Personally, I have always found the Gospel’s accounts of Jesus’ temptation incredibly bland, even silly. Reading them, I have been troubled by a sense of “Is this really all there was to it?” At best, it seemed to me Jesus was engaged in a kind of supernatural war game, where though from a certain distance the action looked and sounded real enough, no one was in any real danger. It was no more than a simulation.

Yoder’s Reading of the Temptations

John Howard Yoder’s all-too-brief reading of the temptations helped me see this story differently.[1] He argued that “all the options laid before Jesus by the tempter are ways of being king” and that each temptation presented Jesus with an alternative means to realize his kingdom, a way other than the via crucis.

First, Jesus faces the “economic option.” Yoder argues that we should not see this as a temptation for Jesus to satisfy his own hunger. Instead, he suggests that Jesus perceived the opportunity to provide a banquet that would attract followers to him. “Feed the crowds and you shall be king.”[2]

Second, Jesus faces the “socio-political option.” Here Yoder discerns a temptation to “the idolatrous character of political power hunger and nationalism.”[3] He notes that the Tempter entices Jesus to follow the words of promise spoken over him in baptism (Psalm 2.7 via Luke 3.22) and to go on to possess the promise’s reward: “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession” (Ps 2.8).

Third, Jesus faces the “religious option.” Yoder acknowledges that two possibilities present themselves to the reader; Jesus could be tempted to fall outside the Temple wall or to leap down into the Temple court itself. Following Hyldahl, Yoder understands that being thrown down to one’s death in the Kidron valley from a high tower in the temple wall was the prescribed penalty for blasphemy. Given that, Jesus might be undergoing temptation to prove to himself that he is not blaspheming when he thinks himself Israel’s messiah/king. He is been enticed to an ordeal, a triall to end all trials, so to speak.

If we go with the second option – that Jesus is leaping down into the Temple court – then Yoder contends we are to see this as a temptation for Jesus to prove himself to Israel as the final “religious reformer,” evoking allusions to Malachi’s promise of the redeemer who would come “suddenly to the temple” (Mal 3.1-3).

Problems with Yoder’s Reading

As I have already said, this reading of the temptation story opened my eyes to what I should not have missed in any case. If I do not hold to Yoder’s reading it is not because I do not find it compelling. I think it makes good sense, and does justice to what must have been a near catastrophic event in Jesus’ life. In the final analysis, I have three basic problems with Yoder’s reading:

First, I think he too-neatly separates between the so-called “economic” and “socio-political” and “religious” options. I think all of these dimensions are present in each temptation, so that we can talk about all of them as simultaneously socioeconomic and religio-political temptations. The extent and use of power, which is what politics is about, is necessarily always bound up with religion, economics, and socio-cultural standards and norms. Besides, human experience is made irreducibly complex and intricate by the gift/burden of rationality. So our reading of the temptations must not too neatly separate these realities from one another.

Second, I think Yoder fails to show that Jesus is Israel’s king, and, as such, her representative. [4] Jesus goes to face Israel’s temptations for her, much as David fought Goliath in stead of his people.

Third, I think Yoder does not give sufficient attention to Jesus’ use of Scripture in responding to the temptations; (admittedly, Yoder only brushes the surface of these tests, as they are not the main focus of his work in The Politics of Jesus.)

The Temptations of Israel’s King

Luke tells us Jesus left the Jordan and journeyed into the wilderness, which means he was reversing the path Israel had trekked in the beginning after they had come out of Egypt. And Jesus goes into that desert as Israel’s representative, to do for her what she could not do for herself, and, therefore, could not do for the world. I think Jesus did this intentionally, not so much to prove to himself that he was Messiah as to begin the work of Messiah as he understood it. He goes into the wilderness to face his first ordeal.

The work of Messiah, Jesus had come to understand, was to accomplish for Israel her calling, which was to be a light to the world, a nation of priests bearing witness to YWHY as the one God, as the Creator and Redeemer of all. Jesus went to the wilderness to fight for his people, as David had gone done to face Goliath. Many in Israel had expected, not entirely wrongly, that the Messiah’s work would involve warfare, as it had done with the Maccabees, for instance. And Jesus certainly understands himself as a warrior. But he goes to fight a different enemy than what his contemporaries expected. He goes to begin the fight against evil itself, against the Satan.

