Notes for Episode #79
Selections from Peter Bolt, John David Michaelis, Josephus, Philo, Origen, and Sir William Ramsay.
LISTEN to Episode #79: Who Is Theophilus?
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Peter G. Bolt on the Identity of Theophilus
Luke’s works were addressed to “O most excellent Theophilus” (Lk 1:3, Acts 1:1)…[O]ne possible candidate for receiving Luke’s writings amongst the few prominent Jews worthy of the title “excellent” was Theophilus, son of Annas. After serving as high priest from AD 6–15, Annas continued to exert an influence in Jesus’s day and beyond through having five sons occupy the high priestly office (Josephus, Antiquities 20.198), as well as one son-in-law, Joseph Caiaphas (see Lk 3:2, Acts 4:6, Jn 18:13, 24), and a grandson. After Caiaphas (AD 18–37), Annas’s son Jonathan held the office for a couple of months (AD 37; Josephus, Antiquities, 18.95) before being replaced by his brother Theophilus, who held it until he was dismissed by Agrippa I (AD 37–41). Was this prominent Jewish leader amongst the “large group of priests” turning to Christ (Acts 6:7), or at least an open-minded inquirer?…
Luke opens what will be a two-volume work (see Acts 1:1)…Theophilus is the primary addressee, but he is a literary patron for wider circles around and beyond him. He has been a close observer of these events previously (1:4), and now he will be able to read them laid out in orderly succession according to God’s eschatological timetable. If he can be identified as Theophilus the high priest (AD 37–41), then Luke’s narrative presents Jesus to a man who was at the centre of the Jewish circles that were largely responsible for rejecting Jesus. It is an “apologia” (defence) as well as a “kategoria” (accusation/critique).
From Luke: A Commentary (2022), published online by The Gospel Coalition.
Peter G. Bolt on Theophilus & Joanna
Theophilus and Joanna are both briefly but prominently mentioned in the writings of Luke, the long-term companion of Paul…The suggestion that Luke wrote his two-volumes to Theophilus the High Priest as an apologia for the Jesus movement and for earliest Christianity (especially Paul) respectively was first made by Theodore Hase in 1721. However, it has only attracted occasional attention since that time, largely because of the assumption that Theophilus was a prominent Gentile representing Luke’s purportedly gentile audience…Previously known only from Josephus (Ant. 18.123–124), the existence of this high priest was confirmed in the summer of 1983 by the discovery of his name on the ossuary of his granddaughter, which reads: “Yehohanah the daughter of Yehohanan Son of Theophilus the High Priest”…
Luke also reports that Joanna was ‘the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household’ (8:3)…Since Chuza was ‘a very high ranking official at Herod’s court’ and most likely ‘in charge of Antipas’s property and revenues generally’, Joanna would also have been from an aristocratic Jewish family, as also indicated by her holding her own property ‘in title’…To raise another aristocratic possibility, was Joanna/Junia the same person as Yehohanah of the ossuary? …Although Joanna is the fifth most common of the 247 named Jewish females from 330 BCE – 200 CE, it nevertheless represents only 3.24% of the total. Statistically, the very rarity of the name in collocation with the equally rare (within Palestinian Judaism) Theophilus increases the likelihood that the Joanna of Luke-Acts should be identified with Yehohanah, and, of course, this likelihood increases exponentially with the likelihood that Luke’s Theophilus was the high priest.
From “The Doctor, The High Priest, the Aristocrat, and the Apostle,” in God’s Grace Inscribed on the Human Heart: Essays in Honour of James R. Harrison, edited by Peter G. Bolt and Sehyun Kim (Macquarie Centre, NSW: SCD Press, 2022) 79-98.
