Luke begins his gospel much like his predecessors. In his introduction to the gospel, Luke promises a gospel as factually correct as possible with the information he has from both oral tradition of events, the facts given from eye witnesses, and hints at a revision of earlier writings to ensure they correlate with the information he has carefully gathered. The most interesting piece to Luke’s introduction is the addition of the title he is using to address his reader, Theophilus. When a reader sees this initially it appears that he is almost reporting his gospel and it’s revisions of other writers to this person. Analysis of the text finds that Theophilus means “friend of God,” while the text gives the sense that it is directed to someone of status that could possibly be able to help in the distribution of his work, the meaning of the name also alludes to Luke taking to his followers of the movement as a whole.
The conception/annunciation stories of both Jesus and John are unique to Luke’s gospel, not shared in early gospels. Luke makes great emphasis on the lineage of the families, Jesus having a mix of a priestly and kingly ancestry. Elizabeth as descendent of Aaron, and Joseph, a descendent of David. Luke explicitly names these familial ties to Jesus because he emphasizes connections in the Hebrew bible and other earlier books. In addition to Elizabeth’s ancestry, her inability to have children before the devine intervention poses to teach the Hebrew community about the power of God, as infertility was thought to be almost curse-like, and yet God still shows favor; this is especially essential to Luke’s story as he sets up the framework for the birth of Jesus. Luke connecting a prophecy in the Old Testament for one that will come before the Messiah, John being that devine birth.
Luke does improve some of the background of the origin of Jesus. Because of his audience, he realizes the need for a connection to other literature in the Old Testament. Luke had interest in to filling the prophecies of the one that must come before this Messiah (Luke 1:9-15); seen in Numbers 6:1-4, Judges 13:4-5, Samuel 1:11, Malachi 4:5-6. The annunciation of the coming of Jesus came to fulfill prophecy outlined most specifically in Samuel 7:12-17. This connection extends to the Magnificat that relates to a prayer by Hannah in Samuel 2:1-10. After this point, with the next major event being the birth of Jesus, Luke uses Mt material, seemingly trusting it’s authenticity.