Acts and the Gospel of Luke share the same author. Tradition identifies the writer as Luke the Evangelist, a doctor who travelled with Paul the Apostle. The author is unnamed in the text but appears as a participant in the first-person we verses of Acts 16-27. Critical opinion remains evenly divided about whether Luke the physician wrote it. Most scholars still regard the author of Luke–Acts as a companion of Paul, although others note tensions with the Pauline epistles. Most scholars treat Acts as historiography, though focus is more on the author's aims than on settling questions of historicity. The book is usually dated to 80–90 AD.
The Gospel of Luke depicts the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Acts continues the story of Christianity, beginning with the ascension of Jesus and the mission from Jerusalem into the wider Mediterranean world. The early chapters describe Pentecost, the shared life of the first believers, and the establishment of the church at Antioch. The later chapters follow Paul as he carries the message throughout the empire and conclude with his imprisonment in Rome as he awaits trial.
Luke–Acts addresses how the Jewish Messiah came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church by arguing that the message reached the Gentiles after the Jewish rejection. The work also defends the Jesus movement for Jewish audiences, since most speeches respond to Jewish concerns while Roman officials arbitrate disputes about Jewish customs and law. Luke presents the followers of Jesus as a Jewish sect entitled to legal protection, but remains ambivalent about the future of Jews and Christians, affirming Jesus' Jewish identity while emphasizing the Jews' rejection of the Messiah.
The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles make up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts. Together they account for 27.5% of the New Testament, the largest contribution attributed to a single author, providing the framework for both the Church's liturgical calendar and the historical outline into which later generations have fitted their idea of the story of Jesus and the early church. The name "Acts of the Apostles" was first used by Irenaeus in the late 2nd century. It is not known whether this was an existing name for the book or one invented by Irenaeus; it does seem clear that it was not given by the author, as the word práxeis (deeds, acts) only appears once in the text (Acts 19:18) and there it refers not to the apostles but to deeds confessed by their followers.
The shared author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles was educated, a man of means, probably urban, and someone who respected manual work, although not a worker himself; this is significant, because more high-brow writers of the time looked down on the artisans and small business people who made up the early church of Paul and were presumably Luke's audience. According to Church tradition dating from the 2nd century, the author was Luke, named as a companion of the apostle Paul in three letters attributed to Paul. Critical opinion on the traditional attribution to Luke was assessed to be roughly evenly divided near the end of the 20th century. The author was not named in either volume, as was common for ancient biographies and histories, including Tacitus's Germania and Diogenes Laertius. Most scholars maintain that the author of Luke–Acts, whether named Luke or not, met Paul. The interpretation of the "we" passages as indicative that the writer was a historical eyewitness (whether Luke the evangelist or not), remains the most influential in current biblical studies. Objections to this viewpoint include the twentieth century consensus emphasized the differences in theology and historical narrative with the authentic letters of Paul the Apostle. Influential figures such as Philip Vielhauer cast doubt on the tradition, while B. H. Streeter argued that Luke could have known Paul without adopting his theology. More recent developments in interpretation find that Paul and the author of Luke–Acts are not as different theologically as previously thought. Support for the ecclesiastical tradition based on medical language in the Lucan corpus has been uncommon since Henry Cadbury's work.
The earliest possible date for Luke–Acts is around 62 AD, the time of Paul's imprisonment in Rome, Most scholars date the work to 80–90 AD on the grounds that it uses Mark as a source, looks back on the destruction of Jerusalem, and does not show any awareness of the letters of Paul. Some contend that if it does show awareness of the Pauline epistles (argued to begin circulation in the late first century) or the work of Josephus, a date in the early 2nd century is possible. However, many arguments mediate against this dating, such as the Gospel of John's awareness of the gospel, its independence from the Gospel of Matthew in the two-source hypothesis, and 1 Clement.
The historical Paul never mentions any "Luke the doctor", according to Bart Ehrman (since Colossians is not authentic). Scholars use the word "Luke" wantonly.
