Did the Evangelist Luke Write
Acts of the Apostles?
In Biblical scholarship it is a commonplace that "Luke", the reputed author of the third Gospel, penned also the book known as Acts of the Apostles and that both the compositions date to the 80s A.D. as two parts of a single work. Is this currently accepted position correct? Are there no serious flaws to be found in it, calling for reconsideration and raising the possibility or even the probability if not the sheer certainty, of another view?
The general case for common authorship may be stated in the words of the Roman Catholic writer Caroll Stuhmueller:1 "Luke not only parallels the ministry of Jesus in his Gospel with that of the Church in Acts, but he sees a fulfilment of Jesus' prophetic ministry in the Church. The following parallels can be noted: baptism of the Spirit (Lk 3:21f; Acts 2:lff,); preaching about the Spirit (Lk 4:16-19; Acts 2:17); rejected (Lk 4:29; Acts 7:58; 13:50); cure of multitudes (Lk 4:40f.; Acts 2:43; 5:16); glorification (Lk 9:28-36; Acts 1:9-11)____An overarching plan reaches from the Gospel into Acts. Each begins in messianic Jerusalem with the imparting of the Spirit (Lk 1:5-2:52; 3:21f., Acts 1-2). The Gospel then presents Jesus' Galilean ministry (4:1-9:50) and his journey to Jerusalem (9:51-19:28). Acts subsequently takes up the early ministry of the apostles, confined for the most part within Judaism (Acts 8-15), followed by Paul's journey to the center of the world, Rome. Each ends with a rejection of Jesus by his own people, which leads to a world-wide apostolate. Not only is there this parallel between the Gospel and Acts, but we also find that Acts continues where the Gospel leaves off. In Lk Jesus never preaches immediately to Gentiles, nor is the kingdom fully established with Jesus. The Kingdom must include the Gentiles, but this universal scope is realized only after Jesus' ascension, in the ministry of the Church, as described by Acts. Luke repeatedly reminds its readers that the time of the parousia is quite indefinite; the
Page 115
kingdom did not appear in full glory with the resurrection of Jesus, nor with the fall of Jerusalem; now, within the Church it is gradually but surely being revealed - in anticipation of the final fulfilment of all promises and hopes."
Stuhmueller has made out a good case for linking Acts with Luke in certain significant doctrinal attitudes. An overall continuity of narration and exposition is established. The writer of Acts certainly had the Lucan Gospel as his background so far as these doctrinal attitudes and a broad line of historical development are concerned. Still, to be proved identical with the writer of that Gospel, much more is needed. He must be consistent on the whole and we must have evidence of the original physical unity of the two books. Grave charges against the brief for the alleged identity can be framed.
To begin with: Krister Stendahl,2 eminent Protestant commentator, who subscribes to the popular outlook on these books, proffers yet the curious information: "in no manuscripts or canonical lists is Acts attached to the Gospel." The well-known Roman Catholic exegete, J. A. Fitzmyer,3 notes: "The earliest attribution of both works to Luke may be found in the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to Luke (dated by some scholars ca. A.D. 160-180): 'afterwards the same Luke wrote Acts of Apostles'." Another Catholic researcher, perhaps the most eminent in the Roman denomination today, Raymond E. Brown,4 outlines the critical situation at some length:
"The traditional view is that Luke composed Luke and Acts at the same time, i.e., in the 80s (although some scholars prefer the 60s because the story of Acts comes to a close at that time). However, Luke and Acts were not preserved as a unit. Marcion accepted only Luke, and it is interesting that Acts really came into frequent use after Marcion's error [in opposing certain orthodox doctrines* ]____J. Knox5 believes that
* Under "Marcionism" The Catholic Encyclopedia by Robert C. Brod-erick (Nashville-Camden-New York: Thomas Nelson, 1976), p. 371, col. 1 says: "Begun in 144 by Marcion, this was the heresy that held that the God of the Jews was not the God of the Christians nor the Father of Christ...."
Page 116
Acts was written much later than Luke (ca. 125) to counteract proto-Marcion misuse of the Pauline letters and Luke. A work such as Acts, which gives prominence to the Twelve, holds them up as a standard of apostleship, and shows a continuity from them to Paul, was precisely the work to offset Marcion's one-sided emphasis on Paul.
