Many books nowadays are withheld from the market for some reason months or years after they
have passed through the hands of the printer.
The objections raised against such an early date are not well founded.^1027
The prior existence of a number of fragmentary Gospels implied in Luke 1:1 need not
surprise us; for such a story as that of Jesus of Nazareth must have set many pens in motion at a
very early time. "Though the art of writing had not existed," says Lange, "it would have been
invented for such a theme."
Of more weight is the objection that Luke seems to have shaped the eschatological prophecies
of Christ so as to suit the fulfilment by bringing in the besieging (Roman) army, and by interposing
"the times of the Gentiles" between the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world (Luke
19:43, 44; 21:20–24). This would put the composition after the destruction of Jerusalem, say
between 70 and 80, if not later.^1028 But such an intentional change of the words of our Lord is
inconsistent with the unquestionable honesty of the historian and his reverence for the words of
the Divine teacher.^1029 Moreover, it is not borne out by the facts. For the other Synoptists likewise
speak of wars and the abomination of desolation in the holy place, which refers to the Jewish wars
and the Roman eagles (Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14). Luke makes the Lord say:, Jerusalem shall be
trodden down by the Gentiles till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). But Matthew
does the same when he reports that Christ predicted and commanded the preaching of the gospel
of the kingdom in all parts of the world before the end can come (Matt. 24:14; 28:19; comp. Mark
16:15). And even Paul said, almost in the same words as Luke, twelve years before the destruction(^1027) Dr. Abbott, of London (in "Enc. Brit.," X. 813, of the ninth ed., 1879), discovers no less than ten reasons for the later date
of Luke, eight of them in the preface alone: "(1) the pre-existence and implied failure of many ’attempts’ to set forth continuous
narratives of the things ’surely believed;’ (2) the mention of ’tradition’ of the eye-witnesses and ministers of the word as past,
not as present (παρἐδοσαν ,Luke 1:2); (3) the dedication of the Gospel to a man of rank (fictitious or otherwise), who is supposed
to have been ’catechized’ in Christian truth; (4) the attempt at literary style and at improvement of the ’usus ecclesiasticus’ of
the common tradition; (5) the composition of something like a commencement of a Christian hymnology; (6) the development
of the genealogy and the higher tone of the narrative of the incarnation; (7) the insertion of many passages mentioning our Lord
as ὁ κύριος not in address, but in narrative; (8) the distinction, more sharply drawn, between the fall of Jerusalem and the final
coming; (9) the detailed prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, implying reminiscences of its fulfilment; (10) the very great
development of the manifestations of Jesus after the resurrection. The inference from all this evidence would be that Luke was
not written till about a.d. 80 at earliest. If it could be further demonstrated that Luke used any Apocryphal book (Judith, for
example), and if it could be shown that the book in question was written after a certain date (Renan suggests a.d. 80 for the date
of the book of Judith), it might be necessary to place Luke much later; but no such demonstration has been hitherto produced."
But most of these arguments are set aside by the ἡμῖν in Luke 1:2, which includes the writer among those who heard the gospel
story from the eye-witnesses of the life of Christ. It is also evident from the Acts that the writer, who is identical with the third
Evangelist, was an intimate companion of Paul, and hence belonged to the first generation of disciples, which includes all the
converts of the apostles from the day of Pentecost down to the destruction of Jerusalem.
(^1028) Keim (I. 70) thus eloquently magnifies this little difference: "Anders als dem Matthaeus steht diesem Schrifstellen [Lukas]
das Wirklichkeitsbild der Katastrophe der heiligen Stadt in seiner ganzen schrecklichen Grösse vor der Seele, die langwierige
und kunstvolle Belagerung des Feindes, die Heere, die befestigten Lager, der Ring der Absperrung, die tausend Bedrängnisse,
die Blutarbeit des Schwerts, die Gefangenführung des Volkes, der Tempel, die Stadt dem Boden gleich, Alles unter dem ernsten
Gesichtspunkt eines Strafgerichtes Gottes für die dung des Gesandten. Ja über die Katastrophe hinaus, die äusserste Perspektive
des ersten Evangelisten, dehnt sich dem neuen Geschichtschreiber eine new unbestimmbar grosse Periode der Trümmerlage
Jerusalemz unter dem ehernen Tritt der Heiden und heidnischer Weltzeiten, innerhalb deren er selber schreibt. Unter solchen
Umständen hat die grosse Zukunftrede Jesu bei aller Sorgfalt, die wesentlichen Züge, sogar die Wiederkunft in diesem ’Geschlect’zu
halten die mannigfaltigsten Aenderungen erlitten." The same argument is urged more soberly by Holtzmann (Syn. Evang., 406
sq.), and even by Güder (in Herzog, IX. 19) and Weiss (in Meyer, 6th ed., p. 243), but they assume that Luke wrote only a few
years after Matthew.
(^1029) "It is psychologically impossible," says Godet (p. 543), "that Luke should have indulged in manipulating at pleasure the
sayings of that Being on whom his faith was fixed, whom he regarded as the Son of God."
A.D. 1-100.