5. The relationship of Luke to the other Gospels

5. The relationship of Luke to the other Gospels

a. The synoptic problem

A problem is posed by the resemblances between certain passages in our first three Gospels. Sometimes they are in all three Gospels, sometimes in two of them. The resemblances are often very close and the passages may be almost word for word; even minute and unimportant particles may be the same in all three accounts. If this occurred only in Jesus’ words we might possibly think of faithful reporting as the explanation. But it is found also in narratives of events. The problem is how to account for these facts and to explain the relationship between these Gospels. We may set out the principal facts as follows:

1. The general scheme of these three Gospels is similar. There is a ministry of Jesus in Galilee, followed by a journey to Jerusalem where the passion is located. There is quite a different approach in John, where we see Jesus making a number of visits to Jerusalem.

2. There are passages in all three Gospels which resemble each other closely, e.g. Matthew 9:6 = Mark 2:10 = Luke 5:24.

3. Matthew and Mark often agree in wording where Luke differs, and Mark and Luke similarly agree against Matthew. Matthew and Luke more rarely agree against Mark.

4. There are passages in Matthew and Luke which Mark does not have, e.g. Matthew 3:7–10 = Luke 3:7–9; cf. Mark 1:2–8.

5. Some material is found in Matthew and Luke which is similar, but not identical, e.g. Matthew 5:3 and Luke 6:20.

6. The common matter may be placed in different contexts, e.g. the healing of the centurion’s servant (Matt. 8:5ff.; Luke 7:1ff.).

7. Each Gospel has material which neither of the others shares.

It cannot be said that any explanation has been offered which accounts for all the facts. But much can be learnt from looking at the solutions which have been offered. In earlier days the usual explanation was oral tradition: ‘an original oral Gospel, definite in general outline and even in language, which was committed to writing in the lapse of time in various special shapes, according to the typical forms which it assumed in the preaching of different Apostles.’99 Nowadays this is felt to be inadequate. The tradition would have begun in Aramaic and it is hard to see why the Greek should be so close. The dependence extends even to Greek particles. It is also difficult to see why an oral tradition should have produced so much in the way of a common order. Matthew and Luke may deviate from Mark’s order, but they always return to it.

Oral tradition will not explain all the facts, but it must be remembered that on any showing the Gospel material was handed down orally for quite a few years. Too little attention may have been paid to oral tradition, for those writing Gospels must have taken notice of the oral tradition that undoubtedly existed when they wrote. Form criticism has emphasized the importance of the preliterary period. So from another direction has the work of Scandinavian scholars such as H. Riesenfeld and B. Gerhardsson.100

But most critics these days agree that we must think of written sources. The two-document theory holds that Mark was the first of the Gospels to be written and that Matthew and Luke used Mark and also another source usually designated Q.101

Reasons given for the priority of Mark are as follows:

1. Almost the whole of Mark is contained in the other two. Matthew has the substance of more than 600 of Mark’s 661 verses and he retains about 51% of Mark’s actual words even though his style is more condensed. It is harder to be accurate about Luke, but he seems to have about 350 verses in common with Mark and in these about 53% of the words are Mark’s.102 About 90% of Mark is in Matthew and about half in Luke. Only four paragraphs of Mark do not appear in one or other of these two.

2. The way this matter is used seems to show that Mark can scarcely have employed the other two as his sources. F. B. Clogg comments on the healing of the paralytic (Matt. 9:1–8; Mark 2:1–12; Luke 5:17–26): ‘after the introduction, which is peculiar to each Evangelist, there is nothing in Matthew and Luke which is not found in Mark, but Mark has much pictorial detail which is wanting in the other two. It is hardly possible that Mark should have compiled his narrative from the other two, and yet should be the freshest and most lifelike of the three.’103 A similar comment could be made again and again.

3. Both Matthew and Luke sometimes omit what Mark has, but they do not often agree in their omissions.

4. Matthew and Luke generally follow the Marcan order. When one departs from Mark’s order the other normally supports it. They rarely agree in detail against Mark.

5. Mark is franker than the others in depicting Jesus’ humanity. For example he tells us that in the synagogue, after Jesus had asked whether it is lawful to do good or harm on the sabbath, preparatory to healing the man with the withered hand, he ‘looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart’ (Mark 3:5). But Matthew and Luke both omit the references to anger and grief.

6. Mark is more prone to report the failings of the Twelve. Thus he tells us that, on the occasion of the discussion of the ‘leaven of Herod’, Jesus asked them, ‘Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?’ (Mark 8:17f.). But in his report of the incident Matthew omits this (Matt. 16:9).