Manuscripts
There are two major textual variants of Acts, the Western text-type and the Alexandrian. The oldest complete Alexandrian manuscripts date from the 4th century and the oldest Western ones from the 6th, with fragments and citations going back to the 3rd. Western texts of Acts are 6.2–8.4% longer than Alexandrian texts, the additions tending to enhance the Jewish rejection of the Messiah and the role of the Holy Spirit, in ways that are stylistically different from the rest of Acts. The majority of scholars prefer the Alexandrian (shorter) text-type over the Western as the more authentic, but this same argument would favour the Western over the Alexandrian for the Gospel of Luke, as in that case the Western version is the shorter.
Genre, sources and historicity of Acts
The title "Acts of the Apostles" (Praxeis Apostolon) would seem to identify it with the genre telling of the deeds and achievements of great men (praxeis), but it was not the title given by the author, who instead aligned Luke–Acts to the 'narratives' (διήγησιςdiēgēsis) which others had written, and described his own work as an "orderly account" (ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς). It lacks exact analogies in Hellenistic or Jewish literature. Balch compares Luke-Acts to the works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who wrote a well-known history of Rome, and the Jewish historian Josephus, author of a history of the Jews. Like them, he anchors his history by dating the birth of the founder (Romulus for Dionysius, Moses for Josephus, Jesus for Luke) and like them he tells how the founder is born from God, taught authoritatively, and appeared to witnesses after death before ascending to heaven. The author would have had access to the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures) and the Gospel of Mark. Advocates of the Two-source hypothesis argue that Luke knew the Q source, while a growing number of scholars defend either the Farrer hypothesis where Luke used Matthew without Q or the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis where neither were used. He transposed a few incidents from Mark's gospel to the time of the Apostles—for example, the material about "clean" and "unclean" foods in Mark 7 is used in Acts 10, and Mark's account of the accusation that Jesus has attacked the Temple (Mark 14:58) is used in a story about Stephen (Acts 6:14). Although Frank Dicken views 1 Clement as dependent on Luke-Acts, most view this text as independent. Other sources can only be inferred from internal evidence—the traditional explanation of the three "we" passages, for example, is that they represent eyewitness accounts. By the mid-20th century no sources had been conclusively identified for Acts.
Acts was read as a reliable history of the early church well into the post-Reformation era. Attitudes towards the historicity of Acts have ranged widely across scholarship in different countries. The debate on the historicity of Acts became most vehement between 1895 and 1915. The influential scholar Ferdinand Christian Baur suggested that the author had rewritten history to present a united Peter and Paul and advance a single orthodoxy against the Marcionites. Current scholarship offers varying views on the historicity of Luke-Acts, with many judging the overall text as adhering to the standards of Hellenistic historiography while acknowledging Luke’s theological agenda. A middle range of scholars see Acts as relatively reliable by standards used to evaluate Hellenistic historiography.
German scholarship as well as the Westar Institute was critical of the historicity of Acts as devotional literature with ideological goals, while English-speaking scholarship primarily viewed Acts as credible historiography. Richard Pervo described Acts as part of a fictionally novelistic genre, but most commentators continue to classify Acts within ancient historiography. However, most New Testament scholars view Luke-Acts as representing a form of historiography with a number of sub-genres under discussion, with other proposed genres including novel, epic, and ancient biography.
Audience and authorial intent
Luke was written to be read aloud to a group of Jesus-followers gathered in a house to share the Lord's supper. The author assumes an educated Greek-speaking audience, but directs his attention to specifically Christian concerns rather than to the Greco-Roman world at large. Although the composition of the audience remains disputed, most scholars agree Luke wrote for a mixed audience of both Jews and gentiles in the late first century. He begins his gospel with a preface addressed to Theophilus (Luke 1:3; cf. Acts 1:1), informing him of his intention to provide an "ordered account" of events which will lead his reader to "certainty". He did not write in order to provide Theophilus with historical justification—"did it happen?"—but to encourage faith—"what happened, and what does it all mean?"