"We are uncertain when Acts, a history of the works of Jesus' disciples, was put on a plane with the Gospels, an account of Jesus himself; but such an evaluation shows a mature understanding of the role of the Church in continuing the role of Christ. There is every evidence that Acts was accepted as canonical from 200 A.D. on."
We may sum up these views by saying: "There is every evidence that Luke and Acts existed separately and independently at the start, never from the beginning as a single author's double composition. The earliest declaration of Luke's authorship of Acts is as late as c. 160-180 A.D. Even if Acts was written earlier than the time of Marcion (144 A.D.), Marcion felt himself under no compulsion to accept it as Luke's sequel to his Gospel. If its claim for credence had always been put on a par with the Gospel as the latter's continuation, it would not have won canonicity as late as the end of the second century."
And yet, along with Stendahl and the majority of scholars, Fitzmyer and Brown are inclined to consider it Luke's work. What in it, in addition to a suggestive but inconclusive parallelism in some respects such as Stuhmueller surveys, has impressed them as Lucan?
The most apparent point is that both the scriptures are dedicated to someone named Theophilus (meaning "beloved by God") who is supposed to be a Roman official with Christian sympathies and who is reminded in the dedication to Acts that the author gave him in his first book an account of all that Jesus began to do and teach until the time of his ascension. An additional strong point here is that, among the twenty-seven documents of the New Testament, only in Luke's Gospel at the end and in Acts at the commencement do we have the mention of Jesus ascending bodily into the sky. Theophilus in
Page 117
common plus this exclusive mention appear to bind the two books solidly to each other and are taken to provide a prima facie case.
But there is a glaring flaw in it. In all honesty Brown6 himself has asked in relation to Jesus: "How are we to reconcile what is said at the end of the Gospel (his departure/ascension on Easter night) and what is said at the beginning of Acts (ascension forty days later)?" A footnote7 tells us: "To solve the problem it has been suggested that Luke did not write Acts 1:1-5, and that it was the awkard composition of an unknown Christian scribe, necessitated when Luke-Acts, originally one book, was split into two. The scribe, supposedly, wrote an introduction for the second book by imitating the style of the introduction to the first (cf. Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1). Another suggestion is that Luke the theologian wrote one way when terminating the Gospel-story of Jesus, while Luke the would-be historian wrote another way when beginning the Acts-story of the Church. By associating exaltation and ascension more closely with resurrection, the Gospel was truer to the original theological understanding of the resurrection, while Acts divided resurrection from ascension in order to make both a part of a continuous story."
Neither of the solutions reported by Brown is satisfactory. The second, in the form in which it has been stated, is entirely capricious, with no genuine explanation for the author's change of mind and method. Elsewhere Brown8 has tried to be elucidatory: "P. Benoit (Revue biblique 56 [1949] 161-203; also Theology Digest 8 [1960] 105-10) has made a very important distinction in the concept of ascension which helps to solve the problem. If one is speaking of the terminus of Jesus' frequent appearances among men, then this took place some time (40 days) after the resurrection, perhaps in the symbolic form of a levitation as Acts describes. If one is speaking of ascension theologically, i.e., as a return to the Father or as a glorification in heaven at God's right hand, this exaltation was an integral part of the resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead to glory, and he appeared to men after the resurrection as one
Page 118
already glorified with supreme power (Matthew 28:18; Luke 24:26). The intimate and immediate connection between the resurrection and the ascension so understood is spelled out in John 20:17ff. and is implicit in many other New Testament texts (Acts 5:30-31; Ephesians 4:10; 1 Peter 3:21-22; Hebrews 4:14; 1 Timothy 3:16)." Benoit is ingenious but beside the mark. Jesus' state when he makes appearances to men is never called an ascension to a seat at God's right hand: indeed it is never shown as an ascension at all. There is only one ascension, not two, in Luke and Acts and the period preceding the single ascension in Luke (one day) is irreconcilable with the period preceding it in Acts (forty days). To identify resurrection with ascension in the sense of exaltation and glorification does not do away with the span of a whole day of appearances in the case of Luke: it is this length of time that we have to explain vis-a-vis the forty days. Such a length is as much historical and as little theological as the other. Not two universes of discourse but a discrepancy in the same universe - namely, the historical . - is what cries out for explanation. Benoit has shown acute theological insight, but missed the real issue.
