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The Writing Style Of St. Luke

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Introduction St. Luke, normally considered a physician from Antioch, seems an early companion of St. Paul because of his apparent unknowingness about Paul’s letters. In addition, St. Irenaeus and Origen corroborate Luke’s gospel authorship. Luke’s writing style is the most articulate of the gospels (packing one-third of the NT). The common dating of Luke’s gospel is around 80 AD because he greatly borrowed from Mark’s gospel, which is normally dated around 70 AD.
Context
The Gospel of Luke starts with a prologue dedication to Theophilus and then transitions into the foretelling of John the Baptist and the Annunciation to Mary. The chapter closes with the birth of John the Baptist and the Canticle of Zachariah. Luke opens with the classic style of a prologue to a biblical style of writing commonly used in the Greek OT. Luke wrote his gospel to appeal to gentile and Jewish converts with numerous allusions to the OT. This Gospel “is alone in describing the Annunciation, the Visitation, the prophecies of Sts. Simeon and Anna at the time of the presentation of Christ, the finding of the Christ in the Temple, and the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Zechariah.” Luke uses a great amount of history and historical perspectives to connect salvation and contemporary world history. The Infancy Narratives in Luke “present chronologically, parallel scenes, between John the Baptist and Jesus from their birth, circumcisions, and presentations.”

Formal Analysis The

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