Starting Luke and a little sociolinguistic mystery

While the next mid week post will feature Apollo our Sunday posts will be on the Gospel of Luke and New Testament Greek therein.

LOUKAS seems to be an attempt to write a Latin name in Greek as the Greeks wrote the Roman U and V with the two letters OU as U in Greek at that time was a different vowel sound.

Its not Lucius the Greeks would have spelt that as Loukios !

A lot of scholars think its a shortened form of Lucanus? 

Eusebius the historian claims Luke was a physician and a Syrian from Antioch.
But a Syrian Greek or Jew ? Perhaps the answer is that local Syrian Greeks and Jews had a usage of spelling Lukios and Lucanus and similar names as Loukas or of changing i to a and vice versa.
There is no other record of such a practice but it would explain why Loukas in its Greek Latin and Aramaic forms rapidly became a popular name. I could see people using the well known gospel writer's name as a support for using a colloquial form and it than spreading beyond Antioch to other parts of the empire.

It also shows how much interchange there was between various ethnic and language groups,

This is reflected in Luke's writings.

While I usually focus in what Jesus said the Preface to Luke's Gospel is worth a close look as an example of that cultural exchange I mentioned. 

So coming up next Apollo midweek  then Luke !

Join me!