Lysanias

Biblical Record

Lysanias appears in the Bible only in Luke 3:1. In dating the time when the word of God came to John the Baptist, Luke lists the rulers of the day one after another. It was the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, the Roman emperor, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea. Luke then records that Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene. A tetrarch was a regional ruler who, with Roman approval, governed part of a divided territory.

Scripture says nothing about Lysanias's family, life, or deeds. Abilene is generally identified as a region in the hill country northwest of Damascus.

Significance Within Scripture

Lysanias is significant less as a character in the narrative than as a chronological marker. Luke names the emperor, the governor, several tetrarchs, and the high priests together. In doing so, he shows that the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus took place at a specific point in real history.

Interpretation and Debate

The Jewish historian Josephus mentions a ruler named Lysanias who is known to have been executed in the mid-first century BC. For this reason, some scholars have concluded that Luke made a chronological error. However, an inscription discovered in the region of Abila is known to mention a "Lysanias the tetrarch" from the time of Tiberius, and on this basis many have proposed that there was a later ruler of the same name. The question is frequently raised in discussions of the historical accuracy of the Gospel of Luke. No clear denominational differences in the interpretation of this figure are known.

In the Korean Church

Both the Korean Revised Version and the New Korean Revised Version render the name as "Rusania" (루사니아). Sermons and Sunday school lessons devoted to Lysanias are rare. He is usually mentioned in passing when Luke 3 is read or expounded, or when the historicity of the biblical record is being explained.