As for the notion of an awkward Writer constructing a second introduction when a composite double book was divided into two sections, we have already argued that not a scrap of documentary evidence permits us to think of an originally single book getting split. What we have is a pair of separate books to which an "unknown Christian scribe" has supplied some introductory lines repeating the name "Theophilus" and trying to pass off a distinct work as a continuation by the author of the Lucan Gospel. Perhaps the lines were introduced after the time of Marcion in nearly mid-second century: else how could that heretic have so easily brushed Acts aside while accepting the Gospel? Anyway, the scribe's intrusion must be taken to stop short of "forty days"; for they are not foreign to the new book but supported by a later verse in it. Acts 13:31 says that after his death Jesus was seen "many days". This is sufficient contradiction of the Gospel's meagre Easter Sunday. Surely, the forty days are an alternative in its own right. They
Page 119
do not invite lame excuses on our part as if for the maladroit manufacture of a colossal inconsistency at the very opening of a book declaring itself Lucan. They direct us away from Luke, even though the story begun is the progress of Christianity from where Luke leaves off.
But here a quirk in the minds of the pro-Lucans must be indicated. They are prepared to grant a new hand in the introduction. Why are they reluctant to extend the alien element to the rest of Acts? If at the outset itself we have somebody who is not considered Luke, why not doubt whether Luke is everywhere else? Besides, the introduction is the main direct and explicit impetus to believe that Acts was authored by the same person as was responsible for the third Gospel. The moment we entertain the idea of the preliminary passage being by an unknown hand, there should be no call to assign the remainder of the book to the Gospel's Luke-especially when we are aware that the Gospel and this book initially existed as distinct entities. The natural mood should be to look for other discrepancies than the chronological to which Brown has drawn attention.
Indeed it is not the only puzzle fingerposting us to a non-Lucan hand. The deeper, the more radical problem arises from the posture attributed to Acts in relation to Luke's Gospel. To generalise Brown's locution, the former book is understood to combine with the latter to make "a continuous story". William Barclay9 also calls "the book of Acts... the second chapter of a continued story". Referring to its predecessor, he10 comments: "in the first volume; which was his Gospel, Luke had told the story of the life of Jesus upon earth, and now he goes on to tell the story of the Christian Church." But if Luke is the writer of both the volumes, we should expect nothing in the second to run counter to the deliverances of the first. Least of all should Acts miss any opportunity offered for the feature which most distinguishes his Gospel along with Matthew's, a feature found only in these two documents out of the twenty-seven in the New Testament - namely, the Virgin Birth of Jesus from Mary. Luke's Gospel goes even beyond
Page 120
Matthew's in its elaborate narrative (1:26-38) of this extraordinary theme. Why has Acts not the slightest glimmering of it in spite of a speech (10:34-43) on Jesus' life and work by the apostle Peter who knew Jesus personally and is shown in Acts to know his mother Mary and his brothers as well (1:13-14)? If the Evangelist did not author Acts, the striking lacuna is intelligible. But if he did, he not only gives proof that Peter's omission shows absence of knowledge where it should have been vividly present and thus that there was no Virgin Birth to be known: he also contradicts his own narrative and demonstrates its contents to be a new-fangled thing, a pure fiction, with no foundation in the original Christianity. Luke totally against himself and nullifying his most Lucan Evangelism: this is what we confront on considering Acts to be his.
Here we can go a step further in detail. The Roman Catholic commentator John H. Dougherty11 enlightens us in a very significant matter: "Gospel first meant the living word of preaching and only later referred to writing. Can we reconstruct the history that lies between the preached Gospel and our four written Gospels?... Peter's sermon in Acts 10:34-43 may serve as an example of the primitive oral catechesis. Observe the outline of the sermon: 1) the preaching of the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus; 2) the Galilean ministry; 3) the passing from Galilee to Judaea and Jerusalem; 4) the passion, death, and Resurrection. It is interesting that we find the same plan in the Gospel of Mark. Now a very early witness, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, affirms in about 130 A.D. that 'Mark, having been the interpreter of Peter, wrote down carefully, though not in order, all that he remembered, both words and deeds of the Lord... he took care to omit or falsify nothing which he had heard [from Peter].' The correlation of these texts suggests an intimate link between the preaching of Peter and the written Mark."
