1. THE PROLOGUE
Alone among the Synoptists Luke gives his readers some direct information about the methods of his work. Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1,2. This information, which was barely touched upon in the Student's Text Book, must here be considered somewhat more in detail.
(1) Luke Not an Eyewitness from the Beginning.—From the prologue to the Gospel, Luke 1:1-4, it appears, in the first place, that Luke was not an eyewitness of the events that he narrates—at least he was not an eyewitness "from the beginning."
(2) His Predecessors.—In the second place, it appears that he had had predecessors in his task of writing an account of early Christian history. Apparently, however, none of these previous works were produced by an apostle or by an eyewitness of the earthly ministry of Jesus. The previous writers, like Luke himself, were dependent upon the testimony of the eyewitnesses. The Gospel of Matthew, therefore, since it was written by an apostle, was not one of the works to which reference is made. This conclusion is amply confirmed by a comparison of Matthew with Luke. Evidently, at least, the two are entirely independent. If Luke refers to the First Gospel in the prologue, at any rate he made no use of it.
(3) Was Mark One of the Predecessors?—The Gospel of Mark, on the contrary, answers to the description of the previous works. It was written not by an eyewitness, but by one who listened to eyewitnesses. Perhaps, therefore, it was one of the many works to which Luke refers. If so, it may well have been used by Luke in the preparation of his own Gospel. This supposition is by no means excluded by a comparison of the two books. As a matter of fact, the great majority of modern scholars suppose that the writer of the Third Gospel made use of the Gospel of Mark. All that can here be asserted is that this view, though not required by what Luke says in his prologue, is perfectly consistent with it.
(4) Luke's Attitude Toward the Predecessors.—It should be observed that Luke attaches no blame whatever to the efforts of his forerunners. When he says that they had "taken in hand" or "attempted" to write accounts of certain things, he does not imply in the slightest that their attempts had been unsuccessful. He means simply to justify his own procedure by a reference to what had already been done. "My effort at writing an account of the origin of Christianity," he says in effect, "is no strange, unheard-of thing. I have had many predecessors." Such a reference to the work of predecessors was in antiquity a common literary form. At the very beginning of his work, Luke displays the effects of his Greek literary training.
Of course, however, although Luke attaches no blame to his predecessors, he would not have undertaken a new work if he had thought that the old satisfied all needs. Evidently he hoped to accomplish by his own book something that his predecessors had not accomplished or had accomplished only in part.
(5) The Subject of the Gospel.—Finally, therefore, Luke informs his readers what his own peculiar methods and purposes were. The main subject of the Gospel is not described with any definiteness in Luke 1:1-4, but it appears in the retrospect at the beginning of the second work. There the subject of the Gospel is designated as "all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which he was received up, after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen." Acts 1:1,2. The subject of the Gospel, in other words, was the earthly life of Jesus.
(6) Completeness of the Narrative.—In treating this subject, Luke had striven, he says, Luke 1:3, first of all for completeness. In his investigations he had followed all things from the beginning. This feature appears plainly in the Gospel. Instead of beginning as Mark does, with the public ministry of Jesus, Luke first gives an account of the birth and infancy, and not content with that, he goes back even to events preceding the birth not only of Jesus, but also of his forerunner.
(7) Accuracy.—In the second place, Luke says that he had striven after accuracy. Here again the Gospel justifies the claim of its author. The effort after precision may be seen perhaps especially in such a passage as Luke 3:1,2, where there is an elaborate dating of the beginning of John the Baptist's ministry.