From:
                                                            5/2/2000 6:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Synoptic-L] Prolog of
LukeTo: willker@chemie.uni-bremen.de, Synoptic-L@bham.ac.uk

In a message dated 5/2/2000 6:33:34 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
willker@chemie.uni-bremen.de writes:

<< I vaguely remember that the prolog of Luke resembles another prolog of
that
 time: A treatise written by a medical doctor. It was speculated that Luke
 maybe knew this work (as a doctor himself) and adopted the intro.
 Unfortunately I cannot remember anymore what this was.
 Name? Title? Greek text source? Any info appreciated!>>

Lovedale Alexander has written extensively on this topic, beginning with a
1986 (?) article in NT, and followed, closely thereafter, with a monograph
in
the Sheffield Series (?). You may be thinking of the second century treatise
by Galen "On the Natural Faculties", though this is by no means the closest
parallel in classical sources to the prologue of Luke. Alexander's main
thesis in both article and book is that Luke's prologue resembles most
closely the prologues of semi-popular scientific treatises, rather than the
prologues of historical works (though there are also significant parallels
with these). At the close of her NT article she cites a number of the
closest
parallels she found in classical literature.  I believe that these include
the prefaces to Josephus' two-volume work Contra Apion and the Greek preface
to Sirach. As I write, it occurs to me that there was another, more obscure
first-century medical author cited by Alexander with an even closer parallel
to Luke 1:1-4. Was it Dioscorides (Peri iatrikes hyles..?) or something like
that (sometimes referred to in Latin as De materia medica)?

Leonard Maluf