Lesson

#1
Introduc/on

Introduc)on to Luke

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.

Introduc)on to Luke

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.
.
Introduc)on to Luke

What do we really
know about the
Not Jm
e.
historical
esus?
Thats a good
ques@on!

Introduc)on to Luke

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.

Introduc)on to Luke

Desis Mosaic, depic/ng Christ Pantrocrator (c.1261),

South Gallery, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.

Photography by Ana Maria Vargas

Introduc)on to Luke

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.

Introduc)on to Luke

Apart from the New Testamentwritten

decades after Jesus life on this earth
there 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.

Introduc)on to Luke

Titus Flavius Josephus

(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.

to Luke
Introduc)on

Jewish An/qui/es (18.3.3)

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 . . .

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.]

Jewish An/qui/es (20.9.1)

Acts 12 chronicles the result of

this incident.

Introduc)on to Luke

10

A longer account shows up in Tacitus

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

Gaius Cornelius Tacitus

(c. A.D. 56-117)

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)

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Pliny the Younger

Le7ers (10.96)

Pliny the Younger

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:

(A.D. 61-112)

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Eucharis@c Bread (fresco), 3rd century.

St. Callixtus Catacomb, Rome.

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)

Luke
Introduc)on to

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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)

Introduc)on to Luke

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Lucian of Samosata. Opera Omnia, 1615.

[Auc/oned at Bonhams, 10/2/2012.]

It was then he learned the wondrous

lore of the Chris/ans by associa/ng with
their priests and scribes in Pales/ne. And
how 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)






Introduc)on to Luke

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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.

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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.

Introduc)on to Luke

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Introduc)on to Luke

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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.
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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.
Introduc)on to Luke

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Introduc)on to Luke

21

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.
Introduc)on to Luke

22

By the mid-60s the

eyewitness genera@on
was drawing to a close
either 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.
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Thus, the wri7en Gospels begin to

emerge in the mid to late 60s.

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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.

The Day of Atonement

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3.

4.

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).
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).

The Day of Atonement

26

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.

The Day of Atonement

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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.

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MaQhew, a tax collector,

lem his work to follow Jesus
(MaQhew 9: 9-13). One of
the twelve apostles, he was
a Jewprobably a Levite
and 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.
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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..

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Luke was not an apostle

nor 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

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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.

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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.

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The Synop@c Gospels

MaQhew, Mark & Luke

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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.
Introduc)on to Luke

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Introduc)on to Luke

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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?
Introduc)on to Luke

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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.
Introduc)on to Luke

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

Introduc)on to Luke

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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 . . .

Introduc)on to Luke

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. . . 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.

Introduc)on to Luke

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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?

Introduc)on to Luke

46

Copyright 2015 by William C. Creasy

All rights reserved. No part of this courseaudio, video,

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Introduc)on to Luke

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