Setting His Face To Go To Jerusalem

There's a prominent theme in the gospel of Luke about Jesus' determination to go to Jerusalem to complete what he came to earth to do. There's a verse that highlights what's referred to in other places in Luke as well:

"When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem." (9:51)

The third Servant Song in Isaiah uses similar language, about the setting of the face, when discussing the suffering Jesus was to undergo in Jerusalem:

"I have set my face like flint" (50:7)

Some of Jesus' fulfillments of the Servant Songs in the gospels are more explicit (e.g., Luke 22:37). There are some that are more subtle, though. Noticing the more subtle ones and the cumulative effect of all of the evidence is important.

The Cumulative Effect Of The Pre-Irenaean Sources On Gospel Authorship

I've sometimes linked a collection of resources I put together on the best and earliest evidence for the authorship of the gospels. A mistake that can be made when evaluating that kind of evidence is to view the information in too isolated a manner. There's a cumulative effect to the evidence, and sometimes two or more things take on an added significance when considered together, a significance they wouldn't have if considered individually.

The Ehrman/Licona Debate On Gospel Authorship

Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona recently debated the subject. I listened to the debate while doing something else and didn't take notes, so I'll just be summarizing some points that have come to mind after listening to the debate. Mike had some good things to say, but I want to supplement what he offered.

"Firstborn" In Luke 2:7 And The Alleged Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

From Gregory Lanier's new commentary on Luke:

"Also, because prōtotokos here [in Luke 2:7] is modified by 'her,' it registers at the human level and does not convey the transcendence of Rom 8: 29; Col 1: 15; and Heb 1: 6." (Christian Standard Commentary: Luke [B&H Publishing Group, 2025], approximate Kindle location 4693)

Luke uses "only begotten" elsewhere (7:12, 9:38). He could have used it in 2:7, which would have implied the prerogatives, honors, and such of the "firstborn" terminology without casting doubt on Mary's perpetual virginity. In a culture in which women normally have multiple children, like ancient Israel, a woman whose child is called "firstborn" is normally expected to go on to have others or thought to have had others already, and Luke's gospel refers to others if the gospel is interpreted in its most natural sense (8:19). To refer to a woman's child as "firstborn" when she may not have any other children, but is expected to have more, is different than referring to the child as "firstborn" when writing after you know there were no other children. You could do the latter, but it would be less natural. Even if a term takes on additional uses over time, you should ask what the best explanation is of how the term originated. That has implications for later usage. "Firstborn" makes the most sense as a term originating in a context involving multiple children. That likely was the original meaning and the usual meaning afterward, even though exceptions developed under some circumstances. The issue here is how we best explain the terminology, not how it might be interpreted.

The Suspicious Early Silence About Later Marian Dogmas

In a recent post, I discussed some of the evidence against concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, sinlessness, and assumption. Something to keep in mind when issues like those come up is that the lack of reference to those beliefs among the earliest sources carries some evidential weight against them. Think of the writings of Luke, for example. He wrote the longest gospel we have, said the most about Mary among the earliest Christians, and gave us our earliest church history. That church history doesn't end until the early 60s. Not only does he say nothing of concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, sinlessness, assumption, praying to individuals like Mary, venerating images of such people, etc., but he even repeatedly uses language that most naturally suggests that he opposed some of those concepts. See here for a discussion of some examples. Or see here for many other examples of early opposition to later Marian beliefs and practices. My main point here, though, is that we should keep in mind that there's a double problem for the advocate of something like a modern Roman Catholic or modern Eastern Orthodox view of Mary. There's a suspicious lack of reference to their view, a view they claim to be so important, accompanied by so many apparent contradictions of it. And that's in a context in which they claim to belong to the one true church founded by Jesus, passing on all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, providing unity, providing doctrinal clarity, etc.

The Gospel Authors' Witness To Each Other

We often think of the evidence for the authorship of the gospels in terms of internal evidence and external sources of the patristic era, like Papias and Irenaeus. But we should also think in terms of the testimony of earlier sources, including the evidence the gospel authors provide for each other.

How Luke 3 Sheds Light On Acts 2

I want to comment on one of the issues involved in the controversy over Acts 2:38 and the relationship between justification and baptism. Sometimes the question of verse 37 will be highlighted, and it will be suggested that baptism shouldn't be mentioned in verse 38 if it isn't a means of obtaining justification.

The assumption seems to be that the question of verse 37 is equivalent to the one in 16:30. But the "to be saved" qualifier of 16:30 isn't present in 2:37.

