Raf

Did someone say South Florida?

The story would have been shocking to the people who heard Jesus tell it, but it would absolutely not have been shocking to the Christian audience that had already been exposed to the letters of Paul. You are declaring, once again with no basis in fact, that a Gentile writer would include this story while a Jewish writer would not. Would Paul have included thst story? Yes. He would. So the fact that the story is included emphatically does not prove the gospel was written by a Gentile.

Portraying Samaritans in a positive light would not have come as a shock to Jesus audience in 80-90 AD, by which time Paul's message had been made clear and the church was chock full of Gentiles. To state that Jewish writers would have ignored the story is both baseless and, frankly, insulting to them. You're actually saying the God-inspired gospel writers would have left out a story they didn't like? Really? Remind me again what God-breathed means?

Now that's the best tasting pickle I ever heard.

Steve also cited three scholars. Two had identifiable biases. The third did not. Problem is, the third scholar cited by Steve actually disagreed with him, 180 degrees. So, thus far, we have six cited scholars. Four agree that Luke did not write Luke. The other two are preachers.

The only reason that the Good Samaritan story should appear in the gospel of Luke is if it is a story Jesus told. If it is a story Jesus told, then its inclusion is a result of the fact that he told it, not that the author of the gospel was a Gentile. The only way one can argue that the Good Samaritan story establishes Luke as a Gentile is to argue that the author of the gospel invented the story, rather than Jesus. If that's the case, then you may have proved Luke was a Gentile (you haven't), but you have done so at great cost: you have impugned his reliability as someone accurately conveying the truth of what Jesus taught.

Again, non sequitur. There may be valid reasons to conclude the writer of Luke was a gentile. The presence of the Good Samaritan story is not one of them. So my post does not show bias. It merely rejects a poor argument. Here's an article I read once that doesn't prove my point but earns me clicks that no one is monitoring...

This is a non-sequitur. The presence of the Good Samaritan story does not prove the author of Luke was a Gentile. The identification of the author of Luke as a Gentile does not limit the possible authors to Luke. And neither establishes that the gospel is God-breathed.

I was going to post this in the other thread, but decided it was more at home here: One piece of evidence mentioned by Steve regarding Luke interviewing Mary concerns Luke 8: 19-21 This incident, we are told by Steve, would have been seared into Mary's memory, and serves as evidence that Luke interviewed Mary. The problem with that assertion is that this episode is lifted wholly from the gospel of Mark, and no one is claiming Mark interviewed Mary. Mark 3: 31-35 If Mark could have gotten this second-hand (and no one is suggesting he interviewed Mary), then Luke could have gotten it second-hand. And the same goes for every story about Mary in the gospel of Luke. Assuming Mary was a figure who reappeared through Jesus' ministry all the way until the end and through the ascension, there is no reason to think she did not share her recollections with others who were present at the time: Peter, her son James, John, all the other disciples and apostles. To insist that the stories about Mary in the gospel of Luke prove he interviewed Mary is untenable. Alternate explanations better account for Luke's errors while maintaining the position that Luke did interview eyewitnesses (which, again, he never actually claims. By the time "Luke" is writing, enough other gospels have been produced that he feels the need to sort them out and get to the truth, a task at which he fails, though not for lack of effort). Luke's heavy reliance on the gospel of Mark is not coincidental. It is systematic. Mark is not just "a" source, it is a MAJOR source. Why would someone who interviewed witnesses independently then turn around and use a second-hand source like Mark for the backbone of his account? It makes no sense. Luke 1:1-2 That term, "handed down to us," implies the passage of time. Most scholars place the writing of Luke after 80 AD. Peter is long dead. Paul is long dead. MOST of the apostles are long dead. There were VERY few people around to interview who were actually eyewitnesses. Luke claims to have done some investigating, but he never says or hints that interviews with eyewitnesses were part of his investigation. We don't know when Mary died, but we do know that she was of child-bearing age when Jesus was born (duh). So assuming 3 B.C. as Jesus' birthdate, by the time Luke starts writing, Mary is at least 95 years old. Life expectancy at the time was not high. Certainly not 95. Possible that someone lived that long? Sure. But you're straining credibility unless you have some real evidence. For what it's worth, Catholic tradition places the assumption of Mary at 41 AD or so. I don't put any stock in that, but it's worth mentioning at least. When you learn history from historians, you get history. When you learn history from theologians, you get history*. History* may be valuable, and it may overlap with history, but you can't escape the fact that there's an agenda at work. Most "Bible scholars" are not historians. They are theologians. They have an agenda. Peer review is one way you get experts to call out other experts. But when it comes to Biblical studies, this is complicated by the vast number of people who approach the information with a bias. You're still able to get widespread agreement on the facts, but on the conclusions, it gets sketchy. So by all means, compare what the experts say. But, for example, when you cite Nelson's Bble Dictionary to prove Luke wrote Luke, understand that you are NOT looking at an unbiased source. The unbiased sources are those with no vested interest in the conclusion, and they overwhelmingly agree that Luke did not write Luke. Yes, I'm getting this second-hand. So is Steve. Neither of us have polled Bible scholars. But here's what we do know: I found three scholars without even trying. At least one IS a theologian, so his conclusion that Luke did not write Luke is especially credible because it goes against his natural bias, which would be to affirm Lucan authorship. Instead, he admits what I've repeatedly stated here: "most contemporary critical scholars remain unconvinced that Luke-Acts was written by a companion of Paul..." He goes on to list the reasons, including the contradictions with Paul's undisputed letters, the theological differences with Paul, etc). The author of Luke, had he been a companion of Paul, would have had access to Paul's letters (and if it were Luke, he would have been present for the writing of at least one!). It would be, therefore, inexcusable for him to contradict Paul on key aspects of Paul's life. Yet he does. More later.