Having chosen this battle, then, retracing Israel’s steps to do in the wilderness what they, as his subjects, had not done, Jesus comes to face “the Satan.”

The Satan is a real adversary, to be sure, but we need not think of a pitchfork wielding, bifurcated-tailed creature with crimson scales and sulfurous aura! Instead, this struggle in the wilderness – which, I’m arguing, really did take place (even if not in exactly this way) – is a struggle within the mind of Jesus. Jesus is facing down the alternative ways of being messiah which he had internalized over the course of his life.

Where, besides here in the wilderness, does Jesus face the Satan? In Caesarea Philippi, where Peter confesses him as “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” But Peter does not know what he is saying. What he meant when he said Christ (and Son of the living God is a synthetic parallel) is not what Jesus meant when he applied the term to himself. Instead, Jesus discerns in Peter’s messianic idea the work of the enemy. Peter’s way, the way of the sword, was a deviation from Abba’s will and so Jesus rejects it as devilish.

In summary, then. The temptations – really, we have here one temptation in a series or cluster of forms – are experienced by Jesus as real alternatives to the way he has perceived, by faith in prayer and the reading of the Torah, laid out for him by Abba’s will. He has to decide here in the wilderness, in much the same way that he’ll have to decide later in in the garden, against what he might want in favor of what the Father requires.

Jesus wins, but it could have been otherwise. We shouldn’t miss this point: Jesus temptation is a real ordeal, it involves genuine risk. As we know from the Gethsemene scene, Jesus’ will is not automatically or involuntarily identical with the Father’s. Here, as Israel’s king, Jesus does for her – and therefore for the world – what had to be done. He really does it, and does not merely seem to do it. As I understand it, this makes all the difference in the world, if not eternity.

_____

[1] John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 24-27.

[2] Yoder, 26.

[3] ibid

[4] N. T. Wright, e.g. in his The Climax of the Covenant, demonstrates convincingly that this emphasis on Messiah as Israel’s representative is at the heart of Jewish messianic thought, and, therefore, also at the heart of Jesus’ self-understanding the church’s reflection on him as her Lord.

When Jesus presented himself as Christ, as Messiah, he was presenting himself as a political figure, as Israel’s king. Luke makes this explicitly clear:

And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king. So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.

Pilate, no doubt to shame the Jewish leaders, inscribes “King of the Jews” over Jesus’ cross (Lk. 23.38).

On this, all four Gospels are agreed:

(a) When Pilate asked Jesus if he is “king of the Jews,” Jesus answered in the affirmative;

(b) Jesus’ death-sentence included the charge of being Israel’s king. The fact is, then, that Jesus was crucified because the Romans believed Jesus in some sense claimed to Israel’s rightful ruler. But did Jesus think of himself this way?

Brown thinks Jesus most certainly did understand himself as king of the Jews:

I think it most implausible that Jesus ever denied he was the Messiah; otherwise his followers would have said that he was executed on a totally false charge. He was not a king and had denied that he was one. Instead, in their preaching and writings they indicated that he was a king but not in the sense charged by his opponents. [1]

All of the Evangelists recognize the irony that Jesus is crucified as king of Israel. As Wright says, “In his crucifixion, therefore, Jesus identified fully (if paradoxically) with the aspirations of his people, dying as ‘the king of the Jews’…”[2] It is ironic at multiple levels.

First, it is ironic that Jesus receives a mock coronation by the Romans, who crown him with thorns and shroud him with purple. As already mentioned, Pilate nails a placard reading “King of the Jews” to Jesus’ cross, which must have seemed insufferable insult both to Jesus’ friends and his enemies, though for different reasons, of course.

Second, it is ironic that Pilate names Jesus king, in mockery of course, though Jesus remained largely unrecognized and rejected by his own people.