Recent research12 has tended to sever a direct harking back to Peter in Mark but leaves something basic to Peter as still very likely at one or two removes. Dougherty's picture is not
Page 121
essentially changed and in any case his parallelism between the Gospel of Mark and Peter's sermon in Acts runs against Luke's Gospel with its prominent Virgin-Birth revelation preceding the baptismal disclosure of Jesus' divine Sonship. It confirms the earliest of the four Gospels which is Mark's, with its complete lack of an infancy narrative and its emphasis on the disclosure during baptism as the intitial one. The Evangelist Luke in the role of Acts' author simultaneously negates his own Gospel and affirms Mark's on the authority of the Apostle who was Jesus' familiar and whom Jesus put at the head of his followers.
Against the anomaly of such self-replacement in toto on top of utter self-abandonment, can any argument for the commonplace of Biblical scholarship avail?
Certain items of an outstanding character repeated in the two books may be stressed. One we have already mentioned: the Ascension. It is indeed narrated in an open manner and as a physical movement in only the Lucan Gospel (in the words we have quoted) and in Acts (1:9): "He was lifted up before their eyes till a cloud hid him from their sight."* But this item is grievously flawed by its contradictory time-aspect in the two books. What is not similarly excluded from serious consideration is the repeated feature in them - which is to be traced nowhere else - of Jesus eating and drinking with his disciples after his Resurrection (Luke 24:41-43; Acts 10:41). Here is a striking coincidence, but the mere physicality of Jesus' post-Resurrection appearances is not confined to Luke and Acts: John has Jesus showing the nail-marks in his hands to the disciples (20:20) as well as asking Thomas to put his finger in the wound at his side (20:27). With such bodily gestures present elsewhere, the particularity of eating and drinking loses something of its prominence although the fact of its
* Mark 16:19 also speaks of Jesus being "taken up into heaven", but modern scholarship unanimously assures us that the last twelve verses (including this) of Mark's Gospel, as it now stands, were not part of the original Gospel but a later addition.
Page 122
occurring only in Luke and Acts demands attention. However, on the strength of it in whatever diminished singularity, can we ascribe the identical authorship to that pair of books?
Much would depend on differences sticking out between them. The stark disparity in regard to the infancy narrative showing divine Sonship from birth in one and its utter omission in favour of a merely baptismal sign of divine Sonship in the other is not the sole difference. There is the famous Joseph of Arimathaea. He is found in all the four Gospels and in Luke (23:50-51) he is, as Brown13 puts it, "a good and righteous man who had not consented to the action of the other members of the Sanhedrin in condemning Jesus..." This Joseph applies to Pilate, begs the body of Jesus, takes it down from the cross, wraps it in linen and lays it in a sepulchre hewn in stone and unused so far (Luke 23:52-53). What do we find in Acts? The Roman Catholic Jerusalem Bible14 translating Acts 13:27-29, tells the story of Jesus' condemnation, death and its sequel thus: "What the people of Jerusalem and their rulers did, though they did not realise it, was in fact to fulfil the prophecies read on every sabbath. Though they found nothing to justify his death, they condemned him and asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out everything that scripture foretells about him they took him down from the tree and buried him in a tomb." Mark the words in verse 27: "the people of Jerusalem and their rulers." All the actions are theirs, the expression of a collective unanimous will. There is no individual from Arimathaea standing out either in opinion or in activity. And everything is done in a spirit of hostility. Nor is it likely in the least that the hostile people and their rulers would give a special and honourable burial rather than a nameless grave, an unidentifiable "tomb", to a man hanged on a "tree", an accursed criminal according to Jewish law (Deuteronomy 21:23, which Paul's Galatians 3:13 echoes). Acts 13:27-29 makes a complete break with Luke 23:50-53.
A similar break occurs in the matter of the empty tomb which is said in Luke 24:1-10 to be discovered by Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and other women, and
Page 123
reported by them to the Apostles. The Protestant theologian, Bernard W. Anderson,15 well notes: "The apostolic sermons preserved in Acts do not mention the testimony of the women at the sepulchre, and in this respect accord with Paul's summary of the 'received' tradition." Whether Paul's "tradition" and the report of Acts are correct or incorrect, and whether there was one reason or another for their non-mention of the empty tomb is not the issue here: the issue simply is the testimony of Acts in conflict with Luke on a very momentous topic. And the conflict may be deemed inevitable as soon as Joseph of Arimathaea can nowhere be on the scene in Acts. For, with the Jewish enemies of Jesus not only crucifying him but also taking him down from the cross to throw his body into a common grave of malefactors, there can be no identifiable tomb and so the question of its being found empty is meaningless.
