1. Introduction
The genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3.23–8 ends with a curious assertion. Beginning with Joseph – Jesus’ supposed father – Luke enumerates Jesus’ ancestors, listed in reverse chronological order. Seventy-five names later, Jesus’ genealogy culminates with the identification of Adam as God's offspring (Ἀδὰμ τοῦ θεοῦ, 3.38). Although interpreters offer credible explanations for the extension of Jesus’ genealogy to Adam, many find the filial connection of Adam to God confounding.Footnote 2 François Bovon calls it ‘perplexing’.Footnote 3 ‘It is not clear’, Raymond E. Brown admits, ‘how Luke understood Jesus as “the son of Adam, the son of God”.’Footnote 4 Moreover, John T. Carroll finds it ironic that Luke would reinforce Jesus’ divine sonship from the baptism scene (3.22) with a genealogy ‘of his “other father” Joseph’.Footnote 5
One solution is offered by W. S. Kurz, who reads Luke's depiction of Adam as God's offspring as an analogy for Jesus’ divine conception.Footnote 6 Adam and Jesus are both ‘sons of God in a nonsexual sense’.Footnote 7 He also views Adam's relationship to God as analogous to Jesus’ relationship to Joseph. He argues, ‘Besides ordinary generation there is also a creative fatherhood of God for Adam and Jesus, and a legal fatherhood (in terms of inheritance) of Joseph for Jesus and God for Adam.’Footnote 8 It may be more credible, however, to claim instead that the analogies drawn by Kurz explain the Adam–God relationship by reference to that of Jesus to God in Luke 1.35. Be that as it may, Kurz's interpretation does not address the novelty of Luke's identification of Adam as God's offspring.
More frequently, however, scholars interpret Jesus’ genealogy by reference to the adjacent baptism account, where a voice from heaven declares, ‘You are my beloved son’ (3.22). In Rodney T. Hood's form-critical reading of Jesus’ genealogy and its linking of Adam to God, he interprets ‘the entire genealogy as an attempt to elucidate the saying of the voice from heaven which was heard at the baptism’.Footnote 9 In support of this conclusion, he adduces that Gentile readers – who were ‘familiar with pedigrees by which leading families and individuals and religious figures such as heroes were traced to one of the gods’ – would have been curious to learn ‘in just what way Jesus was the son of God’.Footnote 10 Luke Timothy Johnson similarly states that Luke's genealogy ‘points less to Jesus’ human ancestry and more to his status as “God's son”’ due to its proximity to Jesus's baptism.Footnote 11 Alfred Plummer rightly notes, however, that identifying Adam as God's offspring does little to establish ‘the Divine Sonship of the Messiah’ because it ‘would place Him in this respect on a level with all mankind’.Footnote 12
Other scholars have objected to the use of Greco-Roman comparanda. Marshall D. Johnson, for instance, allows that ‘there is an external similarity between the Lukan genealogy and those Graeco-Roman pedigrees which attempted to connect an emperor or member of the nobility with a traditional mythical god or hero’. Nevertheless, he insists that the similarity is merely superficial, arguing in favour of Luke's ‘awareness of esoteric Jewish haggadah which is deeply embedded within the genealogy in the Nathan tradition’.Footnote 13 Concurring with Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer similarly states that ‘there are too many Jewish elements in the genealogy to call into question its Jewish provenience’.Footnote 14 Of course, the divide separating Jewish culture from its Greco-Roman environment was not as impassable as it can appear in the scholarly imagination.
