Luke 1: The Intention of Knowledge

It feels odd reading Luke 1 on Valentine's Day.  This passage is one we associate with December 25 not February 14.  Still, Luke 1 is a passage that knows no season. 

What impresses me as I read the opening chapter of Luke's Gospel again is the opening four verses.  We usually rush past those verses to get to the Christmas story, but we shouldn't do that.  Those beginning verses are important for how Luke views his narrative and indeed for how all of the Gospel authors viewed what they wrote.

Some will suggest that the Gospel writers knew they were writing myth, that they knew that their claims about Jesus were less than historical.  But the opening four verses of chapter 1 make it clear that Luke did not feel that what he wrote was myth.  He viewed the story of Jesus as true, verifiable historical fact.  While such a claim may not settle easily with us postmoderns, it should not be simply dismissed.  Luke writes this Gospel to Theophilus (which is Greek for 'God lover'- perhaps a code name for someone in the Emperor's house where Christianity would have been dangerous.  Cf Acts 1).   He tells Theophilus that he writes so that "you may know the certainty of the things that you have been taught."  Luke believed the story of Jesus was true.

He also believed that he was not at liberty to change or alter details of the story.  In verse 2, Luke says that what he recounts about Jesus comes from faithful eyewitnesses.  People saw what Jesus did and passed it on in a reliable fashion.  He also says that he received his facts about Jesus from "servants of the word."  This is an interesting phrase.  On the one hand, "servant of the word" could simply be shorthand for preacher or apostle.  But on the other hand this suggests something about how these preachers viewed their activities.  "Servant of the word" suggests that these men served the story.  They let the story shape them rather than seeing themselves as shapers of the story.  Modern scholars often suggest that the facts of the Gospel were shaped to serve the need of the churches to whom they were written.  But Luke's phrase "servants of the word" suggests something else.  It suggests that transmission of events as they actually happened was very important.

Of course, none of this proves that Luke or any other Gospel is true.  Arguments that support our epistemological certainty about the Gospel are based on other premises and texts.  But these verses at least show the intentions of the Gospel authors.  They did not write to create a story.  They wrote to serve a story.  And it was very important to them that the story be true.