Talk:Luke the Evangelist

Proposed Section Removal

Rather than split discussion of Luke's writings between this page and Historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles, I suggest we rename that page to 'Historical reliability of Luke / Acts', link to it from here and remove the entire 'Accurate Historian' section from this article, incorporating the information into the other article. I would welcome comments from others before doing this though. Giford (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Tradition

• • Who was Theophilus ? Many Greek Orthodox sites mention that Theophilus was a SON of St. Luke, and that he was governor of Achaia. This bombshell could lead to multiple paths for the Lukian student : who was Luke's wife, were there other siblings? We might be assisted in more accurately dating Luke's Writings.Through my extensive research on Luke, I have come to the conclusion that he was the first writer to realize and develop the Codex type document as a valuable form for preserving important documentation- as opposed to contemporary use by students of the codex merely as a notebook.Much more to come. 72.208.86.28 (talk) 02:54, 5 July 2011 (UTC)Tony Conyers

[[Christian tradition? Most Christians,and especially Catholics, do not revere icons, and therefore would probably not hold to this tradition. Does the author mean Easter Orthodox tradition?

Yes, it's an Orthodox tradition at least; I'm surprised to hear that about the Catholics. Our local Roman Catholic bookstore keeps a few icons in stock, as well as statues, crosses, crucifixes, medallions, etc. I believe it's run or co-managed by a devout Irish Catholic. Wesley 04:47, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)]]

Accurate historian

Someone should have a look at the chapter on his historical accuracy and corect to be less biased and (I assume) incorrect. I do not believe he is as accurate as claimed. His birth narrative in the Gospel is all wrong for example, with a census of the entire world that has left no trace in other sources and which would have been a logistical nightmare (Ie claiming that everyone had to return to their ancetor's city) and with a governor of Syria that was governor until well after the events narrated. But I am not competent to point out other errors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.229.231.115 (talk) 10:40, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You're an editor, albeit an anonymous one. Have at it. Brain Rodeo (talk) 01:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with anon above - this is very pov and seems to gloss over a lot of errors in Luke - Luke 3:1-2, f'rinstance, has Pilate and Annas in power simultaneously, which is wrong according to their Wiki entries. I'm reluctant to make the edit myself, though, as I'm sure there must be others who are more knowledgable than me. Giford (talk) 13:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have gone ahead and added a section on non-Apologetic views of Luke as a historian. This is the first time I have made an edit of this scale, so apologies for any formatting problems, etc. Giford (talk) 17:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Edited again to add in references (rather than linking to other Wikipedia pages) Giford (talk) 17:41, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, should add - most of the refs I have taken from other the other Wikipedia pages I previously linked to - so I have not checked them myself. But I don't think they're saying anything remotely controversial anyway. Giford (talk) 17:45, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Someone has been in to give a potential partial solution to one of the dating problems, proposing that there were 2 High Priests in one year (Annas and Caiaphas) because Caiaphas succeeded Ananus that year. The supporting link quotes Josephus thus: "Gratus removed Annas from the high priesthood and then appointed Joseph Caiaphas to the office. Gratus retired to Rome after being in Judea for eleven years. He was succeeded by Pontius Pilate."

However, the online text of Josephus (JA 18.35) reads: "This man [Gratus] deprived Ananus of the high priesthood, and appointed Ismael, the son of Phabi, to be high priest. He also deprived him in a little time, and ordained Eleazar, the son of Ananus, who had been high priest before, to be high priest; which office, when he had held for a year, Gratus deprived him of it, and gave the high priesthood to Simon, the son of Camithus; and when he had possessed that dignity no longer than a year, Joseph Caiaphas was made his successor. When Gratus had done those things, he went back to Rome, after he had tarried in Judea eleven years, when Pontius Pilate came as his successor."