In The Son of God in the Roman World, Michael Peppard challenges conventional interpretations of Jesus’ baptism in the Gospel of Mark, and his approach may be useful as a model for interpreting Luke 3.38.Footnote 15 Without intending to reinforce the heuristic segregation of Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures, he asks: ‘But how would a listener more attuned to Roman culture than the Jewish Scriptures have understood this short narrative [of Jesus’ baptism]? What connections and conclusions might that listener have made concerning the identity of Jesus?’Footnote 16 In his brief analysis of the Gospel of Luke, Peppard interprets the identification of Adam as God's offspring as one among several ways through which Luke connects Jesus to the divine.Footnote 17 He insightfully compares Luke's presentation of Jesus with the divine sonship of Julio-Claudian emperors, even noting Augustus’ multifarious claims to divine descent: ‘Augustus was the son of the divine Apollo by begetting and son of the divine Julius by adoption; he traced ancestry to the divine Mars and styled himself as a new Romulus.’Footnote 18 For Peppard, such a comparison allows Luke ‘to reach the widest possible audience’ concerning Jesus’ status as Son of God.Footnote 19 His analysis deserves elaboration, clarification and slight recalibration.Footnote 20 Therefore, this article will ask – to appropriate Peppard's programmatic questions – for readers of Luke's Gospel who were attuned to Roman culture, how might Adam's status as God's offspring in Jesus’ genealogy have influenced their understanding of Jesus’ identity? As I will argue, reading the genealogy within such a framework foregrounds the similarities between Jesus and Augustus and implies comparable import for both Jesus and the kingdom he inaugurates.Footnote 21
In addition to affecting readers’ perceptions of Jesus’ significance, reading Luke's genealogy within an Augustan framework creates consistency among Luke's references to the paternity of Jesus. Identifying Jesus’ ancestor – through (adoption by (?)) Joseph – as the offspring of God provides Jesus with a second parental link to the divine; Jesus’ conception by God's spirit/power provides the first. This presentation mirrors Augustan claims: in addition to being fathered by Apollo, Augustus advertised his descent from Aeneas – through adoption by Julius – who was said to have been the offspring of Aphrodite/Venus. Because Luke is not explicit regarding Joseph's adoption of Jesus, some critical readers conclude that Luke has incorporated at least two irreconcilable traditions regarding Jesus’ male parent. One tradition, they say, affirms Joseph as Jesus’ biological father (e.g. Luke 2.27; 4.22), while a different tradition asserts Jesus’ divine conception (e.g. Luke 1.35; 2.49; 3.23). A comparison with Augustus lends credibility to reading Joseph's adoption of Jesus as implied in Luke's narrative.
To argue that Luke's Gospel can be read this way does not address questions of authorial intent or the use of sources. Both issues are fraught with complications, especially in light of the questions surrounding the relationship of Luke 1–2 to the remainder of Luke's Gospel. It is my judgement that the inclusion of God within Jesus’ genealogy – in part because it is unparalleled in Jewish literature – was probably fabricated by Luke (imitating Roman propaganda) in order to create a parallel to Augustus’ pedigree. The argument of this article, however, does not depend on a particular source theory or on establishing authorial intention. I offer instead an interpretation of Luke's narrative – reconstructed text-critically – from the perspective of readers who are familiar with claims made about Augustus in Roman propaganda.
2. ‘Empire without End’: Establishing Comparanda
In Luke 1.31–3, Gabriel addresses Mary. ‘Do not be afraid, Mary’, he says, ‘for you have found favour with God.’Footnote 22 He continues: ‘And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign (βασιλεύσει) over the house of Jacob forever (εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας), and of his kingdom (τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ), there will be no end (οὐκ ἔσται τέλος).’
Gabriel's announcement is itself pregnant with possible allusions to the Septuagint. His description of Jesus’ reign over the house of Jacob echoes Micah's vision: ‘In that day, says the Lord, I will assemble her who is shattered, and I will welcome her who is rejected and those whom I drove away. And I will make her who is shattered into a remnant, and her who is driven away into a strong nation, and the Lord will reign (βασιλεύσει) over them on Mount Zion from now until forever (εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα)’ (4.6–7 LXX). The potential influence of Mic 4 is intriguing. In addition to the verbal parallels, Mic 4.6–7 envisions God's inclusion of outcasts in the process of restoring Zion; in Luke's Gospel, Jesus inaugurates God's reign on earth and emphasises the inclusion of the socially and religiously marginalised (e.g. Luke 4.16–30).
