The Preface to Luke's Gospel

Luke's two-volume work begins with a formal preface unlike anything else in the New Testament, and it has long been academic orthodoxy that Luke's choice of style, vocabulary, and content in this short passage reveal a desire to present his work to contemporary readers as 'History' in the great tradition of Thucydides and Polybius. This study challenges that assumption: far from aping the classical historians, Dr Alexander argues, Luke was simply introducing his book in a style that would h...