It seems that the source quoted entirely misquotes Josephus, who explicitely states that at least 2 years and 3 High Priests separated Ananus from Caiaphas. The Wikipedia List of High Priests of Israel follows Josephus on this. So I don't know where this idea that Josephus says Caiaphas directly followed Annanus comes from? I'm going to further change this section of the article. If anyone knows better than me (which is entirely possible), please comment here and alter the article as appropriate. Giford (talk) 10:05, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it is time to deal with the unreferenced historical issues which seem to have originated as original research on to self-published polemic websites. Furthermore, I do not see going through the historicity of Luke-Acts on this page as being relevant. The discussions are on the respective pages.--Ari89 (talk) 02:01, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Now that the section links to Historical Reliability of Acts there is really no reason for individual examples on the page. It is simply not the purpose.--Ari89 (talk) 18:23, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree partly. Some of the examples on this page refer to the Gospel, not Acts, and thus are not covered in the Acts page. My intent in updating this page was to remove the pro-Luke bias; I prefer to do that by adding explanation to restore balance rather than by deleting large chunks of info, but am happy to follow the lead of more active Wikipedians on this. Giford (talk) 12:58, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm so Ari89 has removed (almost) this whole section. This (a) leaves the entry very nearly as unbalanced as it was before, and (b) means the ref to 'see note on titles below' earlier in the section no longer has a referent.

I suggest there are 2 options here: 1) revert Ari89's changes, or 2) delete (or greatly reduce) the section on Luke as a historian to cut back on the apologetics. The discussion as I understand it is over whether this section duplicates the 'Historicity of Acts' entry, *not* whether we should have a screenfull of text defending Luke and only a couple of lines mentioning the problems - particularly if scholarly opinion does not hold Luke to be unusually reliable. 93.97.106.42 (talk) 21:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

(forgot to sign in; that was from me Giford (talk) 21:09, 3 November 2009 (UTC))

Go ahead and clean it up. However, there is absolutely no reason for the article on 'Luke the Evangelist' to be dedicated to multiple claims of historical errors.--Ari89 (talk) 09:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think almost the entire section should be deleted. Most of the information is included in the Historical Reliability of Acts article. I also think quotes from obvious Christian apologists are of little value except as information about what some people think about the Acts of the Apostles and are therefore out of scope for this section. The facts seem to be roughly: 1. Acts contains some accurate historical details and some probably inaccurate historical details. 2. Acts contains some apparent conflicts with Paul's epistles. 3. Acts contains information about private conversations for which it seems the author of Acts could not have been present.

I think this section should convey some kind of summary that roughly covered the facts above and refer the reader to the Historical Reliability of Acts article for more details. --Davefoc (talk) 16:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

As noted before, I am generally opposed to deleting information. Also, the Acts article does not cover Luke's other work, the Gospel. And to respond directly to Ari89, there is a reason to include the errors - to balance the multiple claims of historical accuracy. As it stands, this article is not balanced. Giford (talk) 01:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Minor edit to remove 'some' was me - forgot to sign in! NB: if anyone knows how to add a disputed neutrality tag, I would suggest that is probably relevant at this stage. I have also done some general tidying up of references and added back in some of the previously removed data that doesn't seem to be in any of the directly linked articles. Giford (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The only major neutrality issue here seems to be your creative license in inventing a "consensus" that only a handful of scholars would agree with. If you are that out of touch with scholarship on Luke-Acts it really does call into question the usefulness of the direction you would like to push the article into. --Ari89 (talk) 14:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Have added a number of references to support this point, including one referring to the 'great majority of scholars'. I have also removed the 'who' tag after the first para, as I think we have several examples from each side now. Giford (talk) 14:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Lovely attempt at trying to change the topic there, Giford. But arguing that Acts is like other ancient historical works doesn't seem to support the fanciful consensus of yours that Luke relied on Josephus.--Ari89 (talk) 15:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Mmm, I could have sworn I wrote that the consensus was that Luke is not infalliable - which is why I found a ref to support that. But looking back, I can see you are right and I did not write what I thought I had. Sorry, my mistake. But I have to say that there does seem to be a certain theme to your edits too - you have deleted wholesale my original edit listing (claimed) errors on the grounds that some (but not all) are listed in other entries. You have inserted hedges such as 'some' into quotes to play down their claims, changed 'impossibilities' to 'improbabilities' and phrased it to appear that only those who think Luke is based on Josephus think Luke misquotes his sources. You have removed the academic qualifications of nearly every source I quoted. You have deleted sizeable chunks of the text I quoted without comment, including significant points such as the population of Jerusalem vs Luke's estimate of Christians. And you have edited out the comment on consensus I introduced above, paraphrasing 'the great majority of scholars' as 'most commentators' and cutting the phrase about 'seriously distorted'.

I make no claim to be a Lukan expert - see my initial comment in this thread - but I don't see any justification for these sweeping deletions of what - as far as I can tell - are uncontroversial and well-referenced claims. I have no particular 'direction' I would like to 'push' this article in, but I do think that more complete and balanced information should be a prerequisite. I hope you will note that I have deleted nothing of significance from this article. I suggest a 'cooling off period' - I will make no further changes for a few days, and request you do the same. We can then come back to it with fresh eyes and work towards something that presents both sides of this debate with, if possible, quotes indicating the relative prominence of the viewpoints. You are welcome to email me if you think an offline discussion would help straighten this out - try my username at Hotmail, with a .co.uk extension. If, after all that, neither of us can accept the other's changes, I suggest we will need to get an editor involved. As mentioned above, I'm not a frequent Wikipedian and don't really know the protocol for that. But I don't think that personal exchanges like the above are likely to produce a worthwhile article. Giford (talk) 21:39, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

You should be editing the conspiracy theory page. Conforming to Wikipedia and encyclopaedic style by cutting down massive sections of quotes, or by removing "Professor of X at Y" shouldn't be ringing foul in anyone's ears. --Ari89 (talk) 00:55, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

My point was that while those edits may be individually justifiable, you have restricted them to one side of the debate. The longest quote (OK, technically a paraphrase) is the Hemer bullet point list, and most of the apologists have their academic credentials referenced. You have not to date seen fit to cut any of that (your comment below on Hemer notwithstanding). It is the different treatment of the two sides of the debate - perhaps unconsciously on your part - that looks like bias to me. Again I invite you to discuss this offline at the email address above, and again I repeat my remarks about personal attacks. Giford (talk) 23:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

See my last comment. --Ari 01:10, 25 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ari89 (talk • contribs)

Is anyone up for cleaning up the Colin Hemer part, preferably by dealing with the work instead of through McDowell? The dot point format really doesn't seem appropriate. If no takers, I'll have a look at the book at the end of the week. --Ari89 (talk) 14:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - it would be preferable imo if this was in a similar format and length to the other referenced scholars. Giford (talk) 14:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Luke

Anybody know why St. Luke (who was apparently a Syrian?) was named Loukas, which according to Cath. Encyc. and other sources is derived in this way: Greek Loukas<Latin Lucas<Latin Lucanus<Lucania<Lucani, the name of an ancient people of Italy who spoke an Oscan language. Alexander 007 07:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Loukas is perhaps a loan word from latin, like titlos, another (new testament) greek word. St. Luke probably have nothing to do with Lucani. St Mathew wrote the gospel (is this the english word for ευαγγέλιο?), first in Hebrew (around 40 AD) and then in Greek, St Mark and St John wrote theirs in Greek, but I don't remember about St Loukas. +MATIA ☎ 13:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

What I was wondering, when did this Lucas name (which if the etymology is correct, originally meant "a person from Lucania") come to lose its specific meaning and just become a generic name, which lost ties to its original meaning? I just find it interesting. Obviously, a Syrian would not be "from Lucania". If the etymology is correct, by St. Luke's time the name had lost all its meaning. Alexander 007 13:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's interesting but I don't know the answer. Certainly bC but when exactly? Perhaps you could search for Λουκάς in ancient greek texts ;) +MATIA ☎ 13:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is a Biblical Joke: Why did Luke not finish The Book of Acts? Give up? Because he Betrayed Paul!!! I don't know about you, but something tells me that The Pope is in some Deeeep Schnitzle!

Virtue Lord Purple 11:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The name, Luke, doesn't appear in the opening of Luke or Acts

This sentence from the beginning of the article appears to be wrong: Luke the Evangelist (Greek Λουκᾶς Loukas) is said by tradition and by the opening statement of the Acts of the Apostles to be the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, the third and fifth books of the New Testament. In Catholicism, he is patron saint of painters, physicians and healers, and his feast day is October 18.

I looked at the KJV and the ASV versions of Luke and could not find the name, Luke, in the opening statement of either of them. Is there a version of Acts that does claim to be written by Luke?

quotes from the wikipedia article on the gospel of Luke: "Although the author of Luke is generally considered to be anonymous, there is some suggestion that the author of Luke also wrote the book of Acts."

"Nowhere in Luke or Acts does it explicitly say that the author is Luke, the companion of Paul." Davefoc 23:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I modified the first sentence to remove the implication that Luke or Acts identified Luke as the Author. Davefoc 20:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Nationality and birth date

I thought that Luke was a Greek born physcian, most probably a slave. At least, I think thats what a book on Saints I read said. However this article says he was a Syrian. Neither, however, give a date, or even rough time frame, of birth. Clarification, please? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.234.66.205 (talk) 00:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC).

Saint Luke was indeed of Greek origins, this has been added with citations to the article Alazian 16:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Date of death

Saebhiar just added this sentence: Luke died, aged 84, of natural causes. His tomb is said to be in Ephesus, modern Turkey.

Perhaps Saebhiar could provide a source? It is doubtful to me that there is any aspect of Luke's life or death that history is particularly reliable on, but the notion that the age of Luke at death is known with any degree of certainty seem particularly doubtful. If he lived to 84 why didn't he finish Acts? Davefoc (talk) 04:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparently there is a tradition of his living to be 84. I've added a ref. None of my sources mention his tomb, so i cn-tagged that. I think we'd be safe deleting it soon if nothing is provided. Carl.bunderson (talk) 04:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and deleted it, finally. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 23:53, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Antioch

The article says that Luke was from Antioch in Greece, but there does not seem to be a city in Greece by that name--the city whose article the link points to, at any rate, is in Turkey. The link at least should be fixed and probably the text. Nareek (talk) 11:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Antioch is, to all accounts considering the respective time, in Syria, in what is now the Turkish Province of Hathay (which was some time non-Turkish even in the 20th century). -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.4.48.76 (talk) 23:00, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Relics of Saint Luke

In the basic text it is mentioned that the relics was brought to Padua, Italy some after 1199 which is totally wrong. Relics were in the Constantinople (today Istanbul, Turkey) until 1453 when Serbian ruler Despot Djuradj Brankovic bought them from the turkish pashas for 30.000 gold coins and brought them to Smederevo, last capital of medieval Serbian empire. After the fall of Smederevo, relics of Saint Luke were token away. It is assumed that they were token to Italy but there is no any written proof for that! 109.245.92.213 (talk) 23:36, 19 January 2011 (UTC) by Igor

The lede assumes that Luke was a writer.

It is not clear whether this article is about the author of the Gospel of Luke or Luke, the companion of Paul.

The lede states the following: "Luke the Evangelist (Greek: Λουκᾶς, Loukás) was an Early Christian writer whom Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. He is considered one of the Four Evangelists."

Is this article about the author of the Gospel of Luke that may or may not be the Luke that was a companion of Paul? Is the gist of this article supposed to be that they are the same person? My suggestion is that the article should be about Luke the companion of Paul and that it state the fact that Luke is claimed to be the author of the Gospel of Luke and it should (as it does) report who is first recorded as making that claim. I think this should be done in the lede. I would make the change but I think this might be controversial and I would like to see some kind of consensus before I made any changes.--Davefoc (talk) 03:11, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I modified the lede to eliminate the claim that Luke was a writer and to make clear that the article is about the individual referred to as Luke in three of the Pauline epistles. Right now the lede doesn't mention Iraneus who I believe is usually credited as the first person to claim that Luke, the companion of Paul, was the author of the Gospel of Luke. Perhaps it should.--Davefoc (talk) 12:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Luke The Evangelist

Wikipedia is a place for exposing the knowledge as it is currently held not to debate and take conclusions. We may argue about what is currently accepted.\

Officially, Luke is considered one of the 4 evangelists, and this is something publicly and widely (and almost universally acknowledged within secular and religious circles alike) thus this is what it has to placed in the article.

The comment of Luke "The Evangelist" being solely a "character" makes to fall the article into the following mistakes:

- bad prose: you cannot commence the article saying he is "The evangelist" just to later say he's a minor character in an epistle, that makes the reading self denying. - the point that is trying to be made by adding that "Luke is a character" in a Pauline epistle is that the Authorship is debated then again the article wouldn't be being written adequately as you're trying to imply something implicitly and not expressing it explicitly as it is expected. - There is a full article on the Luke literary works thus the debate on the authorship is covered in another article. In the lead of the article what it should go is what is acknowledged right now, which is that Luke is in fact the Author of those works. If the debate on the authorship is being debated it has to go referenced (properly) as currently being debated; If its authorship was debated in the past (as nearly all New Testament work was) then there's no need to mention it.

190.251.89.103 (talk) 17:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)