The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (62 page)

⁹⁸
As Blomberg (
Jesus and the Gospels
, 118) aptly summed up, “For Mark, however, 10:45 may be the most important verse in the Gospel in summarizing his emphasis on Jesus' road to the cross.…Although Mark never uses the exact expression, the concept of
Suffering servant
(as in Isa. 52:13–53:12) perhaps best encapsulates this very human side of Jesus' nature and mission. In short, the Gospel of Mark is about why Jesus died.”

⁹⁹
Hurtado,
Mark
, 10.

¹⁰⁰
Guelich, “Mark, Gospel of,” 515.

¹⁰¹
Evans, “Mark,” 271.

¹⁰²
See Williams, “Mission in Mark,” 146.

¹⁰³
E.g., 3:5; 4:41; 6:45–52; 7:18; 8:14–21,32–33; 9:10,18,28,32; 10:35–45; 16:8; note esp. 6:52 and 8:17–21. See Köstenberger and O'Brien,
Salvation to the Ends of the Earth
, 77.

¹⁰⁴
Lane,
Gospel of Mark
, 205.

¹⁰⁵
Blomberg,
Jesus and the Gospels
, 120.

¹⁰⁶
Senior and Stuhlmueller,
Biblical Foundations for Mission
, 226.

¹⁰⁷
Guelich, “Mark, Gospel of,” 515.

¹⁰⁸
Evans, “Mark,” 272.

CHAPTER 6

CORE KNOWLEDGE

Basic Knowledge:
Students should know the key facts of Luke's Gospel. With regard to history, students should be able to identify the Gospel's author, date, provenance, destination, and purpose. With regard to literature, they should be able to provide a basic outline of the book and identify core elements of the book's content found in the Unit-by-Unit discussion. With regard to theology, students should be able to identify Luke's major theological themes.

Intermediate Knowledge:
In addition to mastery of the core content identified in Basic Knowledge above, students should be able to present the arguments for historical, literary, and theological conclusions. With regard to history, students should be able to discuss the evidence for Lukan authorship, date, provenance, destination, and purpose. With regard to literature, they should be able to provide a detailed outline of the book. With regard to theology, students should be able to discuss Luke's major theological themes and the ways in which they uniquely contribute to the NT canon.

Advanced Knowledge:
In addition to mastery of the core content identified in Basic Knowledge and beyond the Intermediate Knowledge noted above, students should be able to evaluate the role played by the “we passages” in the book of Acts in determining the date and authorship of Luke-Acts. In addition they should be able to assess the literary and theological significance of the “Lukan travel narrative” for Luke's Gospel.

Map 6.1: Provenance and Destination of Luke

INTRODUCTION

T
HE GOSPEL OF Luke is the longest book in the NT. It comprises a little over 14 percent of the NT and is almost 10 percent longer than the second longest NT book, the book of Acts. By contributing these two volumes, Luke composed 27 percent of the NT.
¹
Luke wrote in an elegant Greek, mastered the vocabulary and prose of
an educated man, and was able to employ a variety of genres and styles.
²
E. Renan called the Gospel of Luke “the most beautiful book” ever written.
³

Luke contributed to the Gospel portrait of Jesus an emphasis on his concern for the poor, women, children, the sick, and others of low status in society. Jesus is shown to mingle freely with outcasts of society, a “friend of…sinners” who came “to seek and to save the lost” (19:10). According to Luke, Jesus was the physician who came to heal not the healthy but the sick and to provide righteousness to those who knew themselves to be poor spiritually while resisting the spiritually proud and self-sufficient.

While Luke was not an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry, he carefully investigated these matters from those who were (1:1 –4), especially Peter (5:3) and the women who followed Jesus from Galilee (8:2–3).
⁴
He was careful to relate major events in the Christian story to world history, such as Jesus' birth in relation to Caesar Augustus and the governor Quirinius (2:1),
⁵
and the beginning of John the Baptist's and Jesus' ministries to Tiberius Caesar, the governor Pontius Pilate, Herod Antipas, and others (3:1).

In spite of its elegance and aesthetics, Luke's Gospel (as well as the book of Acts) has been the subject of considerable controversy. S. E. Porter wrote, “With few exceptions, Luke-Acts has been the center of more debate than almost any of the other books in the NT.”
⁶
Until the 1950s, Luke's Gospel was largely viewed as a historical book since scholars in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century generally saw him as a Hellenistic doctor, a follower of Paul, and not overly interested in theology.

With the writings of H. Conzelmann, however, Luke began to be seen as a revisionist who reinvented the story of Jesus in order to impose a new theology on the history of the church, and he was disparaged for doing so.
⁷
This prompted W. C. van Unnik's now-famous article that declared Luke a theological “storm center,” which continues to hold true into the present.
⁸
In recent years many have studied Luke primarily in literary terms.
⁹
However, as will be seen below, Luke is both a historian
and
a theologian.

HISTORY

Author

The traditional view is that Luke, Paul's beloved physician, wrote both this Gospel and the book of Acts. If so, Paul referred to this Luke three times in the NT (Col 4:14; 2 Tim 4:11; Phlm 24), and Luke obliquely referred to himself repeatedly in the book of Acts in the “we passages.” Although the author remains unnamed in both the Gospel and Acts, this does not necessarily mean that these writings were originally anonymous
¹⁰
since one can assume that the person to whom the book was dedicated (Theophilus) and its first readers knew who the writer was.

