3. Language
3. Language
Linguistically this Gospel falls into three sections. The Preface (1:1–4) is written in good classical style.47 It shows what Luke is capable of, but thereafter he forsakes this style altogether. The rest of chapters 1 and 2 have a strong Hebraic flavour. So marked is this that a number of scholars have come to the conclusion that we have here a translation from an original Hebrew. If so we have no way of knowing whether Luke or someone else did the translating.
From 3:1 on the Gospel is written in a type of Hellenistic Greek strongly reminiscent of the Septuagint, the translation into Greek of the Hebrew Old Testament. The vocabulary is extensive, and Luke uses 266 words (other than proper names) which are not found elsewhere in the New Testament, quite a remarkable number when we consider that he shares much of his subject-matter with Matthew and Mark.48
The most interesting thing about all this is the way the style is so constantly reminiscent of the LXX. Luke’s Old Testament quotations are commonly from that version, and he normally uses the forms of proper names found there. Much of his characteristic vocabulary is apparently drawn from the LXX, as are some of his striking phrases.49 It seems that Luke thought of the style of the LXX as good biblical style and most appropriate for the kind of narrative he was composing.
But this does not explain everything. Sometimes Luke’s language contains Hebraisms and sometimes Aramaisms.50 Again, in some places his language is more Semitic than others.51 Both sets of facts seem better explained as reflecting Luke’s sources.52 As Ellis points out, ‘it is difficult to see why the story of the Palestinian Church (Ac. 1–12) should be more “flavoured” than Jesus’ Galilean mission or Paul’s Jerusalem speech (Ac. 22).’53 It seems probable that in such places Luke is keeping close to a Semitic source.54
Perhaps this is the place to notice that we must always bear in mind that our Evangelists are reporting in a language other than that originally used by Jesus and the disciples. It is usually agreed that Jesus’ native tongue was Aramaic (though this is not quite certain).55 Some of the differences between the Synoptists are no doubt due to different ways of translating from the original, and some of the unusual Greek constructions are no doubt reflections of constructions which were quite at home in the original Semitic.