Acts (or Luke–Acts) is intended as a work of "edification", meaning "the empirical demonstration that virtue is superior to vice." The work also engages with the question of a Christian's proper relationship with the Roman Empire, the civil power of the day: could a Christian obey God and also Caesar? The answer is ambiguous. The Romans never move against Jesus or his followers unless provoked by the Jews; in the trial scenes the Christian missionaries are always cleared of charges of violating Roman laws; and Acts ends with Paul in Rome proclaiming the Christian message under Roman protection. Despite the unfavorable depictions of the army prevalent in literature of the time, the role of the Roman military in Luke-Acts is particularly positive due to the function soldiers play in the Lukan narrative of gentile mission. On the other hand, Luke makes clear that the Romans, like all earthly rulers, receive their authority from Satan, while Christ is ruler of the kingdom of God.
Acts is divided into 28 chapters. Many scholars have noted the geographic movement from Jerusalem, centre of God's Covenantal people, the Jews, to Rome, centre of the Gentile world. This structure reaches back to the author's preceding work, the Gospel of Luke, though the move to Rome challenges the centrality of Jerusalem, an idea upheld by most Jews of the time. Paul has Rome as his destination, as Jesus had Jerusalem. The second key element is the roles of Peter and Paul, the first representing the Jewish Christian church, the second the mission to the Gentiles.
Transition: reprise of the preface addressed to Theophilus and the closing events of the gospel (Acts 1–1:26)
Petrine Christianity: the Jewish church from Jerusalem to Antioch (Acts 2:1–12:25)
2:1–8:1 – beginnings in Jerusalem
8:2–40 – the church expands to Samaria and beyond
9:1–31 – conversion of Paul
9:32–12:25 – the conversion of Cornelius, and the formation of the Antioch church
Pauline Christianity: the Gentile mission from Antioch to Rome (Acts 13:1–28:31)
13:1–14:28 – the Gentile mission is promoted from Antioch
15:1–35 – the Gentile mission is confirmed in Jerusalem
15:36–28:31 – the Gentile mission, climaxing in Paul's passion story in Rome (21:17–28:31)
The Gospel of Luke began with a prologue addressed to Theophilus; Acts likewise opens with an address to Theophilus, and its preface links it to both Luke's gospel and the biographical and historiographical approach of Luke 1.
The apostles and other followers of Jesus elect Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot as a member of The Twelve. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends and confers God's power on them, and Peter and John preach to many in Jerusalem and perform healings, exorcism, and raising of the dead. The first believers collectively share property and worship together. Thousands of Jews consequently turn to the Jesus movement and follow Christ, but the followers of Jesus begin to be increasingly persecuted by Jewish leaders, reminiscent of Jesus in the Gospel. Stephen is accused of blasphemy and stoned. Stephen's death marks a major turning point: the Jews have rejected the message, and henceforth it will be taken to the Gentiles.
The death of Stephen initiates persecution, and many followers of Jesus leave Jerusalem. The message is taken to the Samaritans, a people held in hostility by the Jews, and to the Gentiles. Saul of Tarsus, one of the Jews who persecuted the followers of Jesus, is converted by a vision to become a follower of Christ (an event which Luke regards as so important that he relates it three times, similar to the repetitions in Jesus’ and Cornelius’ story). Peter, directed by a series of visions confirming God’s cleansing of formerly unclean gentiles, preaches to Cornelius the Centurion, a Gentile God-fearer, who becomes a follower of Christ. The Holy Spirit descends on Cornelius and his guests, thus confirming that the message of eternal life in Christ is for all mankind. The Gentile church is established in Antioch (northwestern Syria, the third largest city of the empire), and here Christ's followers are first called Christians.
The mission to the Gentiles is promoted from Antioch and confirmed at a meeting in Jerusalem between Paul and the leadership of the Jerusalem church. Paul spends the next few years traveling through western Asia Minor and the Aegean, preaching, converting, and founding new churches. On a visit to Jerusalem he is set on by a Jewish mob. Saved by the Roman commander, he is accused by the Jews of being a revolutionary, the "ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes", and imprisoned. Later, Paul asserts his right as a Roman citizen, to be tried in Rome and is sent by sea to Rome, where he spends another two years under house arrest, proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching freely about "the Lord Jesus Christ". Acts ends abruptly without recording the outcome of Paul's legal troubles.