John David Michaelis on the Identity of Theophilus (1777)
Theodore Hase…contends that Theophilus was formerly, though not when St. Luke addressed his Gospel to him, a Jewish High Priest. The arguments advanced in favor of this opinion are so strong as to render it more probable than any other. That a person of the name of Theophilus once executed the office of High Priest, appears from the Antiquities of Josephus. He was a son of Annas, who was High Priest in the year in which Christ was crucified, and was himself nominated High Priest by the Roman Governor Vitellius in the place of his brother Jonathan, whom Vitellius deposed. Theophilus therefore…was certainly of sufficient rank to be entitled to the appellation of kratistos. It is therefore not impossible that this person is the Theophilus, to whom St. Luke addressed his Gospel, which must then be considered as an historical apology for the Christian religion, addressed to one of the heads of the Jewish nation. Further, Ananus, the brother of Theophilus, was in the priesthood after the death of the Procurator Festus; consequently Theophilus himself might have been alive, not only when St. Luke wrote his Gospel, but likewise when he wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Lastly, when we take into consideration that this Theophilus is the only person of that name, whose history is recorded in the annals of the first century, the possibility that he is the same with St. Luke’s Theophilus becomes a probability.
That St. Luke addressed his Gospel to one of the heads of the Jewish church agrees likewise extremely well with the opinion that he wrote it in Palestine during the time that St. Paul was prisoner at Caesarea. He had then the very best opportunity of tracing up the history of Christ to the fountain head, agreeably to what he himself says in his Preface: and, as the propagation of the new religion engaged at that time the particular attention of the leading men among the Jews (Acts 25:13–26:32), there could not be a fitter opportunity for presenting to a person, who had once executed the important office of High Priest, an authentic narrative of the miracles and resurrection of Christ, in vindication of those, who had embraced his doctrines. Nor is it improbable that St. Luke’s narrative should have produced such an effect on the mind of this person, as to induce him to request from the same author a further account of the Christians, especially of St. Paul, who was then prisoner in Caesarea, which occasioned the composition of St. Luke’s second work, the Acts of the Apostles. All these circumstances put together render the opinion highly probable that St. Luke’s Theophilus is no other than Theophilus the son of Annas, who is mentioned by Josephus. And if the opinion be true, as I really believe, it adds greatly to the credibility of St. Luke’s Gospel; for the Evangelist would hardly have ventured to dedicate to the son of that very Annas, who was High Priest when Christ was crucified, a narrative of facts performed in Palestine, unless he had been able to warrant their truth.
John David Michaelis, Introduction to the New Testament, Vol 3, part 1, translated by Herbert Marsh (Cambridge: John Burges, Printer to the University, 1801), 236-240. The first German edition of Michaelis’ work appeared in 1750, but the first mention of this view related to Theophilus first appeared in his fourth edition (1777).
Josephus on the Meaning of ‘Most Excellent’
John [Hyrcanus, 164 - 104 BC] administered the government after a most extraordinary manner, and…it was he alone who had three of the most excellent things1 in the world—the government of his nation, and the high priesthood, and the gift of prophecy… (War 1:68-69). Elsewhere, Josephus refers to the Judean Aristocracy as a “most excellent” form of government (Ant. 4:223), which he says was specifically governed by the high priests in his day (Ant. 20:251). This honorific word is applied by Luke to Theophilus (Lk 1:3), and the Roman Procurators Felix (Acts 23:26, 24:3), and Festus (Acts 26:24).
Josephus on The Steward of Agrippa II & Bernice
In one section of his book, The Jewish War, Josephus tells the story of a man from his own tribe named Ptolemy who, as he was making his way across a great plain, was attacked by bandits. In his account of this scene, the Jewish historian further identifies this man as “the steward (epitropos) of Agrippa and Bernice.” These happen to be the same monarchs who attended Paul’s trial as recorded in Acts 25 and 26. According to this passage, the bandits made off with everything Ptolemy carried with him, which included “a great many costly garments, and no small number of silver cups, and six hundred pieces of gold” (War 2.21.3; 595ff). However, later in his autobiography, Josephus revised his account of this event. Apparently, it was not Ptolemy himself who was attacked that day, but rather, his wife:
There were some bold young men of the village of Dabaritta, who observed that the wife of Ptolemy, the king’s procurator (epitropos), was to make a progress over the great plain with a mighty attendance, and with some horsemen that followed as a guard… [These men] fell upon them on a sudden, and obliged the wife of Ptolemy to fly away, and plundered all the carriages [and came away] with four mules’ loading of garments, and other furniture; and the weight of the silver they brought was not small; and there were five hundred pieces of gold also (Life 126-128).
