Ravens argues that Luke's belief in God's restoration of Israel provides the key context for understanding Luke-Acts. His attitudes to Jews, his surveys of Israel's history and his interest in the Samaritans combine to suggest his wider, pre-Davidic, view of Israel-a view that becomes the pattern for the restored Israel under its Davidic king. Luke's belief leads him to present Christology and atonement in ways that cohere with Jewish hopes and to correct apparently anti-Jewish elements in Paul's letters and Matthew's Gospel. This theme also determines his account of the gentile mission and his pastoral concern for unity.

For Luke, argues Turner, the Spirit came upon Jesus in order to endow him with the power and wisdom to purge Israel and initiate its restoration. Likewise, the Spirit came upon the early Christian community, not merely to empower it for mission but principally to reshape it in fulfilment of the hopes expressed in Luke 1-2. Thus the Spirit is no mere added gift, but looks towards the salvation of the community as well as for its witness. This substantial study of Luke's theology is also a sympathetic critique of the classical Pentecostal view of the Spirit.

Luke, the eponymous author of the gospel that bears his name as well as the book of Acts, wrote the largest portion of the New Testament. Luke is generally thought to be a gentile. This book addresses a question raised by Jesus's disciples at the very beginning of Acts: "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" The question is freighted with political and national significance as it inquires about the restoration of political sovereignty to the Jewish people. This book investigates Luke's perspective on the salvation of Israel in light of Jewish restoration eschatology. It situates Luke-Acts in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The author of Luke-Acts did not write the Jews off but still awaited the restoration of Israel. Luke conceived of Israel's eschatological restoration in traditional Jewish terms. The nation of Israel would experience liberation in the fullest sense, including national and political restoration. Luke's Jewish Eschatology builds upon the appreciation of the Jewish character of early Christianity in the decades after the Holocaust, which has witnessed the reclamation of the Jewishness of the historical Jesus and even Paul.

Ravens argues that Luke's belief in God's restoration of Israel provides the key context for understanding Luke-Acts. His attitudes to Jews, his surveys of Israel's history and his interest in the Samaritans combine to suggest his wider, pre-Davidic, view of Israel-a view that becomes the pattern for the restored Israel under its Davidic king. Luke's belief leads him to present Christology and atonement in ways that cohere with Jewish hopes and to correct apparently anti-Jewish elements in Paul's letters and Matthew's Gospel. This theme also determines his account of the gentile mission and his pastoral concern for unity.

This book, edited by Carey C. Newman, offers a multifaceted and critical assessment of N. T. Wright's work, Jesus and the Victory of God. Wright responds to the essayists, and Marcus Borg offers his critical appraisal.

These seminal essays, written by an international group of eminent scholars, introduce the reader to the subject of restoration in a roughly chronological approach, beginning with the formative period (the Old Testament), followed by the Greco-Roman period, formative Judaism, and early Christianity.