Steve Reece proposes that the author of Luke-Acts was trained as a youth
in the primary and secondary Greek educational curriculum typical of the
Eastern Mediterranean during the Roman Imperial period, where he gained
familiarity with the Classical and Hellenistic authors whose works were
the focus of study. He makes a case for Luke's knowledge of these
authors internally by spotlighting the density of allusions to them in
the narrative of Luke-Acts, and externally by illustrating from
contemporary literary, papyrological, and artistic evidence that the
works of these authors were indeed widely known in the Eastern
Mediterranean at the time of the composition of Luke-Acts, not only in
the schools but also among the general public.
Reece begins with a thorough examination of the Greek educational system
during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods, emphasizing that the
educational curriculum was very homogeneous, at least at the primary and
secondary levels, and that children growing up anywhere in the Eastern
Mediterranean could expect to receive quite similar educations. His
close examination of the Greek text of Luke-Acts has turned up echoes,
allusions, and quotations of several of the very authors that were most
prominently featured in the school curriculum: Homer, Aesop, Euripides,
Plato, and Aratus. This reinforces the view that Luke, along with other
writers of the New Testament, lived in a cultural milieu that was
influenced by Classical and Hellenistic Greek literature and that he was
not averse to invoking that literature when it served his theological
and literary purposes.
