Folia Theologica 6. (1995)

János Székely: Mary and Martha how to receive the divine guest?

162

J. SZÉKELY

The underlinings mark the words and grammatical uses preferred by Luke, which probably are of his creation.6

Context

The Mary and Martha pericope is clearly separated from the preceding and following passages. ’It happened’...in 11,1 is a caracteristical Luke’s expression (imitating the Septuaguint) used generally to introduce new unities, to indicate a change in the gospel story, which have a certain importance.7 In our case it introduces a new sequence of passages about prayer with a new indication of situation and auditory: Jesus’ praying, the request of the disciples. On the other hand our passage is also clearly separated from the preceeding pericope. ’In the’ + inf. (10,38) is an usual lukan introduction of new passages.8 Moreover, we have a new situation (Jesus welcomed in the house of Martha and Mary), different from the preceding one (Jesus answering a lawyer).

At. the same time our passage is well inserted in its context. The ’then’ is a particle whose purpose is the connection with the preceeding story. The ’they’ and ’He’ refer to persons mentioned before (the disciples V.23. and Jesus v.30).

But to identify the exact relation of Lk 10,38-42 to his context, his place in the travel account of Luke (9,51-19,289) is not an easy task. Some exegetes don’t see any connection at all between the two.10 A quite

6 I based myself mostly on the investigations of J. JEREMIAS, Die Sprache des Lukasevangeliums (1980) p. 193-195 and J. BRUTSCHECK, Die Maria-Marta-Erzählung. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu Lk 10,38-42 (1986) Bonner Biblische Beiträge 64. I made a quite large use of this study of Brutscheck in this paper. I will not quote it always when I refer to it.

7 Cf. 1,5.8. 2,1.15. 5,1.12.17. 6,1.6.12. etc.

8 Cf. 8,40; 11,37. Acts 2,1. More frequently with 'it happened' 1,8; 3,21; 5,1 etc. G. SELLIN calls it - since connected with change of place and persons - 'situationsverändernde Einleitung' in his article Komposition, Quellen und Funktion des lukanischen Reiseberichtes in NovT 20 (1978) p.107.

9 The delimitation of the unity is discussed. I follow here G. SELLIN, Reisebericht.

10 D. A. CSÁNYI, Optima parsDie Auslegung von Lk 10,38-42 in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Diss.) Rome 1959 p.l8. Also J: FITZMYER calls it 'an episode unrelated to the preceeding passages' The Gospel according to Luke (1985) p.891.