AUTHOR
AUTHOR
Most critics agree that Luke and Acts are from the same author. Acts 1:1 refers to Theophilus and to the "former book,” so that Acts appears to be the second volume of a two-volume work. The style and the vocabulary are what we would expect from the same author, and no good reason has been brought forward for disputing this. That Luke was this author is affirmed by the heretic Marcion about the middle of the second century, by an ancient prologue to this gospel (often called the anti-Marcionite prologue), 2 apparently written toward the end of the second century, and by the Muratorian Canon. Authors such as Ireneus and Tertullian write as though there was no doubt about the Lukan authorship of these books. The oldest MS of Luke, Bodmer Papyrus XIV, cited as p 75 and dated A.D. 175-225, ascribes the book to Luke. 3 The tradition attaches no other name to these writings. 4 We should bear in mind the point made by M. Dibelius that a book bearing the name of the person to whom it was dedicated is unlikely to have lacked the author’s name (it would have been on an attached tag).5 It is not easy to see how some other name would have been completely suppressed, or why the name Luke should have been attached to the writings if he had not produced them. In patristic discussions apostolicity receives a good deal of emphasis as a criterion for acceptance of books, so if the author was not known, it would have been much more likely that an apostle or someone like Mark would have been credited with them. As far as we know, Luke was not such an eminent member of the early church as to have writings like these attributed to him without reason. The preface shows that the author was not an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry but that he had made careful inquiries, and this agrees with what tradition says about Luke.
In four passages of Acts the writer uses "we” in such a way as to suggest that he was present on those occasions (Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-16; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16). The use of the first-person singular in the openings of both Luke and Acts perhaps supports these passages, showing as it does that the author took a personal interest in what he was writing. The last "we” passage locates the writer in Rome at the time of Paul’s imprisonment there, so the author is one of those mentioned as being with Paul at that time and is probably not mentioned in Acts. This leaves us with Titus, Demas,
Crescens, Jesus Justus, Epaphras, Epaphroditus, and Luke. No good reason seems ever to have been adduced for ascribing the authorship of Luke-Acts to any of the others, so we come back to Luke. The objection that no one who had been a companion of Paul would show as little interest in his letters as Luke-Acts does or would be so un-Pauline in his theology is without foundation, for we have no means of knowing how much Paul’s travel companions knew about his correspondence or how deeply they entered into his theology. Those who argue for a late date suggest that the author was not the diarist but someone who had access to the diary of a travel companion of the apostle. But the style of the "we” sections is the same as that of the rest of Luke-Acts, so this demands that the writer be clever enough to rewrite the original so thoroughly that its initial style has disappeared and at the same time so carelessly that he did not always change "we” to "they.” This is highly improbable.
From the "we” passages we learn that the author stayed at the house of Philip the Evangelist in Caesarea (Acts 21:8) and that it was not until a couple of years later that
Paul and his entourage sailed for Rome (Acts 24:27; 27:1). There was clearly abundant opportunity for the writer to glean a good deal of information about Jesus and about the life of the early church.
Rendel Harris developed an argument that the original Western text of Acts 20:13 read, "But I Luke, and those who were with me, went on board,” and F. F. Bruce reasons that, if this can be accepted, we have testimony to the Lukan authorship c. A.D. 120, for this is "the probable date of the ‘Western’ recension.” He further points out that the Mechitarist Fathers published an Armenian translation of Ephrem’s commentary on Acts and that it contains these very words in Acts 20:13.6 If this can be accepted, it is very early evidence indeed of Lukan authorship.
In earlier days a good deal was made of the medical language of Luke-Acts, 7 but H. J. Cadbury has shown that there is not much in this, for medical writers seem by and large to have used much the same language as other people, and Cadbury maintains that in any case Luke’s language is not particularly medical.8 But if the medical language is no longer a strong proof that the author was "our dear friend Luke, the doctor” (Col. 4:14), at least it is not inconsistent with that hypothesis. Some passages indicate a medical interest, for example, when Luke speaks of a "high” fever, where Matthew and Mark speak only of a fever (Luke 4:38; Matt. 8:14; Mark 1:30). Other such examples could be adduced. 9
The strongest objection to Luke as the author is the contention that the author of Acts cannot have been a companion of Paul’s, partly on account of the difficulties in reconciling some statements in Acts with what Paul says in his letters (e.g. in references to Paul’s visits to Jerusalem, cf. Acts 9:26; 11:30; 15:2 and Gal. 1:18; 2:1), partly because of the theology Acts attributes to Paul. 10 Such objections do not seem valid; it may be sufficient to refer to the chapter in this book on Acts.
Luke is usually held to have been a Gentile Christian. In Colossians 4:10-14. Paul refers to Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus Justus as "the only Jews among my fellow workers” and a little later sends greetings from Luke, which seems clearly to place Luke among the Gentile believers. This is denied by some, but the denial is not convincing.
He may have been a Greek, but this does not itself suggest he sprang from Greece.
The ancient prologue referred to earlier says that he was a native of Antioch;11we cannot be sure. He was quite clearly an educated man, and he writes very good Greek (note his reference to "their language” in Acts 1:19; Aramaic was not Luke’s language). He starts with a paragraph in classical style (Luke 1:1-4). The remainder of his first two chapters has a strongly Hebraic strain, 12while the remainder of the book is in a good Hellenistic Greek that constantly reminds the reader of the Septuagint. This versatility points to a writer of no mean competence. 13