7. In Mark there are vivid touches (which look very much like the recollections of an eyewitness), which Matthew and Luke omit in their parallel accounts. These include points such as Jesus’ sitting down and calling the Twelve (Mark 9:35), his looking round on his disciples (Mark 10:23), and the unusual word for the ‘groups’ in which the people sat down at the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:40; the word is used of garden beds).

8. While Matthew and Luke are independent of one another in their infancy stories, they start agreeing with one another (and with Mark) at the point where Mark begins his Gospel.

9. There seems a tendency for Matthew and Luke to refine Mark’s account. They seem to adopt a more reverential tone (see points 5 and 6), they amend awkward and ungrammatical constructions and they omit Aramaic expressions. Beside them Mark’s account seems more primitive.

10. Some detect in Matthew and Luke attempts to clear up Marcan ambiguities. Thus where Mark has, ‘that is why I came out’ (Mark 1:38), which might mean ‘came out from God’ or ‘came out from Capernaum’, Luke reads, ‘I was sent for this purpose’ (Luke 4:43). Similarly Mark 11:3 might mean that the owner would send the ass back to Jesus, or that, when he had finished with it, Jesus would return the ass to the owner (RSV does not reflect the ambiguity of the Greek). But Matthew 21:3 makes the meaning clear.

Not all these points carry the same weight. Thus points 5–7 surely tell us little more than that the authors had different approaches. Again, point 4 can be stated too strongly. Sanders maintains that ‘the facts of order as they are usually stated are misleading; the phenomenon of order has yet to be stated and explained adequately. The argument from order is not adequate to prove the two-document hypothesis with the degree of certainty which would be necessary in order to justify the procedure followed by Bultmann and Taylor.’104 But some of the others build up a weighty case. Against it two principal arguments are advanced.

1. There are some agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark. For example, in the saying about putting new wine into old wineskins Matthew and Luke both say the wine will be spilt, whereas Mark says only that the wine and the skins perish (Matt. 9:17 = Mark 2:22 = Luke 5:37).105 Similarly in the passion story Matthew and Luke both have ‘saying’ and ‘Who is it that struck you?’, neither of which is in Mark (Matt. 26:67f. = Mark 14:65 = Luke 22:63f.). This kind of thing is strange if Matthew and Luke depend on Mark. To explain it some have thought that Mark was revised: there was an original Mark (an Ur-Marcus) and a revised version. If so, our Mark must be the original and Matthew and Luke used the revision. But most scholars agree that the evidence for an Ur-Marcus is insufficient.

Many of the arguments are unconvincing. Thus both Matthew and Luke often independently omit unimportant words characteristic of Mark’s more verbose style. It is not surprising that they sometimes coincide. It is the same with grammatical changes, such as changing the historic present (in Mark 151 times, but in Matthew seventy-eight times and in Luke four to six times)106 to the imperfect or aorist. But when full allowance is made for this many scholars feel that a problem remains.

2. If Matthew and Luke are depending on Mark, it is asked why they omit whole sections of their source. But it is fairly countered that both were entitled to make a selection. They were under no compulsion to reproduce the whole of any source they may have had. And in any case surprisingly little of Mark is in fact omitted. It is however puzzling that Luke should omit everything in Mark 6:45 – 8:26. Perhaps this omission was accidental. It was not easy to locate a passage in an ancient scroll and it has been suggested that Luke could well have passed accidentally from the feeding of the multitude in Mark 6:42–44 to the similar words in 8:19–21. Or he may have felt that he had sufficiently close parallels to most of the matter in this section.107

Most scholars hold that such objections are not decisive and accordingly maintain that Mark was the first of our four Gospels to be written. They think that this Gospel was used by both Matthew and Luke. This does seem the most likely reading of much of the evidence, but we cannot say more than that. It is not completely proven,108 and we must bear in mind that some scholars hold to the priority of Matthew109 and a few even to that of Luke.110

We turn now to Q, the other source in the two-document theory. The following points are relevant.

