What are facts about St Luke's Gospel?

Answer 1

The gospel now known as Luke's Gospel was originally written anonymously and only later in the second century was it attributed to the apostle whose name it now bears. It was written in Greek Koine, late in the first century or very early in the second century.

Scholars recognise that the author relied on an incomplete copy of Mark's Gospel for everything he knew about the life and mission of Jesus. Whenever this Gospel agrees with Mark, the sequence and wording in the original Greek are almost identical. The are two known omissions, the most important one being known as the "Missing Block", a short section of text that was obviously missing from the copy of Mark that Luke was using. Luke is hardly likely to have omitted such an important miracle as walking on water, had he known of it, but this was part of the Missing Block. The Missing Block results in the curious conjunction found in Luke 9:18 "And it came to pass as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them ..." These clauses are found in Mark at the start and end of the Missing Block. So Luke was not a witness to any of the gospel story, and knew of no one who was. He could not have been the Luke mentioned in the epistles.

Luke, along with Matthew, also relied on a hypothetical sayings document, known as the 'Q' document, for sayings attributed to Jesus. Whenever Luke and Matthew agree on sayings not found in Mark, the wording is almost identical in the Greek language, but the context is usually quite different, because Q does not provide any context for the sayings, and the authors had to create their own contexts. Luke and Acts of the Apostles also make use of some material from the works of the Jewish historian, Josephus, thereby providing the appearance of historicity. Scholars say that the reference to the census of Quirinius must have come from Josephus, because there appears to be no other contemporary document available to Luke's author, that mentions this census. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, but sometimes he does so inaccurately.

Bishop John Shelby Spong says that the author of Luke was a Greek-speaking gentile and did not understand Jewish law. In particular, the presentation and purification stories in chapter 2 are hopelessly confused.

More than any other gospel, Luke shows concern for the poor. On the other hand, the author has Jesus authorise the disciples (and the future Church) to commit murder: (Luke 19:27) "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." That this really is an incitement to crime is confirmed by Acts chapter 5, in which the same author has Peter murder Ananias and his wife Sapphira for selling their possessions but not giving the entire proceeds to the church.