(12 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
Loading...Everyone says that the Gospel of Luke was written by … Luke! Do we know if that’s true? Whether Luke or not, do we know when he wrote it? And why did he want/need to do so? Now that I’ve summarized the major themes and emphases of the Gospel we can delve into these equally interesting and important historical questions.
For as long as anyone has named an author of this Gospel, it has been Luke, a gentile traveling companion of Paul thought to be a medical doctor. I’ll continue calling him “Luke” for the sake of convenience, even though I don’t think we can know who he was.
Years ago on the blog (in January 2020) I devoted a series of posts to the question: Was Luke Luke (so to say)? There are a lot of issues to consider, including seemingly unrelated things, such as whether Paul actually wrote Colossians (!). The series ended with my wrap-up overview posted on January 19: So: Was Luke Luke?, in case you’re interested in digging deeper. I obviously can’t cover the entire waterfront here in this one post, but I can hit the key points.
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Professor Ehrman, when you say “His Greek is among the best in the New Testament.” What exactly does that mean?
It means that Charles Dickens could write English a heckuva lot better than my average undergraduate student. In the NT, some authors are more stylistically proficient than others. The author of Revelatoin is pretty dreadful — he makes actual grammatical *mistakes*. The authors of Luke / Acts and Hebrews are two of the best stylists.disabledupes{ca3043828dd7d8851460497677dcdedc}disabledupes
BDEhrman writes: “It means that Charles Dickens could write English a heckuva lot better than my average undergraduate student.”
I share your admiration for Dickens, but I have to point out that he had little education. He apparently had several years of what we would call Grade School, but, before there were child labor laws, at the age of 12 he was working 10 hours a day gluing labels on bottles. He later had a few years of what might be our Middle School, but, beyond that, he seems to have been basically self-taught.
This brings up another question: Dickens didn’t just start writing novels, rather he started as a clerk, then a reporter, then a journalist, then a short story writer, and finally a novelist. It seems unlikely that the four Gospels were the first, last, and only literary works of their respective authors. Has any effort been made to identify other works by any of these authors? And not necessarily religious works?
BDEhrman writes: “In the NT, some authors are more stylistically proficient than others.”
But eloquence does not necessarily imply education. Not really a point, but have you read the Egyptian story of The Eloquent Peasant?
Good point! I am not sure if J. Ross Wagner got the ball rolling but since his book on the Septuagint there does seem to have been a lot of good work done challenging the idea of Septuagint Greek being a product of the uneducated, a challenge that is immediately applicable to Revelation and other places in the NT that seem to be ungrammatical and thus, “uneducated.” James Aitken has written some very interesting things and I like his paper “The Septuagint Within the History of Greek: An Introduction.”
wbhiggins writes: “Professor Ehrman, when you say “His Greek is among the best in the New Testament.” What exactly does that mean?”
I have wondered about this, also. Bart occasionally mentions an author as writing educated Greek, but what formal education was available? And what is educated Greek, and who decides? An Athenian Attic Greek speaker might have said that Ionic and Doric were uneducated Greek, but a Spartan would probably have disagreed with him. And they might both have agreed that Alexandrians spoke uneducated Greek.
Perhaps Bart means an educated speaker would have a large vocabulary, and would use things like compound sentences and the subjunctive mood? Or perhaps he is thinking of an Aramaic speaker who has learned Greek as a second language, and is capable of writing grammatically correct (and probably Alexandrian) Greek? Perhaps Bart could expand on the idea of an educated speaker for us?
How can you support your comment that “For Luke’s Jesus, the end is not imminent” in light of Luke 21:32 and Luke 22:69. The former makes it clear that the end was to come before those then living in that generation Jesus called an evil and adulterous one had all died. The latter makes it clear that Jesus had said to those in the Sanhedrin that hereafter they would see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God. (Mark 14:62 clarifies this by adding “and coming on the clouds of heaven”.) To me this speaks of the eschaton (Parousia) being near, at hand, coming soon and imminent as all of Jesus’ disciples believed was the case. Peter, John and James (the Lord’s brother) all made it clear in writings attributed to them that they believed the eschaton was imminent. Paul even believed he would be alive to meet the Lord in the air.