Luke–Acts is seen as a historical work, written to defend Christianity before the Romans or Paul against his detractors; today Acts is also recognized as having both historiographical and theological content. Luke's theology is expressed primarily through his overarching plot, the way scenes, themes and characters combine to construct his specific worldview. His "salvation history" stretches from the Creation to the present time of his readers, in three ages: first, the time of "the Law and the Prophets" (Luke 16:16), the period beginning with Genesis and ending with the appearance of John the Baptist (Luke 1:5–3:1); second, the epoch of Jesus, in which the Kingdom of God was preached (Luke 3:2–24:51); and finally the period of the Church, which began when the risen Christ was taken into Heaven, and would end with his second coming.
The author of Luke–Acts faced the apologetic issue of why most of the Jewish people did not adopt belief in Christ. Like Paul, Luke would not settle for anything less than the conversion of Israel, with the fulfillment of divine promise being contingent on Israel’s repentance. A central theme is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it. Some scholars have argued that Luke is against Israel itself, though others note that the Prophets and Qumranic texts display similar polemics. Jacob Jervell moved the consensus away from the view that Luke held unfavorable views on Judaism in 1972. The disciples preach in the order outlined: first Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, then the entire (Roman) world.
Jesus is depicted in Luke-Acts as an eschatological judge with divine authority as the messiah. The portrayal in Luke-Acts differs from other Jewish eschatological figures as the only one where Jesus is judge of living and dead, and the speeches in Acts 10 attribute to Jesus various points used in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe God’s uniqueness.
For Luke, the Holy Spirit is the driving force behind the spread of the Christian message at the beginning of the eschatological era, and he places more emphasis on it than any of the other gospels. Luke is the only evangelist who describes the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost on the first believers as a major event in salvation history. John the Baptist is also depicted as a prophet filled with the Holy Spirit, which provides him authority and the power to turn people to God. The Holy Spirit represents God's power, and not only inspires speech such as when the disciples are given speech to convert thousands in Jerusalem, but also provides experiential knowledge of Jesus and salvation.
One issue debated by scholars is Luke's political vision regarding the relationship between the early church and the Roman Empire. On the one hand, Luke generally does not portray this interaction as one of direct conflict. Rather, there are ways in which each may have considered having a relationship with the other rather advantageous to its own cause. For example, early Christians may have appreciated hearing about the protection Paul received from Roman officials against Gentile rioters in Philippi (Acts 16:16–40) and Ephesus (Acts 19:23–41), and against Jewish rioters on two occasions (Acts 17:1–17; Acts 18:12–17). Meanwhile, Roman readers may have approved of Paul's censure of the illegal practice of magic (Acts 19:17–19) as well as the amicability of his rapport with Roman officials such as Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:6–12) and Festus (Acts 26:30–32). Furthermore, Acts does not include any account of a struggle between Christians and the Roman government as a result of the latter's imperial cult. Thus Paul is depicted as a moderating presence between the church and the Roman Empire.
On the other hand, events such as the imprisonment of Paul at the hands of the empire (Acts 22–28) as well as several encounters that reflect negatively on Roman officials (for instance, Felix's desire for a bribe from Paul in Acts 24:26) function as concrete points of conflict between Rome and the early church. Perhaps the most significant point of tension between Roman imperial ideology and Luke's political vision is reflected in Peter's speech to the Roman centurion, Cornelius (Acts 10:36). Peter states that "this one" [οὗτος], i.e. Jesus, "is lord [κύριος] of all." The title, κύριος, was often ascribed to the Roman emperor in antiquity, rendering its use by Luke as an appellation for Jesus an unsubtle challenge to the emperor's authority.