Third, it is ironic that Jesus, the promised Messiah/king whom everyone expected to be a man of unprecedented strength and power who would lead Israel in a final victory over God’s enemies, suffers and dies at the hands of some of Israel’s leaders who collaborate with Israel’s oppressors. 

But what kind of king did Jesus think he was?

To be continued…

__________

[1] R. E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994), 78.
[2] N. T. Wright, “Jesus” New Dictionary of Theology. David F. Wright, Sinclair B. Ferguson, J.I. Packer eds (Downer’s Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 348-351.

Jesus is God’s politics.

By that I mean, Jesus is God’s king. This is, by the way, what the title, Messiah (or Christ, in Greek) means. Though many of us have been trained to think of Jesus as an a-political figure, a teacher who concerned himself with “spiritual matters” and remained above the political fray, the truth is, Jesus is the political figure, the true “King of kings and Lord of lords.” No reading that ignores this can do justice to Luke-Acts.

The Politics of God’s Kingdom

I’m using this term, politics, in the following senses.

1. The structures of power that bring together and hold together a group of people. These structures are powers of governance and oversight, of judgment and of service, and they belong to the “natural order.”
2. The decision-making processes in which theses various power structures engage themselves.
3. The struggle for access to and control of these powers. 

In brief, politics is about power – the getting and spending of it. When I say, then, that the kingdom of God is political, I mean that God reigns by the exercise of a certain kind of power, which happens to stand in judgment of all others forms of power. It is the power of love. 

The Power of Love and the Power of Death

Jesus taught his disciples that power is not about strength and force. It is not something we wield over others. God’s power is the power of life and love, not the power of death; it is power exercised only for others, never to exact something from them, and only in service of them.

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all (Mk 10.42-44).

St Paul, reflecting on the meaning of Jesus’ sacrificial death, goes so far as to speak of the “foolishness” and “weakness” of God! I do not think Paul is being ironic. I think he means to say that God’s politics are so strange to us, so beyond us, that they inevitably seem weak and silly to us. That is the scandal of the cross.

As I said above, politics refers to those structures of power that bring together and hold together a group of people. Christians are those people who have been gathered together and find their identity in God’s weakness as it is revealed in Jesus. This means that Christians are people who are weak toward one another, or, to put it another way, it means that we are vulnerable before one another. To put it still another way, it means that we love one another, because God in Christ has loved us!

Love is God’s power. And by human estimation it is weak. Death and hate are stronger than life and love. At least, they are stronger in the sense that they overpower the latter. But as we now know through Christ, God’s politics are victorious. Love is stronger than death, because it possess the power, the capacity, to absorb death into itself, to embrace it, and thereby to lead it to destroy itself.

Luke understands himself as a witness of Israel’s story – the story that runs from Creation, through the call of Abraham, the Exodus, the Conquest, the establishment of the Davidic kingdom, to the Exile and return. This story, Luke believes, has reached its climax, its definitive turning point in Jesus. In his Gospel, heaccounts Jesus’ story as the story of Israel’s Messiah. In the Acts, Luke concerns himself with the church’s story as it is the continuation of the story of Jesus and Israel, the seamless narrative of God’s saving acts for the world. As Green explains, “the proper beginning of Luke’s narrative is there, in the past, in God’s redemptive purpose as set forth in the Scriptures.”[1] God has not begun a new work or gathered a new people. Instead, “the God who has been working redemptively still is, now, and especially, in Jesus.”[2] 

As Luke understands it, the God of Israel has acted in Jesus Christ for Israel and for the world. Though many – perhaps even most – Jews fail to discern God’s actions in Jesus, nonetheless God is doing what has always been promised and expected by God’s true people: vindicating Israel and saving the world. How and when God has done this, that is the surprise, which for some is scandalous and offensive.

The kingdom of God, which means the salvation of Israel, is announced by the Israel of God on behalf of the God of Israel. This summarizes the prophets’ message, the word that Luke takes up as his own. Yet he reads this somewhat differently, as it has been transformed by the event that is Jesus Christ.

