1. Introduction to Luke

Lesson #1

Introduc/on

Introduc)on to Luke 1

In our study of the Gospel according to Ma7hew, we dened a gospel as a unique literary genre, an account of the good news (Greek = euangelion; eu = good, angelion = message) of the coming kingdom of God and the redemp@on of humanity through the life, death, burial and resurrec@on of Jesus Christ.

We noted that a gospel is not a biography of a person, although it does contain biographical informa@on; it is not an historical account of a person, although it is rooted in historical @me; it is not a c@onal account of a person, although it does include miracles, wonders and a large dose of the supernatural. Rather, a gospel reects the understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what he did, in light of a living faith tradi/on, guided by the Holy Spirit, 30-60 years aKer the events it portrays.


For the rst 30+ years of the Church the gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire by the oral teaching and preaching of the Apostles and others. Only in the mid-60s or so was the gospel message wriQen down. Many wriQen gospel accounts emerged during the rst three centuries of the Chris@an era, but common usage generally applies the term to the four canonical gospels: MaQhew, Mark, Luke and John.

In this lesson we explore how the synop@c Gospels (MaQhew, Mark and Luke) came to be wriQen, and we examine Lukes posi@on within the synop@c tradi@on. .


Not me.

Introduc)on to Luke

Thats a good ques@on!

What do we really know about the historical Jesus?

4

Chris@anity is arguably the single most important force in shaping the past 2,000 years of western civiliza@on, and one may reasonably argue that Jesus of Nazareth is the single most inuen@al person who ever lived.

Yet, we know very liQle about the historical Jesus.


Desis Mosaic, depic/ng Christ Pantrocrator (c.1261), South Gallery, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.

Photography by Ana Maria Vargas


There is not a single piece of documentary evidence from the /me of Jesus (4/6 B.C. A.D. 32) to suggest that he ever existed.

Not a birth cer@cate.

Not a death cer@cate. Not a leQer.

Not a property record.

Not a record of his trial.

Not a single document with his name on it.

Nothing.


Apart from the New Testamentwritten decades after Jesus life on this earththere are only a few references to him.

The most well known are two mentions of him in Flavius Josephus Jewish Antiquities. Josephus lived c. A.D. 37-95.


About this /me there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucied, those who had in the rst place come to love him did not give up their aec/on for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these an99d countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of the Chris/ans, so called aKer him, has s/ll to this day not disappeared.

Jewish An/qui/es (18.3.3)


Titus Flavius Josephus (c. A.D. 37-95).

Josephus men@ons Jesus again in passing when he notes that the High Priest Ananias summoned the Sanhedrin, the Jewish governing council . . .

and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusa/on against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned . . .

Jewish An/qui/es (20.9.1)

Acts 12 chronicles the result of this incident.


Josephus, Jewish An@qui@es. [This single manuscript leaf on vellum is the La/n transla/on of Runus of Aquileia (11th century), listed for auc/on at Southebys, 12/2/2014.]

A longer account shows up in Tacitus Annals (c. A.D. 116), where Tacitus recounts the great re in Rome under Nero:

Nero fastened the guilt and aicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abomina/ons, called Chris/ans by the populace. Christus, from whom their name had its origin, suered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pon/us Pilate, and a deadly supers//on, thus checked for the moment, again broke out, not only in Judea, the rst source of the evil, but also in the city, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world meet and become popular.

Annals (25.44.2-8)


Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (c. A.D. 56-117)

Pliny the Younger Le7ers (10.96)

One of the earliest non-biblical reports about the Chris@ans comes from Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia (c. 112 A.D.) He isnt quite sure how to deal with the Chris@ans, so he writes to the emperor Trajan for advice (Le7ers 10.96). Pliny had interrogated a few Chris@ans, and he passes on to Trajan the informa@on he received:


Pliny the Younger (A.D. 61-112)

They maintained, moreover, that the amount of their fault or error had been this, that it was their habit on a xed day to assemble before daylight and recite by turns a form of words to Christ as to a god; and that they bound themselves with an oath, not for any crime, but not to commit theK or robbery or adultery, not to break their word, and not to deny a deposit when demanded. AKer this was done, it was their custom to depart, and to meet again to take food, but ordinary, harmless food . . .. I discovered nothing else than a perverse and extravagant supers//on.

Le7ers (10.96)


Eucharis@c Bread (fresco), 3rd century. St. Callixtus Catacomb, Rome.