Even more credible Septuagintal allusions exist in texts related to the Davidic dynasty. With good reason, most scholars direct their readers to 2 Sam 7.12–16 (LXX).Footnote 23 Nathan delivers a message from the Lord to David: ‘And it will be when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers that I will raise up your offspring after you … and I will prepare his kingdom (βασιλείαν) … I will restore his house forever (εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα). I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.’ He continues: ‘And his house and his kingdom (βασιλεία) will be made sure forever (ἕως αἰῶνος) before me, and his throne shall be restored forever (εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα).’ Similar hopes for an eternal Davidic kingdom appear in Isa 9.6–7 and Dan 7.14.Footnote 24 There is no question that Luke presents Jesus as fulfilling the expectations established in these biblical narratives.
Nevertheless, David was not the only ancient figure who was promised an eternal kingdom, and it is possible to read Luke's narrative as simultaneously imitating a different model: Aeneas. As narrated in Homer's Iliad and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (h.Hom. 5) – and later appropriated by Virgil in the Aeneid – gods and goddesses prophesy that Aeneas will be the recipient of an empire without end. In book 20 of the Iliad, Poseidon justifies his rescue of Aeneas from harm on the battlefield: ‘And now surely will the mighty Aeneas be king (ἀνάξει) among the Trojans, and his sons’ sons who will be born in days to come’ (Il. 20.307–8; trans. Wyatt, LCL).
The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (h.Hom. 5) narrates Aeneas's conception.Footnote 25 In disguise as a simple ‘unmarried girl (παρθένῳ ἀδμήτῃ)’, Aphrodite seduces the shepherd Anchises (5.68–91). After they sleep together, Aphrodite relinquishes her disguise, provoking Anchises’ horror (5.185–90). Aphrodite responds: ‘Anchises, most glorious of mortal men, be of good courage, and let your heart not be too afraid. You need have no fear of suffering any harm from me or the other blessed ones, for you are dear to the gods indeed’ (5.192–5; trans. West, LCL). The parallels with Gabriel's announcement are striking: a divine figure appears, tells the mortal not to be afraid, and affirms that the mortal is divinely favoured (cf. Luke 1.26–30).Footnote 26 Aphrodite continues by describing the child just conceived by their union: ‘You are to have a dear son who will rule (ἀνάξει) among the Trojans, as will the children born to his children continually; his name shall be Aeneas (Aineias), because an ainon akhos (terrible sorrow) took me, that I fell into a mortal man's bed’ (5.196–9; trans. West, LCL). Again Luke's narrative parallels the Homeric Hymn: a child has been or will be conceived – with one divine parent and one mortal – and this child will establish a never-ending kingdom.Footnote 27
These parallels might be considered innocuous were it not for the narrative propagated by Julius Caesar and Augustus, advertising the Julian family as descendants of Aeneas and heirs to an eternal kingdom.Footnote 28 The outcome of the scene from h.Hom. 5 is depicted visually, for instance, in a Roman-era relief in Aphrodisias featuring Aphrodite holding baby Aeneas on her lap, with Anchises looking on.Footnote 29 Other scenes on the Sebasteion feature key members of the Julian family. Virgil also appropriates the story from h.Hom. 5. In book 1 of the Aeneid, Jupiter assures Venus regarding her son Aeneas and his descendants, from Ascanius to Romulus and beyond. For the Romans, Jupiter has set ‘no bounds in space or time; but [has] given empire without end’ (1.278–9; trans. Goold, LCL).Footnote 30 Virgil leaves no ambiguity regarding the identity of Aeneas’ descendants in the first century bce. In book 6, Aeneas ventures down into the underworld to visit Anchises, who offers Aeneas a glimpse into the future. ‘Here is Caesar’, he says, ‘and all the seed of Iulus destined to pass under heaven's spacious sphere. And this in truth is he whom you so often hear promised to you, Augustus Caesar, son of a god, who will again establish a golden age in Latium amid fields once ruled by Saturn’ (6.789–994; trans. Goold, LCL). Anchises continues by describing the limitless expanse of Augustus' empire – ‘Not even Hercules traversed so much of earth's extent’ (6.801; trans. Goold, LCL).
