Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Luca Evanghelistul" in Romanian language version.
The Third Gospel, traditionally called the Gospel according to Luke, is a unique literary and theological contribution to the story of Jesus Christ. By the late second century, the author of the Gospel and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, was identified as Luke, a physician who was a traveling companion and co-worker with Paul (Philem 1.24; Col 4.14). At times Luke is further described as a Syrian from Antioch, but practically nothing else is remembered of the writer of the Third Gospel. Scholarly analysis of the Gospel and Acts raises questions about the attribution of these writings to the Luke who was Paul’s associate. The strongest argument for identifying Luke the physician as the author of the Gospel and Acts is the obscurity of this figure in the New Testament. Yet, even defenders of the traditional identification recognize difficulties with that connection. Though Luke’s familiarity with Judaism is extensive, he seems to have more book-knowledge than practical experience of its particular rituals and beliefs. Similarly, when Luke provides details about Palestinian locations and practices, they exhibit a tendency toward setting the story in an urban environment rather than the predominantly nonurban village culture that Jesus would have known. Above all, Luke never mentions in Acts that Paul wrote letters and only seldom does he use theological themes from the letters of the apostle.
We do not know who wrote the gospels. They presently have headings: 'according to Matthew', 'according to Mark', 'according to Luke' and 'according to John'. The Matthew and John who are meant were two of the original disciples of Jesus. Mark was a follower of Paul, and possibly also of Peter; Luke was one of Paul's converts.5 These men – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – really lived, but we do not know that they wrote gospels. Present evidence indicates that the gospels remained untitled until the second half of the second century.
We must candidly acknowledge that all three of the Synoptic Gospels are anonymous documents. None of the three gains any importance by association with those traditional figures out of the life of the early church. Neither do they lose anything in importance by being recognized to be anonymous. Throughout this book the traditional names are used to refer to the authors of the first three Gospels, but we shall do so simply as a device of convenience.
This question is why most scholars don't think Matthew the tax collector wrote the First Gospel.
The Fourth Gospel, like the three Synoptic Gospels, is anonymous: it does not bear its author's name. [...] It is noteworthy that, while the four canonical Gospels could afford to be published anonymously, the apocryphal Gospels which began to appear from the mid-second century onwards claimed (falsely) to be written by apostles or other persons closely associated with the Lord.
(Candida Moss marshals the historical evidence to prove that "we simply don't know how any of the apostles died, much less whether they were martyred.")6Citează Moss, Candida (). The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. HarperCollins. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-06-210454-0.