As the second part of the two-part work Luke–Acts, Acts has significant links to the Gospel of Luke. Loveday Alexander notes that the preface of Acts can either be understood as signifying its status as the second volume of a unified work or more simply a cue to readers that it represents a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Major turning points in the structure of Acts find parallels in Luke: the presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple parallels the opening of Acts in the Temple, Jesus's forty days of testing in the wilderness prior to his mission parallel the forty days prior to his Ascension in Acts, the mission of Jesus in Samaria and the Decapolis (the lands of the Samaritans and Gentiles) parallels the missions of the Apostles in Samaria and the Gentile lands, and so on (see Gospel of Luke). These parallels continue through both books, contributing to the narrative unity of the work.
However, apparent differences between Luke and Acts, such as the timing of the Ascension, have led to debates over the nature of the unity between the two books. While not seriously questioning the single authorship of Luke–Acts, Mikeal Parsons and Richard Pervo suggested a literary structure that balances thematic continuity with narrative development, leading them to consider Luke and Acts as independent though interrelated works, though Friedeman observes that their work has generally elicited more defenses of the consensus for the literary unity of Luke-Acts. Literary studies have explored how Luke sets the stage in his gospel for key themes that recur and develop throughout Acts, including the offer to and rejection of the Messianic kingdom by Israel, and God's sovereign establishment of the church for both Jews and Gentiles.
Pauline epistles
Acts agrees with Paul's letters on the major outline of Paul's career: he is converted and becomes a Christian missionary and apostle, establishing new churches in Asia Minor and the Aegean and compelling Gentile Christians to not obey the Jewish Law. There are also agreements on many incidents, such as Paul's escape from Damascus, where he is lowered down the walls in a basket. However, Acts also downplays Paul's problems with his congregations and attributes difficulties to the fault of the Jews instead, has a final offering to Jerusalem unmentioned in the letters, and differing details on Christology, apostleship, and incidents in Paul’s life. 21st Century interpretation argues that the Paul and the author of Luke–Acts are not as different theologically as previously thought.
↑The book is sometimes simply called Acts (which is also its most common form of abbreviation).
↑Those who posit later dates consider early-dates as problematic, and propose theological reasons for Acts open ending, and challenge assumptions trying to harmonize Acts with Pauline chronology.
↑Others question the idea that the Pauline epistles were used by Luke as part of a collection or at a particular date.
↑In the meantime, however, a change both in the interpretation of Paul and in the interpretation of Luke has led to the insight that the two authors are not as far from each other theologically as has long been assumed (cf. e.g., Porter 1999 and, more recently, the essays in Marguerat 2009).
↑"The principle essay in third regard is P. Vielhauer, 'On the "Paulinism" of Acts', in L.E. Keck and J. L. Martyn (eds.), Studies in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 33–50, who suggests that Luke's presentation of Paul was, on several fronts, a contradiction of Paul's own letters (e.g. attitudes on natural theology, Jewish law, christology, eschatology). This has become the standard position in German scholarship, e.g., Conzelmann, Acts; J. Roloff, Die Apostelgeschichte (NTD; Berlin: Evangelische, 1981) 2–5; Schille, Apostelgeschichte des Lukas, 48–52. This position has been challenged most recently by Porter, "The Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Letters: Some Common Misconceptions', in his Paul of Acts, 187–206. See also I.H. Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leister: InterVarsity Press, 1980) 42–44; E.E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 2nd edn, 1974) 45–47.", Pearson, "Corresponding sense: Paul, dialectic, and Gadamer", Biblical Interpretation Series, p. 101 (2001). Brill.
↑Bond, Helen; Hurtado, Larry (2015). Peter in Early Christianity. Eerdmans. p.63-64. ISBN978-0802871718. The consensus among scholars is that Luke is employing the tools of ancient historiography to report some kind of history, although other proposals have been raised
12Adams, Sean (2013). The Genre of Acts and Collected Biography. Cambridge University Press. p.5. ISBN978-1107041042.
↑Fitzmyer, Joseph (1998). The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary by Joseph A. Fitzmyer. Yale University Press. p.55. ISBN978-0300139822.
