Luke 3 Footnotes

3:1 Josephus refers to a Lysanias who was ruler of Chalcis and executed by Mark Antony in 36 BC, leading some to accuse Luke of error here. But Josephus also appears to have spoken of another Lysanias, one who ruled the city of Abila some time before AD 37. Inscriptional evidence from near Abila confirms that a Lysanias was associated with the area around AD 14. Luke’s placement of the tetrarchy of Lysanias in ca AD 26–29 (the fifteenth year of Tiberius is disputed) therefore seems assured.

3:2 Caiaphas was high priest from AD 18–36. His father-in-law, Annas, preceded him as high priest but was deposed in AD 15. Annas nevertheless remained a powerful figure in priestly leadership for some time, and Luke referred to his de facto high priestly authority as retained during the tenure of Caiaphas (Jn 18:13). In 1990 an ossuary believed to be that of Caiaphas was discovered in Jerusalem.

3:3 John’s baptism was a preparatory rite, not only symbolizing the confession of sin and the intention of the one baptized to live responsibly under God, but also looking forward to the coming mightier One who would purge his people and baptize them with the Spirit. Ac 19:4 shows that Luke did not envision John’s baptism (or the repentance associated with it) would provide salvation; faith in the Messiah was still necessary.

3:23-38 Luke and Matthew differed considerably in their recording of Jesus’s genealogy. Some have suggested that Luke gave Jesus’s descent through Mary, but this solution has not been accepted by the majority of scholars. Perhaps Matthew gave the legal line of descent, while Luke gave the physical line of descent (i.e., of Joseph, but not literally of Jesus—see note on vv. 23-24), both with allowances for adoptions, levirate marriages, or transference of inheritance rights from one parallel line to another in the absence of children. Though all harmonizing solutions are conjectural, they demonstrate that the two genealogies are not inherently incompatible.

3:23-24 Though Jesus was not the physical descendant of Joseph, he was the legal heir through adoption. Luke lists Heli as the father of Joseph, but Mt 1:16 lists Jacob. Jacob and Heli may have been near relatives, with Heli’s son Joseph becoming Jacob’s heir when the latter died childless. Or, if Heli was the father of Mary and if she was his sole heir, then Joseph, his son-in-law, could have been considered his heir.

3:23 The dates of Jesus’s birth and initial ministry are disputed. They depend on the date of Herod the Great’s death (1:5; Mt 2:1) and the date of the fifteenth year of Tiberius (Lk 3:1). Herod’s death is accepted by most as 4 BC, but some evidence may better fit a date in 1 BC. Similarly, on a normal Roman reckoning, the fifteenth year of Tiberius was AD 28–29. It is possible, however, to date his fifteenth year as early as AD 26. The various alternatives allow that Jesus was anywhere from twenty-seven to thirty-three years old, within range of Luke’s “about thirty years old.”