Weeping Over Jerusalem: Luke’s Response to the Destruction of the Temple

Abstract Scholars often find Luke’s depiction of the Temple conflicting and paradoxical, and various solutions have been proposed to account for this perceived tension. In this article, I attempt to elucidate Luke’s treatment of the Temple by considering it from a different angle: how is Luke, in light of the recent siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple, responding to those events, and what type of response does he hope to engender in his readers? Considering Luke’s treatment of the Temple as a “response” to its destruction clarifies the rhetorical goals of his narrative and accounts for the range of themes that have proved confounding for many interpreters.