Was Luke Written by Luke? And Why Should We Care?

Video Description

Visit https://www.bartehrman.com/courses/ to shop from Bart Ehrman’s online courses and get a special discount by using code: MJPODCAST on all courses. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were both allegedly written by a companion of Paul, Luke "the gentile physician." But the books never name their author. So why Luke? Are are there any good grounds for naming him in particular? Or any grounds at all? Were the books probably written by a doctor? Was he probably a gentile? *Was* there a Luke? If picking his name was just guesswork -- would it affect how we interpret the books or understand their reliability? -Readers have long thought that the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts were written by the same person, Luke, a gentile physician who was a traveling companion of Paul. Do the books claim to be written by that person? -Why would anonymous books later be named by Christian readers? -Why would anyone choose Luke in particular to be the author of these books -Why is Luke specifically identified, instead of another travelling companion? -Who first identified Luke as the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts? -Why has this attribution persisted? -Is there any reason to think that the author actually was a medical doctor? -What are some problems with this attribution? -Why do scholars think that Luke and Acts were written by the same author? -What was the author trying to achieve with these two books? -If Luke is unlikely to be the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, do the books give us any insight into who may have written them? -Do the genres of the books offer any insight into this question? -Would you say that Luke and Acts are better works of literature than some of the other books of the canonical NT?