The Gospel of Luke vs The Entire Old Testament Credit to Bassam Zawadi Luke is supposedly quoting a passage from the Old Testament: 👇 “He told them, ’This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,’” (Luke 24:46) However, the ironic thing is that there is no such verse in the Old Testament that mentions this statement. So either Luke made this up purposely to deceive his audience or either he quoted it from some other source that he deemed to be inspired, yet we don't have it today. If it is the latter, then it would still hold serious problems to the Christian who would have to explain why the word of God has not been preserved in its entirety and would raise questions about what else has not been preserved as well. Debunking Christian Responses Christians would tend to argue back that we shouldn't take Luke's statement literally. That Luke was not trying to say that the exact statement "The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day" is found in the Old Testament, rather that this concept is found and is the essential message of the Old Testament This argument might only work as a response to my argument if I were to appeal to 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, where Paul says: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) Now, the Christian argument might work over here since Paul seems to be saying that the concept of Jesus dying for our sins and rising from the dead is found in the Old Testament. There is no reason to believe that Paul necessarily implied that the exact statements were to be found in it.However, that is not what Luke does. Rather, Luke makes it clear that he is quoting from Scripture: “He told them, ’This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,’” (Luke 24:46) Every single time a New Testament author says "This is what is written", the author goes ahead to quote a statement from the Old Testament. Look at any one of these Bible passages. They will all say “Thus it is written…” or “This is what is written…” or “The Scripture says…” then it’ll quote an Old Testament passage 👇 Matthew 2:5-6, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 4:6, Matthew 4:7, Matthew 4:10, Matthew 11:10, Matthew 21:13, Matthew 26:31, Mark 1:2, Mark 7:6-7, Mark 11:17, Mark 14:27, Luke 2:23, Luke 3:4-6, Luke 4:4, Luke 4:8, Luke 4:10-11, Luke 7:27, Luke 19:46, Luke 20:17, Luke 22:37, John 2:17, John 6:31, John 6:45, John 12:14-15, Acts 13:33, Acts 15:17, Acts 23:5, Romans 1:17, Romans 2:24, Romans 3:4, Romans 3:12, Romans 4:17, Romans 8:36, Romans 9:13, Romans 9:33, Romans 10:15, Romans 11:8, Romans 11:27, Romans 12:19, Romans 14:11, Romans 15:3, Romans 15:9, Romans 15:21, 1 Corinthians 11:19, 1 Corinthians 1:31, 1 Corinthians 2:9, 1 Corinthians 3:19, 1 Corinthians 9:9, 1 Corinthians 10:7, 1 Corinthians 14:21, 1 Corinthians 15:45, 1 Corinthians 15:54, 2 Corinthians 4:13, 2 Corinthians 48:15, 2 Corinthians 9:9, Galatians 3:10, Galatians 3:13, Galatians 4:27, Hebrews 10:7 & 1 Peter 1:16 So how come Luke 24:46 is an exception? I would have to say that any unbiased person could clearly see that Luke is either being deceptive or quoting from another source that he deemed to be inspired. Either way, this is problematic for Christianity. Now if Luke were to say it in an indirect way just like Paul did in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, it might have been a different story. However, Luke said "it is written" and then gave a quote which was direct and not indirect.