The name Luke comes from the Greek form Λουκᾶς of the Latin name Lucas. It was an uncommon name, not found in any Greek or Latin literature or inscriptions prior to the NT era and may be the abbreviated form of the Greek Λουκανός or variant Λευκός or the Latin Lucanus.1 The origin of the name conceivably has a connection with the southern Italian region of Lucania.
Luke is explicitly named in the NT only three times, each in the company of Paul during one of his two Roman imprisonments.2 He is included among the apostle’s many συνεργοί (coworkers) in Philem. 24, implicitly a non-Jewish coworker in Col. 4:14 (note v. 11) and “the beloved physician.” In Paul’s final apostolic manuscript, nearing the end of his life, he writes in 2 Tim. 4:11, “Luke alone is with me.” With just these three brief allusions, Luke is obviously not one of the more prominent figures of the NT. “The reason he is well known is not because he is named in the NT; he is well known because the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles have been attributed to him.”3
It has been suggested that Luke may have been a Hellenistic Jew4 or a former God-fearer,5 having already been involved in the Jewish faith before his conversion to Christ. This, of course, is speculative. The biblical record simply confirms that Luke was not an ethnic Jew.
Family and Reputation
Most evident in 2 Corinthians, Paul and Titus labored closely together during much of the apostle’s ministry.6 It is therefore curious that Titus is unnamed in Luke’s historical record of Acts. If Titus and Luke were biological brothers, this would explain, for modesty’s sake, why neither name appears in the Acts narrative, similar to the Fourth Gospel omitting the names of John and his brother James. According to tradition Luke was from Syrian Antioch (see below), the city where Titus first appears in scripture (Acts 15:1-4; Gal. 2:1-2). If this family connection is legitimately assumed, Luke would have been an ethnic Greek (Gal. 2:3), consistent with the two-volume work he produced.
Accompanying Titus on a mission to Corinth around autumn of 56 was a Christian brother, “whose praise is in the gospel through all the churches,” also selected by the churches to be part of the delegation delivering relief aid to Judean Christians (2 Cor. 8:18-19). This could have been Luke. According to the “we” sections in Acts, around mid-50 as the rest of the mission team ventured south, Luke stayed behind in the Macedonian city of Philippi (Acts 16:11–17:1), departing approximately seven years later (Acts 20:5-6). In the meantime Paul returned to Macedonia (Acts 20:1-2), which is the setting in which 2 Corinthians was written. Luke was certainly well known among these churches in connection with his ministerial work, and he did accompany Paul with the collection all the way to Jerusalem (Acts 20:5–21:17).7
Places of Residence
In the biblical record Luke appears to have been residing in Troas on the west coast of Asia Minor at the time Paul’s mission team arrived in early 50 (Acts 16:8-10). As an itinerant missionary, he also spent considerable time in the Macedonian city of Philippi (Acts 16:10-17; 20:6), in Palestine (Acts 21:8–27:2), and in Rome (Acts 28:16; Col. 4:14; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11).
Traditionally Luke is believed to have been a native of Syrian Antioch, the earliest record of which is the so-called Anti-Marcionite prologue of Luke’s Gospel.8 This is reaffirmed in the fourth-century record of Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. 3.4.6),9 and again by Jerome in the fifth century (De Viris Illustribus 7). The textual variant in Codex Bezae and a number of Latin texts, involving the first person plural in Acts 11:28, places Luke among the Christians in Syrian Antioch and further underscores this long-held tradition. In the absence of an ulterior motive occasioning the recurring assertion, its legitimacy should not be summarily discounted.10 The abrupt beginning of Luke’s partnership with Paul may presuppose previous acquaintance. That Luke had lived in Antioch of Syria may also be inferred from the numerous details he gives of the Christian community there (Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-2; 14:26-28; 15:1-3, 22-41; 18:22-23). But the claim is still less than provable.
Also included in the so-called Anti-Marcionite prologue, Luke reportedly was never married, was childless, and died at Boeotia (a region in Greece) at the age of 84.11 While certain details in these ancient prologues could have been inferred (rightly or wrongly) from biblical texts, the rest of the information is disputable.12
--Kevin L. Moore
Endnotes:
1 See D. A. Hayes, The Most Beautiful Book Ever Written: The Gospel According to Luke 6-7; also G. A. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East (2nd ed.) 435; T. von Zahn, Introduction to the NT 3:5.
2 See K. L. Moore, “Background of the Letters to Timothy and Titus: What Happened After Acts?” Moore Perspective (22 Nov. 2017), <Web>; from the 2018 FHU Lectureship Book.
3 Thomas R. Schreiner, “Luke,” in ESV Expository Commentary 8:706.
4 E. E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke 52-53; S. L. Harris, Understanding the Bible 266-68; R. Strelan, Luke the Priest: The Authority of the Author of the Third Gospel 102-10.
5 C. L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels (2nd ed.) 173-74; cf. W. L. Liefeld and D. W. Pao, “Luke,” in Expositor’s Bible Commentary (rev. ed.) 10:28.
6 See K. L. Moore, “Titus: Initiator, Comforter, Hero,” Moore Perspective (20 April 2016), <Web>.
7 Cf. Jerome, De Viris Illustribus 7, and John Chrysostom, Homily 18 on 2 Corinthians.
8 The title “Anti-Marcionite Prologues” (coined by Dom Donatien De Bruyne in 1928) refers to ancient prefaces to the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John. There is no clear evidence that they were produced at the same time by the same author(s) or initially circulated together, and only the prologue to John is explicitly worded against the 2nd-century heretic Marcion. The dating of these documents is disputed, with proposed dates ranging from the 2nd to 4th centuries. See Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development 243.
9 A. von Harnack argues that Eusebius, having given more accurate information, did not depend on the ancient prologue to Luke but they both shared in common an earlier source (Luke the Physician NTS 1:4).
10 A. von Harnack, Luke the Physician NTS 1:4-5. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Luke was one of the 70 disciples of Luke 10:1, as conjectured by Epiphanius (Panarion 2.51.11) in the late 4th century. Nor is there sufficient evidence to identify Luke as one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13), or Lucius of Acts 13:1, or one of the Greeks desiring to see Jesus in John 12:20. The statement in Luke 1:2 implies that the author himself was not an eyewitness.
11 According to the Latin Monarchian Prologues (4th–5th centuries), Luke allegedly died in Bithynia at the age of 74.
12 See Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary 1:410.
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