Luke

The book of Luke is confusing. With Matthew, Mark, and John, it is easier for me to get an approximation of what they are trying to do: Matthew focuses on Jesus' teachings as a way of describing the counterintuitive nature of the Kingdom of God. Mark, as it was the first Gospel written down, focuses on a minimalist narrative, interspersing teaching with healings and miracles as evidence that Jesus not only taught about the Kingdom, He also ushered it into existence. John, written much later than the other three, includes radically different information, and is centered around seven signs of Jesus' divine nature as well as a series of individual encounters he has with people as if to record personal testimonies that He is indeed the son of God.

Luke, however, is strange. It starts off by claiming to be a historical account of Jesus' ministry: "It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order" (1:3). And at first it proceeds that way. Luke starts off earlier than the other Gospels do, recording not only the conception and birth of Jesus but also those of John the Baptist. However, when Luke gets to the middle, where Jesus' ministry mostly consisted of going around to different places and telling parables, our narrator seems to drop the sense of chronology he has so far been giving us. The parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Rich Man and Lazarus seem to be inserted into a vague "sometime" in Jesus' ministry. Then, when He enters Jerusalem for the last time on a donkey, Luke goes back to a strict "consecutive" account of the Passion and resurrection.

I have not done any additional research into the date of composition, but it seems to me that the only explanation for Luke's departure from a chronological narrative is that he was writing this Gospel with his predecessors' works sitting in front of him (or at least in the front of his mind). And when he got to the middle, he saw what they included and thought to himself, "Oh, but this is such a good story, how could they have left it out?" And so he ended up putting in a few extra things without bothering too much about explaining exactly when they happened. I am glad he did, even if it seems to confuse his overall project. However, while this might explain the mechanics of his Gospel, I still haven't got a handle on the overarching theme he is trying to communicate about Jesus. More on that the next time through, I hope.