Furthermore, there's a parallel between Acts 2 and Luke 3. The question of "what shall we do" comes up a few times in Luke 3:10-14. And John the Baptist keeps answering by mentioning actions that go beyond obtaining justification. He's addressing what should be done in general, which goes beyond acquiring justification (the "fruits" he had referred to earlier, in verses 8-9). Similarly, Acts 2 seems to be addressing a broader rather than narrower context.

Peter goes on to provide them with many other words and to tell them to be saved from "this perverse generation" (verse 40). It seems that more than justification is in view.

The Historicity Of The Christmas Accounts

Lydia McGrew was recently interviewed about the historical reliability of the Biblical accounts of Jesus' childhood and made a lot of good points about the subject.

The Early Prominence Of Luke's Gospel And Its Christmas Material

Trent Horn recently put out a video that largely reiterates some points he's made before about sola scriptura. In the process, he repeated the claim that none of the New Testament documents were "prominent" before Irenaeus wrote in the late second century. I want to respond to that claim with an example that's relevant to the current Christmas context. On the other issues brought up in his video, see my earlier responses to Trent here and here.

Go here to watch Trent citing Lee McDonald's remarks about the lack of prominence of the New Testament documents before Irenaeus. What I want to do in the remainder of this post is focus on the gospel of Luke as a counterexample. With Christmas coming up later in the week and the popularity among skeptics of denying that the earliest chapters of Luke's gospel were part of the original document, I want to discuss not only the early prominence of the gospel of Luke, but also the inclusion of our first two chapters and other Christmas material in the gospel. (For more about the Christmas material in Luke outside the earliest chapters, see this post.)

How plausible is Augustus' initiation of a census in Israel around the time of Jesus' birth?

It's often claimed that the Romans wouldn't have enacted a census in a client kingdom, which Israel was at the time of Jesus' birth. See Glenn Miller's argument to the contrary here and here. And Augustus wouldn't have to be directly responsible for the census in order for Luke's account to be accurate. Indirect involvement would be sufficient. If Herod implemented a census in an effort to please Augustus and conform Israel to Roman culture, as Herod did in other contexts, that would be enough to justify Luke's comments. The process of taking a census of the empire was initiated by Augustus. Whether that led to a census in Israel in a more direct or more indirect manner is a secondary issue, and the accuracy of Luke's account doesn't depend on it.

Another common objection is the alleged silence of sources other than Luke on the existence of a census in Israel at the time of Jesus' birth. I've addressed that subject before, such as in a post a couple of years ago. But here are some other points that can be made about both of the objections under consideration:

How To Argue That The Early Sources Agree About Jesus' Childhood More Than Critics Suggest

I've discussed forty examples of agreements between Matthew and Luke about Jesus' childhood. More examples could be cited. Yet, critics often suggest that Matthew and Luke only agree about a few things, or they list some higher single-digit number of agreements, for example. Even lists that consist of some low double-digit number are way off in the direction of underestimating the amount of agreement.

Though these discussions are often framed in terms of what Matthew and Luke have in common, we don't have to limit ourselves to those two sources (or just the infancy narratives within those two sources). There are many agreements among many early sources, not just Matthew and Luke.

One way to effectively remember and illustrate some of the agreements is to place them in categories, such as chronological issues or geographical issues. Think, for instance, of how many agreements there are between two or more sources on issues related to Jesus' familial circumstances:

What relationship did Joseph have with Bethlehem?

People often suggest that Joseph lived in Nazareth at the time of the opening verses of Luke 2 and that his only relationship with Bethlehem was one of distant ancestry. In a post several years ago, I explained why Luke probably wasn't saying that the census in Luke 2 required people to go to their places of ancestry, much less distant ancestry. When considering Joseph's relationship with Bethlehem in general, we can go beyond the census account, though that account is part of the evidence that needs addressed. Here are several reasons for thinking Joseph's relationship with Bethlehem was more than ancestral:

Evidence For Luke's Authorship

Michael Jones (InspiringPhilosophy) recently released a good video on the subject. We've written a lot about it as well. You can click on some of the post labels below, like the Luke one and the Authorship one, to find relevant posts. For example, here's a post about how the widespread traveling of the author of Luke/Acts makes it harder to dismiss the widespread identification of that author as Luke. And here's one about the importance of what early Roman sources reported concerning the authorship of Luke and Acts. Here's one about the best and earliest evidence for the authorship of the gospels in general, not just Luke.

Why were the early sources so confident about gospel authorship attribution?