A nal account of the Chris@an movement before the end of the second century comes from the sa@rist Lucian of Samosata. In his Passing of Peregrinus he portrays Peregrinus as the very model of the conman. Among those duped by Peregrinus was a group of Chris@ans:


Lucian of Samosata (c. A.D. 125-180)

It was then he learned the wondrous lore of the Chris/ans by associa/ng with their priests and scribes in Pales/ne. Andhow else could it bein a trice he made them all look like children; for he was prophet, cult leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by himself. He interpreted and explained some of their books, and even composed many, and they revered him as a god, made use of him as a lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next aKer that other, to be sure, whom they s/ll worship, the man who was crucied in Pales/ne because he introduced this new cult into the world.

Passing of Peregrinus (11-13)


Lucian of Samosata. Opera Omnia, 1615. [Auc/oned at Bonhams, 10/2/2012.]

Among Jewish wri@ngs, the Talmud contains only a few references to Jesus (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a, b; 103a; 106b; 107b), though later censors may have removed others. The ones that do remain are very brief and omen veiled.

If we did not know of Jesus from the New Testament, we would probably not recognize the allusions to him in the Talmud.


During the rst century amer Jesus death, the world took liQle no@ce of what it considered to be a minor Jewish sect.

For the most part, Jewish and Hellenis@c writers completely ignored both Jesus and Chris@anity.


Amer Jesus resurrec@on he said to his Apostles:

All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all na/ons, bap/zing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

MaQhew 28: 18-20

And that is precisely what they did.


Between A.D. 32 and the mid 60s, teaching and preaching about Jesus was primarily oral, with occasional leQers, such as those wriQen by Paul.

Faith communi@es formed throughout the Roman Empire based on such teaching and preaching.


Virtually everyone in the early Chris@an communi@es believed that Jesus was crucied, buried and raised, and that he would return again, ushering in the Kingdom of God.

And they believed this would happen in their

life/me.


By the mid-60s the eyewitness genera@on was drawing to a closeeither through natural death or persecu@on. Jesus had not yet returned, so it became impera@ve that the oral teaching and preaching about Jesus be wriQen down, lest it be distorted or lost.


Thus, the wri7en Gospels begin to emerge in the mid to late 60s.


25 The Day of Atonement

How the Gospel Spread

1. For three years (A.D. 29-32) Jesus went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and curing every disease and illness among the people (Luke 4: 23).

2. During his 3-year public ministry Jesus gathered many followers, twelve of whom became his inner circle, his Apostles. They lived with him, traveled with him, studied with him: they were eyewitnesses to his public ministry and to his death, burial and resurrection.


3. After his resurrection, Jesus commissioned his inner circle to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28: 19-20).

4. His Apostles did exactly that, becoming his witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth [i.e., throughout the Roman Empire] (Acts 1: 8).


5. Jesus Apostlesand other followerstraveled throughout the Roman Empire telling stories about him: they repeated his teaching; they told about his encounters with the religious authorities; and they told about the miracles God performed through him.

6. Over time, this oral teaching and preaching took on a fixed form and shape through repetition: expository teaching (e.g., Sermon on the Mount), parables (e.g., the Prodigal Son); dialectic (argumentation); healing stories; etc.

There were many gospels wriQen during the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., but the gospels we shall study are the canonical gospels: MaQhew, Mark, Luke and John.

These are the gospels the early church believed were wriQen by the Apostles (MaQhew and John) or someone closely associated with the Apostles (Mark and Luke)during the rst genera/on of the Church.


MaQhew, a tax collector, lem his work to follow Jesus (MaQhew 9: 9-13). One of the twelve apostles, he was a Jewprobably a Leviteand he wrote for a Jewish audience.

His wriQen gospel emerges some@me in the late 60s.


Rembrandt. The Evangelist Ma7hew and the Angel (oil on canvas), 1661.

Louvre-Lens Gallery, Pas-de-Calais, France.

John Mark, a young man, was not an apostle, but he was on the fringes of the group that followed Jesus. He is rst men@oned in Acts 12: 12When this dawned on him [Peter], he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. Mark was a nephew of Barnabas (Colossians 4: 10) and the spiritual son of Peter (1 Peter 5:13).


Anonymous. The Evangelist Mark with a Lion (illumina@on on parchment), 1524.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C..

Luke was not an apostlenor was he a follower of Jesus during his three-year public ministry. Rather, Luke, the beloved physician was a Gen@le, a close friend and traveling companion of Paul during A.D. 50-68. Luke wrote both the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.


Andrea Mantegna. Luke the Evangelist [detail from the St. Luke altarpiece] (tempera on wood), 1454.