1. There are about 250 verses common to Matthew and Luke but absent from Mark.

2. The degree of resemblance varies. Some passages are almost word for word (e.g. the ‘brood of vipers’ section, Matt. 3:8–10; Luke 3:7–10: in the Greek sixty out of sixty-three words are identical in the two accounts; so also Matt. 6:24 is similar to Luke 16:13; Matt. 7:3–5 to Luke 6:41–42; Matt. 7:7–11 to Luke 11:9–13; Matt. 11:4–6, 7b–11 to Luke 7:22–23, 24b–28; Matt. 11:21–23 to Luke 10:13–15; Matt. 11:25–27 to Luke 10:21–22; Matt. 12:43–45 to Luke 11:24–26; Matt. 23:37–38 to Luke 13:34–35; Matt. 24:45–51 to Luke 12:42–46). Agreements can reach to unusual words and phrases and grammatical peculiarities. But in others the differences are as striking as the resemblances (e.g. the Beatitudes, Matt. 5:3–11; Luke 6:20–22).

3. The common matter occurs in different contexts. According to Streeter, subsequent to the temptation narrative there is not one case in which Matthew and Luke insert a piece of Q material into the same Marcan context.111 Not surprisingly accordingly the order in which the Q material occurs is different in the two Gospels. It is usually held that Luke has preserved something of the original order, while Matthew has arranged his matter topically.

4. There is little narrative material in the common matter. Q is mostly a sayings source.

Theoretically the common matter might be due to direct dependence rather than to the use of the same source. Few feel that there is any justification at all for holding that Matthew copied from Luke but some scholars hold that Luke is dependent on Matthew. Against them, however, is the fact already noted that, after the temptation story, we never find the common matter in the same context. Why should Luke systematically take Matthew’s matter out of its context and place it elsewhere?112 Again, there seems no reason why Luke should have taken up none of Matthew’s additions to Mark’s text. This seems inexplicable. A rather subjective point is that scholars usually feel that, where there are slight differences in the common matter, Luke’s is the fresher account and seems more original. Thus it does not seem likely that either of these Gospels depends directly on the other.

Most scholars hold that such a source as Q existed, though there is little agreement as to what was in it. James Moffatt cites sixteen different reconstructions of Q and gives another of his own.113 Streeter gives yet another.114 The problem is of course with the passages which show differences as well as resemblances. Are they to be included in Q? Some hold that they are and that there were different recensions of that document. Then Matthew used one form and Luke another. Others think that Q was an Aramaic source (perhaps the logia of Matthew referred to by Papias)115 and that our Evangelists are using different translations into the Greek. Some of the differences between Matthew and Luke could be explained from slight differences in Aramaic words or from Aramaic words with two meanings. Another complicating factor is the probability that at times one only of our Evangelists used Q. Scholars differ when they try to identify such passages.

Those who feel that the existence of Q has not been satisfactorily demonstrated point out that no examples of the kind of literature postulated can be shown to have existed. Perhaps the Gospel of Thomas comes closest, but this is a second-century document, probably Gnostic. Nothing like it is known in New Testament times. The agreements of Matthew and Luke do indeed present a problem, but it is not incapable of solution. Some think Matthew is earlier than Luke and that Luke used both it and Mark.116 Such views are not without difficulties of their own, but their very existence shows that the hypothesis that Mark and Q lie behind our first and third Gospels has not been proved.

It is difficult to escape the impression that many critics are trying to cram too many eggs into one Q basket. They are ignoring Luke’s express statement that many had written before him (1:1). The best way of accounting for the problem of the differences and resemblances seems to be to take this statement of Luke’s seriously. Where Matthew and Luke are nearly word for word we need not doubt that they are using a common source. But where the differences are as great as the resemblances it seems better to think of different sources.117 In recent times there has been a tendency to be less dogmatic about Q.118 Many scholars regard it as no more than a convenient way of referring to the matter common to Matthew and Luke which they obtained from the same source or sources. We shall use the symbol in just this way.

Since B. H. Streeter’s great work many have been attracted to the four-document theory. Streeter accepted Mark and Q as two basic documents, but pointed out that in addition both Matthew and Luke have considerable amounts of material peculiar to themselves. He postulated special sources to explain this, giving to Matthew’s special source the designation M, and to Luke’s L. He thought that each of the great centres in early Christianity would have had its own cycle of tradition and he linked the sources with those centres: Mark with Rome, Q with Antioch, M (which has a Jewish colouring) with Jerusalem and L with Caesarea. When these traditions were enshrined in the Gospels there was no longer a need for their separate existence and they were allowed to perish. This part of his theory is open to question, for the early church did not allow Mark to perish when almost all of it was included in Matthew or Luke.