It sounds like you’re not buying Steve Mason’s argument that the author of Luke/Acts knew Josephus. Do you think the commonalities are explained by them both drawing from common material that’s now lost?
You write that Didache appears to quote Luke. Did you mean Ignatius? I thought Didache maybe quotes Matthew.
Does Mark’s suggestion that the High Priest will see the Son of Man’s return imply Mark was written during the High Priest’s lifetime, unlike Luke which assumes his demise?
OT prophetic literature warns Jerusalem’s upcoming destruction will be directly attributed to Israel’s neglect of the needy and oppressed. Might Luke be cautioning the temple leaders about their impending loss of divine favor, as God’s redemptive focus shifts from Jerusalem to the broader Gentile world? This narrative thread is reminiscent of the OT prophetic tradition, where God’s favor often shifted from Israel to the nations. Luke’s emphasis on this development suggests he sees it as a deliberate fulfillment of God’s longstanding “plan.”
You suggest Luke’s account is at odds with Paul’s letters, but it’s notable that Luke aligns with Paul on the key locations and regions where he ministered. Aren’t Minor discrepancies expected from independent sources, which typically exhibit substantial agreement on major points alongside some variation in details?
Considering Luke is dedicated to Theophilus, a prominent patron, wouldn’t it be implausible and potentially perilous for Luke to falsely present himself as a companion of Paul? As patron, wouldn’t Theophilus be familiar with Luke’s background/credentials?
I doubt it. If he really was a person, then he apparently was a Roman administrator who knew very little about Christianity, so that Luke wants to enlgithen him (possibly making his accont apologetic).
You wrote, “(first time: Acts 16:11). The natural assumption would be that the author at this point joined Paul and the others.”
But the ancients did NOT make that assumption. They seem to have assumed (correctly, I think) that the author was anonymously part of the “they” who travelled to Troas from Antioch. Similarly, they thought that Matthew hid himself within the “they” in his gospel. I doubt that the author of Acts would have said that he interpreted the divine guidance if he had not been part of the group that received it. Also, Acts says that they did not preach in Asia, so it does not seem to be suggesting that the author had become a convert in Troas.
You wrote “it was then assumed that the author … was therefore a gentile.”
Which ancient writer assumed that the author of Acts was a gentile?
The ones who said it was Luke.
Luke 21:32 seems to encompass several event predictions, I think:
• The Kingdom of Heaven could be a polite epithet for the arrival of the high-altitude Nabataeans in the thing with Antipas.
•Then, the Abomination might refer to Caligula’s plan to install a statue of himself in a Zeus style to be worshipped in the temple in 39–40 CE. How would Jesus know of this earlier? Agrippa grew up with the dude, so maybe Jesus has princely info.
• Then, there’s Jesus’ prediction of the fate of the temple. Something that Aretas III first initiated, per Josephus. (The Onias lineage needed to anchor the rights might have left for refuge in Egypt.) It’s Rome that directs this with the contributions of vassals, and at the forefront there is King Malichus.
I don’t think that the author of Luke-Acts necessarily knew Josephus btw, why wouldn’t they both be drawing from Nicolaus of Damascus? He was reputed to write 144 books.
An off topic question, please Dr Ehrman. It’s a rather unusual one, I’m afraid. Can we actually know when the formal ordination of priests and deacons was introduced in the early church and if women were ever ordained as deacons? The reason I ask is that the debate about female ordination in the Catholic Church is a hot topic at the moment and ‘scholars’ on both sides of the argument seem convinced that they know the answers to these questions. Many thanks.
Question re: Luke’s audience. In your linked post you described Paul’s mission as explicitly for the Gentiles. My understanding is that Paul explains that accepting Christ is, at some level, becoming a Jew as part of the new covenant with God. So how did Luke’s audience – 20-40 years after Paul – think of themselves as related to Jews (Torah-Judeans?)? And did they adopt the culture of the Jews in any manner along with the religion?
