September 28th, 2021
I finished reading The Gospel of Luke and I wanted to write a review about it. First off, it read similarly to the gospels of Matthew and Mark and because of that, I found that I wasn’t really able to pay attention to some of the specifics in this gospel. It was like I read the same story three times. Like with Matthew and Mark, there is no autograph, but there is a statement of purpose and a mention of eyewitnesses in the opening verses:
“Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.”
Luke, 1:1-4, NLT
I’ve discussed the claim that the Gospels of Matthew and Mark were eyewitness testimony in a previous post and used Thucydides as a benchmark to assess those claims. I think it would be wise to revisit Thucydides here and have a discussion about the similarities and differences between the author of Luke and Thucydides. Thucydides says on the topic of eye witness testimony:
“… with regard to my factual reporting of the events of the war I have made it a principle not to write down the first story that came my way, and not even to be guided by my own general impressions; either I was present myself at the events which I have described or else I heard them from eye-witnesses whose reports I have checked with as much thoroughness as possible. Not that even so the truth was easy to discover: different eye-witnesses gave different accounts of the same events, speaking out of partiality for one side or the other or else from imperfect memories”.
History of the Peloponnesian War, I.22
This, to me, is unambiguous. Thucydides clearly states that he wrote down what he himself witnessed or what others witnessed. Even then, though, he states that he did not always trust what he heard from the eyewitness testimony of others, but made a point of corroborating their stories with as much thoroughness as possible. Going back to the introduction of Luke this is what I can gather: The author claims that many people have written accounts of things that the author and others believed happened in the life of Jesus; the author has read and/or heard these accounts and the author believes that those sources used eye witness reports from those who were early followers of Jesus. The author has then analyzed those sources and set out to write his own account with the goal being to reinforce everything that was taught to a man named Theophilus. What I can conclude from this is that the author believed what he heard about Jesus because he believed that his sources were eye witness reports and that he decided that he was going to write his own account to “set the record straight”, but that raises the question as to why he needed to write his own account in the first place if he believed that he already had eye witness reports. I suppose that his goal was to convince Theophilus that what he was taught was true and the only way he could do that was to write his own account. Speaking to some of the content, it is evident that the author of Luke used the Gospel of Mark as a source and maybe shared a source with the Gospel of Matthew. I suppose I’ll read more about this when I read some of the scholarly books on the subject as well as reading the Book of Acts, which apparently was written by the same person that wrote the Gospel of Luke. Something that I’ve been pondering while I write this is why I trust Thucydides more than the author of Luke. It might be that I went into Thucydides without much skepticism as to the claims made, but for The Gospel of Luke, I was skeptical. Comparing the two, I think Thucydides wrote more unambiguously whereas there seems to be a lot more room for interpretation in the Gospel of Luke (as well as the rest of the Bible). Thucydides wrote for later readers whereas the author of Luke wrote specifically for Theophilus (however, reading the name Theophilus in a literary sense it is apparent that the name means lover of God and I can see a very meta-interpretation that basically says that Theophilus is the Christian lover of God who reads the Gospel of Luke, but this goes back to the ambiguousness that I mentioned before). Thucydides wrote about events that he and his sources actually took part in, whereas the author of Luke writes about events that he did not experience himself. Another thing that contributes to my skepticism of the gospels as a whole is the inclusion of conversations and quotes in the stories. Even if the accounts were from eyewitnesses, I’m skeptical that the words used in the story were the actual words spoken. To compare, Thucydides makes use of speeches by some of the politicians and generals in the war but makes it clear that he did not always remember the words used in those speeches:
“I have found it difficult to remember the precise words used in the speeches which I listened to myself and my various informants have experienced the same difficulty; so my method has been, while keeping as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used, to make the speaker say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation.”
History of the Peloponnesian War, I.22
I can’t think of anyone who would be able to remember the exact words used in a conversation that happened yesterday, let alone 30 years ago. I would certainly be skeptical if someone claimed that they were the exact words spoken. One final thing that I think is the main reason for my skepticism is that of supernatural claims. Thucydides doesn’t appeal to any supernatural cause for the events that took place during the war whereas the author of Luke makes explicit supernatural claims about Jesus. I suppose I have an anti-supernatural bias, but the foundation of that lies in not having experienced anything I would consider supernatural. Why should I believe that supernatural things happened in the past if I’ve not experienced anything supernatural in the present? I would imagine that if I grew up in a community that believed more strongly in supernatural causes for actual events, I might be more inclined to believe in the supernatural claims of the past, but as it stands right now, I don’t need to believe in the supernatural to live my life and I see no reason to believe in the supernatural beliefs of people who lived 2,000 years ago (or of people today). To be sure it is not a very happy or comforting thing to think that there is no divine protector watching over me, but just because something is comforting or makes you happy, that doesn’t mean that it’s true. The thing I always appreciated about church was the sense of community that it brought, but I have a feeling that I would be excluded from the community if my true beliefs were known or at the very least be thought of differently. For me though, it seems that through biblical scholarship, archaeological and scientific discoveries, some of the things that most people believed were true about the Bible have turned out to be in error. Because this called into question many people’s long-held beliefs about the nature of God there was a subset of Christians that reacted in an extreme way against this newfound knowledge and chose to deny it as opposed to reinterpret scripture through this new lens. I think the extreme reactions of fundamentalists, young-earth creationists, biblical literalists, and biblical inerrantists have had the effect of turning more people away from Christianity than bringing them into the fold. I see these people and hear the claims they make and I feel disconnected from the Christian community as a whole and feel like an outcast of a lot of social circles because of this. I’m sure I will speak more about this at a later date, but this is where I am right now.
