Could Not Answer

The Gospel Of Luke

It is a certain fact that Luke was not one of the Apostles. It is written in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,” “Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;” “It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent The-oph’i-lus,” “That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.” (Luke: 1-1, 2, 3, 4)

This paragraph has several denotations:

First; Luke wrote this Gospel as many other people contemporary with him wrote Gospels. Second; Luke points out the fact that there is no Gospel written by the Apostles themselves. For he distinguishes the Gospel writers from those who have seen with their own eyes, with the expression “Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; ...”

Third; he does not claim to be a disciple of one of the Apostles. For in his time there were numerous publications, articles and epistles attributed to each of the Apostles; he did not hope that such a documentation, i.e. claiming to be a pupil of one of the Apostles, would cause others to trust his book. Perhaps he thought it a more dependable document to point out that he had observed every fact in its original source and learned everything by personal scrutiny. One point should be noted: recently it has become a customary practice on the part of the Protestant clergy to replace the criticised expressions with some other appropriate expressions, each time a Gospel is reprinted. In fact, with permission, registered with the date 1371 and number 572, given by the (Turkish) Ministry of Education, the British and American Bible companies transformed this paragraph, too. By substituting the expression “As I know all the facts to the most minute details....,” with “having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first...,” they adapted the meaning to their own goals. But the French versions and the versions printed in Germany retain the meaning we have translated above.

In giving the genealogy of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, the twenty-seventh verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke writes as follows: “Which was the son of Jo-an’na, which was the son of Re’sa, which was the son of Zo-rob’a-bel, which was the son of sa-la’thi’el, which was the son of Ne’ri,” (Luke: 3-27) There are three errors here:

First; the children of Zo-rob’a-bel are written clearly in the nineteenth verse of the third chapter of I Chronicles of the Old Testament. There is no one by the name of Re’sa there. This writing of his contradicts Matthew’s writing, too.

Second: Zo-rob’a-bel is the son of Pe-dai’ah. He is not the son of Sa-la’thi el. He is the son of Sa-la’thi-el’s brother.

Third; Sa-la’thi-el is the son of Jech-o-ni’as, not the son of Ne’ri. Matthew writes so, too.[18]

Again, the thirty-sixth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke reads, “... Sa’la,” (Luke: 3-35) “Which was the son of Ca-i’nan, which was the son of Ar-phax’ad,” (ibid: 3-36) which is wrong, too. For Sa’la is not the grandson of Ar-phax’ad; he is his son. This fact is stated in the first chapter of I Chronicles (nineteenth verse) and in the eleventh chapter of Genesis [in its tenth, eleventh and twelfth verses].

Also, the first and second verses of the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” “(And this taxing was first made when Cy-re’nius was governor of Syria,)” (Luke: 2-1, 2) are wrong. The Romans never dominated the whole world; how could they have issued a firman concerning a worldwide taxing? In fact, the Protestant priests, in order to dodge this question as usual, changed these statements in the Istanbul-1886 edition of the New Testament and wrote it as, “In those days a firman concerning the registering of the whole world was issued by the Kaiser Augustus.” On the other hand, in the Turkish version issued by the British society in Paris in 1243 [A.D. 1827], this passage is written as, “In those days it befell so that a firman concerning a census of the world was issued by the Cæsar Augustus.” “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; ..,” “To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, ...” (Luke: 2-2, 3, 4) Afterwards, when scrutinies on the passage about the taxing began, it was seen that neither the historians contemporary with Luke nor those a short while before him said anything concerning the taxation. As for Cy-re’ni-us; he became the governor of Syria fifteen years after the birth of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’; it is an obvious fact, therefore, that the so-called taxing could not have taken place in his time, supposing after all the doubtful taxing did take place.