I believe that Josephus’ description of the wife of Ptolemy, Agrippa’s epitropos, provides us with an excellent portrait of someone precisely in Joanna’s position (cf. Lk 8:3). The scene he reports above took place sometime before the start of the Jewish War in 66 AD, and according to Luke, Joanna was the wife of Herod Antipas’ epitropos only a few decades earlier. What this means is that, not only was she a wealthy aristocrat, but she was likely the kind of person who would have travelled with “a mighty attendance, and with some horsemen that followed as a guard…” Though not a queen herself, a good case can be made that in her day, Joanna was viewed a person of royal dignity and honor. Whatever the case may be, it’s clear that she was not a member of the servant class.
Philo of Alexandria on Joseph’s Role Under Pharaoh
[Joseph was] the dreamer and interpreter of dreams himself, for he united both characters [which is how he became] known to the king of the bodily country, and not by any performance of conspicuous actions…After that, he is appointed overseer or governor (epitropos) of all Egypt, and is honoured with the second rank in the kingdom, and made inferior in honour only to the king (Dreams, 242-243. For similar uses in Josephus, see Ant. 8.162, 10.212, 15.65, 16:294, War, 1:487, 2:220ff, 2.252, Apion 1:198.
Origen on the Meaning of “Theophilus” (c. 240 AD)
Someone might think that Luke addressed the Gospel to a specific man named Theophilus. But, if you are the sort of people God can love, then all of you who hear us speaking are Theophiluses, and the Gospel is addressed to you. Anyone who is a Theophilus is both ‘excellent’ and ‘very strong.’ This is what the Greek word theophilos actually means (Homilies on the Gospel of Luke, 1.6.14).
Sir William Ramsay on the Name of Luke the Evangelist
[T]he recent discovery at Pisidian Antioch of a considerable number of inscriptions…[include] a joint dedication by…a Greek-speaking family…There cannot be the slightest doubt that Loukas Tillios Kriton was a Roman citizen, whose name in Latin must have been Lucius Tillius Crito. In the Greek that was spoken at Antioch Loukios and Loukas were evidently felt to be equivalent; and Crito writes himself in Greek as Loukas…This single case would be sufficient and conclusive: one clear example is legally as strong as a hundred… [Nevertheless, Ramsey proceeds to cite an additional inscription proving the same reality, and then states what follows below].
Two witnesses suffice. An accumulation of other examples would not really strengthen the argument. Loukios and Loukas were felt as equivalent names by the Antiochian Greeks, one formal and the other familiar. It has often been pointed out, and is a familiar fact, that the two names, the polite and the familiar, are known in the case of several persons mentioned in the New Testament, Apollos and Apollonios, Priscilla and Prisca, Silas and Silvanus…By its form, Apollos is proved to be a Kosenamen [a more familiar pet-name]; and Apollonios is the full name. The same man was called Apollonios in formal and polite speech, Apollos in familiar usage.
It happens that Loukios is not attested in any document as the formal name of the Evangelist; but we now have the proof that in Antioch, and therefore generally, Loukas was known to be the familiar form of Loukios…The conclusion may now be called certain. The name of the Evangelist Loukas implies an original form Lucius, but this original Latin name was used in the corresponding Greek form. The evidence is convincing and beyond doubt that the Evangelist was named Loukios or Loukas.
Sir William Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, Fourth Edition (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920), 370-384.
Peter Bolt on the Identity of Luke
With Loukas freed up to be both a Hellenistic Jew and a.k.a. Loukios, Lucius of Cyrene (Acts 13:1) is a very good candidate for being the author of Luke-Acts, modestly inserting his name into the account…and thus briefly supplying his credentials to undergird his eyewitness accounts to follow later in the ‘we-passages’. He was evidently one of the ‘men of Cyrene’ who arrived from Jerusalem after being scattered by the post-Stephen persecution and who began to take the gospel beyond Jewish circles to the Greeks (Acts 11:19–21)…If Luke’s medical training was in Cyrene, a great intellectual centre, then he was amongst the physicians who were reputed to be, according to Herodotus, second only to those of Croton (3.131), numbering amongst them the likes of Eratosthenes, Aristippus, and Callimachus.
