Conclusions regarding Luke’s Historiography

Conclusions regarding Luke’s Historiography

At this point it is helpful to summarize not only this chapter but where past chapters on Acts’ genre have brought us and where subsequent chapters must take us. Our first chapter on genre noted that arguments offered for most proposed genres for Acts include elements of truth that shed light on how Luke tells his story. These include Luke’s interests in key individuals (as in biography or, in this case, a biographic approach to history), literary features (such as cohesiveness, plot, and entertainment value, often noted in novels), and a foundation story (as in some epics). Luke, as an ancient writer, could draw from literary techniques found in a variety of genres without such genres defining his work.

The most suitable ancient category for Acts, however, is the historical monograph. Luke’s interests are far too historical to classify Acts as a novel and more thematic (focusing on the gospel mission to all peoples) than one would expect in biographies about single individuals. Ancient historiography differed from its modern namesake, but an examination of Luke’s historical reports and his use of sources lands Acts squarely among ancient historical works.

Because Acts’ genre is historical, it is fair to include historical questions when examining its literary meaning. Given the work’s genre, Luke’s first audience would expect him both to find meaning in the events he narrates and to narrate what he believed to be genuine events. Although all historians used rhetorical principles to tell their story and provide speeches, the more rhetorical historians tended to be lavish with detailed description in a manner that Luke is not. Ancient historians did create speeches and construct more detailed scenes based on inference, where necessary, to flesh out cohesive narratives; but readers expected them not to create events, and the best of them (for the purposes of modern historians, in any case) were generally reworking information genuinely at their disposal.

Although at this remove we cannot test Luke’s historical reliability as well as his contemporaries might have, the extrinsic historical question remains a legitimate one (alongside, not instead of, more intrinsic literary concerns). If Luke implicitly purports to write historical narrative, we can ask how well he achieved his purpose that this genre promises (by the criteria by which that enterprise was defined in his milieu). First we should define what we mean by “historical reliability” for an ancient historian in general and for Luke in particular. Insofar as the evidence that has so far been examined here for ancient historiography generally can offer clues, Luke, like other historians, should have been free to construct speeches, infer private scenes, fill in dramatic details, and so forth, although reconstructing them in the most plausible (as well as compositionally satisfactory) manner consistent with what was known. (How much was known will have varied from one historian to another and one case to another.)

Yet ancient historians such as Luke would not invent major events (such as Paul’s abuse in Philippi or, in my opinion, Lydia’s conversion there) and certainly not major, pivotal matters such as Paul’s Roman custody in Judea and transfer to Rome (which also appears in detailed “we” material). Had Luke invented such material, we might well be highly tempted to view Acts as a novel rather than a historical monograph, little as the work seems to fit the characteristics of the former genre.

These judgments from ancient historiography provide merely a range of options; they do not by themselves tell us where on the accuracy scale of ancient historians Luke appears nor decide for us how often Luke’s details reflect prior historical tradition. Granted that Luke writes history, where on the continuum of historical reliability (by either ancient or modern standards for history) does his work lie? When we examine more concrete evidence not pertinent to historians in general but specific to Luke’s treatment of various issues that we can test, in the strong majority of cases we find Luke a reliable reporter of events. It is especially our comparison of Paul’s letters with Acts’ claims about Paul that will confirm this expectation in greater detail. That Luke was a masterful narrator is not in question; that what he narrated was historiography rather than a novel most scholars concur; that his historical work is useful for modern historical understanding of early Christianity should, I believe, likewise be granted.

Where we can test him, Luke is as accurate as, or more accurate than, many historians contemporary with him (perhaps partly because, although he employs rhetoric, his audience expected less rhetorical embellishment than was demanded by some more elite contemporaries). At the same time, he is a popular, rather than elite, historian, and this must be taken into account when one notes the ways he tells his story, with its emphasis on adventures, signs, continuous action, and a tightly cohesive plot.

The genre (and general evidence for how Acts fits this genre) also suggests what we should expect where Luke reports events. In the absence of external evidence supporting or rendering suspect a particular Lukan claim, we ought to give Luke the same benefit of the doubt that we would grant other historians writing about ancient events, especially when extrinsic data so often confirm his claims.