Did he ever play a stork in a Vlasik pickle commercial? Willing to bet your life on it?

It would make much more sense to conclude that Luke interviewed people who got the Nativity story second hand. Such second or even third hand witnesses are far more likely to have made the kinds of actual errors we see in Luke (although why they left out the return from Nazareth to Bethlehem to rendezvous with the Magi, the flight to Egypt, the return from Egypt, the decision not to return to a place where they did not live and instead to settle in their old home in Nazareth for the first time... again... is anybody's guess).

Again with Luke interviewing Mary? If Luke interviewed Mary, he would not have gotten the facts surrounding the Nativity so demonstrably wrong. The internal evidence suggests he did not interview Mary. Mary would have known that Jesus was already in third grade by the time of the census when Luke says he was born. Mary would have known the census did not force her to travel with Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem. If you want to ignore the evidence and insist Luke wrote the gospel because someone said so 100 years after the fact, you go right ahead. But insisting as fact that Luke interviewed Mary goes from faith to fantasy.

Raul Julia Tequila Sunrise Mel Gibson

A helpful reminder, but it doesn't get us to the point of asserting that the gospel of Luke, for one example, is God-breathed. Is it useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness? Sure it is. But so are Steve Lortz' posts. Are they God-breathed? How about the God's Reconciliation thread? Is THAT God-breathed? Clearly, in context, God-breathed is a quality that differentiates the Holy Scriptures from other writings. Its usefulness for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness stems from its origin as God-breathed. But that only works one way. When something is God-breathed, it will serve those purposes. BUT it doesn't work the other way around: just because something serves those purposes doesn't mean it's God-breathed! So the central question remains unanswered: "Luke" (whoever he was) explicitly says writing his gospel was his idea. Nothing he says offers the slightest shred of evidence that it is God-breathed (even if one were to concede that it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness). In fact, assuming Paul wrote II Timothy (spoiler alert: he didn't), you would have to conclude that the "God-breathed" verse preceded the writing of the gospel of Luke by roughly 20 years (exact dates being unavailable, Paul dies in 64, and Luke is written somewhere between 80-90. So we "know" II Timothy is not referring to Luke (or any of the gospels) when it says all scripture is God-breathed. Put these together: 1. The gospels are written after the verse declaring all scripture to be God-breathed. The verse is not talking about the gospels. 2. Luke, the only gospel that talks about how it came into being, does not make a claim to be God-breathed. 3. A work can be useful for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness without being God-breathed. How can one argue that the gospels are God-breathed? And if/when one does make the argument, what does it MEAN? I give fundamentalists credit for attaching a testable meaning to God-breathed (without error or contradiction), but the gospels themselves fail that test (they are neither without error nor without contradiction). So THAT definition is out. This is a matter of faith. If you believe it's God-breathed, more power to you. But I don't see how you get there from the evidence we have.