Whereas the content of Luke's narrative appears to be informed by Septuagintal hopes for an eternal Davidic dynasty, the form of Luke's narrative appears to imitate the Greek and Roman stories about Aeneas and his never-ending empire (see Fig. 1). Even though the references to David are explicit, a reader attuned to Roman political rhetoric can nevertheless interpret Gabriel's message within an Augustan framework: the kingdom Jesus inaugurates will be comparable to the Golden Age of Augustan Rome.
Figure 1. Heirs to royal prophecies.
3. One Divine Parent
Mary responds to Gabriel's announcement with curiosity: ‘How will this be, since I do not know a man?’ (Luke 1.34).Footnote 31 Gabriel explains: ‘The spirit of holiness will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the holy one to be born will be called Son of God’ (1.35).Footnote 32 Although Gabriel's description of Jesus’ virginal conception in Luke 1.35 lacks an analogue in the Septuagint, a similar tradition surrounding the conception of Emperor Augustus was well known throughout the Roman Mediterranean world.Footnote 33
Ovid writes that Augustus was not ‘born of mortal seed’ (Metam. 15.760; trans. Miller and Goold, LCL). Suetonius and Cassius Dio both elaborate on this claim, narrating a story about Augustus’ mother, Atia, at the temple of Apollo:
Atia attended a solemn service of Apollo in the middle of the night. She had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, as did the other married women. A snake crawled up to her and left a little while later. When she woke up, she purified herself as if she had slept with her husband. A snake-colored mark immediately appeared on her body. She could never get rid of it and so stopped going to the public baths. When Augustus was born nine months later he was therefore considered to be the son of Apollo. Atia herself, before she gave birth to him, dreamed that her womb was carried up to the stars and spread over all lands and seas. His father Octavius dreamed that the sun rose from Atia's womb (Suetonius, Div. Aug. 94.4; trans. Miller, Born Divine, 142).
[Julius Caesar] was influenced largely by Attia's emphatic declaration that the youth had been engendered by Apollo; for while sleeping once in his temple, she said, she thought she had intercourse with a serpent, and it was this that caused her at the end of the allotted time to bear a son. Before he came to the light of day she saw in a dream her entrails lifted to the heavens and spreading out over all the earth; and the same night Octavius thought that the sun rose from her womb (Cassius Dio, Roman History 45.1.2–3; trans. Cary and Foster, LCL).
Ancient narratives depicting divine conceptions exist for a litany of notable people.Footnote 34 Many classicists, in fact, read Suetonius’ and Cassius Dio's presentations of Augustus’ conception as imitations of the conception of Alexander the Great.Footnote 35 Consistent with non-Platonic Greek logic, the divine status – as gods or sons of gods – of both Alexander and Augustus was closely linked to the benefactions they bestowed on their subjects.Footnote 36 The stories narrating their conceptions and births project the magnitude of their adult accomplishments into the past.
Classicists typically date the inception of the story about Atia at Apollo's temple to the period shortly after Antony's defeat at Actium, around 30 bce.Footnote 37 They suggest that the story was initially circulated in Egypt, that it later spread throughout the Empire – including Rome – and that the story was concocted and promulgated as a part of Augustus’ effort to gain support throughout the Mediterranean before consolidating power in 27 bce. Robin S. Lorsch suggests the story could have plausibly been in circulation even earlier, before the defeat of Antony – anytime between 40 and 30 bce – in order to advertise a comparison of Octavian to Alexander, Apollo and Scipio Africanus.Footnote 38 If these classicists are correct, then the story of Augustus’ conception by Apollo circulated for more than a century before the composition of the Lukan infancy narratives.