Would the majority of Evangelical Christian theologians claim to have any rational or intellectual justification or basis for asserting the existence of hell if its existence was not (allegedly) asserted in the Bible?
If so, would you briefly characterize it?
Bart, could you clarify how any of the gospel descriptions of Jesus’ life can be considered historical in any way? Considering authorship characteristics, languages used, historical and geographic errors, affiliation with Paul, and comparisons between the gospels, I don’t understand how any of the descriptions can be legitimate daily life activities.
Feel free to punt if this is just too controversial or wide-open a topic.
Eric smith
Dr. Ehrman – Given the high number of references to women and women’s’ concerns in Luke, especially in contrast to the other evangelists, is there any credibility to some scholarly claims that Luke could have been a woman?
Of course it’s technically possible. But I don’t think a concern for women necessarily suggests the author was a woman; Paul, for example, has a large concern for gentiles, but he was not one. When it comes to the identity of an author, when no real information exists, one has to consider probabilities. We don’t have any known women authors for the first 200 years of Christianity. Principally that’s because very few women in the Roman world were trained in literacy, let alone in the higher levels of Greek composition; those who were were almost always women of the very highest echelons of society. Very, very few Christian men or women in the late first century were at that level. So it seems extremely doubtful that the author was a woman.
Hundreds of false gospels and epistles were written by devout followers of Jesus in the early centuries CE. Even the most conservative of modern Christians will agree that these early Christian authors invented their stories out of whole cloth. What was their motivation? Evangelism? Fame? Profit? Whatever it was, it was NOT to record accurate history. So why assume the Evangelists were any different? The first Gospel “sold” a lot of copies. Three other authors saw its success and jumped on the bandwagon. “John” had access to all three Synoptics. “Luke” had access to Matthew and Mark. “Matthew” had access to Mark. And “Mark” invented a Jesus character from Paul’s bare bones Jesus the Christ Story; a real historical person whose true deeds Paul for the most part failed to record. Isn’t that plausible, Dr. E?
I don’t think so. I explain why in my book Did Jesus Exist. (Moreover, I don’t know of scholars who think that any of the apocryphal gospels were invented out of whole cloth; their authors were invariably producing — at least in part — accounts of Jesus based on what they had heard)
Dr Ehrman, there seems to be a debate whether Peter made it to Rome or even started church in Rome. Is there any evidence to either of those questions? What is the opinion of most scholars?
Thanks, RD
I discuss this in my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene. Check it out! Short story: he certainly did not start the church there. Our earliest evidence of the church is Paul’s letter to it, and there’s no reference to Peter there or indication he had een there (in contrast to Antioch and Corinth), and he certainly wasn’t there when Paul wrote since he greets a couple of dozen people that he knows there and doesn’t mention Peter. Did Peter ever make it to Rome? Possibly, but there’s not good evidence one way or the other. The first connection of Peter with Rome comes in the pseudonymous book of 1 Peter (claiming to be written by Peter but almost certainly by someone claiming to be Peter), who indicates, while claiming to be Peter, to be writing from “Babylon” which became a code-word for Rome among Christians because like the Babylonians in the 6th c. BCE the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. That would suggest that by the end of the first century (when the letter was written) that Peter was thought to habe been in Rome, but that would be decades after his death. The first reference to Peter’s martyrsom comes at the end of the first century in the letter of 1 Clement, around 95 CE and this letter was indeed written from Rome, but the author does not say that that is where he was martyred. We don’t get actual reports of Peter going to Rome until legednary accounts in the second century. So who konws?
Between circa 30 CE and circa 65 CE (35 years) the only written stories about Jesus were found in the epistles of Paul. What did Paul say about the historical Jesus? Almost nothing! Christians ASSUME that oral stories about Jesus’ life and death were circulating at this time in all the churches of the empire. What evidence do they have for this assumption? What if the only stories circulating about Jesus (an insignificant messiah-pretender executed by the Romans) during these decades were those found in Paul’s epistles??? Then the author of Mark writes a “biographical” book about Paul’s Jesus. BAM! It’s a best-seller! Christians finally hear STORIES about their savior! Paul had told them (alleged) facts but only one brief story (the Last Supper).