An interesting development of Streeter’s theory is his view of the way Luke’s Gospel was composed. He thinks that when Luke began writing he relied chiefly on Q and L and that only after he had combined these into a first draft of a Gospel (which Streeter called Proto-Luke) did he come across Mark. He then inserted Marcan matter into Proto-Luke and formed the present Gospel. Up till Streeter the usual view was that Luke took Mark as basic and inserted his non-Marcan matter into the Marcan framework. But Streeter breaks with the view that Mark was a primary source for Luke and he denies that Mark provided Luke’s framework. Caird points out that the resolution of this question is of more than merely academic interest, for it involves our view of the historical value of this Gospel. If Luke took Mark as his basis, then it follows that he ‘used wide editorial freedom in rewriting his sources’.119

The principal evidence for Proto-Luke is as follows.

1. Luke has alternate Marcan and non-Marcan blocks of material. He makes very little use of Mark in the sections 3:1 – 4:30; 6:20 – 8:3; 9:51 – 18:14; 19:1–27, and his passion narrative seems basically independent of Mark’s. He gives no appearance of combining his Marcan and non-Marcan matter in anything like the way he has combined the different strands in his non-Marcan material.

2. Luke 3:1 looks like the opening of a book. If it was, then the position of the genealogy, coming after the first mention of the name Jesus, is natural. Those who hold the Proto-Luke hypothesis, of course, normally believe that this document did not include the infancy narratives.

3. Sometimes when Luke is apparently following Mark a particular incident is omitted, but we find it in a different form in a different place. Such incidents include the Beelzebub controversy (Q), the mustard seed (Q), the rejection at Nazareth (L), the anointing (L), etc. Caird lists seventeen places where Luke departs from the Marcan order in Mark 1:1 – 14:11.120 It looks as though Luke preferred his non-Marcan source, even when Mark’s version is more vigorous. This is intelligible if he had earlier incorporated that source into his work, less so if he is operating with Mark as his basis. In fact it seems that when Luke is not following Mark’s order he is not freely correcting the other Evangelist, but simply following another source.

4. Q+L would make a document considerably longer than Mark.121 It is difficult in the light of this to see Mark as Luke’s framework.

5. This hypothesis would explain why Luke omits so much more of Mark than does Matthew.

6. The use of ‘the Lord’ rather than ‘Jesus’ in narrative is not found in Matthew or Mark. Nor does it occur in Luke’s Marcan material. But it is found fifteen times in the rest and in roughly proportionate numbers in Q and L. Similarly the address Kyrie, ‘Lord’ or ‘Sir’, is found only once in Mark (the Syrophoenician woman), but sixteen times in Luke, fourteen of which are in Proto-Luke (eight in L and six in Q). It is also found nineteen times in Matthew.122 It is clear that the use of the term does not characterize the final writing of the book, else it would be in the Marcan section. The inference is that it belongs to an earlier stage of Luke’s writing.

7. Luke’s passion narrative is not a recasting of Mark’s. When Luke is using Marcan material he normally has about 53% of Mark’s words, but in the passion narrative only 27%,123 including many words without which a passion story could scarcely have been told at all. Luke has also a dozen variations from the Marcan order.124 Again, Luke’s resurrection appearances are located in Jerusalem. Scholars are divided as to whether Mark’s Gospel originally ended where it does in our copies, in which case he had no resurrection appearances, or whether there was an ending which has now been lost, in which case most agree the appearances must have been in Galilee (Mark 16:7). In either case Luke is not depending on Mark.125

8. When Luke uses Q material he does not simply insert it into a Marcan framework, but combines it with L.

Streeter concludes from this kind of evidence that Luke probably completed a first draft of his Gospel before he sighted Mark. If this is so, then Proto-Luke is very old indeed. Scholars have been in the habit of attaching special value to Mark and to Q, for documents that precede both Matthew and Luke and which were thought of highly enough to be used extensively by both must be both ancient and reliable. Streeter thinks that Proto-Luke must be thought of as in the same class. His theory enhances the value of much in Luke. Not all have been convinced, however. Scholars usually feel that not enough evidence has been produced to show that M and L existed as documents. That Matthew and Luke had special sources of information is clear enough. That these were embodied in two documents is not. Moreover, if we separate out the passages assigned to Proto-Luke some are not impressed. J. M. Creed calls the result ‘an amorphous collection of narrative and discourse’.126 It is not a well-rounded Gospel.

