When was the Gospel of Luke written?
The Gospel of Luke never dates itself, and no writer in Scripture tells us when Luke put down his pen. What commentators do instead is work backwards from the fixed points — Luke's travels with Paul, the abrupt ending of Acts, and the earliest known quotations of the Gospel — and the dates they reach differ.
The Range Most Commentators Settle On
The most common estimate places the writing in the second half of the 50s, while Paul was held prisoner at Caesarea, a coastal city where he was kept for two years before being sent to Rome.
Arend RemmersThe Gospel of Luke was probably written during the years 55 to 60 AD. Many researchers suppose that Luke wrote it during the 2 year-imprisonment of the apostle Paul in Caesarea.
The Anchor Is Acts
Luke wrote two books, and the second one opens by referring back to the first. Acts therefore sets a ceiling on the Gospel's date — whenever Acts was written, the Gospel was already finished. And Acts stops short, in the middle of the story, at Paul's imprisonment in Rome.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe Acts ends with the two years' imprisonment of the apostle Paul at Rome: it could not therefore have been written before the end of that time, and was probably written very soon afterwards, or it would have given the outcome of Paul's trial. This would place the date about A.D. 63.
Darby uses the same reasoning to fix an outer limit for the Gospel, and applies it to settle a disputed question about whether Luke could have been describing a murder that took place during the siege of Jerusalem:
J. N. DarbyLuke, in the Acts, refers to his gospel as a previous treatise which he had written: but in the Acts he closes with Paul's imprisonment in Rome; that is to say, the year 65. So his gospel was already written in that year, that is, five years and more before the death of the Zachariah of whom Josephus speaks.
Paul Quotes Luke As Scripture
There is a second internal clue. In one of his letters Paul strings together a line from the law of Moses and a line found in Luke's Gospel, and introduces both the same way.
Arend RemmersIn 1 Timothy 5:18 Paul refers to Luke 10:7, where he writes: "The laborer deserves his wages." This reference is very remarkable for two reasons. Firstly, it shows that Luke's Gospel was already known at the time of writing the First Epistle to Timothy. Secondly, it proves that the Gospel of Luke was immediately respected by the Christians as a canonical book, forming part of the Holy Scriptures. The introductory words of the Apostle Paul, "For the Scripture says," put both references, from Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7, on one level, the level of the inspired Word of God.
Why Some Push The Date Later
Commentators differ, and the disagreement is not only about arithmetic. Kelly lays out the whole spread of scholarly opinion and shows what drives the later datings — the assumption that Jesus could not have foretold the fall of Jerusalem, so any Gospel recording that prediction must have been written after the city fell in A.D. 70.
William KellyIn seeking to determine the date of the composition of this Gospel, time must be allowed for the attempts made by others of which the Prologue speaks. Followed by the Book of Acts, which does not record Paul's death, the Gospel might seem to have been completed before 64 A.D. … Writers such as Jülicher, influenced by the idea that the language of Luke 19:43 f. as to the overthrow of Jerusalem implies composition after the event, would say after 70; and so Zahn, about 75; Plummer and Sanday, 75-80.
Kelly notes that even a leading critic changed his mind on this, finding it hard to read the Gospel as the work of a man looking back on a ruined city:
William KellyHarnack, in his recent book on the Acts in particular, finds it difficult to think that Luke in Luke 21:32 regarded the destruction of the city as past at the time of his writing. He now thinks that a date soon after the year 60 is credible.
Not The Decisive Question
Gaebelein, who devotes his introduction to who Luke was and why a non-Jewish writer was chosen, treats the dating debate as secondary and leaves it aside:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinOther critical questions, such as the time it was written, where it was written, etc., we are obliged to pass by.
Summary
- Silence. The Gospel gives no date of its own, so every answer is an inference — hold it loosely.
- Ceiling. Acts calls the Gospel its "former treatise" and ends with Paul still a prisoner in Rome, around A.D. 63; the Gospel was finished before that.
- Estimate. The common view is roughly A.D. 55–60, possibly written while Paul was held two years at Caesarea.
- Confirmation. Paul quotes Luke 10:7 as "Scripture" in 1 Timothy — the Gospel was already circulating and already received as the inspired Word of God.
- Dispute. Later dates rest on the assumption that Jesus' words about Jerusalem's fall must have been written after A.D. 70; commentators here answer that the text reads as prediction, not memory.