Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton L. Mack

Author:Burton L. Mack
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-06-19T16:00:00+00:00

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

Somewhere in the Aegean, around the year 120 C.E., a great two-volume work appeared that expanded upon the gospel story of Jesus by adding a sequel called the Acts of the Apostles. As with the other narrative gospels, we do not know anything about the author except what can be inferred from the writing itself. Later in the second century, the work was attributed to Luke, the co-worker of Paul (mentioned in Philemon 24; Col. 4:14; and 2 Tim. 4:11), just as other anonymous literature from earlier times was attributed to either the apostles or their companions in order to validate their truth. It has thus become customary to refer to the author as Luke, even though the Luke mentioned by Paul cannot have been the one who wrote this work.

From the writing it is clear that mythmaking in early Christian circles was no longer fixed solely on Jesus. Instead, interest had turned to focus on the apostles. The figure of Jesus was receding into the past, and the apostles provided the link between Jesus and the bishops, leaders of Christian congregations who were responsible for instructing the people. Luke understood what it meant for the bishops to be dependent upon the apostles for their teachings and how important it was for the apostles to have received their instructions from Jesus. As a historian, he also knew how important it was to fit Jesus and his appearance into the history of Israel and so imagine history as a whole to have had a rhyme and reason capable of accounting for the emergence of the Christian churches and their role as ethical leaven in the Roman Empire. So his story about Jesus could not highlight the sudden entrance into history of God’s son, as Mark pictured it. It would have to be a chapter in a much greater sweep of history in which God had always commissioned agents to carry out his work.

Luke’s theory was that God had always been actively engaged in a quest for an obedient people. God’s method was also clear. He had always commissioned teachers to instruct his people to be good. Luke recognized these teachers in the roles played by the Hebrew prophets and noted that they were always inspired by God’s spirit. He drew the conclusion that the holy spirit had been God’s agent throughout history, and that the holy spirit had always worked by inspiring prophet-teachers to call the people to remembrance when they forgot God’s instructions and to teach them anew when they repented. Some of the people always listened to them and obeyed, while others turned to persecute them. This had happened over and over again since the beginning. It was the same during the time of Israel, with Jesus, with the apostles, and presumably for Luke’s time as well.

For Luke, the life of Jesus was a significant moment in history because it marked the point when God’s spirit became available to all peoples, not just the Jews.

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