Episode 27 – Luke: God’s Gift to Historians

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script Notes:

Many people have tried to tell the story of what God has done among us. They wrote what we had been told by the ones who were there in the beginning and saw what happened. So I made a careful study of everything and then decided to write and tell you exactly what took place. Honorable Theophilus, I have done this to let you know the truth about what you have heard.

The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, Contemporary English Version

Theophilus, I first wrote to you about all that Jesus did and taught from the very first until he was taken up to heaven. But before he was taken up, he gave orders to the apostles he had chosen with the help of the Holy Spirit.

For 40 days after Jesus had suffered and died, he proved in many ways that he had been raised from death. He appeared to his apostles and spoke to them about God's kingdom. While he was still with them, he said:

“Don't leave Jerusalem yet. Wait here for the Father to give you the Holy Spirit, just as I told you he has promised to do. John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

The Book of Acts, Chapter 1, verses 1 through 5, Contemporary English Version

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VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, author, founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time story teller. Today on Anchored by Truth we are going to launch a new series on the historicity of the books written by Luke. These books include the gospel account named after him and the book of Acts. To help us get going in our discussions we are going to use some extracts from Crystal Sea’s upcoming audio book version of one of RD’s books, Doors of Destiny: A Choice Orbs Tale. RD, would you like to offer a few words of introduction on why we want to take a look at the books in the New Testament written by Luke?

RD: Most people know that that one of the four gospels was written by a man named Luke, but even people who recognize Luke as a gospel writer don’t focus on the fact that Luke also wrote another book that’s in the New Testament: The Book of Acts. Now most Christians know how important the gospels are to their faith. After all, it’s from the gospels that we get most of our information about Jesus and his earthly ministry. But it’s probably fair to say that many people don’t recognize that Acts is also one of the most important books in the Bible – especially when it comes to demonstrating the historical reliability of the Bible. Acts is, of course, a transitional book perched right at the end of the gospels but before the epistles which give us the details of how Jesus’ earthly life fit into the larger story of redemption including the formation of new, expanded body of believers that today we refer to as the church. If we didn’t have the Book of Acts our understanding of the content of the epistles would be greatly reduced because we’d be missing part, and in some cases, much of the historical setting behind some of the most important of the epistles. Luke turns out to be a pretty important fellow in redemptive history. So, it’s important to know whether we can safely put our trust in Luke and the history that he recorded. The good news is that the books written by Luke have been tested by a great many scholars and skeptics alike through the years and they have held up magnificently.

VK: So, what you’re saying is that by taking a look at the historical underpinnings for the books Luke wrote we can increase our confidence in him and thereby the Bible. And you’re also saying that the Book of Acts gives us a sort of framework or template which we can use to guide our understanding of many of the other books in the New Testament. So the books written by Luke reinforce one of the fundamental lines of evidence that demonstrate that the Bible is the Word of God: that the Bible is historically reliable. Both the gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts contains a lot of historical detail, so if they weren’t accurate it would call into question the accuracy of the revelation that they contain pertaining to some pretty important events like the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

RD: Exactly.

VK: And that’s one of the reasons we want to use some extracts from Doors of Destiny to introduce our discussions. You took some of the inspiration for some of the scenes in Doors from episodes or people that Luke wrote about. Why don’t you help set the scene for the extract that we’re going to hear today?

RD: Today we’re going to hear a scene from a world that has become perpetually dark. The only hope for the world is for a teen-age girl named Abigail to place a mighty lamp in the top of an extremely tall, but now darkened, lighthouse. But in order to do that Abigail must confront a demon who lives in the tower. Obviously, the demon does not want the lighthouse to regain its light. So this extract is a part of the confrontation between Abigail and the tower demon as she seeks to save her world.

---- Doors of Destiny extract – tower scene of the temptations

VK: Wow. That was really neat. I like the fact that that clip includes not only drama and excitement but it also has some solid Biblical teaching. And that’s one of the things that characterizes Doors of Destiny and makes it such a special book. The story is great and people can enjoy the book just as a good book. But for families or church youth groups who want to help their kids learn more about the Bible, Doors of Destiny would form a fun and exciting centerpiece of a reading project. For instance, I’m sure most of our listeners will notice that in that clip that the tower demon was confronting Abigail with the same temptations that Satan placed before Jesus as Jesus was starting his public ministry. And I’m sure most of our listeners will notice that Jesus met those temptations with quotes from Old Testament – the book of Deuteronomy to be exact. So, in confronting Satan even Jesus relied on scripture. That’s a great lesson for all of us when we face our own temptations. But, unless I’m mistaken, the order of the temptations that you used in that scene from Doors of Destiny was the order that Matthew presented them in his gospel. In writing about those same temptations, Luke wrote about them in a different order. I think you believe that there is an important teaching point about the Bible to be gained from the two different orders that the two different gospel writers used.

