Jesus and Other Sons of God: Luke’s Christology and Mediterranean Myth By Daniel B. Glover

Daniel Glover’s recent book on Christology in Luke’s Gospel is another example of the recent revival of interest in the value of Greco-Roman conceptions of divinity for understanding New Testament Christology. While much work in the past several decades has focused on Jewish backgrounds, work like Glover’s represents a welcome corrective balance. In his introduction, he defines his project as ‘focusing upon the way that [Luke] adopts, adapts, and innovates within the contemporary deification discourse’ (p. 4). Thus, while this is an analysis of the Gospel of Luke, this book is especially focused on comparison with Greco-Roman discussions of individuals who transcend the boundaries between the divine and human. Glover is especially critical of those who have, for various reasons, tried to keep Luke’s Gospel sealed off from Greco-Roman influences. In this respect, he is indebted to the work of Jonathan Z. Smith on comparison and Robyn Faith Walsh on the gospel writers as elite literary producers.