John Kilgallen, «Jesus’ First Trial: Messiah and Son of God (Luke 22,66-71)», Vol. 80 (1999) 401-414

Luke, according to the Two-Source Theory, read Mark. At the first trial of Jesus, that before the Sanhedrin, Mark has together, "Messiah, Son of God". Luke has intentionally separated the two titles. The present essay finds the explanation for separating Son of God from Messiah in the Annunciation scene of the Gospel. It is Luke’s intention that the reader understand Son of God in a way that admittedly the Sanhedrin did not. The laws of narratology indicate that Luke 1,35, a part of the Lucan introduction, be used by the reader to interpret Son of God at Luke 22,70.

a generation of Jesus as Luke 1,35 describes²⁷. Indeed, faithful to the reports about Jesus’ public life wherein no reference is made to his conception, Luke does not tinker with the stories of the public life, but overcomes any misunderstanding about Jesus the adult and his relationship with God by giving his reader the Annunciation story. But, still the persistent question: how is it that one, gifted with this story, is to carry its meaning forward throughout all of Gospel and Acts?

        The answer to this question is that the Annunciation story is part of the introduction to Luke’s Gospel, and that the introduction has as one of its chief characteristics to alert the reader to the right way to interpret what will be said in the body of the narrative. Exegetes give witness to this literary principle when, for instance, they remark that the descriptive title "light for revelation to the nations" (Luke 2,32) will be applicable to Jesus, to varying degrees, as Luke-Acts develops. One obvious reason that they are right to say this is that this descriptive title, though never used again of Jesus in the Lucan works, is part of that introduction which, even if never repeated again in its details, is to be read into all that Luke wrote²⁸. Who does not see that "light for revelation to the nations" is a proleptic guide to the identity of Jesus? Who then cannot see that Son of God, in the sense explained in Luke 1,35, is as well a proleptic guide to the identity of Jesus meant to influence the entire reading about Jesus?

        Assumed here is that the beginning chapters of Luke are introductory to the entire work; specifically, the introduction runs