Luke 1:1-4
So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.
Today we finally come to the last of the four canonical Gospels – that is the four that are fairly universally accepted as being true gospel format and being legitimate revelations from God. While many other gospels do exist -- apocryphal gospels, non-canonical gospels, Jewish-Christian gospels, gnostic gospels – the early church fathers deemed these four – Mark, Matthew, John and Luke – to be authoritative accounts of the life of Jesus. In a more credulous, unquestioning age these four were accepted as presenting an accurate history of Jesus. This view is still held by biblical literalists but questioned by the majority of modern scholars – based on too many reasons to go into here and now.
As with the other three gospels, we don’t really know who Luke might have been. The name “Luke” was assigned to this gospel sometime in the 2nd century. There may have been some communal memory linking this to someone named Luke, or it may have been connected to the Luke mentioned often in Acts. As with so much of scripture, we simply don’t know. Today it is no longer commonly accepted that the writer was the Luke who traveled with Paul.
Whoever Luke may have been, this author is generally accepted to have also written the Book of Acts. The two books appear to have been only separated by the early church’s determination to clump the gospels together at the beginning of the New Testament. They are a single work written in two volumes and there is an interesting reason for that. In that ancient world when things were written in scrolls, rather than books as we do today, the maximum length for a scroll was about 30 feet. Anything longer would simply be too heavy and bulky to use. Luke’s writings came to two scrolls (our current word, volume, comes from the Latin word for scroll). So Luke and Acts are volumes (or scrolls) One and Two of a single writing.
For some time it has been thought that Luke was written somewhere in the 90’s of the first century, but more recently many scholars are leaning toward an even later date sometime in the early years of the second century, 70 to 80 years after the death of Jesus.
In the earliest years of Christianity there was a brief period of détente between the new Jesus followers and traditional Jews. Back in Matthew’s gospel, as we have seen, that amicability was starting to come unraveled, with strong tensions brewing between the two groups. By the time we read Acts it is clear that a split has already occurred and that period of détente is over.
Whenever a point of controversy occurs between the two groups anywhere in Luke’s writings, there are always threats or even actual acts of violence by the Jews against the new Christians. Even when Luke re-tells an incident that was previously reported in Mark or Matthew, it comes out with much more anger being shown against Jesus and the Christians by the authorities or even the Jews in general. It’s clear that attitudes have changed in the time since the earlier gospels were written. Sides have been chosen and lines have been drawn. All these push a probable date for the writing of Luke into the 2nd century.
Whoever ‘Luke’ may have been we don’t seem to know where he was from. He is a Greek-speaking Jewish Christian. Luke is a Greek name, for whatever that might mean. He appears to be comfortable writing about Jesus’ movements throughout Galilee and Jerusalem, but he is equally comfortable describing the Mediterranean world of Paul’s missionary journeys. It appears he is an educated, cosmopolitan man – but even the “man” part has been seriously contested by some who have suggested that the writer of Luke/Acts might have been a woman. I will continue to use the masculine pronoun just because history always has done so and he/she is too clunky.
Whoever the writer may have been, they start out from the very beginning, stating their beliefs and their intentions in writing this account:
As with the other three gospels, we don’t really know who Luke might have been. The name “Luke” was assigned to this gospel sometime in the 2nd century. There may have been some communal memory linking this to someone named Luke, or it may have been connected to the Luke mentioned often in Acts. As with so much of scripture, we simply don’t know. Today it is no longer commonly accepted that the writer was the Luke who traveled with Paul.
Whoever Luke may have been, this author is generally accepted to have also written the Book of Acts. The two books appear to have been only separated by the early church’s determination to clump the gospels together at the beginning of the New Testament. They are a single work written in two volumes and there is an interesting reason for that. In that ancient world when things were written in scrolls, rather than books as we do today, the maximum length for a scroll was about 30 feet. Anything longer would simply be too heavy and bulky to use. Luke’s writings came to two scrolls (our current word, volume, comes from the Latin word for scroll). So Luke and Acts are volumes (or scrolls) One and Two of a single writing.
For some time it has been thought that Luke was written somewhere in the 90’s of the first century, but more recently many scholars are leaning toward an even later date sometime in the early years of the second century, 70 to 80 years after the death of Jesus.
In the earliest years of Christianity there was a brief period of détente between the new Jesus followers and traditional Jews. Back in Matthew’s gospel, as we have seen, that amicability was starting to come unraveled, with strong tensions brewing between the two groups. By the time we read Acts it is clear that a split has already occurred and that period of détente is over.