We may add that the very women who are said by Luke to discover the empty tomb have no existence in Acts. Acts 13:31, in a speech by Paul, says: "...for many days [Jesus] appeared to those who had accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and it is these same companions of his who are now his witnesses before our people."16 The Apostles are the "witnesses": it is they who came with Jesus to Jerusalem from Galilee, whereas in Luke 23:55 and 24:1 the women who find the tomb empty are those who have done so. Evidently, Luke and Acts are telling radically different stories.
In spite of multiple hurdles of a crucial kind in the way of attributing Acts to Luke, how is it that the late legend of c. 160-180 A.D. still wins support? The answer is: "On literary grounds." But let us see whether the grounds are decisive.
B. Phillips17 tries to cash in on "the same doctor's precision in the use of medical language" in Luke and Acts. But this statement has, in the first place, for its background what, to say the least, is, as Brown18 remarks, "the unverifiable assumption" that Luke the Evangelist is the "dear doctor" Luke who was Paul's friend (Colossians 4:14). H. J. Cadbury19 has once for all proved as ill-founded the whole thesis that
Page 124
the employment of medical terms in the Lucan Gospel and in Acts evinces their authors' doctorship, for he has shown these terms to be prevalent in most writers of antiquity and demonstrated on the testimony of Galen, the greatest ancient authority on medicine, that the words in question are seen in Galen as a result of his avowedly avoiding medical jargon. Phillips is on better ground in pointing to some fifty words that have nothing to do with medicine but are shared by the two books attributed to Luke and not found elsewhere in the New Testament. Brown also attends to several linguistic turns to suggest the same authorship of the two works. As, unlike Phillips, he goes into detail we may pick out some outstanding examples and consider them in the context of other locutions which too he notes.
Thus the word enopion ("before") as in Luke 1:15 occurs thirty-seven times in Luke/Acts, once in John and never in Matthew and Mark.20 The particular Greek way of expressing "from of old" as in Luke 1:70 is found elsewhere in the New Testament only in Acts (3:21; 15:18).21 Again, the verb ody-nasthai ("worried") of Luke 2:48 occurs four times in Luke/ Acts and nowhere else in the New Testament.22 The verb hypostrephein, for "returned" (Luke 1:56) occurs thirty-seven times in Luke/Acts as contrasted with four times in all the other New Testament books.23
Such facts are impressive, but even in the linguistic sphere can they be taken as conclusive of the Evangelist's authorship of Acts? We have to look also at some counter-indicators. There are a number of typical Lucan words appearing on rare occasions in other books than Acts. Thus parachrema ("immediately") of Luke 2:13 comes seventeen times in the Gospel and twice elsewhere but not even once in Acts.24 The verb ainoun ("praising") of Luke 2:13 is found six or seven times in the Gospel yet never in Acts although it has two non-Lucan usages in the New Testament.25 Then there is the Lucan speciality, speudein ("with haste"), in the Gospel (e.g., 2:16), used in a classical intransitive sense whereby it becomes almost an adverb accompanying another verb: it has no parallel in the
Page 125
New Testament, not even in Acts where we would expect it as a distinguishing mark of its Lucan authorship.26 On the other hand, the verb egeneto ("it happened") in the classical Greek construction where it is followed by an infinite is found fifteen times in Acts and only five times in Luke, for Luke adopts the Septuagint form (egeneto followed by a finite verb without kai) which occurs twenty-two times here but never in Acts.27 If we consider not merely individual words but -as with "from of old" - a phrase we shall be struck by an important divergence. Stendahl28 points out: "The title Son of Man [for Jesus], used frequently in Luke, is used only once in Acts, at the death of the martyr Stephen, when he is granted a vision of the Lord in glory." The number of times in Luke is twenty-five.29 And in Acts it has a singularity stressed by Fitzmyer:30 "Aside from John 12:34 this is the only occurrence of this expression in the NT, when it is not on the lips of Jesus himself." All in all, the argument from words or phrases repeating in Luke/ Acts which are infrequent in the remaining New-Testament documents is indecisive in view of several contrary linguistic peculiarities.
