(i.) It is a disappointment that Bishop Lightfoot’s admirable article on the Acts (D. B.2 i. pp. 25-43) does not discuss the Date. The Bishop told the present writer that he regarded the question of date as the province of the writer of the article on S. Luke, an article which has not yet been rewritten.
The want has, however, been to a large extent supplied in the Bampton Lectures for 1893 (Lect. 6.), and we may safely accept this guidance.
The main theories respecting the date of the Third Gospel contend respectively for a time in or near the years a.d. 100, a.d. 80, and a.d. 63.
(a) The strongest argument used by those who advocate a date near the close of the first century or early in the second1 is the hypothesis that the author of the Third Gospel and of the Acts had read the Antiquities of Josephus, a work published about a.d. 94. But this hypothesis, if not
absolutely untenable, is highly improbable. The coincidences between Luke and Josephus are not greater than might accidentally occur in persons
writing independently about the same facts; while the divergences are so great as to render copying improbable. At any rate Josephus must not be used both ways. If the resemblances are made to prove that Luke copied Josephus, then the discrepancies should not be employed to prove that Luke’s statements are erroneous. If Luke had a correct narrative to guide him, why did he diverge from it only to make blunders? It is much more reasonable to suppose that where Luke differs from the Antiquities he had independent knowledge, and that he had never read Josephus. Moreover, where the statements of either can be tested, it is Luke who is commonly found to be accurate, whereas Josephus is often convicted of exaggeration and error. See the authorities cited by Lft. D. B.2 p. 39; by Holtzmann, Einl.
in d. N. T. p. 374, 1892, and by Schanz, Comm. über d. Evang. d. h. Lukas, p. 16, 1883.
The relation of Luke to Josephus has recently been rediscussed; on the one side by Clemen (Die Chronologie der paulin. Briefe, Halle, 1893) and
Krenkel (Josephus und Lukas; der schriftstellerische Einfluss des jüdischen Geschichtschreibers auf den christlichen, Leipzig, 1894), who regard the use of Josephus by Luke as certain; on the other by Belser (Theol.
Quartalschrift, Tübingen, 1895, 1896), who justly criticizes the arguments of these writers and especially of Krenkel. It is childish to point out that Luke, like Josephus, uses such words as ἀποστέλλειν, ἀφικνεῖσθαι, αὐξάνειν, παιδίον, πέμπειν, πύλη, κ.τ.λ., in their usual sense: and such phrases προέκοπτεν τῇ σοφίᾳ καὶ ἠλικίᾳ (Luk 2:52) and ἐξίσταντο πάντες οἱ ἀκούοντες αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῇ σύνεσει καὶ ταῖς ἀποκρίσεσιν αὐτοῦ (2:47) are not strikingly similar to εἰς μεγάλην παιδείας προὔκοπτον ἐπίδοσιν, μνήμῃ τε καὶ συνέσει δοκῶν διαφέρειν (Jos. Vita, 2) and θαύμασας τὴν ἀπόκρισιν αὐτοῦ σοφὴν οὔτω γενομένην (Ant. xii.4. 9). Far more striking
resemblances may be found in writings which are indisputably independent.
Luke alone in N.T. calls the Sea of Galilee ἡ λίμνη Γεννησαρέτ. Could he not call it a lake without being prompted? Josephus also calls it a λίμνη, but his designations all differ from Luke’s: Γεννησὰρ ἡ λίμνη, ἡ λ. Γεννησάρ, λ. ἡ Γεννησαρῖτις, ἡ Γεννησαρῖτις λ. (B. J.ii. 20, 6, iii. l0, 7; Ant. xviii. 2.
1; Vita, 65), and other variations. Luke has προσέπεσεν τοῖς γόνασιν Ἰ ησοῦ (5:8), and Josephus has τοῖς γόνασιν αὐτοῦ προσπέσοντες (Ant. xix. 3. 4).
But Josephus more often writes προσπίπτειν τινι πρὸς τὰ γόνατα, and the more frequent phrase would more probably have been borrowed. Comp.
συνεχομένη πυρετῷ μεγάλῳ (Luk 4:38) with τεταρταίῳ πυρετῷ συσχεθείς (Ant. 13:15, 5); μὴ μετεωρίζεσθε (12:29) with Ant. xvi. 4. 6, sub fin.
(where, however, νενωτέριστο is the more probable reading); ἄφαντος ἐγένετο ἀπʼ αὐτῶν (24:31) with ἀφανὴς ἐγένετο (Ant. xx. 8.6). In these and many other cases the hypothesis of copying is wholly uncalled for. The expressions are not very uncommon. Some of them perhaps are the result of both Luke and Josephus being familiar with LXX. Others are words or constructions which are the common material of various Greek writers.
Indeed, as Belser has shown, a fair case may be made out to show the influence of Thucydides on Luke. In a word, the theory that Luke had read Josephus “rests on little more than the fact that both writers relate or allude to the same events, though the differences between them are really more marked than the resemblances” (Sanday, Bampton Lectures, 1893, p. 278).
As Schürer and Salmon put it, if Luke had read Josephus, he must very quickly have forgotten all that he read in him. See Hastings, D.B. i. p. 30.
In itself, the late date a.d. 100 is not incredible, even for those who are convinced that the writer is Luke, and that he never read Josephus. Luke may have been quite a young man, well under thirty, when he first joined S.
