Luke the Historian

A long time family friend has directed me to an online resource of evidence for the truthfulness of the gospel writing being verified from external as well as internal resources.

The URL -  http://themoorings.org/apologetics/Gospels/relia3.html

I am just beginning my personal "dig" around this site but I wanted to post this here for everyone to enjoy. This is, in part, what I have found:

"As we said earlier, the Gospel of Luke was originally combined with Acts in a single work. The author, Luke the physician, was a careful and conscientious historian. The accuracy of Acts led one eminent archaeologist at the turn of the century—Sir William Ramsay—to become a believer in Christ. Through his extensive excavations in Asia Minor, Ramsay himself made many discoveries showing the historical reliability of Acts. Ramsay concluded,

Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy; he is possessed of the true historic sense; he fixes his mind on the idea and plan that rules in the evolution of history; and proportions the scale of his treatment to the importance of each incident (6).

One of many striking confirmations of Luke's accuracy is his use of titles. The many titles that he brings into his narrative would, if he were careless or uninformed, most certainly give rise to errors. He notes that when pagan opponents of Christianity rioted in Ephesus, there was more than one proconsul of Asia (Acts 19:38). Sergius Paullus appears in Luke's history as "proconsul of Cyprus" (Acts 13:7) and Gallio as "proconsul of Achaia" (Acts 18:12), although the province was ordinarily known as Greece. The local authorities in Ephesus are "Asiarchs" (Acts 19:31). The magistrates of Philippi are "praetors" and their assistants "lictors" (Acts 16:20, 35), but the magistrates of Thessalonica are "politarchs" (Acts 17:6). The chief official of Malta is protos—first man of the island (Acts 28:7). Herod Antipas, known to his subjects as a king, is designated a "tetrarch" (Luke 3:1). And Lysanias is called "tetrarch of Abilene" (Luke 3:1). All these names and titles have been verified as correct, in some instances by archaeological discoveries within the last century (7). Luke's accuracy is all the more remarkable when we consider the difficulty of his task. Roman political titles were in a constant state of flux. Moreover, a writer in antiquity could not check his facts by going to a local library." (emphasis added)

P.S. I have looked more at this site and think this might be one of the better links, it is lesson 5 on the truthfulness of the gospels:  http://themoorings.org/apologetics/Gospels/relia5.html