<P> The Gospel According to Luke (Greek: Τὸ κατὰ Λουκᾶν εὐαγγέλιον, to kata Loukan evangelion), also called the Gospel of Luke, or simply Luke, is the third of the four canonical Gospels . It tells of the origins, birth, ministry, atonement, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ . </P> <P> Luke is the second - longest of the four gospels, and together with Acts of the Apostles, the pair make up a two - volume work from the same pen, called Luke--Acts . The cornerstone of Luke--Acts' theology is "salvation history", the author's understanding that God's purpose is seen in the way he has acted, and will continue to act, in history . It divides the history of first century Christianity into three stages, with the gospel making up the first two of these--the arrival among men of Jesus the Messiah, from his birth to the beginning of his earthly mission in the meeting with John the Baptist followed by his earthly ministry, Passion, death and resurrection (concluding the gospel story per se). The gospel's sources are the Gospel of Mark (for the narrative of Christ's earthly life), the sayings collection called the Q source (for his teachings), and a collection of material called the L (for Luke) source, which is found only in this gospel . </P> <P> Luke--Acts does not name its author . According to Church tradition this was Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, but while this view is still occasionally put forward the scholarly consensus emphasises the many contradictions between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters . The most probable date for its composition is around 80--110 AD, and there is evidence that it was still being revised well into the 2nd century . </P> <P> Autographs (original copies) of Luke and the other Gospels have not been preserved, as is typical for ancient documents; the texts that survive are third - generation copies, with no two completely identical . The earliest witnesses (the technical term for written manuscripts) for Luke's gospel fall into two "families" with considerable differences between them, the Western and the Alexandrian, and the dominant view is that the Western text represents a process of deliberate revision, as the variations seem to form specific patterns . The oldest witness is a fragment dating from the late 2nd century, while the oldest complete texts are the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, both from the Alexandrian family; Codex Bezae, a 5th - or 6th - century Western text - type manuscript that contains Luke in Greek and Latin versions on facing pages, appears to have descended from an offshoot of the main manuscript tradition, departing from more familiar readings at many points . </P>

When was the book of luke written in the bible