who wrote the gospel of luke
Most Christians through history have said that the Gospel of Luke was written by Luke , a physician and companion of the apostle Paul, but modern scholars describe the author as anonymous and only traditionally identified with this Luke.
Traditional Christian view
- Early church writers like Irenaeus and the Muratorian Canon attribute both Luke and Acts to “Luke the physician,” a coworker of Paul mentioned in Colossians, 2 Timothy, and Philemon.
- Ancient manuscripts as early as around 200 CE carry the title “The Gospel according to Luke,” suggesting that this attribution was widely accepted by then.
- In this view, Luke was a well-educated Greek-speaking Christian (often thought to be a Gentile) who also wrote Acts as the second volume to his Gospel.
Modern scholarly view
- The Gospel itself never names its author, so technically it is anonymous; the name “Luke” comes from later church tradition, not from the text.
- Many critical scholars doubt that the writer was literally Paul’s travel companion and instead speak of an unknown, highly educated Greek-speaking Christian who used earlier sources (including Mark) and shaped them into Luke–Acts.
- Scholars generally date the composition to roughly 60–80 CE (some suggest later), with the author addressing a broader Greco-Roman audience, symbolized by the addressee “Theophilus.”
How to sum it up
- Church tradition: Luke the Evangelist, a physician and coworker of Paul, wrote the Gospel of Luke and Acts.
- Critical scholarship: The real author’s name is unknown; “Luke” is a later attribution to an otherwise anonymous, skilled Greek-speaking Christian who composed a two-volume work (Luke–Acts).
In short, if you’re asking “Who traditionally wrote the Gospel of Luke?” the answer is Luke the physician; if you’re asking “What can we prove historically from the text itself?” the answer is that the author is anonymous and only later associated with Luke.
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