A NEW PLEA FOR AN EARLY DATE OF ACTS

Abstract

Although the date of Acts requires no introduction there has been consistent apathy in recent years with regards to this longstanding debate. While the ‘majority’ of scholars have been lulled into thinking it was written between 70 and 90 CE the vast majority of recent opinion is unanimously adamant that this middle range date is a convenient, political compromise. A large part of the problem relates to the recent and remarkable neglect of historical, textual, and source-critical matters. Compounding the problem further are the methodological flaws among the approaches to the middle and late date of Acts. A historiographical approach to the debate offers a stronger framework for evaluating the primary and secondary sources. Under this umbrella, and with the support of modern principles of textual criticism and linguistics, the historical context of Acts is determined to be concurrent with a date of 62-63 CE. This thesis also examines the much-neglected issue of Acts and its sources. As a consequence, it was found that there is no clear evidence that Luke used Paul's letters or the writings of Josephus—which (in concert with other evidence) effectively removes the plausibility of a late date of Acts. Additionally, the relationship between the date of Acts and the various interpretations on the end of Acts demonstrate that many of the modern and more recent theories are not only assumptive (especially with regards to genre), in some cases they utilize anachronistic literary methods that were originally applied to nineteenth-century novels. It is proposed below that the ancient interpretation (that Luke wrote no more because he knew no more) remains the most logical in light ofthe combined literary and historical evidence. This interpretation is further strengthened by a study of the variants at the end of Acts, the fall of Jerusalem (and its aftermath), the great fire of Rome and the subsequent persecution of Christians under Nero—all of which strongly indicate a pre-64 CE state of affairs.