The God of Israel

Though Luke obviously shares a concern for the Gentile mission, he continues to name God as the God of Israel, the God of the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (cf. Lk 20.37; Acts 3.13; 5.30; 7.32, 46; 22.14; 24.14). He intends to demonstrate the legitimacy of Christ by linking him with the God of Israel. [3] The church, in turn, is legitmated by its relation to Israel. The church is Israel, that is, the people (among the people) elected by God for mission. The church is the remnant of Israel, the faithful ones seeded like wheat among the chaff, who bear the responsiblity of proclaiming and enacting the long-awaited reign of God.

The tone is set from the start. Luke begins his Gospel with the accounts of devout Jews who live in confident expectation of God’s redemption. The priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth – who, like Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah, is barren – are described as “upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly” (1.6). After the birth of the promised child, Zechariah’s combusts in doxology (1.67-79). He names “the God of Israel” (κύριος ὁ θεὸς τοῦ Ἰσραήλ) as his God, and claims that it is precisely this God who has given him his son, a gift which is for him a sign that the salvation of Israel has begun. 

The Salvation of Israel

Similarly, when Joseph and Mary bring Jesus to the Temple – Luke carefully notes that the holy couple is acting according to the Torah (2.21-24) – they are met by the ”righteous and devout” (δίκαιος καὶ εὐλαβής) Simeon who is waiting for the “consolation of Israel” (παράκλησιν τοῦ Ἰσραήλ), which means the realization of all God’s promises and the fulfilment of Israel’s hope in YHWY. By the power of the Spirit, the priest recognizes the child Jesus as God’s salvation of Israel – for the nations. Anna the prophetess (2.36-38) also recognizes Jesus as specifically Israel’s redeemer.  

The Kingdom of Israel

It is well known that Jesus’ followers misunderstood his vocation and his intentions, both for himself and for them. Certainly, they would not have gathered to him if they had understood what he was really doing! So he suffered their misunderstandings throughout his ministry (whether it was three years, as John suggests, or one, as the Synoptics have it). At least some of Jesus followers, as well as his opponents - and arguably most of those in both groups -, expected him to be a militant messiah (some Jews expected a priestly messiah, or several messiahs, each with different vocations) who would overthrow the Roman oppressors and inaugurate the long-awaited Reign of God in Zion. When Jesus claimed the presence of God’s reign, they must have heard him saying the time was ripe for a revolution; they would have interpreted his messages nationalistically.

But, as N. T. Wright argues, Jesus disappointed these expectations.

Thus Jesus called Israel to repent of her nationalist ambition and follow him in a new vision of God’s purpose for Israel. Resistance to Rome was to be replaced by love and prayer for the enemy. Israel’s plight was radically redefined: sin, not Rome, was the real enemy. Jesus’ exorcisms point to God’s healing of his sick Israel, and they consequently belong with the controversy stories (e.g. Mk. 2:1-3:6) as part of his lifelong battle with the forces of evil which came to a climax on the cross (cf. Mt. 4:1-11; 8:28-34; 12:22-32; 27:39-44). His healings of the blind, lame, deaf and dumb, and his calling of the outcasts and poor to enjoy fellowship with himself, all of which hinge on faith as the appropriate response to Jesus, indicate his reconstitution of the people of God (Lk. 13:16; 19:9-10). For those with eyes to see, the ‘resurrection’, i.e. the remaking of Israel, has already begun (Lk. 15:1-2, 24, 32; 16:19-31).

Luke tells of two disciples (he gives us only one name: Cleopas; some have speculated the other was his wife) who on their first-day-of-the-week return home after the dark events of Friday, unknowingly meet the resurrected Jesus (Lk 24.13-35) In response to the stranger’s question, they offer a telling confession: “we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” Interestingly, even the womens’ testimony of the empty tomb did not change their minds or lift their hearts.

The crucifixion (and resurrection, for those who knew of it) should have ended all this talk. But it did not.

So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1.6)

Obviously, then, they did not “get it.” Yet, as I hope to show, this was an understandable misunderstanding. And our understanding of Jesus’ message likely is no nearer the mark than was theirs. 