Whoever this Luke was, the preface to the Gospel, to go no further, evinces a refined use of the Greek language, which points to an author who was well educated.
¹¹
It is apparent that the author was male,
¹²
that he had access to a variety of sources about the life of Jesus,
¹³
that he was not an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry,
¹⁴
and that he had the opportunity to investigate the story about Jesus fully (v. 3). On these points most are agreed.
¹⁵
Beyond this, however, many have disputed the traditional attribution. For this reason it is necessary to examine the internal and the external evidence in turn.

Internal Evidence
The common authorship of Luke and Acts is virtually assumed in modern scholarship for the following reasons.
¹⁶
First, the preface to the book of Acts appears to introduce a sequel (Acts 1:1 refers to “the first narrative”). Second, both books are dedicated to the same person, Theophilus (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1). Third, the contents of Acts readily follow the story of Jesus presented in Luke (see the reference to “all that Jesus
began
to do and teach” in Acts 1:1). Fourth, Luke ends and Acts begins with Jesus' ascension.
This was an ancient method of connecting one book to another. Finally, both books display similar styles and interests.
¹⁷

The strongest evidence for Lukan authorship are the so-called “we passages” in Acts (16:10–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16). The most natural understanding of these references is that they suggest that the author was a traveling companion of Paul, a view attested as early as Irenaeus (c. 130–200; see
Against Heresies
3.1.2).
¹⁸

But C. J. Hemer lists three alternative views.
¹⁹
First, many see the “we passages” as reflecting a source composed by the author himself, a travel diary of sorts.
²⁰
Although this is possible, the theory is impossible to prove and may be based on the (now largely discarded) assumption that all sources must be written. Second, some argue that the “we passages” are from a travel diary written by someone other than the author.
²¹
Yet if these sections are from someone else's diary, Luke has stamped his unique style on all but the first-person plural pronouns. Also, such literary inconsistency would be out of character for an author who elsewhere displays great elegance and care in his writing. Third, many suggest that these sections are merely literary devices.
²²
If this is true, the writer would be so subtle as to confuse (if not mislead) part of his audience.
²³

Assuming, then, that the author would not normally employ first- and third-person plurals at the same time, the people named in these sections alongside the author may be removed from consideration for authorship. Thus the author could not have been Paul, Silas (Acts 16:19), Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Timothy, Tychicus, or Trophimus (Acts 20:4). Moreover, since the writer of the book of Acts was with Paul during his first Roman imprisonment (Col 4:14), it is possible that Paul mentioned him in one or several of the letters written during this period, namely, in the Prison Epistles:Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon.
²⁴
Paul names six such companions: Mark, Demas, Jesus Justus, Epaphroditus, Epaphras, and Luke.

Of these Mark wrote the Gospel that bears his name. Demas deserted Paul because he “loved this present world” (2 Tim 4:10), which renders him an unlikely candidate for authorship of Acts. Jesus Justus was a Jew (Col 4:11); the writer of Luke-Acts was probably not.
²⁵
Epaphroditus was most likely from Philippi (Phil 2:25), which makes it difficult to explain why he would have first joined Paul in Asia Minor before Philippi was evangelized (Acts 16:10). Epaphras is noted in the NT primarily for his role in founding the Colossian church (Col 1:7–8; 4 12–13; see Phlm 23). This leaves Luke as the best viable candidate.

External Evidence
The early church clearly understood the author of Luke-Acts to be Paul's “beloved physician.” This is attested in the title “according to Luke” at the end of the earliest MSS (e.g., P
⁷⁵
); in the stated opinion of the early church fathers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200], Theophilus of Antioch (later second century), and Justin Martyr (c. 100–165); and in early canonical lists. One of the earliest extrabiblical indications of authorship comes from Justin Martyr (c. 100–165), who mentioned a quote from Luke as from one who followed the apostles.
²⁶

The earliest and clearest extant reference to the author of Luke-Acts by name is found in the Muratorian Canon (later second century), followed by Irenaeus (c. 130–200) and the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to Luke (c. 160–180). That Luke was mentioned rather late has led many to speculate that Luke was little known in the first half of the second century.
²⁷
However, this conclusion is premature since Polycarp (c. 69–155) quotes both Luke and Acts (
Phil.
1.2; 2.1,3). Also, Papias (c. 60–130) named Luke as the author of the Gospel (cited in Eusebius,
Eccl. Hist.
3.24.5–13).
²⁸

Another fragment of Papias is found in an Armenian writer who quoted Luke 10:18.
²⁹
Moreover, Papias apparently had a lengthy discussion on the putrification of Judas in the book of Acts.
³⁰
Hence both Papias and Clement in all likelihood knew and used both Luke's Gospel and Acts early on.

It should also be noted that some early heretics made use of Luke's Gospel as well. A case in point is Marcion (c. 150), who severely edited the Gospel of Luke, excising all things Jewish, to include it in his canon. Another heretic, the gnostic Heracleon, wrote a commentary on Luke's Gospel.
³¹
The references to the Gospel of Luke in the works of both
men also strongly suggest that Luke's Gospel was already in use in the early church prior to the middle of the second century.

Finally, no candidate other than Luke has ever been set forth in the history of the church as the author of this book. Cumulatively, this data provides strong evidence for Luke as the author of the Gospel and the book of Acts, especially since it seems highly unlikely that the early church would have attributed these weighty books to an otherwise unheralded fellow worker of Paul unless he were the real author. The relative insignificance of Luke elsewhere in the NT remains a grave difficulty for those who would deny the attribution of the Gospel to Luke as traditionally conceived.
³²