Paul, a.d. 50-52; and he may have been living and writing at the beginning of the second century. But the late date has nothing to recommend it; and we may believe that both his writings would have assumed a different form, had they been written as late as this. Would not ὁ Χριστός, which is still a title and means “the Messiah” (2:26, 3:15, 4:41, 9:20, 20:41, 22:67, 23:35, 39, 24:26, 46), have become a proper name, as in the Epistles? Would not ὁ Κύριος, as a designation of Jesus Christ, have been still more frequent? It is not found in Matthew or Mark (excepting in the disputed appendix); but it is the invariable designation in the Gospel of Peter. In Luke (7:13, 10:1, 11:39, 12:42, 13:15, 17:5, 6, 18:6, 19:8, 22:61, 24:34) and in John this use is beginning, but it is still exceptional. Above all, would 21:32 have stood as it does, at a date when “this generation” had “passed away” without seeing the Second Advent? Moreover, the historical atmosphere of the Acts is not that of a.d. 95-135. In the Acts the Jews are the persecutors of the Christians; at this late date the Jews were being persecuted themselves.
Lastly, what would have induced a companion of S. Paul, whether Luke or not, to wait so long before publishing the results of his researches?
Opportunities of contact with those who had been eye-witnesses would have been rapidly vanishing during the last twenty years.
(b) The intermediate date of a.d. 75-80 has very much more to recommend it. It avoids the difficulties just mentioned. It accounts for the occasional but not yet constant use of ὁ Κύριος to designate Jesus. It accounts for the
omission of the very significant hint, “let him that readeth understand” (Mar 13:14; Mat 24:15). When the first two Gospels (or the materials common to both) were compiled, the predicted dangers had not yet come but were near;
and each of these Evangelists warns his readers to be on the alert. When the Third Gospel was written, these dangers were past. It accounts for the
greater definiteness of the prophecies respecting the destruction of
Jerusalem as given by Luke (19:43, 44, 21:10-24), when compared with the records of them in Mark (13:14-19) and Matthew (24:15-22). After the destruction had taken place the tradition of the prediction might be influenced by what was known to have happened; and this without any conscious tampering with the report of the prophecy. The possibility of this
influence must be admitted, and with it a possibility of a date subsequent to a.d. 70 for the Gospel and the Acts. Twice in the Gospel (8:51, 9:28), as in the Acts (1:13), Luke places John before his elder brother James, which Mt.
and Mk. never do; and this may indicate that Luke wrote after John had become the better known of the two. Above all, such a date allows
sufficient time for the “many” to, “draw up narratives” respecting the acts and sayings of Christ.
(c) The early date of about a.d. 63 still finds advocates;1 and no doubt there is something to be said for it. Quite the simplest explanation of the fact that S. Paul’s death is not recorded in the Acts is that it had not taken place. If that explanation is correct the Third Gospel cannot be placed much later than a.d. 63. Again, the writer of the Acts can hardly have been familiar with the Epistles to the Corinthians and the Galatians: otherwise he would have inserted some things and explained others (Salmon, Hist. Int. to N.T.
p. 319, Exo 5). How long might Luke have been without seeing these Epistles? Easily till a.d. 63; but less easily till a.d. 80. Once more, when Luke records the prophecy of Agabus respecting the famine, he mentions that it was fulfilled (Act 11:28). When he records the prophecy of Christ respecting the destruction of Jerusalem (21:5-36), he does not mention that it was fulfilled. The simplest explanation is that the destruction had not yet taken place. And, if it be said that the prediction of it has been retouched in Luke’s record in order to make it more distinctly in accordance with facts, we must notice that the words, “Let them that are in Judæa flee to the mountains, ” are in all three reports. The actual flight seems to have been, not to the mountains, but to Pella in north Peræa; and yet “to the
mountains” is still retained by Luke (11:21). Eusebius says that there was a
“revelation” before the war, warning the Christians not only to leave the city, but to dwell in a town called Pella (H. E. iii. 5. 3). This “revelation” is evidently an adaptation of Christ’s prophecy; and here we reasonably
suspect that the detail about Pella has been added after the event. But there is nothing of it in Luke’s report.
Nevertheless, the reasons stated above, and especially those derived from the prologue to the Gospel, make the intermediate date the most probable of the three. It combines the advantages of the other two dates and avoids the difficulties of both. It may be doubted whether any of the Gospels, as we
have them, was written as early as a.d. 63; and if the Third Gospel is placed after the death of S. Paul, one main reason for placing it before a.d. 70 is gone.
(ii.) As to the Place in which Luke wrote his Gospel we have no evidence that is of much value. The Gospel itself gives no sure clue. The peculiarities of its diction point to a centre in which Hellenistic influences prevailed; and the way in which places in Palestine are mentioned have been thought to indicate that the Gospel was written outside Palestine (1:26, 2:4, 4:31, 8:26, 23:51, 24:13). The first of these considerations does not lead to anything very definite, and the second has little or no weight. The fact that the Gospel was written for readers outside Palestine, who were not familiar with the country, accounts for all the topographical expressions. We do not know what evidence Jerome had for the statement which he makes in the preface to his commentary on S. Matthew: Tertius Lucas medicus, natione Syrus Antiochensis (cujus laus in Evangelio), qui et discipulus apostoli Pauli, in Achaiæ Bœotiæque partibus volumen condidit (2Co 8.), quædam altius repetens, et ut ipse in proæmio confitetur, audita magis, quam visa describens (Migne, 26:18), where some MSS. have Bithyniæ for Bæotiæ.
Some MSS. of the Peshitto give Alexandria as the place of composition, which looks like confusion with Mark. Modern guesses vary much: Rome (Holtzmann, Hug, Keim, Lekebusch, Zeller), Cæsarea (Michaelis, Schott, Thiersch, Tholuck), Asia Minor (Hilgenfeld, Overbeck), Ephesus (Köstlin), and Corinth (Godet). There is no evidence or against any of them.