__________

[1] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 54. Emphasis in original.

[2] ibid. Emphasis in original.

[3] Jacob Jervell, The Theology of the Acts of the Apostles. New Testament Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 19.

A fundamental logic underlies Luke-Acts, a set of interdependent themes that inform Luke’s selection of Jesus’ sayings and stories about him, as well as their final arrangement in Luke’s narrative. This theo-logic is the DNA of Luke-Acts, the carrier of Luke’s distinctive theological information. Five themes make the set, which I will briefly outline here and return to often. 

A Surprising Climax to Israel’s Story

Luke discerns the climax of Israel’s story in Jesus and the church gathered around him. This took everyone by surprise, but it should not have done so. The Scriptures clearly had foretold what God intended, and only hardness of heart kept the people from recognizing this witness to the long-awaited fulfillment of God’s promises.  Not only Jesus’ enemies, but also his closest companions misunderstood him; even after the Resurrection they continued to expect a Maccabean-style deliverance from Roman power. From the events of the Day of Pentecost they did begin to understand, but only slowly and in fractions. As they began to understand and proclaim Jesus as resurrected and all that that meant for Israel and the world, they discovered many people found their claims simply incredible.

The Reconfiguration of God’s People

Because of what God accomplished in Jesus’ resurrection, Israel as God’s chosen people found herself reconfigured and her responsibilities reordered. As the prophets had foretold, God gathered the Gentiles into the people, and this meant the relativization of Israel’s land, the Torah, and the Temple. The followers of Jesus continued to worship the God of the fathers, to read the Law and the prophets as Scripture, and maintained a rigorous piety, yet they lived free from such previously-binding legal regulations as circumcision and Sabbath observance that cordoned them off from “unclean” people – the very people for whom Christ called into his band.  

Heralds of the Good News of the Reign of God

By the power of the Spirit – the same Spirit who moved the ancient prophets – the newly-ordered Israel heralded “the good news of the reign of God.” As with the prophets, this “kingdom of God” talk was talk of judgment. God’s reign was to be brought about and sustained by God’s righteous judgment, which would mean, on the one hand, long-awaited vindication and consolation of God’s people and, on the other hand, the final overturning of their enemies.

Ironically, however, instead of the judgment meaning the establishment of Israel’s monarchy as the world power, which many had expected, Jesus’ “good news” meant the disestablishment and redefinition of the priesthood, the Temple, and Torah and the establishment of the eschatological Reign of God.

Internal and External Conflict

Because they proclaimed – and performed – this message of (ironic) judgment, this “good news of the reign of God,” the church as God’s newly-configured people suffered constant internal strife and persecutions. They dealt with the internal conflicts by following the Spirit’s prophetic lead and humbly preferring one another, though some conflicts were so sharp they necessitated division. They bore the external conflict patiently and in hope, though many of them suffered martyrdom.

Hope for the Restoration of All Things

They lived with the confident expectation that God would yet break into history to vindicate the church and put all things to rights. They did not feel abandoned even though Christ’s return was “delayed.” They seized the time as opportunity to proclaim their message of Israel’s vindication and the salvation of the world.

The third Gospel and the Acts are in fact two volumes of the same work, written by the same author at more or less the same time. But when, precisely, did Luke – who we have already argued was the author – compose these volumes? The terminus ad quo, the earliest possible date, would be around 60 ce, when Paul suffers imprisonment in Rome. The terminus ad quem would be in the 130’s, when the gnostic Marcion demonstrates knowledge of Luke’s gospel.

As one would expect, scholarly opinion differs widely. Some hold out for a very early date, others for a very late one, as late as the 110’s. Most, however, settle on a time in the 80’s or 90’s, depending on whether or not they think Luke depended upon Josphesus’ work.

Basically, two possibilities get serious attention here: the early 60’s, just before the fall of Jerusalem; and the early to mid 80’s, as the nascent Christian community struggled with its post-Jerusalem identity. 