↑Friedeman, Caleb (2023). The Revelation of the Messiah. Cambridge University Press. p.14. ISBN978-1009189613. Also implicit in this study's subtitle is the conviction that Luke and Acts constitute a two-volume work: Luke-Acts. This…has been a pillar of Lukan scholarship ever since Henry J. Cadbury published The Making of Luke-Acts in 1927…I with a majority of scholars hold that the prologues and common themes and theology of the two books suggest that they should be read in this way
↑Brazil, Scott (2024). Jesus and YHWH-Texts in the Synoptic Gospels. Bloomsbury. p.45. ISBN9780567713957.
↑Gurtner, Daniel; Tabb, Brian (2025). Engaging the First Christian Historian: Essays on Luke-Acts (The Library of New Testament Studies). Bloomsbury Publishing. p.73-74. ISBN9780567713421.
↑Wolter, Michael (2021). The Gospel according to Luke: Volume II (Luke 9:51–24). Baylor University Press. p.4. ISBN978-1481306706. While the author of the "report of the events, which have been completed in our time" (Luke 1.1) speaks of himself (1.3), he does not mention his name.
↑Immanuel, Babu (2017). Acts of the Apostles: An Exegetical and Contextual Commentary. Fortress Press. p.2. ISBN978-1506438092.
↑Peterson, David (2009). The Acts of the Apostles. Eerdmans. ISBN978-0802837318.
↑"A glance at recent extended treatments of the "we" passages and commentaries demonstrates that, within biblical scholarship, solutions in the historical eyewitness traditions continue to be the most influential explanations for the first-person plural style in Acts. Of the two latest full-length studies on the "we" passages, for example, one argues that the first-person accounts came from Silas, a companion of Paul but not the author, and the other proposes that first-person narration was Luke's (Paul's companion and the author of Acts) method of communicating his participation in the events narrated.17
17. Jurgen Wehnert, Die Wir-Passegen der Apostelgeschitchte: Ein lukanisches Stilmittel aus judischer Tradition (GTA 40; Gottingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989); Claus-Jurgen Thornton, Der Zeuge des Zeugen: Lukas als Historiker der Paulus reisen (WUNT 56; Tugingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991). See also, Barrett, Acts of the Apostles, and Fitzmyer, Acts of the Apostles.", Campbell, "The "we" passages in the Acts of the Apostles: the narrator as narrative", p. 8 (2007). Society of Biblical Literature.
↑Wolter, Michael (2018). The Gospel According to Luke: Volume 1. Baylor University Press. p.7. ISBN978-3161549328.
↑Allison, Dale (2021). Cyprus within the Biblical World. T&T Clark. p.144. ISBN978-0567694904.
↑"The principle essay in this regard is P. Vielhauer, 'On the "Paulinism" of Acts', in L.E. Keck and J. L. Martyn (eds.), Studies in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 33–50, who suggests that Luke's presentation of Paul was, on several fronts, a contradiction of Paul's own letters (e.g. attitudes on natural theology, Jewish law, christology, eschatology). This has become the standard position in German scholarship, e.g., Conzelmann, Acts; J. Roloff, Die Apostelgeschichte (NTD; Berlin: Evangelische, 1981) 2–5; Schille, Apostelgeschichte des Lukas, 48–52. This position has been challenged most recently by Porter, "The Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Letters: Some Common Misconceptions', in his Paul of Acts, 187–206. See also I.H. Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leister: InterVarsity Press, 1980) 42–44; E.E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 2nd edn, 1974) 45–47.", Pearson, "Corresponding sense: Paul, dialectic, and Gadamer", Biblical Interpretation Series, p. 101 (2001). Brill.
↑Tyson, Joseph B., (April 2011). "When and Why Was the Acts of the Apostles Written?", in: The Bible and Interpretation: "...A growing number of scholars prefer a late date for the composition of Acts, i.e., c. 110–120 CE. Three factors support such a date. First, Acts seems to be unknown before the last half of the second century. Second, compelling arguments can be made that the author of Acts was acquainted with some materials written by Josephus, who completed his Antiquities of the Jews in 93–94 CE...Third, recent studies have revised the judgment that the author of Acts was unaware of the Pauline letters."