RD: You are absolutely correct that the order of temptations we heard from the Doors’ clip is the order that Matthew used in his gospel. When he wrote about the temptation of Jesus, Luke reversed the order of the last two temptations from Matthew’s report of the event.

VK: So, some critics of the Bible claim that the difference in the two accounts is an example of a contradiction in the Bible. Some critics will even go on to claim that that the Bible contains hundreds of such purported contradictions which leads to a general assertion that the Bible isn’t true.

RD: Yes. That’s often how Bible skeptics will build their case but we don’t have enough time today to address specifically the most common examples that are cited. But suffice it to say that the various lists of supposed contradictions are well known and have been addressed by many solid Christian scholars through the years. One of my favorite resources in this regard is Dr. Gleason Archers’ wonderful book, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. Dr. Archer addresses the vast majority of the most commonly asserted contradictions as well as answering a number of other questions that often crop up in discussions of Biblical accuracy.

VK: And does Dr. Archer specifically address the variation in the two accounts of Jesus’ temptations?

RD: Yes, he does. Dr. Archer notes that Matthew and Luke used different words to connect the three temptations. Matthew used adverbs that are much more specific as to sequence than Luke did. Matthew used the adverbs “then” and “again” when talking about the second and third temptations, whereas Luke basically used Greek words that just meant “and.” So, when Luke made his report he seems to have been more concerned with ideation than chronology. Rather, like the doctor who is reporting to a patient about the results of their latest physical. The doctor might say something like, “you have heart disease, some arthritis in your knees, and bunions.”

VK: Sounds like the kind of report the doctor might give someone your age…

RD: No comment. Anyway, a patient would think it was strange if the doctor spent time talking about bunions first just because the doctor thought that was chronologically the first condition the patient developed. The doctor would organize his or her report on the basis of importance or ideation rather than strict chronology. And no one would question the competence of the doctor for doing so. In fact, they would question the competence of the doctor for not doing so. Luke seems to have wanted to show that Jesus overcame the temptations of the natural world, hunger and a thirst for easy worldly power, before showing that Jesus also overcame the supernatural temptation to have the angels rescue him from jumping from an incredible height. Matthew, for whatever reason, just reported the temptations in the order Satan presented them.

VK: The central point, though, is that even though there is a variation in the two accounts that variation has no bearing whatsoever of the historical reliability of either of the gospel writers. Luke didn’t sacrifice his historical reliability just because in this instance he arranged his account in this instance using different criteria. After all, even today we expect some writers to focus on importance rather than chronology in certain instances. There’s a term in journalism called “burying the lead” which essentially means the news reporter didn’t start an article with the most important information. An editor would expect a reporter to start an article with the most important incident that occurred at an event regardless of whether it happened early or late during the overall event.

RD: Precisely. And we know from other examples found in Luke’s writing that he was an extremely attentive and detail oriented historian. Luke got some things right even when other ancient historians got them wrong.

VK: Can you give us a specific example?

RD: Yes. Let’s start by listening to a passage of scripture from our audio library. This is from Acts, chapter 14, verses 1 – 7.

At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, where they continued to preach the good news (Acts 14:1-7).

The passage implies that Lystra and Derbe were cities in the district of Lycaonia but Iconium was in a different district. Paul and Barnabas went to the different district because it was safe. Later Roman writers such as Cicero contradicted the passage, asserting that Iconium was also in Lycaonia. For years this was used to show the historical unreliability of Acts.

VK: But it turns out that archeological discoveries in the 20th century proved that Luke was right after all?

RD: Yes. Sir William Ramsay was one of the most important archeologists of the first half of the 20th century. He started out as a huge skeptic of the Bible and the book of Acts in particular. But after years of performing exhaustive excavations for himself he became converted and famously wrote that Luke was a consummate historian. In 1910, however, Ramsay discovered an inscription declaring that the first century Iconium was under the authority of Phrygia from A.D. 37 to A.D. 72. It was only during these years that Iconium was not under the authority of Lycaonia. Not only did this discovery confirm the accuracy of the statement in Acts 14, it showed that whoever wrote this passage knew what district Iconium was in at that time. That places the author as an eyewitness to the events. So Ramsey started out as a Bible critic but after doing his own homework – so to speak – he wound up being convinced of the Bible’s historical reliability.

VK: And I think that that’s a great example for us all. Not very many of us will have the opportunity to travel to the Middle East or the other places that the Bible describes but today there’s a wealth of resources that are available to us in our own homes. In addition to books like Dr. Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties there’s a ton of free information available from the internet. We’ll include some links to some of the articles that we found most helpful in the notes that accompany the podcast version of this episode. But by way of summary for today, Luke, who was not only a physician but also a historian mentions thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine Mediterranean islands in the Acts. And he got them all right as attested to by extra-biblical sources.

