This work examines Luke 7:18-35, one of the longest fragments of traditional material dealing with John the Baptist in the New Testament, from a narrative-critical perspective. In doing so, it investigates the literary aspects of the Baptist's question about whether Jesus is "the one who is to come" (7:18-23), the testimony of Jesus about the Baptist (7:24-28), and Jesus' reproach of the religious leaders (7:29-35). This study investigates elements such as setting, character, and plot within the passage to show how they function within the whole of Luke-Acts. It argues that Luke 7:18-35 is part of a literary pattern within a section whose main goal is to clarify the identity of Jesus and show how the passage supports this compositional aim. Finally, this dissertation explains how Luke integrates John's apparent ignorance of Jesus as well as Jesus' indictment of the religious leaders into this literary scheme and how Luke puts this tradition about John and Jesus at the service of his theocentric and christologocial perspectives.