Neither is there enough uniformity of general manner in Luke/ Acts. The traditional-minded Jerusalem Bible itself, which submits that the vocabulary, grammar and style of Acts are "characteristic of the third Gospel"31 has to admit that "there is a considerable variation in the literary style" of the author, which is sought to be traced to "the various sources used".32 In several passages "the Greek is excellent", whereas elsewhere "the language becomes full of semitisms, clumsy and even inaccurate".33 The Third Gospel too has inequalities, but when it is said that the writer "out of respect for his sources... incorporates their imperfections" he is taken to do so "after polishing them a little".34 The Evangelist is obviously a more skilful composer.
Significant differences in the basis of the two authors' language may also be gathered on attending to Stendahl's estimates. On the Evangelist he35 writes: "Luke uses a good literary style of the Hellenist Age in terms of syntax. His
Page 126
language has a 'biblical' ring in its own time because of his use of the Septuagint style; he is familiar with the Septuagint, which was written in Greek for Greeks; he seldom uses loanwords and repeatedly improves Mark's wording." Stendahl36 on the author of Acts runs: "Acts was written in relatively good literary Greek (especially where it addresses Gentiles), but it is not consistent, and the Koine (vernacular Greek of the first century) was apparently more natural to him." There is a subtle dividing-line between the two pens which is not to be expected if Acts is a continuation of the Gospel at the hand of the same author.
Finally, in this connection, there is the general possibility that some books of the New Testament may have between themselves observable affinities without identical authorship. Just as affinities have been discerned as regards Luke's Gospel and Acts, "some scholars have associated Luke with the Pastoral Letters [1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus] and the Letter to the Hebrews either as author or as amanuensis because of linguistic and other similarities with the Gospel and the Acts".37 The majority opinion even among orthodox Roman Catholic critics rules out Luke as their author. His role as amanuensis too has to be dismissed: the New Testament always mentions the amanuensis employed and no Luke is named for any of the four books concerned. Can we be dogmatic then about Luke/ Acts because of their linguistic and other similarities?
On balance the old simplistic solution is on all counts unacceptable - but a new perspective is not easy to define. Peter's sermon in Acts 10:34-43, judged by its substance which is unexpectedly innocent altogether of the Evangelist Luke's Virgin-Birth doctrine, may be considered as dating to the period (the late 60s) of Mark whose outlook on Jesus it reflects in general. It is quite on the cards that its reporter had read Mark. Although ignoring Luke's infancy narrative, he knew Luke well and was influenced by him, for something of the literary mode of that Evangelist cannot be divorced from the writer of Acts, nor can we forget that Acts aims at prolonging the story of early Christianity into the apostolic age and keeps certain
Page 127
broad doctrinal themes of Luke running from the earlier to the later time. But his work was based on various records both Lucan and pre-Lucan. There is no sign of his knowing either Matthew's or John's Gospel - and, as little as Mark, Matthew, Luke or John, is he conversant with Paul's Letters.
The Pauline theology differs in a number of points from what he makes Paul say. An instance, related to Acts 24:1-21, may be cited from Fitzmyer:38 "Paul tries to assure [the Roman Governor] Felix that even if he is a member of the sect of the Nazoreans [= followers of Jesus of Nazareth], this is still in line with all that the Pharisees [= members of Paul's original sect] hold most dear.... He is at pains to show that his allegiance to Christ is not arbitrary, but the logical outcome of Pharisaism. I worship the God of our fathers: Lit., 'the paternal [ancestral] god'....The God whom he worshipped as a Pharisee is still the same as the one he now worships, all that is written in the Law and the Prophets; Christianity is thus presented... as the fulfilment of Judaism...Paul in his letters would not express his position just so; see 2 Corinthians 3:6-18....."A profounder difference is the theme of Jesus' pre-existence which is found in Colossians (1:15) and Philippians (2:6): there is no hint of it in Acts. Again, Paul's own reference (Galatians 1:11-16) to his "conversion" or the "call" he received to preach to the Gentiles diverges significantly from the two accounts put directly into his mouth in Acts (22:1-16; 26:9-18) as well as from the one given indirectly (9:15). Even the narrative into which the sermons or speeches of Paul are set fail to chime with Paul's report of certain important happenings. For example, his crucial opposition to Peter recounted in Galatians 2:11-14 should be in Acts 15 but is totally missing. From Fitzmyer39 we may draw another dissonance in connection with the same chapter. Acts 15:2 records a "dissension" at Antioch between "some men from Judaea" and Barnabas and Paul. The author of Acts "gives this motivation for the sending of Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem [for a decision], but in Galatians 2:2 Paul speaks of a 'revelation' as the reason for the visit to Jerusalem". In view of a good number of variations, Fitzmyer's general
Page 128
verdict40 is: "Whenever there is a question of deciding between Lucan or Pauline data, the preference must be given to the latter." This verdict should lead us to think that even if the Gospel's Luke penned Acts, the Luke of Acts cannot be the namesake mentioned by Paul as his medical companion, although in some respects he is closer to Paul and thus to Paul's Luke since neither he nor Paul knows of any Virgin Birth whereas belief in it is integral to the theology of the Gospel's Luke.
