DAY 26
CHALLENGE
“Acts is not a reliable account of the history of the early Church. It is a work of ideology.”
DEFENSE
Acts is an extremely reliable history. Every historian has a point of view, and the fact that Luke was writing from a Christian point of view does not mean he was inaccurate.
The book of Acts is based on the evidence of eyewitnesses, like Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:2).
It is easy to tell who the eyewitnesses in Acts were: Peter is a ma- jor source for chapters 1 to 12, Paul for chapters 13 to 28, Philip for chapter 8, and Priscilla and Aquila for chapter 18. Luke himself was an eyewitness for what scholars call the “we” passages, where the nar- ration switches from third person to first, describing what “we” did (16:10–17, 20:5–15, 21:1–18, 27:1–28:16).
Luke’s attention to detail is shown in many ways. For example, in chronicling the travels of Paul, he gives specific information about the time it took to arrive at different locations. This information is accurate, and it could not have simply been looked up in a reference work in the ancient world. This suggests Luke or someone in Paul’s circle kept a travel diary. The fact that Luke does not give parallel in- formation about travel times in the first part of the book, when Peter dominates the narrative, shows that Luke was faithful to his sources. He used the information they provided and did not invent such details.
The archaeologist Sir William Ramsay, initially a skeptic of Acts, reviewed the evidence and concluded:
Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy; he is possessed of the true historic sense; he fixes his mind on the idea and plan that rules in the evolution of history; and proportions the scale of his treatment to the importance of each inci- dent. He seizes the important and critical events and shows their true nature at greater length, while he touches lightly or omits entirely much that was valueless for his purpose. In short, this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians (The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, chapter 18).
TIP
See also Ramsay’s book St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen.