Who is Luke?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
John2
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Who is Luke?

Post by John2 »

I've never given much thought to the "historical Luke" before, so it's something new for me to explore. And I don't necessarily mean the supposed author of the gospel of Luke (though I'm not discounting the possibility), but rather the person in Paul's letters who is thought to have written Luke (and Acts). Who is this guy, and what sources are there for him?

What makes me wonder about him is the detail that he was a physician. How reliable is that? Since I already suspect that Paul's follower Epaphroditus could have written Luke and Acts, given that Paul says that he had survived a severe illness, I'm wondering if Epaphroditus could have known and been treated by Luke (and if not then that's fine).

But it looks like the only NT reference to Luke in what is thought to be a genuine Pauline letter (at least by some, including me) is Philemon 1:23-24:

Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.

And it looks like the only reference to Luke being a physician is in Col. 4:14, which is generally not thought to be genuine (including by me):

Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.



The only other reference to Luke I can find is in 2 Tim. 4:11, which I've also thought is not genuine. And while that's not much to go on and I could leave it at that, I'm curious to see the earliest references to Luke outside of the NT.
John2
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by John2 »

And while I don't think Colossians is genuine, who wrote that? Is it possible that they knew Paul or Luke and that the detail of Luke being a physician is reliable? If not then that's quite alright, but I'd like to take fresh look at that.
John2
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by John2 »

The Anti-Marcionite prologue to Luke appears to be the next stop on the trail (which is another thing I need to look into). How reliable is this information?

Indeed Luke was an Antiochene Syrian, a doctor by profession, a disciple of the apostles: later however he followed Paul until his martyrdom, serving the Lord blamelessly. He never had a wife, he never fathered children, and died at the age of eighty-four, full of the Holy Spirit, in Boetia. Therefore --- although gospels had already been written ---- indeed by Matthew in Judaea but by Mark in Italy ---- moved by the Holy Spirit he wrote down this gospel in the parts of Achaia, signifying in the preface that the others were written before his, but also that it was of the greatest importance for him to expound with the greatest diligence the whole series of events in his narration for the Greek believers, so that they would not be led astray by the lure of Jewish fables, or, seduced by the fables of the heretics and stupid solicitations, fall away from the truth. And so at once at the start he took up the extremely necessary [story] from the birth of John, who is the beginning of the gospel, the forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ, and was a companion in the perfecting of the people, likewise in the introducing of baptism and a companion in martyrdom. Of this disposition the prophet Malachi, one of the twelve, certainly makes mention. And indeed afterwards the same Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Later the apostle John wrote the Apocalypse on the island of Patmos, and then the Gospel in Asia.
John2
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by John2 »

According to Koester on the earlychristianwritings site:

While a date in the second half of the 4th century is likely for the Prologues for Mark and John and the second part of the Prologue for Luke, the first part of the latter may have been written much earlier.


http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/antimarcion.html

So that's the first opinion about it I've seen, and the "first part" of the prologue contains the reference to Luke being a doctor (which could have come from Colossians, but still).
Last edited by John2 on Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
perseusomega9
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by perseusomega9 »

John2 wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 4:51 pm I've never given much thought to the "historical Luke" before, so it's something new for me to explore.
to quote another user years ago when you said similar about X six years ago.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4044&start=100#p86667
semiopen wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 4:14 pm One would think that you would have started wondering about them when you compiled your impressive notes about Ezra on pages 6-7 of this thread.anything christian history
John2
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by John2 »

perseusomega9 wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:30 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 4:51 pm I've never given much thought to the "historical Luke" before, so it's something new for me to explore.
to quote another user years ago when you said similar about X six years ago.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4044&start=100#p86667
semiopen wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 4:14 pm One would think that you would have started wondering about them when you compiled your impressive notes about Ezra on pages 6-7 of this thread.anything christian history

That doesn't really help me. And that thread was from three years ago when I was excited about learning something else new. And when I re-read it I was reminded that not only did I have to sort through the sources I found but also what semiopen was saying, such as his remark that the Iron Age ended in 732 BCE in Palestine while the link he gave says it ended in 539 BCE. So I prefer helpful feedback to negativity or bad information.
Bernard Muller
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by Bernard Muller »

I concluded "Luke" was a Roman woman living in Philippi, Macedonia, a Roman colony. She wrote the gospel and then Acts around 80-90. She never was a companion of Paul. Her "info" for her gospel came from gMark (with a chunk missing), and Q and herself. Her "info" for (very biased) Acts cames mainly from Josephus' Wars, herself, companions of Paul (but dead at the time of writing Acts), whose testimonies got embellished, modified, sometimes out of sequence, etc.
See http://historical-jesus.info/appf.html

Cordially, Bernard
John2
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by John2 »

Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:18 pm I concluded "Luke" was a Roman woman living in Philippi, Macedonia, a Roman colony. She wrote the gospel and then Acts around 80-90. She never was a companion of Paul. Her "info" for her gospel came from gMark (with a chunk missing), and Q and herself. Her "info" for (very biased) Acts cames mainly from Josephus' Wars, herself, companions of Paul (but dead at the time of writing Acts), whose testimonies got embellished, modified, sometimes out of sequence, etc.
See http://historical-jesus.info/appf.html

Cordially, Bernard


Helms got me thinking like that for awhile and I suppose it's worth taking another look at it.
John2
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by John2 »

But even if the author of the gospel of Luke and Acts was a woman, the "historical Luke" mentioned in Philemon 1:24 (and echoed in Colossians, 2 Timothy and tradition) is clearly a man.

Harnack notes on page 12 of Luke the Physician.

St. Luke is never mentioned in the Acts, which is just what we would expect if he was the author of the book. On the other hand, Aristarchus is mentioned three times - the man who is named with St. Luke in the epistles of St. Paul!


https://www.google.com/books/edition/Lu ... frontcover



I don't know about the first part, since offhand I know that Josephus mentions himself in his writings (if that is applicable), but the part about Aristarchus gets my attention, and he is mentioned in Philemon 1:24 and Col. 4:10 (along with Epaphras, who I take to be Epaphroditus, and Mark and someone named Demas) and Acts 19:29, 20:4 and 27:2.


Phil. 1:23-24:

Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.



Col. 4:10-14:

My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you greetings, as does Mark the cousin of Barnabas. You have already received instructions about him: If he comes to you, welcome him ... Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in the full will of God. For I testify about him that he goes to great pains for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas send you greetings.

Acts 19:29, 20:4 and 27:2:

Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed into the theater together.
He was accompanied by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy also, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia.

We boarded a ship from Adramyttium about to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia, and we put out to sea. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us.

Epaphroditus (the one I suspect wrote or at least contributed to Acts) is also not mentioned in Acts though, so I wonder if Harnack's first part above could be applicable to him as well.

Harnack buys what Colossians says abut Luke being a physician though, but he makes an interesting argument based on that.

St. Luke was a physician and thus belonged to the middle or higher plane of contemporary culture ... The man who could compose speeches like those of St. Paul in the Acts ... and could so well arrange his material in accordance with the purpose of his work, this man possessed the higher culture in rich measure ... The question here is not one of merely accidental linguistic colouring, but that this great historical work was composed by a writer who was either a physician or was quite intimately acquainted with medical language and science.

This subject is becoming more interesting than I thought it would be, and I'm curious to read more of Harnack's book and also see what others have to say.

To do list. Re-examine Colossians; think about Aristarchus (who I'd never even noticed before) and Demas (ditto); re-examine Acts for the medical language Harnack discusses.
Last edited by John2 on Sat Feb 06, 2021 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Who is Luke?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Sat Feb 06, 2021 12:32 pmTo do list. Re-examine Colossians; think about Aristarchus (who I'd never even noticed before) and Demas (ditto); re-examine Acts for the medical language Harnack discusses.
It would be negligent to stop there, though. Make sure to follow up with H. J. Cadbury, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the topic and argued that the terminology in question, while medical, was also literary and thus available and used by educated Greeks and Romans who were not doctors (think of the term COVID-19, definitely a medical term, but not restricted in any way to medical professionals), an argument which prompted one of my favorite quips of all time, to wit, that Cadbury had earned his own doctorate by depriving Saint Luke of his.
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