The Early Date

Ellis thinks the dual themes of divine judgment against Jerusalem (especially the Temple) and the rising crisis of the church’s relationship to Judaism fit best in the period 60-70, which apparently was a time of “apocalyptic fervor.”[1] Perhaps even more importantly, Ellis discerns that Luke understands Christianity as a movement within, rather than separate from, Judaism. Luke-Acts shows “that for Luke, no less than for Paul, Christianity was still a party within Judaism (Acts 24:14), an impossible perspective after the Neronian persecution of AD 65-68.”[2]

Bruce [3] offers the following evidences for a pre-70 c.e. date. 

1. Luke shows no sign of dependence on Paul’s letters. 
2. Luke says nothing of Paul’s death, nor indicates that he knew Paul to have died. 
3. Luke’s portrayal of the Roman authorities seems optimistic, which would have been impossible after the Neronian persecutions beginning in the mid-60’s. 
4. Luke seems to know nothing of the Jewish revolt of 66 or the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70, which surely were epochal events both for Judaism and the developing Christian sect.
5. The relative “primitiveness” of Luke’s theology, both in form and content, is taken as another (possible) indication of an early date. 
6. The ending of Acts with Paul’s imprisonment in Rome is best explained if Luke is understood to have stopped writing his history because there was no more to relate at that time.

The Later Date

Shillington [4] is among those who argue for a later date, for which he advances the following reasons. 

First, he cites the fact that Luke references “many” other accounts (Lk 1.1), and it seems highly unlikely that there were many Gospels in circulation in the early 60’s. Also, Luke obviously depends upon Mark’s Gospel, which would require some time to circulate among the Christian communities of Mediterranean basin and beyond; Shillington proposes it would have taken at least five years, which would mean Luke could not have begun writing before the early to mid 70’s, because no one would argue that Mark’s Gospel was written in the late 50’s. 

Second, he discerns in the prologue (Lk 1.1-4) a reference to two generations of Christ-followers: the “eye-witnesses” and the “servants of the word.” Though this is a controversial reading, he works from this a proposed date of late 70’s to mid 80’s, for surely by that time the apostles had died or were martyred and many of the second generation of Christians were dying, too. 

Third, he insists that Luke does refer to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, even if more obliquely than we would like. Witherington agrees that the way Luke references the destruction of the Temple suggests “the benefit of hindsight.”[5]

Interestingly, F. F. Bruce, whose arguments for an early date I outlined above, changed his mind, settling on a date in the late 70’s or early 80’s.[6]  In response to the arguments he had formerly found convincing, he concluded that: 

(1) The abrupt ending of Acts is not the problem it at first seems to be, since Luke’s purpose of narrating the expansion of Christianity has reached a fitting end. Further, the story of this expansion has no natural conclusion – indeed, it is ongoing! 

(2) The seeming naively optimistic view of the Roman authorities does not prove the Neronian persecutions had not yet begun. Instead, perhaps Luke means to show that Nero’s malignancy was the exception, and that the Christian movement had not been seen as an enemy of the state by many of Rome’s other, more suitable, ruling elite. 

(3) Like Shillington and Witherington, et. al., Bruce came to believe that the way Luke describes the destruction of the Temple (Lk 19.41-44; 21.20-24; 23.28=31) indicates that the events “predicted” there have already taken place, primarily because of the way Luke reworks Mark’s report (13.14) of Jesus’ prophecy. 

Conclusion

While sensible people can and do disagree on this matter, it seems to me the most plausible date for the writing of Luke’s Gospel – and shortly thereafter his Acts – is sometime in the middle 80’s. the lack of a clear reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, which is the best evidence for an early date, may say more about our modern historiographical prejudices than it does about the dating of Luke’s writing. The issues addressed in Luke-Acts, such as the relation of Christianity and Judaism, the mission to and inclusion of the Gentiles, the fulfillment of Scripture, are no less important post-70 c.e. than they were before.  

_________

[1] E. Earle Ellis, The Making of the New Testament Documents (Boston: Brill Academic, 2002), 389. 

[2] Ellis, 390.

[3] Bruce, “Acts,” 37-38.

[4] Shillington, 12.