In order to claim – with credibility – that illiterate inhabitants of the Roman Mediterranean knew this story, it is necessary to establish the means through which it was popularised. Suetonius, for one, reports that his source was Asclepiades of Mendes (Egypt), who was probably active during the lifetime of Augustus.Footnote 39 Cassius Dio probably used Suetonius as his source.Footnote 40 Given Augustus’ wide use of the epithet ‘son of Apollo’, it can be expected that the story of Atia and the serpent was more ubiquitous. One tantalising artefact in this regard is the enigmatic Portland Vase, housed in the British Museum (see Fig. 2). This cameo glass piece, dated variously between 25 bce and 25 ce, depicts a nondescript woman in a reclining position with a serpent-like creature on her lap.Footnote 41 Some scholars identify this woman as Atia, the man to her right as Apollo, the creature as the serpent Apollo embodies in the legend, and the man to her left as Augustus (or Romulus).Footnote 42 According to Paul Zanker, however, the artist responsible for the Portland Vase ‘failed to give his figures any identifying attributes’, leaving the scenes with a ‘deliberate ambiguity’.Footnote 43 Scholars more often identify this scene instead as the marriage of Peleus to Thetis.Footnote 44 Such a conclusion is far from certain, however, a fact intimated by the volume of alternatives offered.Footnote 45 Because of the dating of the Portland Vase, the striking similarities it bears to the story told by Suetonius and Cassius Dio, and the fact that the vase was shattered into about 200 pieces in 1845 and subsequently endured multiple attempts at puzzling it back together, Augustan identities for these characters cannot be definitively ruled out. Even if the Portland Vase does not depict the scene of Augustus’ conception, however, Zanker affirms that ‘the story of the snake was widely repeated’ and appeals to a different glass cameo – more symbolic in nature – that attests to its propagation.Footnote 46
Figure 2. Portland Vase. © Corning Museum of Glass.
In Luke 1.30–3, Gabriel appears to Mary and announces that she will bear a son who will fulfil the promises made to David for an eternal kingdom. As discussed above, this announcement can be read as reconfiguring the Davidic prophecy in 2 Samuel and imitating Augustus’ fulfilment of promises made about Aeneas’ descendants. This second intertextual possibility is strengthened by comparing Gabriel's elaboration in Luke 1.35 with the stories surrounding the conception of Augustus. Just as Atia was impregnated by Apollo (taking the form of a serpent), so Mary was impregnated by God's spirit/power (see Fig. 3). Being fathered by Apollo was not Augustus’ only link to the divine, however. Curiously, neither is Jesus’ conception his only divine connection in Luke's Gospel.
Figure 3. Divine conceptions.
4. An Ancestor with One Divine Parent
Only after Jesus’ baptism does Luke present Jesus’ genealogy (Luke 3.23–38). Luke notes that Jesus was ‘about thirty years old’ when he began, ‘being the son – as was thought (ὡς ἐνομίζετο) – of Joseph’.Footnote 47 Through Joseph, then, Luke traces Jesus’ descent from David (3.31), the Patriarchs (3.34) and ultimately ‘Adam, son of God’ (3.38).Footnote 48 No known Jewish genealogy predating Luke 3.23–38 includes God, and I am unaware of Adam otherwise being identified so straightforwardly as God's offspring.Footnote 49
Since Luke has already described Jesus’ divine conception (1.35), the genealogy in chapter 3 issues Jesus a second connection to God, through his ancestor Adam, son of God. Readers who are versed in Roman propaganda can read Luke's construction of Jesus’ conception and ancestry as comparable – again – to that of Augustus. In addition to the story about Atia, Apollo and Augustus’ divine conception, residents of the Roman Mediterranean were well aware of another Augustan connection to a deity: his ancestor Aeneas was the son of Aphrodite/Venus.
