Re: Luke, there is an old tradition (at least in the Eastern churches) that he was one of the 70 (or 72) apostles mentioned in Luke 10, and that he was the anonymous disciple with Cleopas on the road to Emmaus. I don't think those traditions are particularly historical myself, but they do exist.
Interesting! I guess the warrant for that would be that Luke is the only Gospel that mentions the 70/72 as such. I am aware that this group of disciples is an object of somewhat greater devotion in Eastern circles than Western, but I hadn’t heard of Luke himself ever being numbered among them. I wonder when this tradition dates to. It isn’t prominent enough to warrant a mention in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia or in Wikipedia, which often notes these things. I see that OCA.org traces it to Demetrios of Rostov (17th century), along with “Slavic Tradition.” I also found a “widely accepted canon” enumerating the members of the 70, but no dates or sources given. Thanks for the note!
Yeah, Luke's gospel is the only one that mentions the 70/72, and it's also the only one that mentions the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Tradition abhors a vacuum, so where an anonymous character exists, there is often a strong tendency to want to assign a name to that character... and in cases like this, the name that gets assigned is the name of the person who wrote the gospel that *mentions* the character! See also: all the speculation that the naked man in Gethsemane might have been Mark, the author of the only gospel that mentions said man.
Re: Luke on the road to Emmaus, the standard prayer for travelers in the Orthodox church (at least the churches I'm familiar with) begins by addressing Jesus as the one who, among other things, "didst accompany Luke and Cleopas on their way to Emmaus".
So, I was just about to offer the current scholarship consensus that NONE of the Gospels were written by anyone who was at the Last Supper - and then you made the point yourself.
I think you're right - anyone who has done serious Scripture study will look at the comic and say, "Well, I get what he was joking about, but..."
Re: Luke, there is an old tradition (at least in the Eastern churches) that he was one of the 70 (or 72) apostles mentioned in Luke 10, and that he was the anonymous disciple with Cleopas on the road to Emmaus. I don't think those traditions are particularly historical myself, but they do exist.
Interesting! I guess the warrant for that would be that Luke is the only Gospel that mentions the 70/72 as such. I am aware that this group of disciples is an object of somewhat greater devotion in Eastern circles than Western, but I hadn’t heard of Luke himself ever being numbered among them. I wonder when this tradition dates to. It isn’t prominent enough to warrant a mention in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia or in Wikipedia, which often notes these things. I see that OCA.org traces it to Demetrios of Rostov (17th century), along with “Slavic Tradition.” I also found a “widely accepted canon” enumerating the members of the 70, but no dates or sources given. Thanks for the note!
https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2016/09/10/102562-holy-apostles-of-the-70-apelles-luke-loukios-and-clement
https://www.christian-pilgrimage-journeys.com/biblical-sources/christian-history/the-seventy-disciples/
Yeah, Luke's gospel is the only one that mentions the 70/72, and it's also the only one that mentions the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Tradition abhors a vacuum, so where an anonymous character exists, there is often a strong tendency to want to assign a name to that character... and in cases like this, the name that gets assigned is the name of the person who wrote the gospel that *mentions* the character! See also: all the speculation that the naked man in Gethsemane might have been Mark, the author of the only gospel that mentions said man.
Re: Luke on the road to Emmaus, the standard prayer for travelers in the Orthodox church (at least the churches I'm familiar with) begins by addressing Jesus as the one who, among other things, "didst accompany Luke and Cleopas on their way to Emmaus".
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/prayers/prayer-for-travel
So, I was just about to offer the current scholarship consensus that NONE of the Gospels were written by anyone who was at the Last Supper - and then you made the point yourself.
I think you're right - anyone who has done serious Scripture study will look at the comic and say, "Well, I get what he was joking about, but..."