Similarly, with Doctor Luke, a Hellenistic Jew, and Loukas / Loukios being ‘alternative forms of the same name’, this ‘leaves open the possibility that Luke is the Lucius (Paul’s cousin?) mentioned in Rom. 16:21.’2 This identification is as old as Origen (mentioned in Rom. Comm. 10.39)…Lucius is Jewish, because he is one of six amongst the greetings whom Paul describes as [my kinsmen]…
From “The Doctor, The High Priest, the Aristocrat, and the Apostle,” in God’s Grace Inscribed on the Human Heart: Essays in Honour of James R. Harrison, edited by Peter G. Bolt and Sehyun Kim (Macquarie Centre, NSW: SCD Press, 2022) 79-98.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
Books
Luke: A Commentary, Peter G. Bolt — FREE
The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the NT, Sir William Ramsay
Gospel Women, Richard Bauckham
Living Footnotes in the Gospel of Luke, Luuk van de Weghe
The Historical Tell, Luuk van de Weghe
Redating the New Testament, John A.T. Robinson
Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke, John Wenham
Can We Trust The Gospels? Peter J. Williams
Testimonies to the Truth, Lydia McGrew
Luke’s Key Witness, Shane Rosenthal
God’s Grace Inscribed on the Human Heart, Peter Bolt (editor)
The above book features Dr. Bolt’s essay on Joanna & Theophilus
Articles
Is Luke a Trustworthy Historian? Sir William Ramsay
Can We Trust Luke’s History of the Early Jesus Movement? Shane Rosenthal
On Faith & History, Shane Rosenthal
Who is Sergius Paulus? Shane Rosenthal
Simon of Cyrene: An Intriguing Archaeological Discovery, Shane Rosenthal
The Implications of 70 AD, Shane Rosenthal
A Pre-70 Date for the Gospels & Acts, Shane Rosenthal
The Date of John’s Gospel, Revisited, Shane Rosenthal
Outside the Gospels, What Can We Know About Jesus? Shane Rosenthal
Episodes
Did Josephus Ever Mention Jesus? Episode #77 with T.C. Schmidt
Jesus in Josephus & Other Ancient Texts, Episode #78 with T.C. Schmidt
Did the Exodus Ever Happen? Episode #69 with David Rohl
Locating Golgotha, Episode #17 with David Rohl
Stories of Jesus: Can They Be Trusted? Episode. #61 with Peter J. Williams
Are the Gospels History or Fiction? Ep. #52 with John Dickson
The Gospel Creed, Episode #9
Faith Founded on Facts, Episode #15
Video — featuring Shane Rosenthal, discussing Luke’s Key Witness
The Alisa Childers Podcast
Cross Examined with Frank Turek
You Can Handle The Truth
F4F with Chris Rosebrough
Luke's Key Witness
An ossuary dating back to the first century was discovered a few decades ago near Jerusalem. This ancient burial box belonged to a woman named “Yehohanah” (Joanna) who was the granddaughter of “Theophilus the high priest.” The Jewish historian Josephus wrote about a man by that name who served as high priest from 37-41 AD, and since Luke dedicated his Gospel to a “
The word here translated “most excellent” is kratisteuonta, which is a participle of the same word used by Luke to describe “most excellent (kratiste) Theophilus.”
Bolt is here citing E. Earle Ellis, The Gospel of Luke: The New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981; 1st ed., 1966), 53.
Your research and material and those brilliant conversations you entertain are second to none.
Thanks a lot.
It's so beautiful and encouraging to see (as you repeatesly show) that at all times there were scholars and students of Scripture and history who appreciated and highlighted the all-surpassing value of these ancient texts which have come down to us through the ages.