New Testament letter composed under the guise of a presumably lost letter of the Apostle Paul, the Epistle to the Laodiceans. The books of the New Testament were all or nearly all written by Jewish Christians—that is, Jewish disciples of Christ, who lived in the Roman Empire, and under Roman occupation. Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, is frequently thought of as an exception; scholars are divided as to whether Luke was a Gentile or a Hellenistic Jew. A few scholars identify the author of the Gospel of Mark as probably a Gentile, and similarly for
Gospel of Luke sources. Luke has both expanded Mark and refined his grammar and syntax, as Mark's Greek writing is less elegant. Some passages from Mark he has eliminated entirely, notably most of chapters 6 and 7, which he apparently felt reflected poorly on the disciples and painted Jesus too much like a magician. Despite this, he follows Mark's narrative more faithfully than does Matthew. Despite being grouped with Matthew and Mark, Luke's gospel has a number of parallels with the Gospel of John. For example, Luke uses the terms "Jews" and "Israelites" in a way unlike Mark, but like John; the figures