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The story of the ancient world is recorded by several historians of old, such as Homer, Josephus, Tacitus, Xenophon, Herodotus—called “the father of history,” and Thucydides, who is credited as being one of the most trustworthy of ancient sources. All of them suffer in comparison to the historical pinpoint accuracy of Luke.

Luke was undeniably brilliant, possessing remarkable literary abilities and a deep knowledge of the Greek language. He was the only non-Jewish author of the Bible. Yet he wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else—28 percent. He was a physician and a scientist. He was a writer and a medical missionary. He has proved himself a historian of first rank. Here he tells us that before writing his Gospel, he did the work of an investigative journalist, recording his findings in an orderly manner based on careful investigation: “It seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (

With that in mind, remember that Luke painstakingly and confidently described the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in his Gospel, chapters 23 and 24; and he repeatedly made reference to the Resurrection in the book of Acts.

The brilliant Wilbur Smith said:

"Of all the writers in the New Testament, Luke was the one who knew better than any of them, from his own medical experience, that it was utterly impossible for a dead body to come to life again by its own power. He was also a man who would have no faith in such a great doctrine as the resurrection of Christ, were it based upon a vision, a hallucination, mental excitement, or the blowing of the wind, or the rattling of a window. It was the conviction of this scientist and scholar, true Grecian and true Christian, that the Lord manifested himself to his disciples in many proofs." To reject the Resurrection, you have to disregard the demonstrated reliability of one of the foremost historians of the first century, a man who has been proven accurate even in the minutia of his narrative. How accurate was Luke's historical record? He tied everything into history and gave us historical anchors all along the way, both in his Gospel and Acts. His historical pegs have proven accurate even in minute points. For example, notice the way he began chapter 2: those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register” (Luke 2:1–3).

Luke did not just say that Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem. He said they traveled there because of a census instituted by Caesar Augustus and that this particular census occurred while a man named Quirinius was governor of Syria. A hundred years ago, critics had a field day with that statement, finding no evidence in history to suggest that Caesar ever issued such a decree. Furthermore (critics charged) there was nothing to suggest that Quirinius was ever governor of Syria at the time prescribed by Luke. Then a series of discoveries were made. Sir William Ramsay, the Scottish archaeologist, dug up first-century documents showing that the Roman Empire conducted a regular taxpaying census every fourteen years and that this system originated in the days of Caesar Augustus. Another document was found in Egypt, an edict of G. Vibius Maximus written on papyrus, describing the procedure used in such a census, directing taxpayers to return to their ancestral towns to register. Another inscription discovered by Ramsay in Antioch showed that with brief interruptions, a man named Quirinius functioned as military governor in Syria from 12 b.c. to a.d. 16.

Notice in the next chapter, Luke 3, how meticulously Luke nails down his historical references: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert” (Luke 3:1–2)

Sound like misty legend and fabricated fable? Anything but! Luke tacks John’s ministry to the wall of history using six different pins. John the Baptist appeared when (1) Tiberius Caesar was in his fifteenth year of rule; (2) Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; (3) Herod was tetrarch of Galilee; (4) Herod’s brother Philip was tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis; (5) Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene; and (6) Annas and Caiaphas were sharing the office of high priest. Most of these facts are easy to verify, but a couple of them caused problems. A hundred years ago, critics were attacking Luke’s reference to Lysanias, saying, “The only Lysanias mentioned in history was killed in 36 b.c., sixty years before John the Baptist.” But the critics were stilled when archaeologists excavated an inscription near Damascus, stating that a man named Lysanias was indeed tetrarch of Abilene at the time mentioned by Luke. The skeptics also made hay with Pontius Pilate. For most of modern history his name has been absent on every historical document we have from the ancient world. Critics charged that Pilate was a fabrication. But a stone I have personally seen and took a picture of was excavated in Caesarea. It has the name Pontius Pilate plainly engraved for all the world to see. He was governor of Judea during the very time given by Luke, and he was headquartered at Caesarea.

I mentioned earlier how William Ramsay traveled to the Middle East to disprove Luke’s historical references and how, to his great surprise, he found the writings of Luke accurate in their tiniest details. This is even more remarkable when we consider that every other historian in the ancient world—men like Polybius, Quintilian, Xenophon, Josephus, and even Thucydides—did not hesitate to misrecord the facts to suit their own purposes.

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