A favourite argument in defence of Lucan authorship, for some years, was derived from the alleged medical expressions and interests displayed in the two writings. Few of the expressions cited, if any, are really technical, and the actual amount of matter connected with the medical profession is not so extensive as to exclude lay authorship.
Whether the author's narrative and his religious viewpoint are such as to imply first-hand contact with Paul or not, has been hotly debated. There are apparent contradictions between his earlier narratives about Paul and the biographical allusions in Paul's own letters. On the other hand, there are lifelike touches in his accounts of Paul, whether written in the first person or the third, and some striking agreements with details in the Pauline epistles. It would be rash to say of the discrepancies that no one who subsequently knew Paul could have written them, and equally rash to say of the agreements that no one except an actual associate of Paul could have written them.
So, although no conclusive internal evidence condemns the tradition of Lucan origin as erroneous, the possibility may be left open that the attribution of these writings to Luke was an early conjecture made when the real origin of the work was unknown. Luke i. I may have seemed to early readers to exclude all the apostles from the writing of the gospel, while 2 Tim. iv. i I may have seemed to exclude all the other companions of Paul from the writing of the conclusion of Acts. Since, however, the "we" appeared to indicate that the work as a whole came from some such companion, the total inference from the scriptures would fix on Luke. Elaborate conjectures on such matters were not
uncommon in the second century, and when once made of ten became unchallenged tradition.
Of the place and date at which the author wrote, little can be said with certainty. The gospel was written before Acts, though perhaps not much before. The Acts was written after the "two years" of Paul in Rome with which it closes, i.e., about A.D. 6o-62. Some have supposed that it was written immediately after and for that reason stops abruptly with a statement of the status quo. But nothing prevents a later date for both volumes. If the pro phecy of Luke xxi. was affected by the actual fulfilment in the year A.D. 7o, both volumes are at least as late as that. Neither volume shows any certain knowledge of the works of Josephus, though this has been asserted, or of Paul's letters. The gospel, as has been said, is dependent on and therefore subsequent to both Mark and other material shared by Matthew, but the exact date of neither of these predecessors is known.
Nothing certainly is known of Theophilus, to whom both gospel and Acts are addressed, but the author's purpose in writing is stated in the preface and can be read between the lines of the whole book. In like manner the contents of the books disclose more of the author's character and personality than would his name, date, or place of residence, if we knew them.
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