Some scholars would grant this principle for the most part but except from it supernatural claims, although these appear in other historians as well as in Luke. below will discuss this caveat separately not because the issues are unrelated but because they require special attention (regarding both Acts and other authors) and at least a cursory, nonjudgmental comparison between the general worldview presuppositions of antiquity and those of modernity. The question of speeches, which might consume even more space in Acts than signs, is also extensive enough to require separate treatment (ch. 8 below). Regarding most kinds of events, however, I believe that the evidence above and especially in the following chapter, on Paul, are already sufficient to invite confidence and assign the usual burden of proof to those skeptical of Luke’s claims.

Merely establishing that Luke wrote historiography cannot settle the question of veracity (cf. Penner, Praise, 5–6), even if it provides a generally narrower range than we would have without these genre markers. The question of Acts and history has long intrigued scholars (note esp. Cadbury, Acts and History; for this history of historical criticism of Acts, see Mattill and Mattill, Bibliography, 181–89, §§2430–2561). Mattill and Mattill, 189–93, §§2562–93, cite more than 30 sources addressing Acts’ historical reliability (e.g., Howard, “Source”) and many from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Biscoe, History [1742, 1829]; Blunt, Veracity, 1829; Holtzmann, “Actes” [1868]; Howson, Value [1880]) and early twentieth century (e.g., Bernard, “Historical Value” [1902]; Chase, Credibility [1902]; Beardslee, “Inaccuracies,” [1903]; Wendt, “Trustworthiness” [1913–14]; Foakes-Jackson, Criticism [1916]; Ayles, “Credibility” [1923–24]; Deissmann, “Value” [1929]).

Whittaker, “Introduction,” xlv–xlviii. Dio Cassius claims to have spent ten years collecting his research thoroughly (Hose, “Cassius Dio,” 464).

Whittaker, “Introduction,” xlviii–lii.

For these and Tacitus’s numerous other kinds of sources, see, e.g., Hadas, “Introduction,” xviii; cf. Grant, “Introduction to Tacitus,” 13–14.

A later historian emphasized Suetonius’s “truthfulness” (SHA, Probus 2.7, cited approvingly in Bradley, “Suetonius,” 1452).

Defending Livy’s accuracy, however, see Laistner, Historians, 65–102. Much more extreme, Lucan’s war poetry (more epic than historical in style, though on the larger level recounting largely historical events) played on the grotesque but impossible images of his tradition: e.g., because weapons pierced Catus from both sides, the blood did not know which way to flow (Lucan C.W. 3.586–91).

E.g., Dio Cass. 48.26.2 (see LCL note), contradicting Josephus (who was earlier; Jos. Ant. 14.359–69; War 1.268–73) and himself (Dio Cass. 49.22.6); see also Hdn. 3.4.3 (see LCL, n. 1); 3.9.3 (LCL, n. 3).

As often noted (e.g., Harrington, “Bible,” 245; Sanders, Judaism, 6; on the autobiography, Mason, Josephus and New Testament, 41–42, 73–76). Clearly, Josephus exaggerated in his own interests, though it is less certain that (with Krieger, “Verwandter”) he did not belong to the priestly aristocracy. The danger of appearing to praise oneself could make glory-seeking autobiography a more delicate exercise than other forms of epideictic biography (see Cic. Fam. 5.12.8).

Crossan, Jesus, 93. Josephus had too much to lose to tell the truth in all respects. Sometimes the Romans apparently accepted the excuse that a small band had forced others to resist Rome (Livy 24.47.6, in 213 B.C.E.).

Cf., e.g., Begg, “Amaziah”; idem, “Nahum”; idem, “Uzziah”; Feldman, “Asa”; idem, “Joseph”; idem, “Manasseh”; idem, “Pharaohs”; idem, “Ezra”; cf. also the transformation of Ahasuerus into a fully positive character in Jos. Ant. 11 (Feldman, “Ahasuerus”). Begg, “Gedaliah,” suggests that some of Josephus’s reports may also reflect influence from his experience.

Clearly, not all stem from desire to please Rome: it is unlikely that Josephus avoids Nineveh’s repentance because of Roman antiproselytism views (Feldman, “Jonah”), given his reports of many conversions elsewhere, and still less likely are some parallels drawn between the Jonah story and the Argonautica (Hamel, “Argo to Nineveh”).

For specific examples of Josephus’s adaptations, see, e.g., Begg, “Jotham”; idem, “Fall”; idem, “Putsch”; idem, “Jehoahaz” (improving the character); Feldman, “Elijah”; other articles by Feldman cited in this chapter; Gafni, “Josephus and Maccabees,” 126–27. In Josephus’s case, the claim not to have added or omitted anything seems, however, pure convention (Feldman, “Hellenizations: Abraham,” 133).