RD: Right. And during the next couple of episodes of Anchored by Truth we’re going to delve a little more deeply into more specific examples of how careful a historian Luke actually was.

VK: Well, before we close for today why don’t you remind us why we focus so much on bringing this kind of detailed information to our listening audience?

RD: Unfortunately, today surveys consistently reveal that a lot of young people leave the church particularly after they get to college. One of the most common reasons for that is that a lot of young people who grew up in Christian households run into a form of institutionalized Biblical skepticism on many college campuses or they first start having extended conversations with other people of their own age who either doubt the Bible or are openly dismissive. Too often, those young people aren’t prepared for the onslaught of objections that are leveled at their faith. We think one of the best ways to help our young people is to ensure that they have a solid intellectual framework for “explaining the hope that lies within them.” Through the years and hundreds of conversations I’ve found out that the questions don’t really change that much. How is the Bible different from other so-called holy books? What evidence is there that Jesus actually existed? Isn’t the Bible riddled with contradictions, and so forth? The good news – the really good news – is that there are answers for all these questions, answers that are based on solid, reliable evidence and that are supported by reason and logic.

VK: And that’s why we started Anchored by Truth. To provide a starting point for Christians to be able to do their own investigations and develop their own confidence in the fact that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God.

RD: True dat. Jesus said that not even the smallest punctuation mark of his book would fail before everything described within it would come to fruition.

VK: Sounds like it’s a great time to have a prayer. Since one of our hopes is that the light of God’s word would once again shine throughout our nation, how about if today we listen to a prayer for our nation?

---- Prayer for the nation

VK: Because a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics we want to remind listeners that if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” We hope you’ll be with us next time as we continue our discussion of the remarkable historical accuracy of Luke – who was not only a physician who addressed bodily needs but a historian who continues to minister to spiritual needs today. We hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. Also, we’d to remind listeners that even though the audio version of Doors hasn’t been released, hard copies and e-book versions of Doors of Destiny are already available from Amazon or our website.

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation)

The Book of Psalms, Chapter 8, verse 3 through 5, New Living Translation

Colossians, Chapter 1, verses 15 through 17, New Living Translation

https://reknew.org/2018/12/is-the-book-of-acts-reliable/

https://crossexamined.org/historical-accuracy-book-acts/

https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1311-accuracy-of-the-book-of-acts-the

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/stewart_don/faq/historical-accuracy-of-the-bible/question12-gospels-historically-accurate.cfm

https://www.angelfire.com/sc3/myredeemer/Evidencep13.html

Doors of Destiny – Chapter Fifteen Extract

For a while the tower was quiet, and Abigail climbed in silence.

Then, Abigail was hit with another shower of rock, dirt, and dust, only this one contained larger stones, and some of them bruised her when they hit. She heard a series of raucous shrieks, followed by babbling and crying. Despite the noise and the rock strikes she kept walking upward, but her legs and arms were growing heavy. She had no idea how much further she had to go. The nail scraping was not far ahead now.

“Oh, there is a missing step just there. Many. Many! You will have to jump to get above them. But you cannot see. But you cannot jump. Turn back before it is too late. Too late!”

The reedy voice was growing considerably more excited, but Abigail was undeterred. She continued her laborious climb. She then felt the dank air around her being stirred by the flapping of foul wings. The shrieks and the cries grew louder, but still she pressed on toward them. Just as she felt that she was almost on top of the clicking talons and scraping nails, she heard and felt them move backward and upward, farther away.

“You are getting tired, Crippled One. You are getting tired. Stop and rest. It is said that a true Lamp of Chinnereth can bring water out of a rock and make stone into bread. Stop and eat. Rest and drink!”

“I thought you said the lamp would not obey me, and now you would bid me command it. In the prophecy it is written that we do not live by bread alone, but on the words of truth.”

Abigail never paused, though she was laboring greatly and would gladly have rested.

“Stop. Stop! This is no good. You may fall. Command the lamp to bear you to the top. It can lift you up. You need not climb. You will fall. Fall. Fall!” The reedy voice was growing more and more agitated.

“The words of the prophecy tell us that though we are not to trust in our own strength, that we are not to attempt to test the One who gave the lamp. I will proceed as I have been instructed by the prophecy.”

Now there was a great volley of shrieking and cawing. Abigail could hear the wings beating in frustration.

“Listen. Listen! There is no need for us to fight. You, too, can serve the woman in purple and scarlet. She can give you much. She can give you everything. Look! she gave us this whole world. Think what she can do for you. Think. Think!”

“It is written in the prophecy that we shall serve only the Great Light Bearer and forebear allegiance to any other. My ancestors were foolish, but we have learned. Beware, Foul Stench. You are in far more peril now than I.”