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
Matthew 3 Luke 3, also believed to be based on Mark 1. A number of passages shared by Luke and Matthew, but not found in Mark, are commonly ascribed to the hypothetical source 'Q'. The New King James Version organises this chapter as follows: The chapter opens with a portrait of John the Baptist. It describes his preaching, clothing, and diet, presenting him as a preacher in the wilderness prophesizing about the "wrath to come". The chapter then moves to a tirade, ascribed to John, against the Pharisees and Sadducees in which he warns them to repent. This includes the famous "generation