Inowlocki, “Neither Adding nor Omitting.”

E.g., Syon, “Gamla”; Cotton and Geiger, “Yyn”; Mazar, “Josephus”; Feldman, “Introduction,” 45–46; Thackeray, Josephus, 49. Cf. also his claims concerning an Essene gate (Jos. War 5.142–45), in Riesner, “Gate”; Pixner, “Gate”; Pixner, Chen, and Margalit, “Zion.”

Fischer and Stein, “Marble.” Some scholars also suggest that his use of conventional forms in his suicide accounts militates against the accuracy of his battle suicides (Newell, “Forms”), but a historian might employ the same convention for an authentic event (suicide was common enough; cf. comment on Acts 16:27).

Cf. probably Kokkinos, “Gentilicium”; See comment on Acts 23:24.

Wright, People of God, 378, also comparing Luke 24:51; Acts 1:3. Cf. also the divergent details in Josephus and Philo on the same events (Theissen, Gospels, 149). Josephus follows but apparently modifies some literary sources (see Ben Zeev, “Reliability”); he is not always correct, but he does not normally appear to deliberately misrepresent his sources (idem, “Ambiguities”).

Sanders, Judaism, 6. Many claims against Josephus’s reliability are overstated; see, e.g., Rajak, Josephus, 9–10.

Some conservative reviewers have criticized similar statements (in my view, out of context) in some of my previous books (e.g., Doriani, “Review”). But neither those statements nor this one are intended as conclusions; rather, they are transitional from one part of an argument to the next. I do not believe it appropriate to claim for an argument more than one has demonstrated or than, by the means agreed on in the form of argument, one can demonstrate. If some scholars think that establishing historical genre alone is sufficient to guarantee the reliability of whatever details ancient historians wrote, I believe that their malady would be cured by reading more ancient history (as would that of those skeptical of most of the basic substance of what ancient historians wrote).

E.g., Sil. It. 9.66–177; cf. also drama (e.g., the goddess Fortune providing such information in Menander Aspis 97–148). They could provide such insights, they believed, through inspiration (Val. Flacc. 3.15–17; Sil. It. 9.340–45; cf. also Nagy, “Prologue,” xxx; Maclean and Aitken, Heroikos, xxxix), through which they could also reveal the divine purposes in history (Sil. It. 1.19). Pervo, Acts, 17, finds Acts’ narration closer to this model, but I find it closer to historians (who reported private scenes no less than Luke; both reported them less than poetic works did). Of course, Luke would have believed in prophetic insight into events (e.g., Acts 27:31; cf. 2 Kgs 6:12), a practice I have also observed among African prophets. Even historians did sometimes act omniscient, reporting characters’ thoughts (Dewald, “Construction,” 97), though Luke rarely does this. Like Luke at times, other historians sometimes displayed confidence about motives (e.g., Vell. Paterc. 2.35.2; 2.48.4).

Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.1.1; see Keener, John, 22–23; for historians’ ideally using sources, see also Marguerat, Histoire, 30. Pervo, Dating Acts, 6–7, notes that writers did not always acknowledge their sources, as long as they rewrote the material (citing Josephus’s rewrite of Exod 7:8–12 in Jos. Ant. 2.284–87). It is true that for reasons of style (like most modern works’ avoidance of full documentation) historians did not acknowledge all their sources (Laistner, Historians, 51, 86), but it is rare to find elite historians who never mention their predecessors when such existed.

Granted, when they wrote noncontemporary history they depended primarily on earlier historians rather than other kinds of documents; they could compare these (a tedious enterprise, Pliny Ep. 5.8.12) and evaluated discrepancies by probability (Marincola, “Audiences,” 19). Some of the historians on whom they depended, however, had written contemporary accounts.

E.g., Num 21:14; Josh 10:13; 2 Sam 1:18; 1 Kgs 14:19, 29; 15:7, 23, 31; 16:5, 14, 20, 27; 22:39, 45; 2 Kgs 1:18; 8:23; 10:34; 12:19; 13:8, 12; 14:15, 18, 28; 15:6, 11, 15, 21, 26, 31, 36; 16:19; 20:20; 21:17, 25; 23:28; 24:5; 1 Chr 27:24; 29:29; 2 Chr 16:11; 20:34; 24:27; 25:26; 27:7; 28:26; 32:32; 35:27; 36:8; 2 Macc 2:24–25. Rabbis, too, often emphasized citing sources for traditions (e.g., m. ʾAbot 6:6; b. Nid. 19b).

