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Our dear friend Luke, the doctor,
and Demas send greetings.
(Colossians 4:14) |
Of the 4 gospels, Luke's gospel is my favorite. (I don't like something without a good reason). Luke was a scientist and the way he wrote the Gospel and Acts is from a scientific point of view. That speaks naturally to me.
John's gospel on the other hand, is very emotional. That's fine for some emotionally inclined person or someone that can be moved to faith through emotion. But I am just too level headed to be persuaded just by an emotional account - it needs historical accuracy for my scientific mind. However, once I believed, I can appreciate John's narrative - he talks about Jesus from a very personal perspective.
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Luke 1 vers 1 to 3: Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye witnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus; |
To give you just an idea what I meant by historical background information, here is just a short list of things mentioned in Luke's work:
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In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. |
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In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar |
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One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) |
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There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. |
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In the time of Herod king of Judea
there was a priest named Zechariah, who
belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; - Luke 1:5
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree
that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
(This was the first census that took place while
Quirinius was governor of Syria.) - Luke 2:1-2
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In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar -- when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene -- during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. - Luke 3:1-2 |
| Pontius Pilate | Luke 3 v 1; Luke 13 v 1, Luke 23 v 1, 3, etc |
| Herod the Great, Bernice | Luke 1 v 5; Luke 25 v 13; Luke 26 v 30 |
| Sergius Paulus | Acts 13 v 7 |
| Drusilla | Acts 24 v 24 |
| Gallio | Acts 18 v 12 |
| Annas | Luke 3 v 2; Acts 4 v 6 |
| Felix | Acts 23 v 24; Acts 23 v 26 |
| Caiaphas | Luke 3 v 2; Acts 4 v 6 |
| Festus | Acts 24 v 27; Acts 25 v 1, etc. |
| Ananias | Acts 23 v 2; Acts 24 v 1 |
| King Herod Agrippa I | Acts 12 v 1 |
| Gamaliel | Acts 5 v 34; Acts 22 v 3 |
| King Herod Agrippa II | Acts 25 v 13, Acts 25 v 26 |
| Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee | Luke 3 v 1 |
By including all these historical information, Luke had given the skeptics plenty of reasons to criticize his gospel for accuracy, for Luke's gospel was under a tremendous criticism for a long time (that was before archaeology came to Luke's defense)
You have to understand that some people and places that Luke reported in his gospel were not very prominent (some are city officials): there are no historical evidence that these people or places (some are tiny towns) existed...
Luke was indeed under heavy criticism - especially concerning his reference to less prominent people, such as "tetarchs" (see below)
Luke has not only withstood the test but he is NOW considered to be a highly acclaimed historian::
He studied under the famous liberal German historical schools in the mid-nineteenth century.
Known for its scholarship, this school taught that the New Testament was not a historical document.
With this premise, Ramsay investigated biblical claims as he searched through Asia Minor.
What he discovered caused him to reverse his initial view. He wrote:
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I began with a mind unfavorable to it [Acts],
for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the
Tubingen theory had at one time quite convinced me.
It did not then in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found myself often brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne in upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth. ---- In: William Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1982), 8. |
(On the other hand, Herod's Jewish subjects called him "King" (see Mark 6 v 14). But Herod was never promoted to royal status by the Emperor and Luke is right to call him by the lower title "tetrarch")
Luke got into trouble with liberal biblical scholars because: the word "politarchs", was not found in any classical greek literature
Skeptics used this as proof that Luke has no idea about what he was talking about: how can Luke use a Greek word that is not used by anyone else ? He must not know his Greek....
In other words, everyone must go back to the place of their origin to be counted.
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C.Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt, gives notice:
The enrollment by household being at hand, it is necessary to notify all who for any cause soever are outside their nomes (administrative divisions of Egypt) to return to their domestic hearths, that they may also accomplish the customary dispensation of enrollment and continue steadfastly in the husbandry that belongs to them. |
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In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar -- when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene -- during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. - Luke 3:1-2 |
Here is a picture of a coin of Lysanias:
The temple inscription reads:
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Huper tes ton kurion Se[baston]
Translation:
"For the salvation of the
August Lords and of all their household,
Nymphaeus, freedman of Eagle
Lysanias tetarch
established this street
and other things."
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| Acts 18:2--- There he became acquainted with a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife, Priscilla. They had been expelled from Italy as a result of Claudius Caesar's order to deport all Jews from Rome. |
| As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [= Christ?], he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome. |
(BTW, the skeptics could not accuse Luke of anything because Suetonius' writing was known to them..... It's just odd that the skeptics did not take a hint from the fact that Luke's mentioning of such a "strange" event and Suetonius' confirmation of its accuracy that Luke himself was very very careful in his research).
without finding a single mistake.
Can we believe these primary events that the gospel writers intend to report.... they seem at first very incredable.... a dead person coming alive again....
I will try to show in the next few webpages, that Luke was not kidding when he said that he has carefully investigated everything - even the fact about a dead person coming back to life.... and remember that Luke is a doctor, and he does know that dead people do not usually come back to life.....