The Acts of the Apostles: Who Wrote It, When, and Why?

[00:00:01] The act of the Apostles who Wrote it, when and why? By Bart Ehrman now that I've discussed the major themes and emphases of the Acts of the Apostles, I can summarize what I think we can know about its author, when he wrote, and why. [00:00:16] As I've indicated, Acts is the second volume of a two volume work by the anonymous author of the Gospel of Luke. In my discussion of the Gospel, I've shown why the traditional view that the author was Luke, was Gentile, physician and a traveling companion of Paul is probably not right. In case you want to read or reread it, it's who wrote it, when and why. [00:00:45] There I point out that what I've repeatedly argued on the blog that in virtually every instance in which the Book of Acts can be compared with Paul's letters in terms of biographical detail, differences emerge. Some of these differences are minor, the kind of things a friend might just get wrong. Other things are major and show that the author misunderstands or at least mischaracterizes Paul on significant issues in ways hard to explain if he was closely associated with him. [00:01:14] I didn't go into a lot of detail on these differences in that earlier post, so I want to provide more information here. [00:01:21] I won't bother with the minor disagreements so, for example, did Paul go to Athens by himself without Timothy, as in Acts 17:13 16:5? Or did Timothy go with him, as Paul indicates in 1 Thessalonians 3:1? [00:01:39] My interests involve differences that seem to matter a good deal. [00:01:44] For example, Paul is quite emphatic in the Epistle to the Galatians that after he had his vision of Jesus and came to believe in him, he did not go to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles. That's Galatians 1:15 18. This is an important issue for Paul because he wants to prove to the Galatians that his Gospel message did not come from Jesus followers in Jerusalem, the original disciples, and the church around them, but from Jesus himself. His point is that he has not corrupted a message that he received from someone else. His Gospel came straight from God with no human intervention. The Book of Acts, of course, provides its own narrative of Paul's conversion. In this account, strikingly enough, Paul does exactly what he claims not to have done in Galatians. After leaving Damascus, some days after his conversion, he goes directly to Jerusalem and he meets with the apostles. That's Acts chapter 9, verses 10 to 30. [00:02:42] It's possible, of course, that Paul himself has altered the real course of events in order to show that he couldn't have received his Gospel message from other apostles because he never consulted with them. [00:02:52] If he did stretch the truth on this matter, though, his statement of Galatians 1:20 takes on a new poignancy. In what I am writing to you before God, I did not lie, for in fact his lie in this case would have been bald faced. [00:03:07] It is probably better then to see this discrepancy as deriving from Luke, whose own agenda affected the way he told the tale for him. As we've seen, it was important to show that Paul stood in close continuity with the views of the original followers of Jesus because all the apostles were unified in their perspectives. Thus, he portrays Paul as consulting with the Jerusalem apostles and representing the same faith that they proclaimed. [00:03:35] And so the big question Would a companion of Paul really not know the sequence of events that Paul considered to be of such vital importance? [00:03:44] There are other issues that involve the bigger picture that Acts draws of Paul. As I pointed out in the previous post, Acts shows Paul standing in harmony with the original apostles of Jesus. No major conflict at all on any major issue. Paul portrays the matter very differently, especially in Galatians chapter two, where he has to convince the Jerusalem apostles of his views, in contrast to Acts chapter 10 to 15 and ends up in a knock down, drag out argument with Peter about them. And you won't find that in Acts. [00:04:18] Moreover, Acts indicates that Paul, throughout his entire mission, stayed faithful to all of the essentials of Judaism, maintaining an absolute devotion to the Jewish law. [00:04:29] To be sure, he proclaims that Gentiles do not need to keep this law, since for them it will be an unnecessary burden. He himself, however, remains a good Jew to the end, keeping the law in every respect. [00:04:42] When Paul is arrested for violating the law, Luke goes out of his way to show that the charges are altogether trumped up. That's Acts chapters 21 and 22. As Paul himself repeatedly asserts throughout his apologetic speeches. In Acts, he has done nothing contrary to the law, for example in Acts 28:17. [00:05:03] But what about Paul? In his own writings, Paul's view