(x.) Incidents connected with the welcome of Jesus on his journey, (ix. 51–x. 42), including the mission and return of seventy messengers sent ahead in pairs (comparable to the mission of the twelve related by Mark, Matthew and even Luke). The rejection in one village by the Samaritans and the reception in another by Martha.
(xi.) Talk with a lawyer about the duty of love to God and neigh bour (compare a like incident in Mark xii. 28-31 and Matt. xxii. 34-40) and illustration of neighbourliness in parable of the good Samaritan.
Out of the long and interesting section that follows, full of various teachings of Jesus recorded not at all in Mark and only about half of them in Matthew, may be mentioned as peculiar to Luke: the widow and the unjust judge (xviii. 1-5) ; the Pharisee and the publican (xviii. 9-14) ; (c) with the recovery of the lost: the sheep (also in Matt.), the coin, the prodigal son (xv.) ; the fruitless fig tree ()chi, 6-9).
(iii.) Incidents associated with local rulers or current history: the Galileans slain by Pilate; those injured by fall of tower of Siloam (xiii. 1-5) ; reply to warning about Herod (xiii. 31-33).
From the later part of the gospel may be mentioned as peculiar to Luke the story of Zacchaeus at Jericho (xix. i–io) and the dis closure of the risen Jesus to two disciples walking to Emmaus (xxiv. 13-35). Many details in the familiar and continuous series of events from Jesus' entry into Jerusalem until of ter his death are peculiar to Luke.
The remaining contents of Luke show considerable over lapping with Matthew and Mark. The passages most closely parallel with Mark occur in Luke in the same order as in Mark, and are usually continuous, as iv. ; v. 19; viii. 4–ix. 5o; xviii. 55-43; xix. 29–xxiv. II, the last section with some notable additions and variations. Most of this material occurs also in Matthew in nearly the same order. There are besides a con siderable number of passages which Luke shares with Matthew alone, but in these agreement of order is less frequent.
In nearly every case of agreement of subject matter mentioned there is a considerable though varying agreement in wording. These likenesses are generally believed to be due to some literary relationship between the three gospels, and the question to be solved is called the Synoptic problem. The solution that has come into most general favour is (I ) that Mark was written first and was employed as a source by both Matthew and Luke, and (2) that further material appearing alike in Matthew and Luke was derived by them ultimately from a common written source. (See GOSPEL.)
The Sources of Luke.—The sources are thus disclosed in part by comparison with the other gospels. One of them was our Gospel of Mark. Possibly the form of Mark used by Luke differed in more than slight detail from our Mark. For example, since Luke followed and used nearly everything in our Mark except Mark vi. 47 to viii. 26, it may be conjectured that the copy of Mark which he used did not contain those seventy-three verses. But it is also possible that he omitted them. He habitually copies out Mark in blocks. In this instance he may have omitted, consciously or by accident, a solid block of Mark's material.
Some other omissions by Luke of Mark's material are best explained by supposing that of certain episodes in Mark he had an alternative version which he preferred and substituted, not always inserting it in exactly the same place. In the early part of his gospel he uses just such alternative accounts of the tempta tion of Jesus, of the call of four fishermen, of the visit to Nazareth, and of the anointing by a woman. His whole account of Jesus' trial and death is sufficiently independent of Mark to permit of the suggestion that Luke is here following an inde pendent source for the whole series of events.
In any case the material which he shares with Matthew alone of the evangelists is derived from a written source other than Mark. This is generally agreed, and the common material is referred to by scholars as Q, a symbol derived from the German Quelle (source). But in what form or scope this material came to Luke is unknown. It has been usual to regard this source as a collection mainly of the sayings of Jesus as found in both Luke and Matthew, and to attribute to a third source most of the matter peculiar to Luke. The second source is often conjectured to be the Logia of Jesus, a work which Papias (c. A.D. 140) says Matthew wrote in Hebrew. The third or special Lucan source is believed by some to have been a written source with a certain homogeneity of language and interests. Another hypothesis is that practically all the material in Luke not found in Mark was already collected into a kind of gospel or Proto-Luke when at last it was combined with Mark by the simple method of inserting blocks of Mark into it.