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Luke the historian, in the light of research
Luke the historian in the light of research Author:A. T. Robertson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE DATE OF THE GOSPEL AND THE ACTS "And he abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling, and received all that went in unto him, preaching ... more »the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him" (Acts 28 : 30-31). 1. The Atmosphere of the First Century.—It may now be stated definitely that the second-century date for the Gospel and Acts has been abandoned save by a small number of exceedingly radical critics. The general acceptance of the Lukan authorship of the two books disposes of the Baur theory that it was a religious romance written for the purpose of reconciling the opposition between Peter and Paul. The notion that Luke's Gospel made use of that of Marcion has been given up. It is now known that Marcion used a mutilated edition of Luke's Gospel. Blass1 holds that Marcion had the Western text of Luke's Gospel. The arguments for the second century (105-130) are given at length by Schmiedel (Enc. Biblica) and by Holtzmann.2 It is argued that the author made use of Paul's Epistles, of Josephus, that he imitated Plutarch's Lines in his picture of Peter and Paul, that he reflects the atmosphere of second-century ecclesiasticism and takes interest in the political side of the Roman Empire. It must be confessed that these are not very weighty or very serious arguments. It is by no means certain that he used Paul's Epistles, but what if he did? Certainly the political outlook of the Acts is precisely that of Paul's Epistles (Headlam, Hastings's D. B., art. "Acts"), but surely that argues for the early date. As to Josephus, that is more important and will call for discussion a bit later. But that can be true and the author still be Luke. The possible use of Josephus bears on the date of the Acts, ...« less