↑Gnuse, R. (2002). Vita Apologetica: The Lives of Josephus and Paul in Apologetic Historiography. Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, 13(2), 151–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/095182070201300203, Abstract: "This article suggests that the author of Acts may have been inspired by Josephan texts when crafting biographical narratives about Paul."
↑Tannehill, Robert. "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists by RICHARD I. PERVO Review by: Robert C. Tannehill". The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 69 (4): 827–28 – via JSTOR.
↑Runesson, Anders (2021). Jesus, New Testament, Christian Origins. Eerdmans. pp.6–3. ISBN9780802868923. Many arguments speak against such a late dating...the gospel seems to have been known to the author of John's Gospel...Luke and Matthew were written independently...which is harder to believe the farther apart they are dated...1 Clement, usually dated to the end of the 90s CE, appears even more distant from the first Christ-believing heroes than does Luke
↑Adams, Sean A. (2012). "The relationships of Paul and Luke". In Porter, Stanley E.; Land, Christopher D. (eds.). Paul and His Social Relations. Pauline Studies. Brill. p.142. ISBN978-90-04-24211-1. Retrieved 10 October 2023. Finally, in my investigation of the relationship between Luke and Paul, I found substantial ambiguity in the way that scholars have referred to the person of Luke. In studies of authorship, amanuensis, and literary relationship, scholars talk about Luke's relationship with Paul; however, they rarely (if ever) define who exactly they are talking about. Is it the historical Luke, the Pauline Luke, or "Luke" the supposed author of GLuke and Acts?
↑Dicken, Frank (2012). Issues in Luke-Acts. Gorgias Press. pp.23–25. ISBN978-1607241607.
↑Pierson Parker. (1965). The "Former Treatise" and the Date of Acts. Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 84, No. 1 (Mar., 1965), pp. 52–58 (7 pages). "Furthermore, the relative calm of both of Luke's books, and sparse apocalyptic as compared with Matthew and Mark, sugg the church was out from under duress when Luke wrote. This is cially true of Acts. Some scholars used to put Acts in the second century, but few nowadays would do so. Indeed if Clement of Rom knew the book, as he seems to have done, it will have to be prior to a. d. 96." and "I Clem 2 1 with Acts 20 35; I Clem 5 4 with Acts 12 17; I Clem 18 1 w 13 22; I Clem 41 1 with Acts 23 1; I Clem 42 1–4, 44 2 with Acts 1–8; I Clem with Acts 26 7; I Clem 59 2."
↑Allison, Dale (2022). Gospel Reading and Reception in Early Christian Literature. Cambridge University Press. p.120. ISBN978-1316514467.
↑Bond, Helen; Hurtado, Larry (2015). Peter in Early Christianity. Eerdmans. p.70. ISBN978-0802871718. However, since no sources have been identified for Acts, conclusions drawn from observing literary tendencies in the Gospel remain speculative.
↑Setzer, "Jewish responses to early Christians: history and polemics, 30–150 C.E.", p. 94 (1994). Fortress Press.
↑Hemer & Gempf, "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", p.3 (1990). Mohr Siebeck.
↑Pfremmer de Long, Kindalee (2019). T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism Volume I. T&T Clark. p.392. ISBN978-0567661449.
↑Keener, Craig S. (2020). Acts. Cambridge New York (N.Y.): Cambridge University Press. p.14. ISBN978-1108468688.
↑Frey, Jörg (2009). Die Apostelgeschichte im Kontext antiker und frühchristlicher Historiographie. De Gruyter. ISBN978-3110216318. Die beiden schon im Lukas-Proömium erkennbaren Aspekte Geschichtsschreibung und Verkündigung markieren die Pole, zwischen denen sich die Diskussion bewegt, wobei natürlich die Frage nach der intendierten und erreichten historischen ‚Tatsachentreue' im Hintergrund steht. Hatte die deutsche kerygmatische Theologie Lukas mit pejorativem Akzent als „Erbauungsschriftsteller" eingeordnet, so war das Werk v.a. in der angelsächsischen Forschung eher als (glaubwürdige) Historiographie eingestuft worden.