Now, every author in the empire saw a means to make money! Find a wealthy Christian patron, eager to hear stories about his Lord and Savior. And over the next 100 or so years, HUNDREDS of “gospels” and “epistles” about Jesus the Christ appear out of thin air. Question: Is it plausible that the authors of the canonical gospels had the same primary motivation?
Dr. Ehrman: If Luke was using (relying on) Mark’s Gospel when composing his account cannot it rightly be said that he was both a plagiarizer and one who tampered with Mark’s Gospel? First, I believe you will agree Luke did repeat some of Mark’s Gospel verbatim but he did not give him credit. All he wrote was that others had written before him and that he was writing as one who had a “perfect understanding” of all things from the very first. (However, I suppose if Mark did not identify himself as the author of his gospel, it would have been difficult for Luke to have given him more specific credit.) The second issue is this: Luke goes about radically changing Mark’s account of the two un-repentant thieves crucified on either side of Jesus. More specifically, Luke went back to the future and put new words into the mouth of one of these “thieves” in order to transform him into a repentant thief whom Jesus sent to heaven even though Mark had previously made it clear he had died reviling Jesus and I guess was sent to hell. I call this tampering with Mark’s evidence.
Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 – c. 253) identified Lucius of Cyrene as the author of Luke, right?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_of_Cyrene
I know zero about Origen. I’m just discovering the extent of Alexandria’s involvement in the Jesus movement so I’ll check him out.
Romans 16:21
“Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen
I just came across a Panarion sect that believed Acts was a compromised text or something, maybe like you have discussed interpolation in Acts. This is why I’m dropping the Luke-Acts hyphen (for now). It could account for Lucius and Luke the Physician being conflated in the ‘We’ passages.
Cayce said it was Lucius’ sister Nimmuo of Cyrene that influenced the female empowerment and social equity messages. Have you ever had any interest in debunking Cayce, Dr. Ehrman?
mark has jesus rebuke his disciples for lack of faith or no faith….its followed by miracle, why would mark leave out ressurection APPEARANCES assuming he knew them? None of the other gospel writers including 2nd century christian writers were happy with what the unknown man in the tomb said, they made sure an appearance took place.
One common explanation is because he wants to show that the disciples never did get it.
mark follows his rebuke with miracles.
they never did get it, but they still got some miracle. in the end, mark never has them discovering an empty tomb and seeing a flesh and blood jesus.
peter who is supposed to be marks informant told mark
1. he was identified as satan by jesus because he grew up with the belief that the messiah was never to be killed
2. he lied and denied jesus when his life was in danger
3. the women said nothing to anyone for they were afraid
does it make sense that if 1-3 is information from peter to mark, that peter would leave out the very FOUNDATION which holds marks gospel?
unless mark did not think that the ressurection was the foundation of his gospel?
>One common explanation is because he wants to show that the disciples never did get it.
do you mean that mark was written for non-jewish deciples who were told not to be like the weak faith jewish contemporary followers of jesus ?
there goes the apologist claim that “they were PERSECUTED for their beliefs and even willing to die for them”
I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but yes, I think Mark’s audience was largely gentile Christian and he wants them to understand the truth better than the disciples did during their time with Jesus.
I take it you don’t find the evidence that Titus Flavius Clemens and Flavia Domitilla were Christians very compelling?
What do you make of the theory that Marcion actually had something like proto-Luke, rather than having a later corruption of canonical Luke?
My view is that it may have been both. I think he had a form of Luke without chs. 1-2 and also edited what he had received in places.
If anyone hasn’t told you before, its incredible that an academic of your caliber is willing to take the time to respond to the musings of armchair speculators like me. Thank you.
What I’m attempting to propose is given the arguments for thinking of Theophilus as an important Patron, then identifying him could provide invaluable insights into the context of Luke’s writings/early church. I’m exploring potential candidates. Titus Flavius Clement, possibly the author of 1Clement and the Clement mentioned in Philippians, emerges as a promising candidate.