One of the issues you have to contend with while exploring the issue of who wrote the books and letters of the Bible is preconception: What does the observer consider "on the table" and what is considered "of the table" in terms of consideration. For someone who already considers authorship to be off the table for consideration, no amount of evidence will suffice to dissuade, and flimsy evidence in support of such a person's position will be exalted. Thus, the fact that numerous church fathers cited the gospel of Luke without an identifying author's name until the first mention of his name is made A FULL CENTURY after the gospel was written, somehow becomes incontravertible. This is, of course, ridiculous. The names of the gospels were attached to bestow authority on them, not the other way around. We actually SEE this with other gospels. John, for example, is attributed to an apostle, even though the writer of the gospel flat out tells the reader that he is not providing a first person account (he refers to the disciple-source in the third person and the body of believers in the first person plural). Whoever wrote John, it was not John. Mark? Read it with a map. This gospel was not written by someone who was familiar with Palestinian geography, which Mark would have been. Whoever wrote Mark, it wasn't Mark. An early church father describes the gospel of Mark as containing everything Peter told Mark about Jesus. Everything. EVERYTHING? It barely has anything! It's the shortest and least detailed of the gospels, and the details it does contain are problematic. In one section, Jesus walks from Texas to Florida, stopping on the way in Chicago. I might have the place names mixed up, but the upshot of the story is the same. But don't trust me on Mark's errors. Trust Matthew and Luke: They try desperately to fix them. Go ahead. Do a side-by-side comparison. This demonstrates that whatever the gospel of Mark is, it is not the document described by an early church father as having been written by Peter's companion Mark. This same church father (I want to say Papias, but don't hold me to that) describes the gospel written by Matthew as merely a collection of Jesus' sayings. Oh, and it was written in Hebrew or Aramaic. I'll double check that and get back to you. . Two problems. One: That doesn't describe the gospel of Matthew. It's much more than just sayings. And Matthew was indisputably written in Greek, no matter what Wierwille or Lamsa claim. So Papias refers to a gospel of Matthew and a gospel of Mark, but the gospels we have today with those names are clearly not the documents of which Papias spoke. Horrors! So the gospel of Mark is written in Greek by someone unfamiliar with Palestinian geography. Attributed to Mark to confer authenticity, though the document itself contains no such attribution. Matthew is written in Greek, does not match what the early church father says Matthew wrote, but whatever. The gospel of Matthew also plagiarizes from the gospel of Mark. Relentlessly. Not something you would expect an eyewitness to do, copying the second-hand information of someone who wasn't there. At least he tries to fix some of Mark's geographical errors. Luke is written by someone who really wants you to think he was Paul's companion, but he disagrees with Paul on so many crucial issues that you have to conclude he considered Paul a liar (and the feeling was apparently mutual, considering that Paul implies the Acts writer's account of his history is a blatant lie). So was Luke a companion of Paul? Well, Colossians says he was. Problem is, a lot of scholars don't think Paul wrote Colossians. Or Ephesians. Or II Thesallonians. Or I and II Timothy. But back to Colossians, if Paul did not write this letter, then the identifications of Luke as a physician and a gentile are forgeries. You can't hang history on a forgery. Of course, if you're looking at the evidence, you may or may not reach the same conclusion. But if you've already concluded that the authorship of Colossians is off the table, then shucks, there's nothing to argue, is there? And John TELLS YOU he wasn't an apostle, and therefore could not have been the apostle John. He uses the third person to talk about the beloved disciple, and the first person to differentiate himself from that person. (This, of course, assumes the beloved disciple IS John. If he is someone other than John, then the identification of John as the author of the gospel of John becomes even MORE problematic: An apostle claiming he got his information from a disciple who was not an apostle). None of the gospels were written by the people whose names they bear. Disinterested scholars know this and teach this. Biased scholars know this and hide it.

If Luke contains historical errors (and it does) and the author of Luke does not claim divine inspiration (and he doesn't), by what reckoning is the gospel considered God-breathed? And what does "God-breathed" mean?

A most excellent second gurgitation of that which has only been stated on multiple occasions, though I have to admit the absence of fresh content not already discussed is refreshing. Anyway, so, Luke wrote Luke. What does that have to do with it being god breathed?