A neglected aspect of the evidence for the authorship of the gospels is how much more prominent the authorship of the gospels was than the authorship of other documents. And that greater prominence suggests that the early sources' gospel authorship attributions have greater significance.

How The Author's Travels Support The Authorship Attribution Of Luke/Acts

I've written before about how Acts ends with a "we" passage that places the author in Rome and how some of the earliest evidence we have for Lukan authorship comes from sources closely connected to that city. Something else to note about the authorship of Luke and Acts is that multiple sources in multiple locations should have been in a good position to know who wrote the documents. The "we" passages in Acts, which suggest participation by the author in the events in question, are evidence that the author traveled widely. And he apparently was writing Acts as he traveled, doing preparatory work for writing while traveling (e.g., gathering information from people, taking notes), or some of each, given the nature of the details in the document. (For evidence to that effect, see here, here, and here.) So, people in a large number and variety of locations should have had significant evidence regarding who wrote Acts (and the gospel of Luke). That includes being in a good position to falsify an incorrect authorship attribution. That's especially true given all of Luke/Acts' references to times, places, individuals involved, etc. I've argued that some of Luke's material on Jesus' childhood likely was acquired in the context of Acts 21. So, it looks like the authorship of the third gospel, not just Acts, is also directly connected to his travels in the "we" passages. Attribution of the third gospel and Acts to Luke was widespread and seems to have not faced much opposition. That makes more sense if the attribution is correct than if it's incorrect. That's true not only as a general principle, but even more so in light of the author's travels.

Neglected Evidence For Acts' Material On The Resurrection Appearance To Paul

There are some good arguments that are often brought up for the material on Jesus' appearance to Paul in Acts, such as the authorship of Luke/Acts and the general historical reliability of the author. See, for example, my posts on such issues here, Craig Keener's video on Luke's historiography here, and a video featuring Lydia McGrew on the subject of hard things Acts gets right here. What I want to focus on in this post is some evidence that comes up less often. I'll occasionally mention more common arguments in the process of discussing the less common ones, but my focus here is on lines of evidence that have gotten less attention.

A Response To Bart Ehrman's Webinar Against The Virgin Birth

It aired at 2:00 P.M. Eastern time today. It consisted of three segments, two presentations that were a little over an hour each and one session of questions and answers that lasted a little under an hour. I saw all of it other than about the first seven minutes of the first presentation, which I missed due to technical problems. The video isn't available for replay yet, but should be later this week. I plan to watch those first seven minutes at that point, then post any further comments that are warranted. But given the small amount of time involved and the nature of the webinar as a whole, I doubt that I missed much in those first several minutes.

When I provide documentation of something said during the webinar, I'll refer to the section involved and the approximate minute within that section. I don't have a video to play back at this point to get more precise numbers. So, "(second presentation, 21:00)" refers to something at roughly 21 minutes into the second presentation, "(questions and answers, 3:00)" refers to something about 3 minutes into the segment with questions and answers, etc.

Does Luke 1:34 suggest that Mary took a vow of perpetual virginity?

Roman Catholics and other advocates of Mary's perpetual virginity often claim that Luke 1:34 implies that Mary had taken a vow of perpetual virginity. Why else would she ask Gabriel how she was to conceive? These same Catholics (and others) often cite the second-century apocryphal work The Protevangelium Of James to support their view that Mary was a perpetual virgin. Go here and do a Ctrl F search for "apocryphal document" to read about some of the problems with that sort of appeal to the document. The Protevangelium has Mary needing to be corrected by Gabriel about becoming pregnant the same way other women do (11). It doesn't seem that the author of the Protevangelium interpreted Luke 1:34 the way these modern Catholics interpret the passage. Here are some other observations on Luke 1:34, which I wrote in correspondence with a friend on Facebook last year:

What We Should Make Of Passages Like Luke 4:16-30

Lydia McGrew recently posted a good video about an unjustified bias against "the possibility that events have happened on multiple occasions that are broadly similar to each other" (e.g., Jesus' cleansing the temple twice). Two later videos, here and here, discuss the example of Luke 4:16-30 and how it relates to some similar material in Matthew and Mark. People often overestimate such similarities and underestimate other factors involved.

Here's a post I wrote last year that provides some extrabiblical examples. And a post I wrote about Jesus' relatives discusses the plausibility of Luke's use of James the brother of Jesus as a source for the Luke 4 passage.

D.A. Carson On Colin Hemer

I recently came across D.A. Carson's eulogy of Colin Hemer after seeing it linked by Lydia McGrew.