Gospel of Luke

The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts, accounting for 27.5% of the New Testament. The combined work divides the history of first-century Christianity into three stages, with the gospel making up the first two of these – the life of Jesus the messiah (Christ) from his birth to the beginning of his mission in the meeting with John the Baptist, followed by his ministry with events such as the Sermon on the Plain and its Beatitudes, and his Passion, death, and resurrection.

Most modern scholars agree that the main sources used for Luke were (1) the Gospel of Mark; (2) a hypothetical collection of sayings, called the Q source; and (3) material found in no other gospels, often called the L (for Luke) source, though alternative hypotheses that posit the direct use of Matthew by Luke or vice versa without Q are increasing in popularity within scholarship. The author is anonymous; perhaps most scholars think that he was a companion of Paul, but others cite differences between him and the Pauline epistles. The most common dating for its composition is around AD 80–90 and there is evidence that it was still being revised well into the 2nd century.