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up vote 5 down vote accepted






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Your question really contains several separate questions:



Was the birth narrative a later addition to Luke?


Was the birth narrative written in response to Marcion?



Did Marcion heavily edit his gospel


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Luke's Gospel was written after Marcion's. Most of the scholars assume Jesus was a real person that existed in the beginning of the first century and that the writers of the Gospels interviewed eyewitnesses. The Biblical Jesus could have originated from the life of Yeshu ben Pandera, aka Yeshu Ha-Notzri/Jesus the Nazarene/The Teacher of Righteousness who lived a century before the Biblical Jesus, and the Apostle Paul could have been based on the life of Apollonius of Tyana. The first actual historical reference to the Gospel of Luke wasn't until the late second century, after Marcion's death. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were both addressed to Most Excellent Theophilus. In the Toledot Yeshu, is was mentioned that after years of turmoil, the followers of Yeshu ben Pandera were ultimately exiled to Antioch. Rather than being written in Aramaic, the Gospel of Luke, as were the rest of the Gospels, written in Greek. Christians claim that the Gospels were translated, and that the word spread like wildfire. Or, possibly the Gospel of Luke was written by Lucian of Samosata and addressed to the Christian patriarch Theophilus of Antioch, who both live in the late second century. That would explain who Theophilus was, why the Gospel of Luke was written in Greek. The reason why there was already a church in Antioch so soon after the supposed death of Jesus, is because the church was in Antioch for a long time.

The primary difference between the Gospel of Luke and Marcion's Gospel of the Lord is the birth narrative. When one closely studies the contradictions in the birth narrative, google "Myths Surrounding the Birth of Jesus", it becomes apparent that the birth stories are fiction. The author of Luke makes great pains to get the birth of Jesus to Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy and connect him with the lineage of King David. He creates a bizarre census the contradicts history and would create chaos, plus the heritage doesn't match Mathew's at all. Obviously he's trying to connect Jesus to the Jewish religion and heritage. There is a Bib1 - Bib14 video series on the creation of the Gospels detailing the source of the birth narrative, which is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The birth narratives of Matthew and Luke don't make sense, but is more complete in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. However the writers objected. The resurrection story was derived from the Gospel of Peter.

Another good source is which goes into more detail regarding the New Testament creation. In my opinion the natural approach to explaining the Bible fits the best, but ultimately it comes down to whether one prefers a miraculous approach or a more natural approach at explaining the world we live in.

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Luke's Gospel was written after Marcion's. That is a VERY bold assertion (I am not aware of a single scholar that believes that), and needs to be backed up, not just taken as a fact. Based on the rest of your answer, I think you are confusing the Gospel of Mark with Marcion's gospel. Marcion was a second century heretic who (according to all extant accounts) used an edited version of Luke's gospel + Paul's letters as his only scripture. None of Marcion's actual writing survives... Other than that error, your answer is just thoughts on the reliability of Luke, which is not what was asked. – ThaddeusB Nov 9 '15 at 2:49
Much of your information is flat out wrong,BTW. The people you got this information are either very confused (for example, conflating the dating of Gospel of Thomas with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a much later work) or purposely deceiving. – ThaddeusB Nov 9 '15 at 3:00

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