who was the book of luke written to
Gospel of Luke Luke was written to be read aloud to a group of Jesus-followers gathered in a house to share the Lord's supper.[18] The author assumes an educated Greek-speaking audience, but directs his attention to specifically Christian concerns rather than to the Greco-Roman world at large.[24] He begins his gospel with a preface addressed to "Theophilus": the name means "Lover of God," and could be an individual or simply any Christian. Here he informs Theophilus of his intention, which is to lead his reader to certainty through an orderly account "of the events that have been fulfilled among us."[16] He did not, however, intend to provide Theophilus with a historical justification of the Christian faith – "did it happen?" – but to encourage faith – "what happened, and what does it all mean?"[25]
Gospel The consensus among modern scholars is that the gospels belong to the ancient genre of bios, or biography.[44] Ancient biographies were concerned with providing examples for readers to emulate while preserving and promoting the subject's reputation and memory, and so they included both propaganda and kerygma (preaching) in their works.[45] Mark, for example, is not biography in the modern sense but an apocalyptic history depicting Jesus caught up in events at the end of time.[46] As Luke's attempt to link the birth of Jesus to the census of Quirinius demonstrates, there is no guarantee that the gospels are historically accurate.[5] The gospel authors altered the traditions at their disposal (their sources) to serve their own ends â€” thus Matthew and Luke have frequently edited Mark, and the contradictions and discrepancies between John and the synoptics make it impossible to accept both as reliable[4] A second problem is that the gospels as we have them are not the originals, but have been edited and recopied over time, and evidently differ from them in thousands of ways.[47] In that long chain of transmission the texts have been corrupted, leading Origen to complain in the 3rd century that "the differences among manuscripts have become great, ... [because copyists] either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please."[48] Despite all this, scholars are confident that the gospels do provide a good idea of the public career of Jesus, and that critical study can attempt to distinguish the ideas of Jesus from those of later authors and editors.[6]
Gospel of Luke Luke–Acts does not name its author.[5] According to Church tradition this was Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, but while this view is still occasionally put forward the scholarly consensus emphasises the many contradictions between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters.[6][7] The most probable date for its composition is around 80–110 AD, and there is evidence that it was still being revised well into the 2nd century.[8]
New Testament Collections of related texts such as letters of the Apostle Paul (a major collection of which must have been made already by the early 2nd century)[7] and the Canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (asserted by Irenaeus of Lyon in the late-2nd century as the Four Gospels) gradually were joined to other collections and single works in different combinations to form various Christian canons of Scripture. Over time, some disputed books, such as the Book of Revelation and the Minor Catholic (General) Epistles were introduced into canons in which they were originally absent. Other works earlier held to be Scripture, such as 1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Diatessaron, were excluded from the New Testament. The Old Testament canon is not completely uniform among all major Christian groups including Roman Catholics, Protestants, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Slavic Orthodox Churches, and the Armenian Orthodox Church. However, the twenty-seven-book canon of the New Testament, at least since Late Antiquity, has been almost universally recognized within Christianity (see Development of the New Testament canon).