E.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.6.1; Arrian Alex. 6.2.4; Plut. Alex. 30.7; 31.2–3; 38.4; and further below. For details from Tiberius’s time, Tacitus cites “historians of that era” (Ann. 5.9). Even a novelist might occasionally remember to provide the story world verisimilitude by providing a source (Apul. Metam. 9.30). In other genres, cf. Contest of Homer and Hesiod 323; Parth. L.R. 11.1–3; 14.5. Ovid’s account of Lichas’s end (Metam. 9.225) diverges from Soph. Wom. Tr. 777–82; Ovid claims dependence on prior tradition, but his emphasis on metamorphoses certainly accounts for which tradition he prefers! Cf. Cook, “Plutarch’s Use,” for a stylistic source indicator in Plutarch; for Plutarch’s range of sources, see Rhodes, “Documents,” 65–66.

E.g., the material about Panthea in Xen. Cyr. 7.1.29–7.3.16 seems different from the context, but the criteria are not objective enough for certainty (witness NT scholars’ continuing debates over the extent of pre-Pauline “hymns”).

E.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.87.4; 3.35.1–4; 8.79.1; Livy 9.44.6; 23.19.17; 25.17.1–6; Appian Hist. rom. 11.9.56; 12.1.1; Plut. Alex. 31.3; 38.4; Demosth. 5.5; 29.4–30.4; Themist. 25.1–2; 27.1; 32.3–4; Apollod. Bib. 1.4.3; 1.5.2; 1.9.15, 19; 2.3.1; 2.5.11; Ovid Fasti 6.1–2, 97–100; Philost. Vit. soph. 2.4.570; Paus. 2.5.5; 2.26.3–7; Arrian Alex. 4.9.2–3; 4.14.1–4; 5.3.1; 5.14.4; 7.14.2; 7.27.1–3; Hdn. 7.9.4; 7.9.9; Corn. Nep. 7 (Alcibiades), 11.1; 9 (Conon), 5.4; b. Soṭah 9:13, §2; see further Livy, LCL, 12:320n2. Livy cites many sources (Laistner, Historians, 84), and cites a major source, Quadrigarius, especially where the latter’s account varies from Livy’s (Forsythe, “Quadrigarius,” 391)—and hence may follow him at other times without citing him.

Arrian Alex. 1.pref. 1–2.

Arrian Alex. 3.3.6.

Philost. Vit. soph. 2.5.576.

Nor can one object that Philostratus, writing lives of sophists, was simply unaware of appropriate rhetorical conventions.

Thereby implying far more than the five sources he has named. On the multiplicity of first-generation Alexander accounts, now lost, see Zambrini, “Historians.”

Cf. Damon, “Source to sermo,” on Livy 34.54.4–8 (contrasting Tacitus’s freer composition in Ann. 1, 14), if this redaction-critical approach proves durable.

Judge, First Christians, 379.

See Hemer, Acts in History, 65; cf. Lendon, “Historiography,” 54 (citing the statement to this effect in Tac. Ann. 13.20); Laistner, Historians, 120 (for controversial matters), 127 (Tacitus reporting variations in the views of his sources, which may have been contemporary with the events narrated); for Livy’s citation of Quadrigarius only when varying from his own narrative, see Forsythe, “Quadrigarius,” 391. See, e.g., Val. Max. 5.7.ext. 1; 6.8.3 (though Valerius confuses sources more often than most, especially when commenting on an earlier period); Tac. Ann. 2.73, 88; 4.57; 13.20. Lendon, “Historiography,” 54, notes writers struggling over which sources to prefer (Livy 10.9.10–12; cf. Tac. Ann. 14.2; Hist. 3.28).

E.g., Philost. Vit. soph. 2.4.570; in a different genre, cf. Ovid Fasti 6.1–2, 97–100.

Cf., e.g., Tacitus, who, naturally, does not need to cite many sources on his father-in-law, Agricola.

E.g., 1 Esdras blends Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah with some midrash. Josephus does not state most of his extrabiblical sources (Nicolaus of Damascus being an important exception); even Livy can mention that there are many while citing only one (Livy 42.11.1).

