Gospel of Luke

===Genre, models and sources===
[[File:Relationship between synoptic gospels-en.svg|thumb|right|350px|Almost all of Mark's content is found in Matthew, and most of Mark is also found in Luke. Matthew and Luke share a large amount of additional material that is not found in Mark, and they also contain much higher proportions of unique special testimony.]]

Luke–Acts is a religio-political history of the founder of the church and his successors, in both deeds and words. The author describes his book as a "narrative" ({{transliteration|grc|diegesis}}), rather than as a gospel, and implicitly criticises his predecessors for not giving their readers the speeches of Jesus and the Apostles, as such speeches were the mark of a "full" report, the vehicle through which ancient historians conveyed the meaning of their narratives. He seems to have taken as his model the works of two respected Classical authors, [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]], who wrote a history of Rome (''Roman Antiquities''), and the Jewish historian [[Josephus]], author of a history of the Jews (''[[Antiquities of the Jews]]''). All three authors anchor the histories of their respective peoples by dating the births of the founders (Romulus, Moses, and Jesus) and narrate the stories of the founders' births from God, so that they are sons of God. Each founder taught authoritatively, appeared to witnesses after death, and ascended to heaven. Crucial aspects of the teaching of all three concerned the relationship between rich and poor and the question of whether "foreigners" were to be received into the people.{{sfn|Balch|2003|p=1104}}

Mark, written around 70 AD, provided the narrative outline for Luke, but Mark contains comparatively little of Jesus' teachings,{{sfn|Hurtado|2005|p=284}} and for these Luke likely turned to a hypothesized collection of sayings called [[Q source]], which would have consisted mostly, although not exclusively, of "sayings".{{sfn|Ehrman|1999|p=82}} Mark and Q account for about 64% of Luke; the remaining material, known as the [[L source]], is of unknown origin and date.{{sfn|Powell|1998|pp=39–40}} Most Q and L-source material is grouped in two clusters, Luke 6:17–8:3 and 9:51–18:14, and L-source material forms the first two sections of the gospel (the preface and infancy and childhood narratives).{{sfn|Burkett|2002|p=204}}