Talk:Authorship of Luke–Acts

Too much Bart
There's excessive weight being put on Bart Ehrman's views, which I'm inclined to suspect are largely peculiar to him. Mangoe (talk) 02:17, 7 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I took out the first reference to Ehrman's "Forged" as the article did say more or less the same thing twice, in response to your comment.Smeat75 (talk) 04:52, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Intro Needs Substantive Help
Second sentence of the intro tells us that modern scholarship "generally" rejects the view that Paul's companion wrote Luke. Third sentence tells us that many scholars from across the "theological spectrum" accept Luke as the author. Final sentence says that opinion is about evenly divided. I would suggest that none of these sentences are fully consistent with each other, and certainly Sentence Two is problematic vis-a-vis Four. The timeline of citations would seem to give priority to Sentence Two. With that said, I'm not a scholar in the field, so I can't sort this out myself, and the later footnotes suggest that at the very least, a substantial minority still argues Luke is the author. An issue to watch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnOxendine (talk • contribs) 20:27, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made an attempt to synthesize these sentences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.80.150.150 (talk) 14:35, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe that the introduction truly represents the view of scholarship to date. The majority, even if only a small one, accept Luke as the author, with only a few exceptions. This is very evident through even a small amount of research. I would recommend the final sentence of the introduction is removed or rewritten to accurately represent modern scholarship. If you disagree, I suggest you cite a source that affirms the statement given it argues a point that contradicts previous views on the topic.

ResearchEd 128.243.2.141 (talk) 21:57, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I have reinstated the changes I made to the introduction after a re-edit. I have included a strong source that clearly indicates the facts of the matter and is much more accurate than the original statement. Any reversal of this would require a source greater than Bruce, and without one would be against WP policy. ResearchEd 128.243.53.5 (talk) 13:51, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Constant edits to the introduction
There has been quite a lot of re-editing happening in the final sentence of the introduction. The Bruce source that is referenced is indisputable and therefore the user who is continuing to remove it and push their own invalid agenda claiming that "contemporary scholars reject this view" is not only breaking WP Policy but deliberately ignoring researched evidence. Can anyone advise as to an action to take to prevent this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.198.127.32 (talk) 13:36, 7 January 2016‎ (UTC)


 * My latest edits reflect the state of current scholarship; I cite the The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce Metzger, which is about as good of a source as one can get in this respect. I understand you wish to advance a certain apologetic agenda, and therefore have, without explanation, removed this, but Wikipedia is not the venue at which to do so. Euphiletos (talk) 13:55, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I have read through your source, thank you for providing it. Whilst the chapter by Fitzmyer partially agrees with you, the chapter you actually cite about Acts by Bruce disagrees with you. Apart from the fact that Bruce is more advanced and respected than Fitzmyer, your source also has no consensus on its position. You should therefore have no issue with the use of "some" as opposed to "most" on this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.243.2.141 (talk) 10:56, 12 January 2016‎ (UTC)


 * You seem confused about the edits you're reverting: my latest says "this has been challenged by many modern scholars", rather than "most modern scholars". Fitymer (whom I didn't cite, by the way) wholly agrees with this, insofar as he states that most scholars reject Lucan authorship of the Gospel of Luke. The entry (not chapter) I cited by Bruce does not disagree with this (as we would expect, given this is a single edited volume), not commenting on what most scholars believe at all. Bruce does make clear, however, that a significant proportion of scholars reject Lucan authorship of Acts. To say that merely "some" scholars dispute the traditional attribution is misleading at best, and dishonest at worst; "many" is far more accurate.Euphiletos (talk) 17:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with everything you said, up to the point where you say "Bruce does make clear that a significant proportion of scholars reject Lucan authorship" - can you point me to where that's made clear in the source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.243.15.67 (talk) 17:42, 12 January 2016‎ (UTC)

Different Author theory?
I've read there are a handful of experts that think Luke and Acts were different people. Is there anything on it or is it so fringe that it is not worth mentioning?--2606:A000:7D44:100:ACE5:627:79AA:3F16 (talk) 13:08, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * i would guess, so fringe not worth mentioning. For that to be the case, the author of Acts would gave to have been writing pseudonymously as....the anonymous author of the gospel, who from the gospel alone does not even appear to be anyone notable. (All of the 'hints' that the author IS someone notable, i.e., possibly Luke, are in Acts). And Acts is clearly meant to be taken as written by the same author as the gospel, therefore there's no logical explanation other than they're written by the same person. Firejuggler86 (talk) 22:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Mark Matson
I've removed the section named "21st Century..." because it was a word for word plagiarism of an Amazon book named "In Dialogue With Another Gospel?: The Influence of the Fourth Gospel on the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of Luke" which makes me think either the section was spam (it included the ISBN number) and that whoever added this section just copied and pasted the section without re-writing it in encyclopedic style. To see what the section said (other than looking at the history of the page) please go to the amazon page of the book and look at the only review it has. On top of that, it makes a claim that flies in the face of modern scholarship which needs to be peer-reviewed by someone before it gets included in here I'd say. Monkeytheboy (talk) 02:06, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Language
It's strange that no thought is given to the language the author used. Was he fluent in Greek? Or was he heavy on Semitisms? Are there typically Hebrew or Aramaic words, neologisms or constructions in the text? Does he rely on the Hebrew Bible or Septuagint translations for Old Testament quotations? Michael B. Shepherd (2018) p. 52 suggests that "Luke" was the only NT author whose native language was not Aramaic. If so, is there a noticeable linguistic difference between the Marcan, Q, and unique Luke-Acts (L Sondergut) material? Presumably, the Synoptic parts shared with Mark and Matthew would be full of Semitisms, whereas the rest might not if "Luke" composed it himself. I'll try and look into this issue later. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)