↑Frey, Jörg (2009). Die Apostelgeschichte im Kontext antiker und frühchristlicher Historiographie (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 162). De Gruyter. ISBN978-3110216318. So formuliert Richard Pervo als Ausgangspunkt seiner Über-legungen im direkten Anschluss an Ernst Haenchen: „[Luke] was bumbling and incompetent as a historian yet brilliant and creative as an author." Insofern lebt sein Vorschlag, die Apostelgeschichte dem romanhaften Genre zuzuordnen, fast mehr von der Skepsis gegenüber ihrer historischen Referenz als von der tatsächlichen Ähnlichkeit in Stoff und Darstellung mit anderen antiken Romanen.
↑Frey, Jörg (2009). Die Apostelgeschichte im Kontext antiker und frühchristlicher Historiographie (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 162). De Gruyter. ISBN978-3110216318. Insofern bleibt für die meisten Interpreten eine Einordnung der Apostelgeschichte in den Rahmen der Historiographie die beste Lösung.
↑Kyrychenko, Alexander (2014). The Roman Army and the Expansion of the Gospel: The Role of the Centurion in Luke-Acts. De Gruyter. pp.235–43. ISBN978-3110344028.
↑Adams, Sean (2013). The Genre of Acts and Collected Biography. Cambridge University Press. p.15. ISBN978-1107041042.
↑Ehrman, Bart; Méndez, Hugo (2023). The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Eighthed.). Oxford University Press. p.118. ISBN978-0197754023.
↑Keener, Craig (2020). Acts (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press. pp.258–9, 274–6, 298–300. ISBN978-1108468688.
↑Hubbard, Jeffrey (2024). "Philosophical Protreptic and the Preface to Luke's Gospel". Journal of Theological Studies. 75. Oxford University Press: 63-79. doi:10.1093/jts/flae006. Does he write as an investigator who personally interviewed eye witnesses? As some type of historian?...Usually regarded as the consensus position. See especially Cadbury, 'Commentary on the Preface of Luke', pp. 489–510; van Unnik, 'Remarks', pp. 461–82; I.I. Du Plessis, 'Once More: The Purpose of Luke's Prologue', NovT 16 (1974), pp. 259–71; Terrance Callan, 'The Preface of Luke-Acts and Historiography', NTS 31 (1985), pp. 576–81.
↑Keener, Craig (2020). Acts (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press. p.59-62. ISBN978-1108468688. That the majority of the Jewish people had not committed themselves to the distinctive beliefs of this sect…raised a new apologetic issue for Luke to address (just as Paul had to address the question earlier)…Luke, like Paul, is dissatisfied with anything less than the conversion of Israel as a whole; the repentance of God's people as a whole will bring about the fulfillment of God's promises
↑Akagi, Kai (2019). Proclaiming the Judge of the Living and the Dead: The Christological Significance of Judgement in Acts 10 and 17. Mohr Siebeck. pp.170–72. ISBN978-3161569036.
↑Sanders, EP (2015). Paul: The Apostle's Life, Letters, and Thought. Fortresss Press. pp.79–82. ISBN978-0800629564.
Sources
Allen, O. Wesley Jr. (2009). "Luke". In Petersen, David L.; O'Day, Gail R. (eds.). Theological Bible Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN978-1-61164-030-4.
Balch, David L. (2003). "Luke". In Dunn, James D. G.; Rogerson, John William (eds.). Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Eerdmans. ISBN978-0-8028-3711-0.
Matthews, Christopher R. (2011). "Acts of the Apostles". In Coogan, Michael D. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible. Oxford University Press. ISBN9780195377378.
Pickett, Raymond (2011). "Luke and Empire: An Introduction". In Rhoads, David; Esterline, David; Lee, Jae Won (eds.). Luke–Acts and Empire: Essays in Honor of Robert L. Brawley. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN9781608990986.
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