That Aphrodite was Aeneas’ mother is a firmly canonical claim in classical Greek literature. Homer affirms it no fewer than four times and Hesiod once.Footnote 50 As discussed above, Aphrodite's seduction of Anchises – and the consequent conception of Aeneas – is the subject of the fifth Homeric Hymn. Virgil frequently refers to Venus as Aeneas’ mother and even gives Aeneas the epithet ‘goddess-born (nate dea)’.Footnote 51 Augustus attained descent from Aeneas through adoption by Julius Caesar, through whose insistence Aeneas became known as the ‘author of the whole Julian line’.Footnote 52 Suetonius reports that Julius Caesar – while eulogising his deceased Aunt Julia – boasted of his family's pedigree, that ‘the Julii, the family of which ours is a branch, [goes back] to Venus’ (Jul. 6.1; trans. Rolfe, LCL).Footnote 53 Julius’ advertised ancestry was so well known that Caelius Rufus, writing to Cicero, can refer to him simply as ‘our scion of Venus’ (Fam. 8.15; trans. Shackleton Bailey, LCL). Octavian, according to Appian, claimed that being adopted by Julius involves accepting ‘kinship with the family of Aeneas’ (Bell. civ. 3.16; trans. White, LCL). Poets such as Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Varro advertised Augustus’ descent from goddess-born Aeneas. For instance, Virgil identifies Augustus among Aeneas’ descendants and specifies that he will establish Rome's saecula aurea (Aen. 6.792–3, quoted above). Through literature, images and lore, Augustus’ claims of a double-divine parentage spread throughout the Empire.Footnote 54
Luke's presentation of Jesus is comparable to the emergent image of Augustus and his pedigree. Jesus was conceived by God's spirit/power, and Octavius was fathered by Apollo; Jesus’ ancestor Adam was the offspring of Israel's God, and Augustus’ ancestor Aeneas was the son of Aphrodite/Venus.Footnote 55 Some readers will remark that these similarities obtain with respect to a number of other ancient figures, most notably Alexander the Great (son of Zeus, descendant of Heracles). Two considerations suggest that it is credible to foreground the comparison with Augustus. First, the image of Augustus was ubiquitous in the Roman Mediterranean world, casting a shadow that stretched beyond the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties, even overshadowing Alexander.Footnote 56 Second, Augustus was only able to claim descent from Aeneas because he had been adopted by Julius Caesar. Understanding Joseph's relationship with Jesus as that of an adoptive parent – not explicit in Luke's Gospel – may bring resolution to a persistent question within scholarship: is Luke consistent with respect to Jesus’ fathering?
5. The Adoption of Jesus
As demonstrated above, some passages in Luke's Gospel indicate that Joseph did not father Jesus. Others, however, suggest that Joseph was Jesus’ biological father.Footnote 57 Scholars often reconcile these passages through an adoption framework: Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, but through adoption Jesus becomes Joseph's legal heir and a legitimate descendant of David.Footnote 58 Where Matthew is clear (Matt 1.25), they say, Luke is opaque. This position has been challenged recently by Andrew T. Lincoln.Footnote 59 Lincoln writes, ‘If Joseph had no part in his betrothed's pregnancy, then all this stress on Jesus’ Davidic ancestry would make little sense.’Footnote 60 He therefore argues that Luke's narrative includes two distinct traditions about Jesus’ parentage, creating a tension for his readers to resolve.
The credibility of Lincoln's argument depends primarily on two considerations: scribal anxiety and biographical comparanda. The transmission history of Luke 2.33, 41 and 48 contains a number of textual variants.Footnote 61 Because these verses can be read as inconsistent with Jesus’ virginal conception – so goes a likely explanation – certain scribes removed the offending language. Where most manuscripts read ‘his father’ (2.33), ‘his parents’ (2.41) and ‘your father and I’ (2.48, Mary speaking), a handful of witnesses attest to corrections that do not call the virginal conception into question: ‘Joseph’ (2.33), ‘Joseph and Mary’ (2.41) and ‘we’ (2.48, Mary speaking).Footnote 62 These text-critical considerations are suggestive concerning scribal interpretations of Luke's language, but they do not preclude readings that reconcile Luke's statements regarding Jesus’ parents.
More important to Lincoln's argument are analogous accounts of double-paternity in Greco-Roman literature.Footnote 63 Lincoln frequently refers to the writings of Plutarch, a Greek biographer nearly contemporary with Luke. Plutarch's discussion of Romulus’ parentage is typical. On the question of the source of Rome's name, Plutarch writes: ‘Moreover, even those writers who declare, in accordance with the most authentic tradition, that it was Romulus who gave his name to the city, do not agree about his lineage’ (Rom. 2.2; trans. Perrin, LCL).Footnote 64 Plutarch continues by relating various explanations for Romulus’ parentage: Aeneas and Dexithea (2.2), Latinus (son of Telemachus) and Roma, Mars and Aemilia (daughter of Aeneas and Lavinia) (2.3), ‘and others still rehearse what is altogether fabulous concerning his origin’ (2.3; trans. Perrin, LCL). Plutarch proceeds to rehearse two such stories (2.3–4.2). The one ‘which has the widest credence and the greatest number of vouchers’ (3.1; trans. Perrin, LCL) claims that Romulus is the child of Rhea Silvia and Mars; nevertheless, towards the end of this account, Plutarch notes that some claim that Rhea Silvia was impregnated by her uncle, Amulius (4.2).Footnote 65 Biographers such as Plutarch and Suetonius are content to leave contrary claims about certain individuals’ parentage unreconciled within their writings.Footnote 66 Lincoln reads Luke's narrative as participating in such a literary tradition.