[5] Witherington, 61.

[6] F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: the Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 18. 

Strictly speaking, we don’t know who wrote Luke-Acts. It was written anonymously, as were the other Gospels. However, from quite early on the tradition attributes both the Gospel and Acts to Luke, a physician and fellow-worker of Paul mentioned in two (or three, if 2 Timothy is authentically Pauline) of the apostle’s letters.

• A 2nd century anti-Gnostic prologue to the Gospel names Luke as author of both the Gospel and Acts.
• The oldest known list of New Testament books, the late 2nd century Muratorian Canon, ascribes authorship of Luke and Acts to “the well known physician.” 
• Irenaeus in his Against Heresies attributes the third Gospel to Luke and describes him as  ”inseparable from Paul and his fellow-labourer in the Gospel.” Irenaeus insists Luke did not misrepresent Paul, or the other apostles, in his recording of their exploits. 
• Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, and later Origen of Alexandria, voice their agreement with the tradition on the matter.[1] 

Jervell argues that the tradition would not have attributed authorship to Luke without strong supporting evidence, because he was at best only a second-rank companion of Paul. “If the idea was to give authority to the writing through the name of the author, no one would have chosen Luke when they had far more significant and prominent companions of Paul at their disposal.”[2]

The Beloved (Gentile) Physician

If the Luke of Paul’s letters is the author of Luke-Acts – and there is good evidence for it – then we know something of Luke’s race, vocation, and place of origin, too. In Colossians 4.7-14, Paul names “Luke, the beloved physician” among others of his Gentile co-workers whom he clearly sets apart from “the only ones of the circumcision” who have worked with him (4.11). Also, in Acts 27.1-28.10, which describes Paul’s shipwreck and rescue on the island of Malta, Luke refers to the islanders as βάρβαροι (v.2; the NIV, NASB, NRSV miss this nuance), which usually is reserved for those who lack Greek culture and cannot speak the Greek language.[3] This is apparently a kind of cultural prejudice, and serves as one of our best clues to Luke’s ethnic and cultural heritage. 

Beloved?

Why was Luke “beloved” – and by whom? The phrasing seems to indicate Luke has won the affection by the good effects of his medical practice. In other words, he is loved because he is a good physician. The question is, on whom was he practicing? A couple of possibilities emerge. 

Perhaps he was Paul’s personal physician. Witherington suspects that Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was a chronic illness or malady, such as an eye disease, that required constant professional care.[4]

Perhaps he as a medical missionary who traveled with Paul, caring for the sick in the cities where Paul preached and taught. For instance, when Paul and Luke (if we take the use of first person plural seriously) were stranded together on the island of Malta (28.1-10), we are told that Paul healed (ἰάσατο) an old man and because of that the rest of the people came and were cured (ἐθεραπεύοντο). Some discern a difference between the (supernatural) healing and the (natural) curing; the former would have been Paul’s work; the latter, Luke’s. Personally, I find this unconvincing. But I think it unnecessary and unwise to draw too sharp a distinction between the “natural” and the “supernatural.” I see no reason that Luke’s medical skill could not serve as an instrument of the Spirit in bringing healing to the sick there. 

Probably, Luke fulfilled both of these roles if he fulfilled either of them. It is plausible to suppose that Luke joined Paul’s team of ministers as Paul’s personal physician and shared his expertise with others as the opportunities presented themselves. 

Luke and Demas?

Besides Colossians 4.14, which pairs Demas and Luke, Paul names Luke and Demas together in two other places. In the concluding remarks of his letter to Philemon (1.19-24) Paul lists Luke and Demas last among others of his fellow-workers (συνεργοί). Also, in 2 Timothy 4.9-11, Luke is mentioned as one of Paul’s last remaining faithful companions, deliberately contrasting him with Demas. 

Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.

Perhaps Luke and Demas were particularly dear to Paul; Luke because he was Paul’s physician, and Demas for some unknown reason. Perhaps they were both from Antioch. Perhaps they were close friends, or even family. Of course, it is impossible to know what to make of this connection, but the pairing does seem to be more than coincidental and deserves some careful thought. 

