Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 1:1 - 1:1

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 1:1 - 1:1


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Luk 1:1-4. INTRODUCTION

This brief preface is in several respects most interesting and important. Ewald rightly says that in its simplicity, brevity and modesty it is a model preface.

i. It is the only personal introduction to any historic book in the Bible except the Acts. It is specially valuable here as authenticating the first two chapters and shewing that Marcion’s excision of them was only due to his desire to suppress the true humanity of Christ, as his other mutilations of the Gospel (which made it “like a garment eaten by moths,” Epiphan.) were due to hostility to the Old Testament. See Mill’s Mythical Interpretation, p. 103.

ii. The style in which it is written is purer and more polished than that of the rest of the Gospel, though it is “the most literary of the Gospels.” It was the custom of antiquity to give special elaboration to the opening clauses of a great work, as we see in the Histories of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, &c. In the rest of the Gospel the style of the Evangelist is often largely modified by the documents of which he made such diligent use.

iii. It shews us in the simplest and most striking manner that the Divine Inspiration was in no way intended to supersede the exercise of human diligence and judgment.

iv. It proves how “many” early attempts to narrate the Life of Christ have perished. We may well suppose that they have only perished because the Four Evangelists were guided by “a grace of superintendency” to select and to record all that was most needful for us to know, and to preserve everything which was accurate and essential in the narratives (διηγήσεις) which had previously been published.

v. It furnishes us on the very threshold with a key to the aims of the Evangelist in the more systematic and comprehensive history which he is now led to write. With a modesty, which is also evinced by his self-suppression in the Acts of the Apostles, he here lays claim to nothing beyond methodical order and diligent research.

vi. We see at once from this preface the association of thought and expression between St Luke and his great Teacher. Several of the most marked words, ‘attempted,’ ‘most surely believed,’ ‘orally instructed,’ ‘certainly,’ are only found elsewhere in the letters and speeches of St Paul.

vii. It marks the difference between St Matthew and St Luke, shewing us that we have here a less Jewish and a more universal Gospel.