How did Luke go about writing the Gospel?

Answer 1

Luke wrote his Gospel prior to 62AD. Luke wrote his gospel before he wrote Acts. Acts is known to be written prior to 64AD.

Some people place the time of writing around A.D 56-58 before the death of Paul. Some say after Paul's death but before the sacking of Jerusalem around A.D.60-65
The most likely date for Luke is very early in the 60's of the first century.

Since nearly all agree that Luke must precede Acts in time, and Acts ends about a.d. 63 with Paul in Rome, a date before that is probable. The great fire of Rome and the persecution of Christians as Nero's scapegoats in a.d. 64 would surely have been mentioned by Luke if he was writing after these events.

Answer 2

Luke wrote his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles no later than 70AD due to the events that are included or omitted from his account. Luke wrote his Gospel in approximately 60AD followed soon after by the Acts of the Apostles in approximately 62AD.

Answer 3

A:Luke 1:1-2 tell us much about how Luke went about writing the gospel: "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 says that Luke was reporting simply what his group believed, and that this belief was based on information received from sources who must have originally relied on eyewitness accounts.

These are not the words we should expect from Luke the physician and companion of Paul, who would have said he was reporting what he had been taught by Paul himself. There is good reason for this: the Gospel of Luke was written anonymously and the attribution to Luke was made later in the second century purely on the basis that Luke was a well educated companion of Paul and could have been the author of both the gospel and Acts of the Apostles. We now know this was not the case.

New Testament scholars now know that Luke's Gospel was originally based on the Gospel of Mark and the hypothetical 'Q' document. Dependence on Mark was established by reading the two gospels in parallel ('synoptically') in the original Greek language and is confirmed by the 'Missing Block', a total of 74.5 verses from Mark 6:47 to Mark 8:27a, omitted from Luke and resulting 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 ..." Dependence on Q has been established by comparing the text of Matthew with that of Luke, as both gospels used saying material from Q, although Matthewchanges some of the text from Q, as does Luke, although less often. So, these are the sources that Luke believed must have relied on eyewitness accounts

Luke made changes and additions to Mark, to suit his theological preferences. This includes the addition of a nativity story that shows how Jesus was the Son of God, from his conception by the Holy Spirit, and that John the Baptist was undoubtedly a supporter of Jesus, since he was the second cousin to Jesus.

Answer 4

We can establish an approximate minimum date for when Luke wrote his Gospel and Acts of the Apostles, by identifying his sources, since these books must have been written after the books he used as sources. It is generally accepted that the author we know as Luke wrote the Gospel before Acts, although apparently not long before.
We know that both Matthew and Luke relied on Mark's Gospel for most of his information about the life of Jesus. Whenever they agree with Mark, the text is almost identical in Greek, somthing that could not happen unless one Gospel was being copied. We also have the "missing block", a short section of text that was obviously missing from the copy of Mark that Luke was using. Since we can say that Mark's Gospel was written approximately 70 CE, Luke's Gospel must have been written some time later. Internal clues indicate that Luke's Gospel must have been written somewhat later than Matthew's, so we can say that Matthew's Gospel would have been written no earlier than 80 CE, while Luke's Gospel was written no earlier than about 90 CE.

Both Luke's Gospel and Acts show evidence of borrowing material from the works of Josephus, a Jewish military leader and historian. Evidence that they contain material from Antiquities of the Jews, written in 93 CE, show that they were written after this date and Acts was probably written early in the second century.

We know that Luke's Gospel was already regarded as a classic of Christian scriptures by the middle of the second century, so we also know that it could not have been written later than the early years of the century.

Answer 5

Recently, a 2,000 year old papyrus called Magdelen GR 17 and the writings in Acts itself - the Book of Acts has dating that is pure with straightforward historical logic - indicate a much earlier dating than what is presented today by modern scholars.

A 'thread' in Acts is the Martyrdom of Jesus and Stephen but leaves out His brother James in 62 AD, Paul & Peter in circa 64-65 (upper limit of 67) AD. Just doesn't fit unless of course Acts was written before 62 AD as most historians accept. This in turn means the Gospel of Luke was written earlier than 62 AD.

Answer 6

We can establish an approximate minimum date for when Luke's Gospel and Acts of the Apostles were written, by identifying the sources, since these books must have been written after the books used as sources.

We know that both Matthew and Luke relied on Mark's Gospel for most of their information about the life of Jesus. Whenever they agree with Mark, the text is almost identical in Greek, something that could not happen unless one Gospel was being copied. We also have the "missing block", a short section of text that was obviously missing from the copy of Mark that Luke was using. The importance of material in the "missing block" and Luke's inadvertent treatment of the gap, show that the author relied entirely on Mark for his knowledge of the life of Jesus. And, since we can say that Mark's Gospel was written approximately 70 CE, Luke's Gospel must have been written some time later.
Both Luke's Gospel and Acts show evidence of borrowing material from the works of Josephus, a Jewish military leader and historian. Evidence that they contain material from Antiquities of the Jews, written in 93 CE, show that they were written after this date.

We continue to refer to the anonymous author as Luke, although that attribution was made later in the second century and scholars now realise that Paul's companion was unlikely to be the real author. Unfortunately, we can not say with certainty how long it took Luke to write his Gospel. However, it appears that Luke's Gospel was the major source for John's Gospel, so Luke's must have been completed and in circulation before the author of John's Gospel began his project, probably in the first decade of the second century.