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Luke’s Gospel is anonymous and never states explicitly who the author is or when it was written, therefore any conclusions about date and authorship of Luke are merely hypotheses. However these hypotheses are based upon both internal, indirect evidence and external, direct evidence. There are opposing theories about the date and authorship of Luke and it is therefore the task of the reader to determine what they believe to be the truth.
It is important to know the date of Luke’s Gospel so that scholars can understand the current context, in order to estimate the bias of the Gospel. The view currently most commonly held by scholars is that Luke’s Gospel was written around 75-85 CE/AD. ... Scholars believe that Matthew and Luke were written at approximately the same time and Matthew is dated as the early eighties AD, therefore it is thought that Luke was also written around this period. It is thought that Luke used Mark as a source and that Mark was written in 64-5AD. To allow time for Mark’s Gospel to circulate and the author of Luke’s Gospel to receive a copy, the theory is that Luke cannot have been written much before the mid-seventies AD. ...
Another reason for dating Luke’s Gospel in this period is that after 70AD and the fall of Jerusalem, Christians were being persecuted for their faith and would therefore need encouragement and a reminder about the founder of their faith, this would therefore be a very appropriate time for a Gospel to be written, however this argument could be applied to any of the Gospels.
A very convincing argument for Luke’s Gospel being written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD is the prophecies in Luke 19 v 43 ‘The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side’ and Luke 21 v 20-21 ‘When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. ... Leaney reasons that this language is very vivid and definite and therefore suggests that the siege and capture of Jerusalem are events of the past and Luke may have altered his Gospel to clarify this. Kummel is of the same opinion and claims that Luke knew about Jerusalem and adapted Jesus’ words for a Gentile audience from those used in Mark 13 v 14. It is also true to say that many Jews fled at the fall of Jerusalem as Jesus commanded them to do in Luke 21 v 21 so perhaps those were Jesus words or perhaps Luke is again altering what Jesus’ said in order for them to appear more accurate. However conservative scholars say those were the words of Jesus and because he was the Son of God he was able to predict events using very specific terminology; and yet others argue that the language might reflect Old Testament descriptions of God’s coming judgement. Another argument related to the Fall of Jerusalem is that Luke was interested in interpreting the person of Jesus as the new temple of God – this would be a very relevant theme after AD70 when the Jewish temple had been destroyed. ...
The final piece of evidence for dating Luke’s Gospel in this period is that in Acts 20 v 18 and 20 v 25 Paul expresses his conviction of never seeing the Ephesian elders again, this might show that Paul had been dead for some time and never did return to Ephesus, and that Luke was aware of this fact.
Many of these arguments eliminate a date earlier than 75AD but not a later date. ... O’Neill, to believe that Luke’s Gospel was written early in the second century.
Approximate Word count = 3145
Approximate Pages = 12.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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