From Antioch in Syria?

According to the tradition, Luke was from Antioch in Syria. The so-called anti-Marcionite prologue to the third Gospel, written anonymously in the 2nd century, identifies Antioch as his city of origin.[5] Also, the longer Western text (more on this later) of Acts 11.28 puts him personally among the church gathered there:

Now in these days there came down prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there was much rejoicing; and when we were gathered together one of them named Agabus stood up and spake, signifying by the Spirit that there should be a great famine over all the world

Gentile?

Not all scholars agree Luke was a Gentile and/or that he did write Luke-Acts. Shillington thinks the author was a Jew of the diaspora, like Stephen, because his “knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures and Jewish background is second to none.”[6] He supposes it unlikely that a Gentile could display such “gifted Jewishness.”[7] 

To be sure, Luke writes decent Greek, better at times by far than the other Gospel writers. But there is no need to follow Shillington’s inferences or arrive at his conclusions. We only have to suppose that Luke was what he calls in Acts a god-fearer (φοβούμενοι τὸν θεόν), a proselyte to Judaism, who learned the faith of the fathers in a synagogue – as we saw, probably in Syrian Antioch – and there became intimate with the stories and teachings, the concepts and style of the LXX version of the Hebrew Scriptures. 

A Companion of Paul

At several points in Acts (16.10-17; 20.5-16; 21.1-18; 27.1-28.16), Luke rather abruptly switches from his standard use of the third person (“they”) to the first person plural (“we”), apparently indicating he himself is present for these events. As we have already seen, Irenaeus took these sections as proof that Luke was Paul’s “inseparable” companion and that this privileged Luke with detailed information for use in his writing; this conclusion most scholars now find dubious. That being said, we can safely assume that Luke was the sometime companion of Paul, probably with him occasionally during the (somewhat misleadingly called) second missionary journey, and significantly more often during the third journey.

Perhaps more important than the time Luke did (or did not) spend with Paul, was the timing of his work with him. The fact that Luke was there only at the end of Paul’s life makes all the difference in his understanding of the apostle, as Fitzmyer concludes, 

Luke was not with Paul during the major part of his missionary activity, or during the period when Paul’s most important letters were being written… Luke was not on the scene when Paul was facing the major crises in his evangelization of the Eastern Mediterranean world, e.g., the Judaizing problem, the struggle with the factions in Corinth or the questions that arose in Thessalonica. Luke would not have been with Paul when he was formulating the essence of his theology or wrestling with the meaning of the gospel. This would explain why there is such a difference between the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the letters [8].

We will return to this point often, as it helps to explain so much. 

Conclusion

The information about Luke provided for us by the tradition and Paul’s letters fits the profile the writer of Luke-Acts must have met. 

1. As a physician, Luke would have been well educated and literate, privileges which would help explain both Luke’s desire and facility to write “an orderly account.” 
2. As a companion of Paul, he would have been in the position to learn some of the details of the apostle’s thought and work. But because he was there only at the end, he would not have been eyewitness to much of what we find in Paul’s letters.  
3. As a native of Antioch, he would have been in the path of the emerging Jesus sect and the tumult surrounding it and its leading figures as it moved out from Jerusalem to the “ends of the earth.”
4. As a Gentile proselyte to Judaism, he would have possessed a unique perspective and concern for what the Good News of the Kingdom meant for both Jews and Gentile alike. 

We have good reason, then, to suppose Luke did author the Gospel and Acts. 

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^[1]F. F. Bruce, “Acts of the Apostles” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol 1. Geoffrey W. Bromiley ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 36.

^[2]Jacob Jervell, The Theology of the Acts of the Apostles, New Testament Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 2. 

^[3] Ben Witherington, Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 776-777.

^[4] Witherington, 58.

^[5] Bruce, “Acts of the Apostles,” 36.  

^[6] V. George Shillington, An Introduction to the Study of Luke-Acts (New York: T & T Clark International, 2007), 10.

^[7] Shillington, 11.

^[8] Quoted in Witherington, 484.