Getting into the meat of the gospel though I wanted to talk about a few things. First, the author seems familiar with Jewish Scripture and customs. He also seems to be a much better storyteller than the authors of Matthew and Mark. I’ve seen it claimed that he is a historian, but It seems that he is more a biographer than a historian. One of the things I wanted to talk about with regards to this is that there seems to be a historical error at the beginning of Chapter 2.
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.
Luke 2:1-5, NLT
Reading the Wikipedia article for the Census of Quirinius, it is pointed out that the main difficulty with this set of verses is that the gospel links the birth of Jesus with Herod the Great, but the census mentioned in these verses took place in 6 CE, nine years after Herod’s death in 4 BCE. Also, the census was apparently limited to Judea and did not affect Galilee, which was governed by Herod Antipas and was not under direct Roman control. There were three censuses of the entire empire during Augustus’s reign, but none of them happened while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and no Roman census required people to travel from their homes to those of their distant ancestors. A German Theologian named David Friedrich Strauss concluded in his book The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined that Luke’s account was in error on this point. I would like to read this at some point and examine the evidence for this, but I imagine that I would likely come to the same conclusion. This is one piece of evidence that leads me to doubt the historicity of Luke’s account and definitely expels the notion of inerrancy and infallibility.
One thing that I noticed is that the author of Luke apparently doesn’t have Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. The section where Jesus is baptized is preceded by a section that describes how John the Baptist ended up in prison. The text reads the following:
John also publically criticized Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, for marrying Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for many other wrongs he had done. So Herod put John in prison, adding this sin to his many others. One day when the crowds were being baptized, Jesus himself was baptized. As he was praying, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit, in bodily form, descended on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”
Luke 3:19-22, NLT
The Gospels of Matthew and Mark read the following way:
One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and John Baptized him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”
Mark 1:9-11, NLT
Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John tried to talk him out of it. “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you,” he said, “so why are you coming to me?” But Jesus said, “It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires. “So John agreed to baptize him. After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved son, who brings me great joy.”
Matthew 3:13-17, NLT
It is not readily apparent that the author of Luke believed that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. I can grant however that John’s imprisonment could have been after Jesus’s baptism as the text doesn’t make it clear that the events described were in chronological order.
There was another interesting passage where Jesus teaches with authority:
Then Jesus went to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and taught there in the synagogue every Sabbath day. There, too, the people were amazed at his teaching, for he spoke with authority.
Luke 4:31-32, NLT
To rephrase this slightly: the people were amazed at Jesus’s teaching because he spoke with authority. This stood out to me because it reminded me of the appeal to authority logical fallacy: “Saying that an authority figure thinks something, that it must therefore be true”. It seems that in the story these people believed whatever Jesus was saying because he spoke with authority. There are plenty of examples of people speaking with authority about things that are not true such as when apologists and theologians speak about complex scientific ideas or principles. A lot of Christians will believe what they say simply because they speak with authority. Similar to this is the preaching of the prosperity gospel whereby a pastor, typically a televangelist, will tell their congregants confidently that if they send their seed (read money) to the church that God will reward them but it’s a scam. There was a verse that seemed like it would be included in a prosperity gospel sermon:
Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.
Luke 6:38, NLT
I’m sure I will do a whole article on the prosperity gospel. but this is where I will leave it for now.
There was another verse that stood out that made me think about how early Christianity might be thought of as a Greek mystery religion along the lines of the Eleusinian Mysteries or Orphism. When talking to his disciples after telling a parable Jesus says to them:
You are permitted to understand the secrets of the kingdom of God.
Luke 8:10, NLT
There is a footnote in my Bible that the word secrets comes from the Greek word mysteries. It seems that according to the gospel of Luke, Jesus was revealing to them the mysteries of the kingdom of God, much like the Greek mystery religions revealed hidden knowledge. I should like to explore this idea of Christianity as a Greek mystery religion to see if there is any validity to it. In that same chapter a few verses later another interesting passage I found was the following:
The seeds that fell on the footpath represent those who hear the message, only to have the devil come and take it away from their hearts and prevent them from being saved.
Luke 8:12, NLT
The seed mentioned here is God’s word and I suppose this means that though I have heard and am reading the message right now that it is not taking root because the devil is taking the message away from my heart. Like I said earlier, I don’t believe in the supernatural and so I don’t believe that the devil is taking the message from my heart, but I can hear the response now: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” This is a quote from one of my favorite movies The Usual Suspects and while I find it poetic, I don’t think it has a basis in reality.
I think this is all I want to talk about from the Gospel of Luke. There are other things that I found interesting, but I would like to move on for now. I’m going to be reading Acts next before I read the Gospel of John because of the connection with Luke and will be writing about that next.