of the law is extremely complicated. Several points, however, are reasonably clear. First, in contrast with the accounts in Acts, Paul appears to have no qualms about violating the Jewish Law when the situation requires him to do so. [00:05:22] In Paul's words, he could live not only like a Jew, but when it served his purposes, but also like a Gentile, for example when it was necessary for him to convert Gentiles. So that's for example 1 Corinthians 9:21. [00:05:38] On one occasion he attacked the apostle Cephas for failing to do so himself. See Galatians 2:11, 14. [00:05:48] In addition, Paul did not see the law merely as an unnecessary burden for Gentiles, something that they didn't have to follow but could if they chose. For Paul, it was an absolute and total affront for Gentiles to follow the law, a complete violation of his Gospel message. In his view, Gentiles who did so were in jeopardy of falling from God's grace. For if doing what the law required contributes to a person's salvation, then Christ died completely in vain. That's Galatians 2:21 and chapter 5, verse 4. [00:06:23] This is scarcely the conciliatory view attributed to Paul in Acts. [00:06:28] Again, would a companion of Paul really not understand such a crucial feature of the apostles views, one that stood at the very core of his Gospel message? [00:06:38] These are some of the reasons that critical scholars have long doubted that the author of Acts was Paul's traveling companion. [00:06:45] So when was the anonymous writer writing? [00:06:48] Since Acts is a companion volume to Luke, and since Luke is usually dated to 80 or 85 CE or so, it's long been thought that Acts was written soon after that, sometime before 90 CE. [00:07:01] In recent decades, however, some scholars, especially Josephus scholar Steve Mason and ACT scholar Richard Purvo, have argued that the author of Acts knew the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, that some portions of Acts show dependence on Josephus antiquities of the Jews produced in 93 CE. They have suggested a later date of up to 120 CE for ACTS. [00:07:25] A number of scholars have found this view persuasive, but I'm afraid I don't. I'm not opposed to it in principle. I don't think there's much support for it. About a month ago I decided to reread their arguments carefully, and again I found them interesting but rather thin. [00:07:45] Between Acts and Josephus. You don't find anything like the verbatim agreements in extenso that make you think, for example, that Matthew used Mark. [00:07:53] What you do find are some oddities that they share. For example, they both discuss the Jewish rebels Theudas and Judas the Galilean, and in that order, even though chronologically Judas was much earlier. That is indeed intriguing and and they see it as their strongest piece of evidence. But there are obviously ways to explain it other than literary dependency. [00:08:15] If Acts was written in 120 CE, one would then have to decide what to do about the Gospel of Luke. Was it written late as well by the same author? That's hard to imagine, since it may well be quoted earlier, around 100 CE by the didache, as I've pointed out, was act written by a different authority who was trying to imitate the Gospel written three decades earlier. So they're not actually companion volumes? Possibly. Did Luke write the volume two decades later? Maybe. My view, though, is that there's no compelling reason to date it that late. I still think it dates to the 80s. [00:08:53] And that said, why did the author write it? The only way to know is to infer motives from the account itself. [00:09:01] Among the author's reasons, I should think that the following are likely one. To show Christians that the amazing spread of their religion derived from the divine intervention of the Holy Spirit. [00:09:14] 2. To celebrate the importance of Paul, possibly among Christian communities who are dubious about him, since Paul himself indicates that even within his own communities he had lots of enemies. [00:09:26] Number three to show that the law free mission to the Gentiles came straight from God, that it was not just Paul's idea, and that all the apostles were 100% on board with him from the outset. [00:09:39] 4. To show that the true gospel represents the teachings of Jesus himself, that people need to repent and return to God so that he will forgive them, not that Jesus death brought an atonement for sins. [00:09:52] Jesus death revealed how sinful humans were and once they realized that, they could turn to God for forgiveness. And number five to explain why the end of the age had not yet come. It was not supposed to come yet. All along it had been the plan of God for the world to be saved. That mission required the Christian mission to Gentiles, which would take some time, but when the mission is completed, the end will then certainly come.