Schmidt, “Stellung”; Kümmel, Introduction, 37; see the brief discussion in Keener, Matthew, 17. “High” literature influenced “low” literature, creating an overlap of style (Burridge, Gospels, 11, 153; Aune, Environment, 12, 63; Downing, “Relevance”).

E.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.6.1, 3; sometimes earlier oral traditions probably also surface later in rabbinic literature (see, e.g., Keener, John, 189–90). Oral and written traditions sometimes overlapped (Jeremias in Hennecke, Apocrypha, 1:95). Even the vast majority of ancient histories (on which extant ancient historians could have also depended) have perished (cf. Laistner, Historians, 5–6; Brown, Historians, 107).

E.g., Cic. Nat. d. 3.16.42 (concerning Hom. Od. 11.600ff.; see esp. H. Rackham in Cicero, LCL, 19:324–25 n. a); Diog. Laert. 1.48 (Solon redacting Hom. Il. 2.557).

Possibly Hierocles in Stobaeus; Malherbe, Exhortation, 85. Jewish scribes, however, rarely practiced redaction criticism on Scripture (despite an occasional fourth-century Palestinian Amora; cf. Lev. Rab. 6:6; 15:2).

Gundry, “Genre,” 102; Witherington, Christology of Jesus, 22; contrast the older approach of Dibelius, Tradition, 3.

For comment on this passage, see also Byrskog, History, 117. For Polybius’s use of documents, see Rhodes, “Documents,” 64–65.

Note that Josephus published the Antiquities perhaps just twenty-seven years after Nero’s death.

Similarly, Dio Cassius had to defend his omission of some material by explaining that he had in fact read almost everything but did not judge it all suitable for inclusion (1.1.1–2).

He often mentions both the verdict of “the majority” of historians from the earlier era noted and dissenters from that consensus (e.g., Ann. 4.57). Various historians could also refer readers more generally to “other historians” (e.g., Vell. Paterc. 2.48.5; cf. Luke 1:1).

For Tacitus using sources (and fairly critically), see Laistner, Historians, 121; for historians’ use of documents (legal documents, inscriptions, and the like), see Rhodes, “Documents” (though they did not always cite them; Laistner, Historians, 51).

Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 141.

See discussion in Keener, “Otho.”

Cf. Martin, “Tacitus,” 1470.

In this case Plutarch confesses that he does not know why the scene was as his witness described it (bodies gathered and piled up at a temple; Otho 14.2). Plutarch also visited Otho’s tomb at Brixillum (Plutarch Otho 18.1). For Plutarch’s range of sources, see Rhodes, “Documents,” 65–66.

Not to be confused with Suetonius Paulinus, a prominent general of the time.

The majority view (so Fitzmyer, Acts, 59).

Fuller, “Classics,” 182, notes G. Kennedy’s observation that the plural (rather than the dual) requires minimally three writers and, grammatically, each of these writers produced his own narration.

Aune, Environment, 121, doubts the certainty of this premise, given the conventionality of the statement; but other historians who used this convention did have sources (even if “many” could be hyperbolic)—i.e., the convention is not a fiction. Hellenistic prefaces often mentioned predecessors (90); for the mention of sources in prefaces, see Alexander, Preface, 32–34; mention of many sources can also occur after concluding a discussion (as in Diog. Laert. 4.1).

Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 134–35, suggests as early as 45 C.E. on the basis of Euseb. H.E. 2.14–15, but Eusebius’s tradition here seems questionable. More plausibly, Theissen, Gospels, 203–34, esp. 220–21, 230–32, dates Q (though not necessarily a narrative, it might fit Luke’s term) in the 40s, though this is uncertain. Certainly, we cannot rule out even some early Palestinian written sources, given evidence for sufficient literacy there (Millard, Reading and Writing, esp. summary in 227–29); scribes (cf. 168, 176) could also be paid to take dictation. Others give lower estimates of literacy, but none exclude it altogether.

E.g., Jos. War 1.1–2, 7; Ant. 20.154–57 (cf. 20.262); Wardle, Valerius Maximus, 67, cites Livy pref. 2; Sall. Hist. frgs. 3, 7; Tac. Hist. 1.1.2–3; Ann. 1.1.2 (comparing also Hecataeus frg. 1; Cato E. Origins frg. 77; Asinius Pollio frg. 4). Outside history, see, e.g., Longin. Subl. 1.1.