But those who reject Proto-Luke seem never to have given a convincing explanation of two facts: 1. Luke habitually combines his special matter with Q, but never with Mark, and 2. Luke departs from Mark so often in the passion story. He appears to have attached great importance to his combination of Q and L. It appears to have been his basic source for his passion narrative, and at the other end of his Gospel there is a block of non-Marcan matter right after the infancy stories (3:1 – 4:30). There are, it is true, some expressions in common with Mark in this section, and some critics regard Luke as dependent on Mark throughout it. This, however, scarcely seems justified, for the bulk of the section is clearly non-Marcan. There is evidence that Mark and Q overlapped. For example, Luke 8:16 appears in a Marcan context (Mark 4:21) and the very similar 11:33 is usually assigned to Q (cf. Matt. 5:15). It seems that Luke has taken this saying from both his sources. The same phenomenon is repeated several times and this leaves scholars almost uniformly convinced that Mark and Q overlapped. This being so, Luke need not have derived from Mark what seems like Marcan matter in 3:1 – 4:30. It may have come from Q and, considering the nature and extent of the differences, this seems to be what has in fact happened.

Many have pointed out that if we detach the Marcan sections from Luke’s Gospel there is little cohesion in them. They do not look like the framework of the longest of our Gospels. This makes it seem as though Luke used Mark late rather than early in his composition.

Certainty is impossible in such a situation, but it does seem as though Luke had been busy long before he came across Mark, even if it may be saying too much to claim that he had produced Streeter’s Proto-Luke. The facts seem best accounted for if he had been collecting material from a variety of sources, both oral and written, and working it into a tentative document. The frequent combination of Q and L seems to indicate no less. Then when he came across a copy of Mark he inserted such extracts as he thought suitable into his partially written document, rewording them where necessary. In some such way he produced the present volume.

In concluding this section of our study let me stress that much remains uncertain. To read some accounts of the Synoptic Problem, one would never gather that there are so many exceptions to the rules scholars lay down. The facts are extraordinarily complex and nothing more than a tentative hypothesis is justified. The problem must be pursued. We cannot work on these Gospels without hypotheses of some sort. But in the present state of our knowledge we must not be dogmatic.127

b. Luke and John

An interesting and puzzling feature of this Gospel is the large number of points of contact it has with the Fourth Gospel, far more than either Matthew or Mark has. Some people are mentioned by Luke and John only, namely Mary and Martha (John speaks also of their brother Lazarus and Luke uses this name in a parable), a disciple named Judas who is distinct from Judas Iscariot, and Annas. These two writers show an interest in Samaria and in Jerusalem much greater than anything in Matthew and Mark, and the same can be said about their references to the temple. There are other links, especially in the passion narrative. Both, speak of the role of Satan in the betrayal (Luke 22:3; John 13:27); both tell us that it was the right ear of the slave that Peter cut off in the Garden (Luke 22:50; John 18:10); that Pilate said three times that Jesus was innocent (Luke 23:4, 14, 22; John 18:38; 19:4, 6); that Joseph’s tomb had not been previously used (Luke 23:53; John 19:41); that there were two angels on the resurrection morning (Luke 24:4; John 20:12); and that the resurrection appearances took place in Jerusalem. Luke also refers briefly to a visit to the tomb which John describes more fully (Luke 24:12, 24; John 20:3–10).

Some have explained this sort of thing by maintaining that John used Luke as one of his sources.128 But there is other evidence which makes this unlikely.129 Thus both these Gospels have stories of an anointing of Jesus by a woman, but whereas Luke speaks of a prostitute performing the action in the house of a Pharisee (Luke 7:36ff.), John describes the action of Mary, a friend of Jesus, in her own home (John 12:1ff.). Again, both tell of a miraculous catch of fish, Luke early in Jesus’ ministry and John at one of the resurrection appearances (Luke 5:1ff.; John 21:1ff.). Other examples could be cited of incidents which are somewhat similar, but where the differences are as important as the resemblances. They make it very difficult to think of direct dependence or the use of a common source. Under the circumstances Caird’s conclusion is not too strong: ‘The unavoidable inference is that Luke and John were relying on two allied streams of oral tradition.’130

Analysis

Preface (1:1–4)

The opening paragraph is one sentence in good Greek style, with classical vocabulary, rhythm and balance. Luke has a feeling for style and clearly he sees a somewhat Semitic accent as right for the kind of book he is writing. But this excellently rounded sentence is equally right for a literary opening. And a literary opening, of course, implies that what follows was meant for circulation. Some of our oldest MSS, incidentally, give the book the simple title: ‘According to Luke’.