Being post-Luke in composition, which does not necessarily mean so in material, Acts may be dated anywhere between the late 80s and the period when Paul's Letters became fairly public. Fitzmyer41 informs us: "The collection of Paul's canonical letters was apparently made towards the end of the 1st century A.D...The reference in 2 Peter 3:15-16 to 'all the letters' of 'our dear brother Paul' may be an allusion to a corpus of some sort [perhaps between 100 and 125 A.D.42]. The earliest indication of such a corpus comes to us from Marcion who drew up at Rome ca. A.D. 144 a canon into which he admitted ten Pauline letters—"
On rejection of Luke as the author of Acts, all this is as far as we can surmise of the real anonymous writer.
9.2.1985
References
1. "The Gospel according to Luke", The Jerome Biblical Commentary, edited by Raymond E. Brown, S. S., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S. J., Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1982), The New Testament, p. 116. col. 2 and p. 117, col. 1.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1977), Macropaedia, Vol. 2, p. 956, col. 2.
3. "Acts of the Apostles", The Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 165, col. 1.
4. "The Canon of the New Testament", ibid., p. 528, col. 2.
5. In Studies in Luke-Acts, ed. L. E. Keck and J.L. Martyn (Nashville), pp. 279-87.
Page 129
6. The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paulist Press, 1973), pp. 102-03.
7. Ibid., p. 103, fn. 171.
8. "The Resurrection of Jesus" in "Aspects of New Testament Thought", The Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 795, col. 2.
9. The Acts of the Apostles, translated with an Introduction and Interpretation (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1955), p. 1.
10. Ibid.
11. Searching the Scriptures (New York: Image Books, 1963), p. 116.
12. D. E. Nineham, The Gospel of St. Mark (Harmondsworth: The Pelican New Testament Commentaries, Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 26-27 with fn.
13. The Virginal Conception..., p. 115, fn. 196.
14. The Jerusalem Bible (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1966), The New Testament, p. 222.
15. Rediscovering the Bible (New York: A Haddon House Book, Associations Press, 1951), p. 221.
16. The Jerusalem Bible, The New Testament, pp. 222-23.
17. The Young Church in Action: The Acts of the Apostles in Modern English (London: Collins, Fontana Books, 1966), p. 23.
18. The Virginal Conception..., p. 57, fn. 91.
19. Harvard Theological Studies VI, "The Style and Literary Method of Luke".
20. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke (New York: Image Books, 1979), p. 261.
21. Ibid., p. 371.
22. Ibid., p. 475.
23. Ibid., p. 338.
24. Ibid., p. 370.
25. Ibid., p. 403.
26. Ibid., p. 406.
27. Carroll Stuhmueller, CP, "The Gospel according to Luke", in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 116, col. 1.
28. Enc. Brit., Macropaedia, Vol. 2, p. 957, cols. 1 & 2.
29. DM. Stanley, "Titles of Christ", The Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 773, col. 2.
30. The Jerusalem Bible, The New Testament, p. 195.
31. Ibid., p. 196.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. 14.
Page 130
35. Enc. Brit., Macropaedia, Vol. 2, p. 954, col. 2.
36. Ibid., p. 957, col. 1.
37. E.E. Ellis, ibid., p. 178, col. 1.
38. "The Acts of the Apostles", The Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 208, col. 2.
39. Ibid., p. 195, col. 1.
40. Ibid., p. 191, col. 2.
41. "New Testament Epistles", ibid., p. 225, col. 2.
42. Brown, "The Canon of the New Testament", ibid., p. 529, col. 2.
Page 131
Home
Disciples
Amal Kiran
Books
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.