The Gospel of Luke, just as we’ve seen in the Gospel of Matthew, is a unique and completely redesigned reconstruction of the Markan Gospel. Luke follows the basic Markan Gospel story, but makes many changes, additions, and subtractions in order to create a very uniquely Lukan Gospel. Luke is only made up only half Markan content and a quarter Q content, which means that there is a lot of material that is strictly unique to Luke.

One of the first things that White points out is the difference in audience appeal between Luke and Matthew. White writes, “If the Jesus of Matthew speaks primarily to Jewish identity, the Jesus of Luke-Acts offers a wider outlook, with a view toward the Greco-Roman world.” Luke’s gospel seems to appeal to the outsiders instead of the Jews who were seen as God’s people. This idea can be illustrated by taking a look at the way Luke puts more importance on women. Luke writes that there are several women, one of those being Mary Magdalene, who support Jesus and the disciples. (Luke 8:1-3) The other gospel do not seem to portray woman in the positive way that is seen in Luke.

Possibly the most noteworthy Lukan construct is what White refers to as “Creating the Travel Narrative”. Luke portrays the time of Jesus’s ministry as a carefully planned journey that eventually ends with the narrative of the Triumphal Entry in Jerusalem. In order to show that Jesus and his disciples followed a clear and concise route, Luke had to fill in gaps and rearrange certain stories in order to make every event flow into this travel narrative. One way Luke accomplishes this is by expanding the Galilee section of Jesus’s travels. To do this Luke had to rearrange certain stories such as the confession at Caesarea Philippi. (Mark 8:27-33) When portraying the same event, Luke leaves out the location because, in the words of White, “the location in Mark, Caesarea Phillippi, would put it well outside the Galilee region “. Luke strives to organize the event surrounding Jesus to correspond with his travel narrative, and to do this there had to be a reconstruction and reorganization of important events.

Luke’s tactics are very effective, and allow him to create a unique Gospel that contains the original Gospel framework, but is more concise, flowing, and organized.