Error

What is the significance of bias when it comes to evaluating a scholarly work? One of the first things we need to consider is whether the bias is relevant to the work itself. No one wonders about the intellectual biases of the writers of a math textbook, for example. But when we're dealing with questions of who wrote the various books of the Bible, bias does indeed come into play. An evangelical will be predisposed to accepting traditional claims of authorship, and reluctant to consider evidence to the contrary. This agenda is VERY difficult to overcome, because the consequences for the biased scholar have the potential to be profound. It is not fair to dismiss an evangelical conclusion just because it's an evangelical conclusion, but you really have to at least account for the bias and make sure you're not being too permissive. But what about the reverse? Is an agnostic like Bart Ehrman predisposed to rejecting traditional claims of authorship because he has an anti-Christian agenda? In Ehrman's case, the answer is demonstrably "no." Why? Because, to begin with, Ehrman did not enter the field of textual studies as an agnostic. He entered as an evangelical, determined to REFUTE those who were challenging such concepts as traditional authorship. If anything, his bias went the other way for a significant period of time. Further, and this is crucial, embracing traditional authorship does nothing to undermine agnosticism or atheism. Ehrman (and I) could believe without hesitation that Luke wrote Luke-Acts, and it would not change or affect his (or my) underlying beliefs. Ehrman has no quibble with the authorship of several Pauline epistles, but that doesn't seem to have any effect on his agnosticism (or my atheism). He is (and I am) willing to accept the evidence that Luke is not the author of Luke-Acts because the evidence FOR such a claim is simply not there (in fact, the evidence is the opposite of there, if you're being objective about it). So what's the problem? Well, the problem is that if someone were to reject the traditional authorship models to advance an atheist agenda, there doesn't seem to be a ready way to distinguish such a rejection from an intellectually honest one. So here are some things to look for in evaluating ANYONE. 1. Identify the bias. 2. Consider what's at stake for the scholar if the evidence undermines the scholar's preconceived positions. 3. Consider whether the scholar embraces the evidence EVEN THOUGH it undermines the scholar's preconceived positions. When you have something like that, you can often bank on it. I posted a while back about an evangelical who considers Luke 2 a serious problem because of the Quirinian census issue. He rejects a number of attempts by other evangelicals to reconcile the passage with history, convincingly, even though doing so undermines his position that the gospel of Luke is God-breathed in the sense of being without error. He won't twist the facts to suit his agenda. I remain impressed with his honesty. 4. When the scholar holds a position that confirms his bias, check to see whether he's given the alternative view fair consideration. This is usually where you'll find trouble. 5. Consult peer-review. It's there for a reason. In the case of the authorship of Luke, the first sign we see of someone attributing the gospel to Luke is a full 100 years after the gospel is said to have been written. There are no alternatives, but the fact that it takes 100 years to attach an author to the work is problematic to say the least. Other problems to take into consideration are the historical problems with Luke (that would not have been there had he interviewed people who were eyewitnesses to what took place), his disagreement with Paul about the events of Acts, and the growing body of scholarship questioning the authorship of Colossians and II Timothy. This last bit is crucial. If Paul didn't write Colossians, then the basis for Luke as a Gentile physician is a forgery. Now, will you expect an evangelical to look at the evidence regarding Colossians and conclude that it's forged? Probably not. So if you are an evangelical, you're going to have to check your bias before you look at the evidence. Because everyone else will be. More later.

And you did so AFTER I stated I was starting another thread to keep this one from getting derailed. So, if you're not going to question the authorship of Luke, I'll gladly let it go here. No, I'm not going to poll Bible scholars. Nor am I going to dismiss them just because they are not evangelical, which is what you're suggesting we do. If you're only going to trust scholars who reached their conclusions prior to their studies, I'm not going to stop you. "Convenience," by the way, is because we all call the gospel "Luke," which is a lot shorter than "the anonymous author later claimed to be Luke without a scrap of evidence in favor and significant evidence to the contrary." Theology is not history. I think it's hilarious that scholarship that supports what I've been saying is so routinely dismissed on these threads without actually being refuted. Regardless, I think my decision to move this thread has been vindicated. By the way, yes, I do believe a student at a Christian University who does not challenge the Lucan authorship of the Gospel of Luke will pass. I would be shocked if you didn't.

You asked me to prove it on THIS thread.

Please do. And when you do, isolate scholars with a theological agenda from those without one. The results will NOT surprise you.

Ok. Done.

But again, we still have no reason to insist, or even conclude tentatively, that interviewing eyewitnesses was a part of this careful investigation. In fact, we have every reason to believe it did NOT include an interview with the eyewitness Mary, who would have known that there was no census that required Joseph to bring her pregnant self from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem because he had an ancestor who lived there a millenium ago! PURE speculation. Not a scrap of evidence to back it up, and every reason to believe otherwise. This, of course, proves nothing at all, not even a little. Second. Nice. Ehrman was close to Wright, too. It would have been. Had "Luke" (whoever he was) interviewed Mary. But there's no reason whatsoever to believe he did. Absolutely.

Fair enough, but here's the issue: When your goal as a university, or as a student, is to study theology, it is not the same as studying history. You may employ history while studying theology, but what happens when they're in conflict? Easy. Faith wins. If you are a student of theology, there is an inherent conclusion at the beginning of your study: That God (not religion, but God himself) is something that can be studied. Again, I don't know Steve's course of study, nor do I judge it. It simply helps me to understand what field I'm dealing with as I engage in this dialogue. Speaking of which, I need to finish my thought...