Gospel of Luke Puns

I think a few simple observations are enough to dispute the claim that the holy spirit inspired the writers of the gospels:

Firstly that the authors of Matthew and Luke copied Mark nearly word-for-word extensively. If the holy spirit can inspire one writer (the author of Mark), why not inspire two more? It's one thing to communicate the same message, but quite another to just copy and paste most of a source.

Second, that Matthew and Luke copied Mark imperferctly, sometimes changing the passages they're copying in ways which hinder the meaning. Michael Goulder calls this "editor's fatigue", and gives a few examples*. In one, Mark says that Herod is a bit of a fan of John the Baptist, hence his grief at having to honour his oath to kill him. Matthew misses this detail and says that Herod wanted to kill John, yet still later copies the passage about Herod grieving. In another example, Mark sets up the feeding of the five thousand as happening in a deserted place, hence the need for miracle; Jesus talks for so long that it's becoming too late for the crowd to go back into civilisation to find food. Luke mis-copies this set-up, but still copies directly the "pay-off": “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.” (Luke 9:12). However, earlier Luke established the setting as the city of Bethsaida, so now the pay-off doesn't make sense.

Presumably the holy spirit doesn't get fatigued, yet it apparently allowed human fatigue to introduce errors into the copy-and-paste job.

I think this leaves us with two options: firstly the holy spirit didn't inspire the authors of the gospels of Matthew and Luke, or the holy spirit did inspire the authors, but did it in such a way that it looks exactly as if humans wrote the gospels without any holy inspiration.

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*I'm taking this second-hand from this blog post: https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/how-editorial-fatigue-shows-that-matthew-and-luke-copied-mark/, so credit to Paul D. for that.

Luke addresses his letter to Theophilus, and some believe that “Theophilus” is a generic title for ‘all Christians’ since the name means “loved by God” in Greek.

Luke addresses him as “most excellent,” a title often used when referring to someone of honor or rank, such as a Roman official. The formal nature of the preface, and the conventional practice of ascribing treatises to notable people, that some argue suggests Theophilus was a real person. Paul used the same form of address in Acts 23:26; 24:2 when addressing Felix, and again in Acts 26:25 when addressing Festus. Therefore, one of the most common theories is that Theophilus was a Roman officer or high-ranking official in the Roman government.

However, there are second-century references to a “Theophilus” from Luke’s time who was known as “a great lord” and a leader in the city of Antioch—also a Gentile but not a Roman official. But he could have been a Roman citizen. I've heard that many (conservative) scholars believe Theophilus could have been this wealthy man who became a benefactor who supported Paul and Luke on their missionary journeys. That would account for Luke’s wanting to provide an orderly and detailed account of their experiences.

A few of the less popular theories of who Theophilus might have been include one suggesting Luke’s Theophilus was Theophilus ben Ananus, the high priest in Jerusalem in A.D. 37-41. Another theory is that the Theophilus Luke was writing to was a later high priest named Mattathias ben Theophilus, who served in Jerusalem in A.D. 65-66. Yet another theory is that Theophilus was the Roman lawyer who defended Paul during his trial in Rome. Those who hold this theory believe that Luke’s purpose in writing Luke and Acts was to write a defense of Christianity, somewhat akin to a legal brief.

There is abundant evidence to suggest Luke’s writing is aimed at a Gentile audience of some kind—such as a Roman one. The church father Jerome says in one place that Luke was in Rome when he wrote, and a Roman audience would fit that theory nicely; the climax of the book of Acts is Paul’s arrival in Rome.

I think we cannot know with any certainty. However, we can know what Luke’s intentions for writing were. He tells us. Wherever an author states his own intention, that must be given due weight. Luke says his purpose is history and theology—the theological significance of historical events. He writes this history and this theology so Theophilus may know the things he was told

Luke 8:4-15

While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”

When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,

“‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’[a] “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

I am having a discussion with someone regarding the likelihood that Luke-Acts were authored by Luke, a physician and companion to Paul. He cites unanimous early church acceptance (Church Fathers), which I personally do not see as a convincing line of reasoning. He also gives several other evidences that I feel could lead to any educated scribe of the time, but he ties to Luke. Such as terms physicians would most likey know, the reference in the Pauline Epistles to a Luke, psudonymity not being common until the second century, and a lack of an established case for any other author.

I'm curious how strong a case can be made that the author was not only anonymous, which he accepts, but that psudonymity could indeed be common since authorship wasn't a common practice at the time. Any references you could point to or arguments you could make here to advance my education on this topic enough to either refute his claims or concede that he is correct would be greatly appreciated.

From MacDonald, Dennis R., 2014, The Gospels and Homer: Imitations of Greek Epic in Mark and Luke-Acts. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, pp.205-8 [in turn from a post on vridar], -

In Mark 4:35-41 Jesus calms the wind and the sea and thus resembles the God of Israel as portrayed in the Psalter, which portrays God as master of the sea in Pss 64:8, 76:17, 88:10, and 106:23-32 (MT 65:7, 77:16, 89:9, and 107:23-32). For the plot of the story, however, scholars rightly have turned to the Book of Jonah (cf. Jonah 1:1-16 and Mark 4:35-41). An even more compelling analogy appears in the Odyssey.

The previous crosspost raises the issue stated in the title of this post [eta: rewrite may be overstatement]. The proposition probably started with Joseph B. Tyson and his 2006 book, Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle, though it was a view previously put forward by a mentor of his, John Knox in Marcion and the New Testament (1942), and by Charles B. Waite in the late 19th century in History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two-Hundred.

Jason Beduhn raised it in his 2013 book, 'The First New Testament: Marcion's Scriptural Canon', -

>"Critics of Marcion like Tertullian and Epiphanius complained that Marcion cut and edited scripture to fit his beliefs. Biblical scholar Adolf von Harnack accepted this claim in his definitive text, Marcion: The Gospel of an Alien God (1920). However, Tertullian and Epiphanius lived several generations after Marcion, and they assumed the New Testament they read already existed in Marcion’s era. It didn’t. Marcion’s [early] critics were reading history backward instead of forward: there was no New Testament yet." http://www.westarinstitute.org/blog/mar ... testament/

In 2014 Markus Vinzent published 'Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels', -

>Summary ... The present volume is the first systematic study of all available early evidence that we have about the first witness to our Gospel narratives, Marcion of Sinope. It evaluates our commonly known arguments for dating the Synoptic Gospels, elaborates on Marcion's crucial role in the Gospel making, and argues for a re-dating of the Gospels to the years between 138 and 144 AD.

In 2015, Matthias Klinghardt published in German, Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien in two volumes [title translation: 'The oldest gospel, & the emergence of the canonical Gospels']

Beduhn, Vinzent, and Klinghardt have, since those books, each published other articles along these lines, explaining and elaborating.