Who Wrote Luke and Acts?

The subject of how the New Testament was written and compiled is a study in itself and has occupied scholars for many years. But before we begin reading Luke and Acts in detail we ought to have at least a little background on Luke as an author, the date of his writing and his intended audience.

It is important to understand that the books of the New Testament were not written in order they appear in our Bible, and they were written a good number of years after the events they describe. The oldest writing in the New Testament is I Thessalonians, written by Paul about AD 51. The first written Gospel was Mark, compiled about AD 60. The other Gospels came later with the last, John, being written in the mid-90s. Thus the first Christian writings came about 15 years after the ministry of Jesus was complete and the last Gospel was finally written down some 60 years after the events it described!

Why was this so? The early church was a community united in the expectation of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Stories of Jesus were passed along by word of mouth and the idea of writing a formal account of His life and works was simply not a priority for the post-resurrection church. Even as Paul wrote his letters to the early congregations these were advisory or theological in nature and not an attempt at organized history.

Most scholars agree that Mark’s Gospel was the first written account of the ministry of Jesus and that this represents the eyewitness recollections of Peter. Matthew and Luke were written about 20 years later and make extensive use of the material in Mark, generally telling the story of Jesus in the same sequence. For that reason, Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the synoptic (with the same view) Gospels. In the 19th century German scholars studying the synoptic Gospels realized that there is separate material common to Luke and Matthew, but not present in Mark. They named this the “Q” source because the actual document has been lost to us.

Luke probably wrote his Gospel and Acts sometime in the mid-80s. There is evidence that Luke was an eyewitness to some of the events described in Acts, but it is also clear that Luke considered himself an historian who wanted to compile a comprehensive account that took in material from Mark, Q and perhaps other sources. The writing style and literary similarities of Luke and Acts confirm that both books were written by the same person.

Who was Luke? Tradition and some direct Biblical evidence tell us that Luke was a physician and traveling companion of Paul. Luke was a culturally Greek Christian - his literary style and theological agenda point to this very clearly. Luke wrote his Gospel and Acts to be read as two consecutive volumes. His audience was ostensibly a man named “Theophilus” but this was perhaps a literary device; Luke was probably addressing his educated countrymen who were interested in the Christian story.

At the time Luke was writing – the mid 80s – the Christians had been persecuted as a Jewish sect. Peter and Paul had been executed by Nero in the mid 60s and the political situation in Palestine had become so critical that by AD 70 the Romans sacked Jerusalem, destroying the great temple. In his writings Luke was, at some level, attempting to distinguish the Christians from the rebellious Jews.

But above all, Luke sets out to chronicle the activities of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 70 times in Acts – something like one fifth of all the occurrences in the entire New Testament. This is the great contribution that Luke makes to our Bible. In many ways what we will be studying can be accurately described as the Acts of the Holy Spirit!


Links of Interest

Here is the Gospel of Luke color-coded: Red for material coming from Mark, Blue for Q and Orange for other material unique to Luke. http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/luke.html

An interesting introduction to the writings of Luke by Edgar Goodspeed is given here: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/goodspeed/ch12.html

A detailed discussion of the priority of Mark is given here:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark-prior.html


Study/Discussion Questions

1. What do you hope to get out of a study of Luke and Acts?

2. Read Luke 1:1 – 4 and Acts 1:1
What can you deduce about the sources Luke is using for his writings?
In Acts 1:1, what is “the first book” that Luke refers to?

3. Read Acts 13:1 – 52, Acts 16:10 – 17, Acts 21:1 – 17
For which of the above do you think Luke was an eyewitness? Why?

4. Read Acts 15:1 - 35 and Paul's account of the same issue in Gal 2:1 – 21
Do you think Luke was an eyewitness to the events described in Acts 15? Why or why not?

5. Read Col 4:7 – 18, 2 Tim 4:9 – 13 and Philemon
Do you think this is strong evidence for Luke traveling with Paul?


6. Read Luke 10:25 – 37, Luke 11:1 - 4 and Luke 6:20 – 23
Using the parallel gospels link on the right-hand margin of this blog, see if you can determine which material comes from Mark and which from “Q”.