Brera Art Gallery, Milan

John was an apostle, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the brother of James and one of Jesus cousins. Of all the apostles, John was the most in@mate with Jesus. He is the beloved disciple who rests his head on Jesus shoulder at the last supper and the one to whom Jesus entrusts the care of his mother, Mary, as he is dying on the cross. Tradi@onally, John is the author of the Gospel according to John; 1, 2 & 3 John and Revela/on.


Pieter Paul Rubens. St. John (oil on panel), c, 1611. Prado Museum, Madrid.

MaQhew, Mark and Luke are called the synop/c Gospels: Syn = together (as in synonym) Op/c = seen

MaQhew, Mark and Luke all draw from the same oral (and perhaps) wriQen sources.

John is very dierent from the synop@c gospels, drawing on an en@rely dierent set of tradi@ons.


The Synop@c Gospels MaQhew, Mark & Luke


New Testament Manuscripts The New Testament was wriQen en@rely in koine Greek, that is, the common Greek understood by ordinary people living in Pales@ne at the @me of Jesus. They understood Greek because Alexander the Great had conquered the region in 331 B.C., establishing a long period of Greek rule that lasted un@l the Roman general, Pompey, conquered the area in 63 B.C. A Jew living in Pales@ne at the @me of Jesus would have understood Greek, spoken Aramaic as his na@ve language, and been able to read Hebrew. Most would also have had a working knowledge of La@n, since they were living under Roman rule.

Although the events in the New Testament happen in the rst century A.D., the manuscripts that record those events date from much later. Manuscripts of the New Testament are divided into four types: papyri, uncials, minuscules, and lec@onaries.


Example of a Papyrus Manuscript

This is the oldest exis@ng manuscript of the new Testament, a fragment of the Gospel according to John, A.D. 125 (John 18: 31-34; 37-38).

John Rylands Library, Manchester, England.


Example of an Uncial Manuscript

Codex Sinai@cus, perhaps the most important of the New Testament manuscripts. Da@ng from the 4th century, it contains part of the Old Testament

and all of the New Testament. Bri@sh Library, London.


Example of a Miniscule Manuscript

This is a parchment manuscript from the 10th century containing the Acts of the Apostles, and the general and Pauline leQers (Philemon 10-25 is shown above).

Mt. Athos, Greece.


Example of a Lec@onary

This is a parchment codex containing a gospel lec@onary dated A.D. 991. It is carefully wriQen with elaborate decora@ve leQers in yellow, blue, green and scarlet. The text is John 19: 10-16 and MaQhew 27: 3-5. Va@can Library.


So, how do we know that the Gospel according to Luke that we have in our Catholic Study Bibles is what Luke actually wrote, given that the earliest manuscripts of Luke are 300-400 years older than the events they portray?


That is the job of textual cri/cism: A textual cri@c reconstructs ancient texts based upon the manuscripts that do exist.

Presently there are: Over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek New Testament manuscripts, Over 10,000 La@n manuscripts, and Over 9,300 manuscripts in other

languages.

These manuscripts date from A.D. 125 to the beginning of prin@ng, c. 1450. The vast majority date amer the 10th century A.D.


Textual cri@cs are the unsung heroes of biblical scholarship! Textual cri@cism requires a profound knowledge of ancient languages, history, literature and composi@onal technique, as well as enormously @me-consuming, me@culous and detailed work. It is both a highly developed science and an art.


Kurt Aland, et al., editors. The Greek New Testament, 4th edi@on. London: United Bible Socie@es, 2001.


As we begin our study of the Gospel according to Luke, it is important to remember that a gospel is not a biography of a person, although it does contain biographical informa@on; it is not an historical account of a person, although it is rooted in historical @me; it is not a c@onal account of a person, although it does include miracles, wonders and a large dose of the supernatural. Rather . . .


. . . a gospel reects the understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what he did, in light of a living faith tradi/on, guided by the Holy Spirit, 30-60 years aKer the events it portrays.


1. How does a gospel dier from other genres of literature?

2. If the four canonical gospels emerge from 30-60 years of oral tradi@on, would the stories they tell have evolved with the telling? If so, how? If not, why?

3. Although Jesus lived in a remote corner of the Roman Empire, wrote nothing and never traveled more than 100 miles from home, he and his message became a global enterprise with 2 billion followers today. How do you account for that?

4. Why are MaQhew, Mark, Luke & John in the New Testament, while other gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas, are not in the canon of Scripture?

5. How do you know that the Gospel you are reading is what its author or authors actually wrote?


Copyright 2015 by William C. Creasy

All rights reserved. No part of this courseaudio, video, photography, maps, @melines or other mediamay be reproduced or transmiQed in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informa@on storage or retrieval devices without permission in wri@ng or a licensing agreement from the copyright holder.


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1. Introduction to Luke

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