Did Theopholus commision/sponsor the Gospel of Luke?

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Eoghan

Puritan Board Senior
It was a throwaway comment from Mark Dever, I had to rewind to double check. (driving at the time) Anyway he suggested that Theopholus was more than the passive recipient but more the commissioning publisher. (except there was no publishing)

Anyone else stumbled across this one?

(Starting on a study in Luke so I will be posting a lot more on the Gospels now that I have left the Psalms)
 
I have heard it suggested that Theophilus may have been the patron of Luke/Acts. Certainly the general concept of patronage, and the presence of a sort of dedicatory preface, with the specific language used by Luke in them, might tend to support that. But I would want to see a broader comparison of the language used of and to patrons at the time before entertaining it as more than a possibility.
 
We don't even know for certain who Theophilus was. I would think that any speculation as to his role in receiving/publishing would be subservient to speculation regarding his identity.
 
We are not even certain that Theophilus was a real person. Since Theophilus simply means “lover of God” Luke may have been using a literary device as a means of addressing his letter to the church at large. At any rate, all of this seems to be speculation at best.
 
We don't even know for certain who Theophilus was. I would think that any speculation as to his role in receiving/publishing would be subservient to speculation regarding his identity.
The language would appear to indicate that Luke is writing to a person of some standing.
 
I have never thought this more than speculative.

No doubt, but no less speculative than assuming he was a real person. We simply have no record of any prominent person of this name from this time period. It is also possible that the person he is writing to wished to remain anonymous and so Luke employs a pseudonym. No matter how you slice it, we just don’t know.
 
We simply have no record of any prominent person of this name from this time period.
It apparently was a common name which may be part of the problem. I doubt our records are complete from this time period anyway - for example one of the arguments that the Messiah has come, with Jews, is that genealogies are no longer available to verify He is a descendant of David.
 
Maybe I should explain that they WERE available in the time of Christ but are no longer available.
 
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