairus (8:41–42, 49–56), but also from a death-threat against a child in the form of unceasing demonic seizures, as in the case of an anonymous father (9:37–43). The scenes in question then unmistakably portray Jesus as the one to bestow children on the parents. This article focuses on the above-referenced texts, drawing attention to those features that support the claim that the evangelist envisions the children in question as a gift from Jesus. This focus explains the similarity with 1:5–25, where the child appears as a gift from God. The article points out that child-giving represents a motif that assimilates Jesus to God. As such, the article offers a modest contribution not only to the study of children in biblical narratives, but also to the interpretation of Luke's Christology.

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