The Exorcism Stories in Luke-Acts: A Sociostylistic Reading (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, Series Number 129)

The distinctively Lukan version of the exorcism stories has attracted little interest from scholars in New Testament studies until recently. Setting the stories within their ancient cultural context, Todd Klutz uses linguistic analysis to cover popular beliefs as well as official religion. He sheds new light on the Jewishness of the text, and on the understanding of exorcism within the Hellenized Jewish religious world. This is the first book in English to integrate detailed literary criticism of the exorcism stories in Luke-Acts with wide-ranging comparative study of ancient sources on demonology, spirit affliction and exorcistic healing. Methods from systemic functional linguistics and critical theory are explained and then applied to each story. Careful focus is placed on each narrative's linguistic functions and also on relevant aspects of its literary co-text and the wider context of culture. Implications of the analysis for the new perspective on Luke-Acts, especially the implied author's relationship with Judaism, are explored in relation to the Lukan stories' original context of reception. Largely neglected interfaces between Luke's narrative representation of exorcism and emerging academic discourse about religious experience, shamanism, health care in antiquity, ritual performance and ancient Jewish systems of impurity are probed in ways that shed fresh light on this supremely alien part of the Lukan writings This 2004 book in English integrates detailed literary criticism of the exorcism stories in Luke-Acts with wide-ranging comparative study of ancient sources on demonology, spirit affliction and exorcistic healing. Methods from systemic functional linguistics and critical theory are explained and then applied to each story. Careful focus is placed on each narrative's linguistic functions and also on relevant aspects of its literary co-text and the wider context of culture. Implications of the analysis for the new perspective on Luke-Acts, especially the implied author's relationship with Judaism, are explored in relation to the Lukan stories'original context of reception. Largely neglected interfaces between Luke's narrative representation of exorcism and emerging academic discourse about religious experience, shamanism, health care in antiquity, ritual performance and ancient Jewish systems of impurity are probed in ways that shed fresh light on this supremely alien part of the Lukan writings. This 2004 book in English integrates detailed literary criticism of the exorcism stories in Luke-Acts with wide-ranging comparative study of ancient sources on demonology, spirit affliction and exorcistic healing. Methods from systemic functional linguistics and critical theory are explained and then applied to each story. Careful focus is placed on each narrative's linguistic functions and also on relevant aspects of its literary co-text and the wider context of culture. Implications of the analysis for the new perspective on Luke-Acts, especially the implied author's relationship with Judaism, are explored in relation to the Lukan stories' original context of reception. Largely neglected interfaces between Luke's narrative representation of exorcism and emerging academic discourse about religious experience, shamanism, health care in antiquity, ritual performance and ancient Jewish systems of impurity are probed in ways that shed fresh light on this supremely alien part of the Lukan writings This is the first book in English to situate the Lukan exorcism stories within their ancient cultural context, including popular belief as well as official religion. Close linguistic analysis sheds light on the Jewishness of the text and the understanding of exorcism within the hellenized Jewish religious world Recent efforts by linguists and literary theorists to build an interface between their respective disciplines have produced analytical methods that have much to offer anyone interested in the relations between texts and their extratextual contexts of production. Todd Klutz. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 270-288) And Indexes.