1. Luke begins by drawing attention to many who had written before him. Many ancient writers begin by criticizing their predecessors. Not Luke. He is out to convey certainty (v. 4), but he does not disparage others. They had set out to compose a narrative, a general term which leaves it open whether they had written gospels or some other kind of narrative. He does not say who they were but most agree that Mark was one of them. The verb accomplished can be used of being fully persuaded (AV, ‘most surely believed’), but this meaning is unlikely here. The word has about it the air of fulfilment (cf. 2 Tim. 4:5) and Luke may be hinting at the working out of God’s purpose, a thought which will be so much with him throughout his Gospel and its sequel.1

2. Luke has good authority for what he writes. He was not himself an eyewitness, but had consulted others who were. Some have thought the reference to eyewitnesses to be nothing more than conventional, but, as Creed says, ‘an ancient writer would no more claim the authority of eye-witnesses without expecting his statement to be believed than a modern’. The eyewitnesses were also ministers of the word. This unusual expression (found nowhere else in the New Testament) appears to mean ‘men who preached the Christian gospel’. But we should not overlook the facts that John speaks of Jesus as ‘the Word’ (John 1:1) and that elsewhere Luke seems to regard preaching Jesus and preaching the word as much the same thing (Acts 8:4; 9:20; cf. also Acts 10:36ff.). He is approaching John’s thought, for these men were servants of the Word as well as of the word. He is also implying that his authorities were not so much academic historians as men who knew and lived by the word they preached. From the beginning takes us back to the ministry of John the Baptist. Luke was not missing out on anything essential but going back to the very roots of the Christian movement. Delivered is wide enough to cover both oral and written tradition; Luke may well have both in mind.

3. He claims to have followed all things closely. Some (e.g. Cadbury) hold that this means that he was personally present (as he was at some of the events in Acts). But this seems to read too much into his verb. We should take it rather in the sense ‘track down’, ‘investigate’, for, on his own admission, Luke was not an eyewitness of some at least of what he narrates. MM think that the verb implies, not that Luke had ‘investigated’ all his facts afresh, but that he had acquired such familiarity with them and had so kept in touch with them ‘that his witness is practically contemporary witness’. He claims to have followed the events ‘accurately’ (as mg., rather than closely). He is saying that his information is good; he knows what he is writing about. He goes on to say that he has traced the story from its beginning (for some time past should rather be ‘from the very first’ as AV). There has been a good deal of discussion of the word translated orderly (kathexēs), used by Luke alone in the New Testament. The view that it means ‘in chronological order’ seems to be reading too much into it. Geldenhuys, while not overlooking the chronological possibilities, sees in the word ‘logical and artistic arrangement’ and some such view is probably correct. Theophilus ( = ‘lover of God’) is unlikely to be a symbolic name; it points to a real person who would probably, as Luke’s patron, have met the costs of publishing the book. The epithet most excellent probably indicates a person of rank (cf. Acts 23:26; 24:3; 26:25), though the possibility remains that it is no more than a courtesy title.

4. The verb informed is often used of the instruction of Christian converts or inquirers (katēcheō; see Acts 18:25; 1 Cor. 14:19, etc.). Some deduce that Theophilus was a believer, and support this with the contention that he was unlikely to have been Luke’s literary patron if he was not. But against this it is urged that he would probably have been called ‘brother’ if he was. In any case the verb may be used of a report both hostile and wrong (e.g. Acts 21:21, 24), so we must keep open the possibility that he was no more than an interested outsider. He certainly knew something about the Christian faith and Luke wants him to know the truth (Hendriksen ‘exact truth’; the word means ‘certainty’ and it is in an emphatic position) about it. Ned B. Stonehouse sees truth as specially important here. The ‘main impact’ of the Prologue is ‘that Christianity is true and is capable of confirmation by appeal to what had happened’.2

1. The infancy narratives (1:5 – 2:52)

In this section (peculiar to Luke) we have our only information about the origins of John the Baptist and some unique information about the birth of Jesus. There are some notable parallels between the two birth stories. In both the angel Gabriel brought news of what was to happen, in both the circumstances of the birth and circumcision are narrated, and in both this is followed by prophetic utterances. Luke is bringing out the wonder of the Messianic age. Prophecy had ceased at the close of the Old Testament period; but now God was sending his Messiah and the prophetic gift was renewed. John is shown to have a special place in the Messianic happenings. There is no possibility of confusing him with the Messiah in Luke’s account, for he is but the forerunner (1:17). But there is no possibility either of missing his true greatness.

Both the language and the ideas of these chapters reflect a Semitic background. Luke may be translating a Hebrew or Aramaic document, or writing in imitation of the style of the Septuagint. On the whole it seems likely that he is reflecting his sources and that these came from Palestine.

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