Gospel of Luke

===Textual history===
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{{See also|Acts of the Apostles#Manuscripts}}

[[File:P. Chester Beatty I, folio 13-14, recto.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Papyrus 45]], a 3rd-century AD Greek [[papyrus]] of the Gospel of Luke]]

[[Autograph]]s (original copies) of Luke and the other Gospels have not been preserved; the texts that survive are third-generation copies, with no two completely identical.{{sfn|Ehrman|1996|p=27}} The earliest witnesses (the technical term for written manuscripts) for the Gospel of Luke fall into two "families" with considerable differences between them, the [[Western text type|Western]] and the [[Alexandrian text-type]], and the dominant view is that the Western text represents a process of deliberate revision, as the variations seem to form specific patterns.{{sfn|Boring|2012|p=596}}

The [[Manuscript fragment|fragment]] {{Papyrus link|4}} is often cited as the oldest witness. It has been dated from the late 2nd century, although this dating is disputed. [[Papyrus 75]] (= Papyrus Bodmer XIV–XV) is another very early manuscript (late 2nd/early 3rd century), and it includes an attribution of the Gospel to Luke.

The oldest complete texts are the 4th-century [[Codex Sinaiticus]] and [[Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209|Vaticanus]], both from the Alexandrian family; [[Codex Bezae]], a 5th- or 6th-century Western text-type manuscript that contains Luke in [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] and [[Latin]] versions on facing pages, appears to have descended from an offshoot of the main manuscript tradition, departing from more familiar readings at many points.

Codex Bezae shows comprehensively the differences between the versions which show no core theological significance.{{sfn|Ellis|2003|p=19}}{{NoteTag|Verses {{bibleverse-nb||Luke|22:19–20|31}} are omitted in Codex Bezae and a handful of [[Vetus Latina|Old Latin]] manuscripts. Nearly all other manuscripts including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus and Church Fathers contain the "longer" reading of Luke 22:19 and 20. Verse 22:20, which is very similar to 1 Corinthians 11:25, and provides gospel support for the doctrine of the [[New Covenant]], along with Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24 (both, in the [[Textus Receptus]] Greek manuscript). Verses 22:43–44|31 are found in Western text-type, are omitted by a diverse number of ancient witnesses, and are generally marked as such in modern translations. See [[Bruce M. Metzger]]'s ''Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament'' (2005) for details.

{{Papyrus link|4}}, which dates to sometime between the 2nd and 4th century, contains Luke 1:58–59, 62–2:1,6–7; 3:8–4:2, 29–32, 34–35; 5:3–8; 5:30–6:16. {{Papyrus link|75}}, which also dates to sometime between the 2nd and 4th century, contains Luke 3:18–4:2+; 4:34–5:10; 5:37–18:18+; 22:4–24:53 and [[Gospel of John|John]] 1:1–11:45, 48–57; 12:3–13:10; 14:8–15:10. Finally, {{Papyrus link|45}} (mid-3rd century) contains extensive portions of all four Gospels. In addition to these major early papyri there are 6 other papyri ({{Papyrus link|3}}, {{Papyrus link|7}}, {{Papyrus link|42}}, {{Papyrus link|69}}, {{Papyrus link|82}} and {{Papyrus link|97}}) dating from between the 3rd–8th century which also have small portions of the Gospel of Luke. (See [[List of New Testament papyri]]).}}