Preliminary Material
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This monograph is an exploration of proper names in Luke-Acts, primarily personal names but also place names, titles, and epithets. More specifically, it is an examination of two types of wordplay on proper names: the introduction of a name whose meaning is somehow significant in the narrative context in which it appears (sometimes called a “speaking name”); the juxtaposition of a name with another word that could be imagined to be etymologically related to the name (sometimes called a figura etymologica or paronomasia). The monograph identifies in Luke-Acts twenty-two names in the first category and eighteen in the second. The core of the monograph is the examination of each instance of these two types of wordplay within its narrative context in Luke-Acts. As such, the treatment of each instance will be of interest on its own. But the monograph also asks—and, I believe, answers—several larger questions that arise from this examination: is Luke’s practice fundamentally different from that of other New Testament writers (yes); if so, why (because he was exceptionally influenced by Classical and Hellenistic Greek literature); and how did he gain his familiarity with this literature (already in the early stages of his formal education). The monograph is laid out in a very deliberate fashion so as to raise each of these questions and then to answer them in a subsequent chapter.