Luke claims, in both his gospel and the acts of the apostles, to be the writer. Early written church history also verifies the claim that Luke himself is indeed the writer of both accounts. Luke, more than any other of the gospel writers, should be viewed in terms as a historian because, by his own words, this is what he set out to do - to give an account of the events surrounding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as well as the events that followed his ministry in the lives of the apostolic believers. He was commissioned by Theophilos to write this history. The gospel of Luke is written in a more refined Greek than the other gospels or even Paul's writings. Luke was a learned man.

John was written by one of his disciples and was written much later in the first century than the synoptic gospels. It was not uncommon to dictate to a scribe that had a better command of Greek than the Apostles whose first language was Aramaic and Hebrew. Peter's account was written by his disciple Mark and was more than likely the first of the gospels. There are also several Jewish prayers in Hebrew still recited today that are attributed to Peter. They claim that Peter was tricked into becoming a Christian. Peter is recorded to have been a very well respected writer of Jewish poems and prayers in the first century Jewish community. The gospel of Matthew was written in part in Hebrew by Matthew for the Jewish believers that he was leaving behind in Jerusalem when he left. That Hebrew version later had portions added to it from Mark that became the Greek gospel of Luke.

There is much history by early church historians to give us a reasonable certainty that the gospels passed down to us are an accurate recording of the events. Any arguments given by naysayers as to the validity of these writings do not hold water upon closer examination.

The Jewish world of the apostles was one that passed down history through an oral culture. The Apostles themselves saw no need to write anything down, but passed the teachings of Jesus on by that same oral tradition. That culture was very careful to make sure that the transmission of history was accurate. They did not deviate from what was passed down to them by omission or by addition - something that is not understood well by the West. By the middle of the first century however, when Greco-Roman influence pressed into that world of oral tradition, and the body of believers expanded to all parts of the empire, the need to have the history written down became more of a necessity. This is why we have no records contemporary to the actual time of the events. But, this in no way makes what was written down only a couple of decades later less credible because the oral tradition that the information was derived from was reliable.