Whenever a point of controversy occurs between the two groups anywhere in Luke’s writings, there are always threats or even actual acts of violence by the Jews against the new Christians. Even when Luke re-tells an incident that was previously reported in Mark or Matthew, it comes out with much more anger being shown against Jesus and the Christians by the authorities or even the Jews in general. It’s clear that attitudes have changed in the time since the earlier gospels were written. Sides have been chosen and lines have been drawn. All these push a probable date for the writing of Luke into the 2nd century.
Whoever ‘Luke’ may have been we don’t seem to know where he was from. He is a Greek-speaking Jewish Christian. Luke is a Greek name, for whatever that might mean. He appears to be comfortable writing about Jesus’ movements throughout Galilee and Jerusalem, but he is equally comfortable describing the Mediterranean world of Paul’s missionary journeys. It appears he is an educated, cosmopolitan man – but even the “man” part has been seriously contested by some who have suggested that the writer of Luke/Acts might have been a woman. I will continue to use the masculine pronoun just because history always has done so and he/she is too clunky.
Whoever the writer may have been, they start out from the very beginning, stating their beliefs and their intentions in writing this account:
Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.
Theophilus, by the way, might be one man’s proper name (it means lover of God) or it might refer to a group of people – an early church community for instance. Whomever this is addressed to Luke is writing a history he has culled from the memories and stories he believes are handed down by the original eyewitnesses. We here today have no way of knowing how these ‘original eyewitness’ accounts may have been embroidered and added onto. Luke accepted them without question. We are probably more skeptical.
Luke’s is the third of the synoptic gospels. Like Matthew, Luke uses Mark as a resource, but Luke lifts maybe 65% of Mark into his gospel rather than the almost 90% used by Matthew. Where Matthew basically copied and pasted from Mark with little editing, when Luke copies from Mark he adds in details he apparently found from other, uniquely Lukan, sources.
There are several pieces in Luke that are unique to this gospel – not found in any other account. These include most of the nativity story, and parables like the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Woman and the Lost Coin, and others we’ll look at as we go along. Luke even manages to tell some of the Easter story differently from Matthew.
But the first and primary difference that exists in Luke’s version is its deep commitment to social justice. We will find as we go through this gospel that Luke’s stories consistently lift up the oppressed – the poor, the overlooked – emphasizing Jesus’ insistence that “blessed are the poor, the hungry, the grieving, for of such is the kingdom of God.”
Where Mark and Matthew emphasize Jesus’ link to the long-awaited messiah and Old Testament promises, and John focuses on the divinity of Jesus, Luke will take us back to Jesus and his own teachings on the “reign of God” and our expected response to it – all that is contained in a phrase which came out of Latin American Liberation Theology is the last century – a “preferential option for the poor.” (This empathy for justice for the powerless is actually one of the reasons given for the possibility that the writer of Luke was a woman.)
Throughout the gospel and the Acts Luke reminds us that for Jesus, the poor and powerless are not only our concern but God’s dearly beloved ones.
We’ll start off next week with the long nativity story.
Luke’s is the third of the synoptic gospels. Like Matthew, Luke uses Mark as a resource, but Luke lifts maybe 65% of Mark into his gospel rather than the almost 90% used by Matthew. Where Matthew basically copied and pasted from Mark with little editing, when Luke copies from Mark he adds in details he apparently found from other, uniquely Lukan, sources.
There are several pieces in Luke that are unique to this gospel – not found in any other account. These include most of the nativity story, and parables like the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Woman and the Lost Coin, and others we’ll look at as we go along. Luke even manages to tell some of the Easter story differently from Matthew.
But the first and primary difference that exists in Luke’s version is its deep commitment to social justice. We will find as we go through this gospel that Luke’s stories consistently lift up the oppressed – the poor, the overlooked – emphasizing Jesus’ insistence that “blessed are the poor, the hungry, the grieving, for of such is the kingdom of God.”
Where Mark and Matthew emphasize Jesus’ link to the long-awaited messiah and Old Testament promises, and John focuses on the divinity of Jesus, Luke will take us back to Jesus and his own teachings on the “reign of God” and our expected response to it – all that is contained in a phrase which came out of Latin American Liberation Theology is the last century – a “preferential option for the poor.” (This empathy for justice for the powerless is actually one of the reasons given for the possibility that the writer of Luke was a woman.)
Throughout the gospel and the Acts Luke reminds us that for Jesus, the poor and powerless are not only our concern but God’s dearly beloved ones.
We’ll start off next week with the long nativity story.
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