CAN WE TRUST THE BIBLE?

There are five crucial questions when we consider how reliable any historical document is, and whatever else the Bible is, it does claim to give historical data.  With what justification?

Here are the questions we need to ask:

1 Who wrote it? 

2 How near to the events was it written?

3 Does the author intend to be truthful?

4 Is he actually truthful or does he let                       his prejudices get in the way.

5 What do other sources say?

THE CASE OF LUKE – Part 1

1 Luke never met Jesus.  He was a gentile, probably Greek, a doctor, who became a follower of the Way, and accompanied Paul on several of his missionary journeys, e.g. at Philippi, Acts 16.  (Notice where “they” becomes “we”).

2 When Luke wrote his gospel depends entirely on when he wrote the Acts of the Apostles.  Because that is volume 2 of a 2-volume work.  I believe totally that Acts was completed while Paul was in prison in Rome, before he suffered martyrdom, or possibly before he went as an apostle to Spain, i.e. around 62 AD.  My reasons for believing this are:

a) The book tails off with Paul under house arrest in Rome.  It is quite an anti- climax to end the book with.  Some scholars say the climax is simply bringing the gospel to Rome, but it is expressly told us that there were already Christians there when Paul arrived.

b) The first 19 chapters cover a period of 25 years.  The last 8 chapters cover about 4 years, simply because Luke was there.  They are a first hand account.

c) The whole thrust of the argument of Acts is that this new Christian group should be treated as a “religio licita” – “legal religion”.  Over and over again he quotes decisions by Roman officials to show that they did not think it was an illegal religion:  (Acts 16.35-39, 17.8, 18.12-17, 19.40, 23.26-29, 25.24-25, 26.32).  Once Nero in 65 AD had declared the Christian sect a “religio illictia”, an illegal religion, the matter was settled and being a Christian became a crime punishable by death for the next 250 years, and the arguments of Acts were redundant.

d) Luke tells us that “I decided, after investigating everything carefully, to write an orderly account  for you, most excellent Theophilus…”  (Luke 1.3)

When might he have done his investigations?  My guess is during the two years that Paul was in prison in Caesarea and Luke was floating around Palestine.  (Acts 24.27), i.e. around 59-61 AD.  That’s within lie and living memory.

To be continued …