The Beatitudes according to Matthew and Luke

Over the past three years, my research has focused on the beatitudes and woes in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:20-26). As a result, I am way more familiar with Luke’s beatitudes than the more famous series in Matthew 5. To try and rectify this, I am going to do a series of posts comparing these two series of beatitudes (and, in Luke’s case, woes).
Let’s begin with a translation of the two passages.

Expanded translation of Luke 6:20-26

I recently had my thesis defence, the final stage in what has seemed like a long process. One of the examiners for my PhD thesis asked in his report if I could provide an expanded translation of Luke 6:20-26. Unfortunately, this question never made it to the defence itself, but I have been fascinated by it, so I had to go ahead and do it anyway.

Mountains

A PhD is a very time-consuming exercise. I have just realised that it has been more than a year since I have posted anything. This unintentional oversight is because the process of writing is taking up most of my time, but also because I am working on the central ideas of my thesis and as a result come across less of the interesting side notes that I tend to write about here.

I am currently in my final year of the PhD, with only months left to get everything coherent, well edited and sent off for examination. It is a truly terrifying thought.

The Nativity Story

The Christmas season is fast approaching now. But it seems to have arrived earlier this year than normal (as it does every year). This year its early arrival is partially due to the fact that I have been studying the infancy narrative in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1-2) as part of my thesis. On several occasions I found myself humming Christmas carols as I read through commentaries and articles on the birth of Jesus and the angelic announcement to the shepherds. “O Little Town of Bethlehem” featured quite regularly. 

Elizabeth (Luke 1)

It seemed only fitting that considering that, as my phd does focus on the Gospel of Luke, I should start featuring it a bit more on my blog. The main reason that this hasn’t been the case so far is that I have spent quite a bit of time dealing with background issues in the Old Testament and other Jewish and Greek literature rather than Luke itself. I have done some research on Luke but most of that is too dense to be put up here where I like to try and keep things as simple and straightforward as possible while still being interesting.