Where did Luke the apostle get his information?

Answer 1

A:Luke 1:1-2: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;"

This introduction tells us that the author was relaying information delivered to the author or his community. It shows that he could not prove what was surely believed among them by reference to a specific authority, although he believed that his sources were based on original eyewitness accounts.

Luke's Gospel was originally anonymous and was only attributed to the apostle Luke later in the second century. Scholarly estimates of its date of authorship vary from the early nineties of the first century to the first decade of the second century, much too late for it to have been written by Luke, the physician and companion of Paul. In any case, the introduction would be anomalous if written by a companion of Paul himself.

Even as early as the late second century, the Church Fathers realised there was a literary dependency among the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). When read in the original Greek, many passages not only follow the same sequence and style, but even have exactly the same words in that language. Modern scholars have demonstrated that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are both based on Mark's Gospel. Matthew and Luke also contain further sayings material not found in Mark, but which is accepted as having been sourced from the hypothetical 'Q' document.

Some material in Luke's Gospel can not be traced back to either Mark or Q. In some cases, such as the reference to the census under Quirinius (and quite frequently in Acts of the Apostles), the material seems to be based on the works of the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus. In other cases, the sources for material unique to Luke's Gospel are entirely unknown.