Was Luke Written by Luke? And Why Should We Care?

Comments · 336

• BA

  @Baladas2001 · 2 years ago

  Man, I start watching and Megan is like “I’ve been building custom library shelves while parenting 5? kids and running multiple YouTube channels while presumably staying on top of academic pursuits and keeping the house from falling apart.”<br><br>My weeks have been significantly less busy and I’m still exhausted more often than not!

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• RO

  @roeliethegoat · 2 years ago

  Can I just say thank you for making these podcasts and all this knowledge readily available? I was taught that the Bible was inerrant and that the gospels were written by the disciples. I&apos;ve known that&apos;s not true for a long time now. And that inspired this thirst for bible history. I can&apos;t seem to get enough. So thank you!

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• CO

  @conanedodawah · 2 years ago

  Most videos I watch at 1.5x speed. Music and Bart Ehrman content gets the normal speed respect.

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• DU

  @duderama6750 · 2 years ago

  That&apos;s the first time I&apos;ve seen a commercial interrupted by another commercial.

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• TH

  @TheDuke1972 · 1 year ago

  &quot;Woe to the Scribes&quot;

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• PI

  @picturebreakdown · 2 years ago

  “Use the Force, Luke”

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• JA

  @JackRT3 · 2 years ago

  I think you’re on the right track when you describe Luke-Acts as ancient literature. I am inclined to believe that Luke-Acts was written first and foremost for ‘Luke’s’ patron, an actual person whom he refers to as ‘Theophilus’, rather than for any particular Jesus group or community. &nbsp;Apparently &nbsp;‘Luke’ thought of Jesus, Peter and Paul as legendary heroic characters and was quite taken with what he had heard about them, and so set out to produce a great Hellenic heroic novel for his patron, ‘better than all the others’ as he boasts, a two-part story with Volume One featuring Jesus and ending in his tragic death, but with a miraculous twist that points forward to Part Two, a triumph with the spread of his movement expanding across the empire, ending with Paul boldly proclaiming the Gospel at the heart of the Roman Empire. I think the immediate appeal of the story would have been with the urban elite who read Greco-Roman literature and were always hungry for more, then obviously trickled down into the various Jesus communities where it was even more popular and began drawing the Hellenes into these communities, with its fantastical tales of royal lineage, the constant interactions of mortals with the Divine, miraculous deeds, voyages of adventure, shipwrecks, healings, raisings from the dead, miraculous escapes from mortal danger, etc. &nbsp;Luke-Acts would have been welcomed in the Jesus groups as an ‘historical’ perspective on Jesus and Paul, even though so much of what Luke wrote was the stuff of legend, meant to heighten the drama and make the story popular amongst Greco-Roman literature of the time, rather than a strict narration of the history of the early Jesus Movement. &nbsp;This is probably why he does not sync with Paul on similar events- he is using artistic licence to enhance his tale, so it doesn’t matter to him when, nor how many times Paul went to Jerusalem, for example. <br>I would also expect that this author wrote all manner of this type of literature in his time and that Luke-Acts was no isolated tale in his literary corpus. <br>So while we are greatly enriched in our faith by Luke-Acts and it forms a critical part of our Scriptures, the reading of history, theology, Christology or ‘salvation history’ into this work might just be surmise based on ‘spurious familiarity.’

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• R.

  @r.the.mazzochist2259 · 2 years ago

  I want Bart to do a serious investigation on the scholarship done on Marcion and his connection with Luke.

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• MI

  @MichaelYoder1961 · 2 years ago (edited)

  One of the things I love about this podcast is the informality between Megan and Bart (especially the catch up at the beginning). AND - I&apos;d love to see Bart do a collab with Josh about the Old Testament. &nbsp;I think that would be fascinating. Thanks all.

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• JE

  @jefffarris9238 · 2 years ago

  I’m curious why early church fathers thought Luke could have direct knowledge of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection if he was a companion of Paul, who himself never knew Jesus?

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• KG

  @KGchannel01 · 2 years ago

  Thanks guys, love the show!

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• PE

  @Perineon · 2 years ago

  The question about the stake being a cross or not, sounds like a question a Jehovah’s Witness would ask. 😂

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