| Acknowledgements | p. xi |
| List of abbreviations | p. xiii |
| The socio-redaction criticism of Luke-Acts | p. 1 |
| Social and political influences on Lucan theology | p. 1 |
| Towards a socio-redaction criticism of Luke-Acts | p. 2 |
| The methodology of the social sciences | p. 6 |
| The comparative method | p. 9 |
| Objections to the application of the social sciences to the New Testament | p. 12 |
| Legitimation and Luke-Acts | p. 16 |
| The community | p. 24 |
| Luke's audience-a Christian community | p. 24 |
| When and where | p. 27 |
| Jews and Gentiles in Luke's community | p. 30 |
| Introduction: the case for a Gentile audience | p. 30 |
| The universalist theme in Luke-Acts | p. 33 |
| The incident at Nazareth (Lk 4.16-30) and pious Gentiles | p. 34 |
| God-fearers in Luke-Acts | p. 36 |
| Sectarian strategies | p. 46 |
| Introduction | p. 46 |
| The sociology of sectarianism: typology and model | p. 47 |
| Sectarian strategies in Luke-Acts | p. 53 |
| Church and sect | p. 53 |
| Sectarian responses to the world | p. 58 |
| From Jewish reform movement to Christian sect | p. 65 |
| Table-fellowship | p. 71 |
| Table-fellowship between Jews and Gentiles in Luke-Acts | p. 71 |
| Jewish antipathy to dining with Gentiles | p. 73 |
| The anthropological perspective: external threat and purity laws | p. 73 |
| Literary and historical evidence for the Jewish ban on dining with Gentiles | p. 76 |
| The attitude to table-fellowship between Jews and Gentiles in Galatians, Mark and Matthew | p. 86 |
| Table-fellowship in Galatians | p. 87 |
| Table-fellowship in Mark | p. 89 |
| Matthew and table-fellowship | p. 91 |
| Table-fellowship in Luke-Acts | p. 93 |
| The conversion of Cornelius | p. 93 |
| The Apostolic Council | p. 97 |
| Other instances of table-fellowship between Jews and Gentiles in Acts | p. 99 |
| The nature of the meal in Acts 27.33-8 | p. 101 |
| Table-fellowship and Luke's legitimatory purpose | p. 105 |
| The law | p. 110 |
| Introduction | p. 110 |
| The law in Luke's Gospel | p. 111 |
| The infancy narratives | p. 111 |
| Jesus' respect for the law | p. 114 |
| Jesus' transcendence of the law | p. 115 |
| Jesus' challenge to the law | p. 117 |
| Jewish paranomia in the Third Gospel | p. 118 |
| Luke 16.16-18 | p. 120 |
| Lucan omissions of legal material | p. 121 |
| The law in Acts | p. 122 |
| Stephen and the law | p. 122 |
| Paul and the law | p. 125 |
| Conclusion | p. 128 |
| The Temple | p. 131 |
| The prominence of the Temple in Luke-Acts | p. 131 |
| Luke's ambivalent attitude to the Temple | p. 133 |
| The explanation for Luke's attitude to the Temple | p. 135 |
| Historical reality and Lucan redaction in Acts 6.1-8.3 | p. 135 |
| Introduction | p. 135 |
| The identity of the 'Hebrews' and the 'Hellenists' in Acts 6.1 | p. 136 |
| The expulsion of the Hellenists from Jerusalem | p. 139 |
| The conflict between Hebrews and Hellenists | p. 141 |
| Temple, God-fearers and Gospel | p. 145 |
| The attitude of Diaspora Jews to the Temple and the law | p. 146 |
| The Temple and the cult | p. 148 |
| Marginalized God-fearers in Jerusalem | p. 154 |
| The impact of the Gospel | p. 157 |
| Conclusion: Luke's redaction and the needs of his community | p. 161 |
| The poor and the rich | p. 164 |
| A theology of the destitute in Luke-Acts? | p. 164 |
| Luke's theology of poverty and its social setting | p. 169 |
| The rich and the poor in the Hellenistic cities of the Roman East | p. 171 |
| Social stratification | p. 171 |
| The experience of poverty | p. 175 |
| Conclusion | p. 179 |
| The Lucan version of the Nazareth pericope in its Hellenistic setting | p. 179 |
| The social strata represented in Luke's community | p. 179 |
| Luke 4.18-19 and the experience of poverty | p. 180 |
| Conclusion | p. 182 |
| The rich and the poor in Luke's community | p. 183 |
| The upper socio-economic strata in Luke's community | p. 183 |
| The poor in Luke's community | p. 185 |
| Conclusion | p. 187 |
| Luke's theology of the poor | p. 187 |
| Good news for the poor, grim news for the rich | p. 187 |
| The rich and the poor in 1 Enoch 92-105 | p. 189 |
| Luke's attitude to salvation: its other-worldly dimension | p. 191 |
| Luke's attitude to salvation: its this-worldly dimension | p. 193 |
| Conclusion | p. 197 |
| Rome and the ancestral theme | p. 201 |
| Politically sensitive material in Luke-Acts | p. 201 |
| The Roman empire in Luke-Acts | p. 201 |
| Apologetic or legitimation? | p. 205 |
| An historical outline of the apologetic explanation | p. 205 |
| Problems with the apologetic approach | p. 207 |
| An analysis of the religio licita theory | p. 211 |
| Roman respect for ancestral tradition | p. 214 |
| The ancestral theme in Luke-Acts | p. 215 |
| Conclusion: political legitimation in Luke-Acts | p. 217 |
| Epilogue: community and Gospel | p. 220 |
| Notes | p. 224 |
| Index of biblical references | p. 259 |
| Index of secondary authors | p. 267 |
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