Chapter 1

Steve Patton keeps a whole Wednesday evening class on Luke's four-verse preface, reading it as the work of a careful first-century historian rather than a collector of legends. He walks the phrases (compiling a narrative, following all things closely, writing so Theophilus may have certainty) then turns to how ancient historians signalled their sources: names left in the account that the story does not need, from Malchus to Bartimaeus to Cleopas to the women at the tomb. Class comment runs throughout.