[Read more carefully before you criticize the Bible Part 4: Who wrote the Gospel of Luke?]
My Comment:
What follows is part of a continuing conversation I have been having with a person on the Internet who claims he does not believe the Gospel accounts in the New Testament represent eyewitness testimony. There are many who claim not to believe the Bible, and he is one of them.
All Christians need to be better prepared themselves, and need to better prepare their students and their children to have an answer for anyone who may ask the reason for their faith (1 Peter 3:15).
My reply to the Opening Post (8-15-24):
In the Opening Post you state that “Luke practically admits that he wasn’t an eyewitness” and you cite Luke 1:1-4.
Luke 1:1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,
Luk 1:2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;
Luk 1:3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,
Luk 1:4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.
A more careful reading on your part would have focused on verse 2, “Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;”
Luke directly states that he based his account on the testimony and record of those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning.
So, while it is true that Luke himself was not an eyewitness of the events he records in the Gospel of Luke, he based his account on the testimony of those who were.
Recall that you cited the following statement from an article for which you provided the link:
“We read :
We may never know for certain who wrote the Gospel of John, any more than we can know who wrote the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke.”
Yet you have cited a text from the Gospel of Luke and you have yourself attributed that text to Luke!
We know from what is stated in Luke and also stated in the Book of Acts that Luke is the author of both books.
Luke addressed both books to the same person, Theophilus:
Luke 1:3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,
Acts 1:1 The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
Notice that Acts 1:1 refers to “The former treatise,” which of course is the Gospel of Luke.
Luke was also the companion of Paul, as is evident from the “we” passages in the Book of Acts.
Compare Acts 16:1 which speaks of Paul, “Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus….” with Acts 16:10, “And after he had seen the vision, immediately WE endeavoured to go into Macedonia….”
This is the first of a number of “we” passages where Luke includes himself in the narrative because he was present and took part or otherwise witnessed first hand the events he records.
This is firm evidence that Luke is the author of both Luke and Acts.
There is yet more evidence that confirms the truth of the records found in the New Testament. There are what are called “undesigned coincidences” within and between these documents that report the ongoings of real-life activities and events. These reports contain information supplemental to each other. When taken together, these details fit exactly, even though contained in different documents written by different authors, or even the same author as Luke and Paul or Matthew and Luke. These coincidences are often about small details that would hardly be noticed by the casual reader, but they are there in the text. These undesigned coincidences, taken together as a whole, provide remarkable evidence of the truth and authenticity of the New Testament documents that could not have been fabricated or placed in the record on purpose. I plan to provide an example of an undesigned coincidence in my next comment about who wrote the Gospels.