Luke–Acts is the composite work of the ''

Gospel according to Luke The Gospel of Luke), or simply Luke (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two-vol ...

'' and the ''

Acts of the Apostles The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its messag ...

'' in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

. Both of these books of the Bible are credited to

Luke People *Luke (given name), a masculine given name (including a list of people and characters with the name) *Luke (surname) (including a list of people and characters with the name) *Luke the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Luke. Also known as ...

. They also describe the narrative of those who continued to spread Christianity,

ministry of Jesus The ministry of Jesus, in the canonical gospels, begins with his baptism in the countryside of Roman Judea and Transjordan, near the River Jordan by John the Baptist, and ends in Jerusalem, following the Last Supper with his disciples.''Chri ...

and the subsequent ministry of the apostles and the

Apostolic Age Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus (–29 AD) to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles () and is thus also known as the Apostolic Age. Early Christianity ...

Authorship

Both the books of Luke and Acts are narratives written to a man named

Theophilus Theophilus is a male given name with a range of alternative spellings. Its origin is the Greek word Θεόφιλος from θεός (God) and φιλία (love or affection) can be translated as "Love of God" or "Friend of God", i.e., it is a theoph ...

. The book of Acts starts out with: "The former treatise have I made", probably referring to the Gospel of Luke. Scholars believe that they were written by the same person. Luke–Acts has sometimes been presented as a single book in published

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

s or

s, for example, in ''The Original New Testament'' (1985) and ''

The Books of the Bible ''The Books of the Bible'' is the first presentation of an unabridged committee translation of the Bible to remove chapter and verse numbers entirely and instead present the biblical books according to their natural literary structures. This ed ...

'' (2007). Luke is the longest of the four gospels and the longest book in the New Testament; together with

it makes up a two-volume work from the same author, called Luke–Acts. The cornerstone of Luke–Acts' theology is "salvation history", the author's understanding that God's purpose is seen in the way he has acted, and will continue to act, in history.

Composition and setting

It divides the history of first-century Christianity into three stages, with the gospel making up the first two of these – the arrival among men of Jesus the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of ''mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach'' ...

, from his birth to the beginning of his earthly mission in the meeting with

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

followed by his earthly ministry, Passion, death, and resurrection (concluding the gospel story ''per se''). The gospel's sources are thought to be the

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to h ...

(for the narrative of Christ's earthly life), the hypothetical sayings collection called the

Q source The Q source (also called Q document(s), Q Gospel, or Q; from german: Quelle, meaning "source") is a hypothetical written collection of primarily Jesus' sayings (λόγια : ). Q is part of the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew ...

(for his teachings), and a collection of material called the L (for Luke) source, which is found only in this gospel. The work is

Hellenized Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in th ...

and written for a

gentile Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym for ...

audience possibly, in part, to counter a

gnostic Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

understanding of history.

Marcion Marcion of Sinope (; grc, Μαρκίων ; ) was an early Christian theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ who was an entirely new, alien god, distinct from the vengeful God of Israel who had created ...

, a famous 2nd-century

heretic Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

, who used a modified form of Luke known as the

Gospel of Marcion The Gospel of Marcion, called by its adherents the Gospel of the Lord, was a text used by the mid-2nd-century Christian teacher Marcion of Sinope to the exclusion of the other gospels. The majority of scholars agree the gospel was an edited versi ...

, did not use Acts, perhaps because he was unaware of it or intentionally excluded it from his

biblical canon A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Greek , meaning " rule" or "measuring stick". The use ...

;

Irenaeus Irenaeus (; grc-gre, Εἰρηναῖος ''Eirēnaios''; c. 130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the dev ...

, a

proto-orthodox The term proto-orthodox Christianity or proto-orthodoxy is often erroneously thought to have been coined by New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, who borrowed it from Bentley Layton (a major scholar of Gnosticism and Coptologist at Yale), and desc ...

apologist, is the first to use and mention Acts, specifically against

Marcionism Marcionism was an early Christian dualistic belief system that originated with the teachings of Marcion of Sinope in Rome around the year 144. Marcion was an early Christian theologian, evangelist, and an important figure in early Christian ...

. Some scholars note that there are two versions of Luke–Acts with the longer version 10–20 percent longer than the shorter version. Scholars disagree on which came first.Carrier, Richard (2014) ''On the Historicity of Jesus'' Sheffield Phoenix Press p. 271

References

Bibliography

* * Joseph B. Tyson,
Marcion and Luke-Acts: A defining struggle
University of South Carolina Press, 2006, {{DEFAULTSORT:Luke-Acts Acts of the Apostles Christian terminology Gospel of Luke New Testament books Marcionism

Authorship

Composition and setting

See also

References

Bibliography