Plutarch's historiographic tone, however, differs markedly from that of Luke's novelistic narrative.Footnote 67 In addition to explicitly relating various reports, Plutarch sometimes evaluates their credibility. For instance, he insists that Alexander's descent from Heracles on his father's side ‘is accepted without any question’ (Alex. 2.1; trans. Perrin, LCL). Luke does not acknowledge any discrepancies, much less evaluate the relative credibility of individual traditions. While these differences in narrative tone do not exclude Plutarch's writings as comparanda for Luke, they do weigh against their significance for the interpretive issue at hand.
Conversely, when the similarities between Augustus and Luke's Jesus are brought to the foreground – both were divinely conceived, both descended from a divine offspring, and both fulfil royal prophecies given by deities to their ancestors – then reading Jesus as Joseph's adopted son in Luke becomes more credible.Footnote 68 Indeed, the narrative logic of Luke 1.27, 31–5 already favours an adoptionist – so to speak – reading of Luke's Gospel: Mary's divinely conceived child will be a descendant of David through adoption by her fiancé.Footnote 69 It is significant, then, that it was through Julius Caesar's adoption of Octavian that he was able to claim descent from Aeneas and thereby inaugurate the promised ‘empire without end’. The logical force of the comparison suggests that, similarly, it is through Joseph's adoption of Jesus that he was able to claim descent from David and establish his never-ending kingdom (see Fig. 4).
Figure 4. Adoptions enabling divine ancestry alongside divine conceptions.
6. Conclusion
By interpreting the beginning of Luke's Gospel within an Augustan framework, readers can both make sense of Luke's novel identification of Adam as God's offspring (Luke 3.38) and find consistency among Luke's statements about Jesus’ fathering. Augustus was regarded as the descendant of Aeneas who finally enacted the prophecies of Poseidon, Aphrodite and Jupiter by inaugurating Rome's Golden Age; Luke presents Jesus as a descendant of David who will inaugurate the prophesied kingdom without end. Augustus was conceived – so the story goes – when Apollo took the form of a snake and impregnated Atia; Luke presents Jesus being conceived when God's spirit/power comes over/overshadows Mary. Augustus claimed that he was a descendant of Aeneas, son of Aphrodite/Venus; Luke presents Jesus as a descendant of Adam, son of God. Augustus was only able to claim descent from Aeneas through his adoption by Julius Caesar; Luke – so the close comparison suggests – is likewise only able to present Jesus as a descendant of Adam through Joseph, his (implied) adoptive father.
So what conclusions might a reader who is versed in Roman imperial propaganda reach about Jesus in Luke's Gospel? Certainly Jesus’ significance would thus be interpreted as analogous to that of Augustus, in terms of their accomplishments and status.Footnote 70 Given the attention to ancient prophecies about eternal empires, the kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus in Luke's Gospel can likewise be read as comparable to Rome's Golden Age under Augustus. Within this Lukan comparison, Jesus and his kingdom surpass Augustus and his empire: whereas Augustus died (cf. Luke 3.1) – and the Julio-Claudian dynasty later ended – God raised Jesus from the dead.Footnote 71 Luke 3.38 makes an unprecedented claim about Adam: that God is his non-metaphorical father. This claim establishes Jesus’ second genealogical connection to God in Luke's narrative, both of which parallel prominent claims made about Augustus. There is, thus, good reason to read Luke 3.38 as a narrative prompt to consider its implications and perhaps to compare Jesus’ double-divine pedigree with that of Rome's first emperor, whom Luke identifies by name at the beginning of the previous chapter (2.1).