To substantiate my proposal, I’ve attempted to connect individuals mentioned by Paul, Cassius Dio, and 1Clement, as well as their links to the Roman imperial family. Additionally, I’ve analyzed the dating/major themes of Luke, 1Clement, and Flavius Clement’s lifespan to further justify my argument. I’d appreciate your feedback: should I continue investigating, or am I chasing an overly speculative lead?
Side Note: I’m also considering the possibility that the book divided into two parts, as instructed by the Shepherd in the Shepherd of Hermas, isn’t a reference to 1Clement. Instead, the two books are Luke and Acts: That Clement is the intended recipient/patron of Luke/Acts, responsible for duplicating and disseminating the texts to cities abroad.
Epaphroditus was common so I’m cautious about my proposal here. But overlap between the descriptions/settings/timelines of Paul’s, Nero’s, and Josephus’s Epaphroditus is striking. Paul’s Epaphroditus in Philippians appears to be a wealthy individual connected to Rome and “Household of Caesar,” mentioned alongside Clement. Assuming Philippians was written late places Epaphroditus in Rome during Nero’s reign. Claudius Epaphroditus was Nero’s secretary, mentioned by Cassius Dio in connection with Flavius Clement’s death.
Given Josephus’s well-documented struggles with Greek and access to Roman/Jewish archives, it’s likely he received assistance. His dedications to Epaphroditus might suggest Epaphroditus provided linguistic/historical support.
The connection between Josephus’s Epaphroditus and imperial family is further solidified by Josephus’s residence in house of Vespasian/Titus. While any Roman emperor’s secretary could serve as a potential candidate for Josephus’s helper, the shared name with Nero’s secretary strengthens the theory. Claudius Epaphroditus was killed by Domitian prior to his death in 96, Josephus’s Antiquities was written≈93.
Epaphroditus=Author of Luke/Acts explains:
– “we” statements in Acts (Philippian’s Epaphroditus=Paul’s traveling companion.)
– The sophisticated grammar/historical accuracy in Luke-Acts (Claudius Epaphroditus’s education/access to resources.)
– Literary dependency in Acts/Josephus (Epaphroditus assisted Josephus/wrote Acts.)
– The dedication of Luke to Theophilus (akaFlavius Clement), connected to Claudius Epaphroditus through Cassius Dio.
” just and loving God” definitely NOT
2) “handiwork of an Omnipotent, Supreme Being we call God” the OT, Paul says were inspired by the HS, not NT
in middle or high schools, I thought: Matthew & John gospels were most important. So what Mark was Peter’s scribe & what does St Paul have to do with the disciples & furthermore friend?
better known as Luke, Luke use the Force!
what was john mark running around jerusalem during jesus’ crucifiction times
Assistant
Poe
One notable reference to a young man, often thought to be Mark, appears in the Gospel of Mark (14:51-52), where a young man flees when Jesus is arrested, leaving behind his linen garment. This passage has led some scholars to speculate that this might be an autobiographical detail from Mark, indicating his presence during the tumultuous events surrounding Jesus’ trial and crucifixion.
At Luke 12:5 the anonymous author has Jesus teaching people to fear God because God can not only kill you, God can also “cast into hell.”
The anonymous author of Matthew wrote at Matthew 10:28 that Jesus taught, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Obviously, I may be wrong, but my understanding is that Jesus was a religious Jew who didn’t believe in hell, but believed the end was near and God would have a judgment day where souls would go back to their bodies and those not condemned by God would live in the just world that God establishes. Is this a correct understanding, and if this is a correct understanding, why would the anonymous authors have Jesus talking about hell?
Thanks for your time and for sharing your knowledge with the world, Dr. Ehrman!
Yes, the problem is the translation. The Greek word in these passages does not mean “hell.” It is “Gehenna,” the valley outside of Jerusalem, desecrated by human sacrifice, the most God-forsaken place on the planet. Jesus is saying that your corpse will not only not receive a decent burial but will be horribly treated at death. If you’re interested in pursuing this further, I devote a discussoin to it in my book on Heaven and Hell (where I show that Jesus did not believe in eternal punishment of the soul after death).