Luke 1:3--from above or from the very first?

These are all anothen:

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

John 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

John 3:31 He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all.

John 19:11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

HankD

 

From STRONG'S (via e-Sword):

G509
ἄνωθεν
anōthen
an'-o-then
From G507; from above; by analogy from the
first; by implication anew: - from above,
again, from the beginning (very first),
the top.

Usage (from Crosswalk.com):

King James Word Usage - Total: 13
from above 5, top 3, again 2, from the first 1, from the beginning 1, not translated 1

 

The context is Luke describing to Theophilus his reasons for writing his account of Jesus' life:

What would it mean for Luke to have "investigated everything from above"? Was he saying he was in a balloon? Was he dead and writing from heaven? "From the beginning" might be a secondary definition of anothen, but it's the one that makes sense in context. I don't see why Rice could say that the translation "demands" otherwise.

 

from above would then be from the very first, also from the beginning, doctrinally that is, considering all things began with God, He is the very first, and He is from above.

 

"From above" makes no sense in Acts 26:5 (where Paul says that those who knew him "from the beginning" know that he was a zealous Pharisee), neither does that nor "from the very first" make sense in Galatians 4:9, where Paul speaks of the Galatians returning to the "weak and beggarly elements" of Judaism.

 

John R. Rice wrote: "The word does not refer to natural knowledge from the beginning of a matter, but supernatural knowledge from above. So Luke received his Gospel by revelation from above" (OUR GOD-BREATHED BOOK--THE BIBLE, p. 166).

Not to deny the supernatural inspiration of Luke's Gospel, but he is saying he has compiled an account of Jesus' life from eyewitness testimony that was "handed down" to him (v. 2) in the course of his own "investigation" (3). It's clear from the context that the anothen in question is not direct supernatural revelation "from above," but the "beginning" of Jesus' life and ministry.

Rice wrote: "If Luke had meant 'from the very first' he would have used 'arche' as he did in the preceding verse (Luke 1:2) for 'from the beginning'" (p. 167).

Did Luke know there was a rule that said he was only allowed to choose one synonym for "from the beginning"?

 

Apparently Mr. Rice bases his thinking on the verse take out of its context. And it is hard to say what Luke would have been thinking. If I say something was so "since the beginning," and then turn around later in the same paragraph and use the phrase "from the start" does that mean that my usage is wrong just because I chose different words? Of course not.

 

I agree that Luke's writing was inspired, but not to the degree that I feel that he could not use the testimonies of others in compiling his "orderly sequence (HCSB)."

 

Indeed, Luke says under inspiration that he compiled his Gospel out of the efforts of his research. Rice appears to believe in a false dichotomy between "an inspired document given by direct revelation" and "a wholly human document researched from primary and secondary sources."