E.g., Val. Max. 1.pref. Only after praising his predecessors does Quintilian note that he will differ from them on some points (Inst. 3.1.22). Vell. Paterc. 2.53.4 criticizes predecessors for being five years off on Pompey’s age, not to criticize them, he claims, but because he wants to forestall criticism of himself erring on this minor detail.

E.g., Dion. Hal. Thuc. 5.

Mason, “Chief Priests,” 127, following Sterling, Historiography, 343–45; Parsons, Luke, 47.

Robbins, “Claims of Prologues,” 73–75, 83, arguing that Luke instead intends to provide a continuous account “from the beginning to Rome.” Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 371, also doubts that Luke criticizes his predecessors’ accuracy.

Xen. Apol. 1–2 (though citing, for this new emphasis, a specific informant, Apol. 2).

Aul. Gel. pref. 10 (preferring their style), 11–12 (preferring his selectivity). Cf. also this explanation (of greater selectivity) in 2 Macc 2:24–25 (conciseness was a narrative virtue, Theon Progymn. 5.39–40).

Nicolaus Progymn. 1.pref. 1.

One could refute sources on the basis of rhetorical criteria (e.g., Theon Progymn. 3.241–44) and claim superiority in arrangement over one’s predecessors (Artem. Oneir. 3.pref.).

Moessner, “Poetics,” 97–112.

Danker, New Age, 4 (comparing Ovid Metam. 7.520); Tannehill, Luke, 9–10; Penner, Praise, 220; Parsons, “Progymnasmata,” 52 (noting arrangement for clarity in Theon Progymn. 87.13; Quint. Inst. 4.2.83; but also acknowledging preference for exact sequence in Rhet. Alex. 30.28–31; Rhet. Her. 1.9.15, and Theon’s disapproval of accidental confusion of sequence in Progymn. 80.26–29). Certainly, historical prefaces were supposed to promise that they would be easy to follow (Lucian Hist. 53).

Most of Acts is chronologically arranged, and the Gospel, with very few exceptions, follows the sequence of Mark and (probably) Q (on his sequential approach to putative sources, cf. also Morton and MacGregor, Structure, 27; Perry, Sources, 19–20).

Biography need not be chronological (see Görgemanns, “Biography”; Stanton, Jesus, 119–21; cf. even 4Q158; Aug. Harm. G. 21.51; for Mark, see Papias in Euseb. H.E. 3.39); cf., e.g., the accidental repetition in Plut. Alex. 37.4; 56.1. See the somewhat more detailed discussion in Keener, John, 12–13.

Thucyd. 2.1.1; 5.26.1 (although even most historians tended to follow events to their conclusion and not simply strict chronology; Dion. Hal. Thuc. 9; Pomp. 3). Cf. “from the beginning” (ἀί’ ἀρχῆς) in Diod. Sic. 4.8.5 (on recounting Heracles’s acts); John 15:27; for the beginning of the period in question, cf. Test. Ab. 15:14 A; 4:13 B. Cf. “handing down from the beginning” in Iambl. V.P. 1.1. Not only rhetoricians (e.g., Anderson, Glossary, 116; cf. Arius Did. Epit. 2.7.7, pp. 42–43.13) but philosophers (Mus. Ruf. 8, p. 62.19; Arius Did. Epit. 2.7.5b.2, pp. 14–15.15; 2.7.5k, p. 34.1; 2.7.5l, pp. 36–37.4; 2.7.11i, pp. 78–79.14–15; Diog. Laert. 3.103–4 [though cf. 2.130]; Lodge, Ethics, 65) and moralists (Cic. Off. 1.40.142; Plut. Table 1.2.4, Mor. 617B; Dio Chrys. Or. 33.48; cf. Mitchell, Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 174–75) preferred “order” (rhetorical, social, or moral) to disorder.

He sees Mark as possibly “the Lukan congregations’ original Gospel” (Balch, “Ἀκριβῶς,” 238), a reasonable surmise. Brief historical epitomes include that of Livy (see Gärtner and Eigler, “Epitome,” 1154–55).

Balch, “Ἀκριβῶς,” 229–39. Significantly, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. rom. 3.18.1) promises to seek “accuracy” (ἀκρίβεια) in recounting each incident; Penner, Praise, 163, associates this claim not merely with investigation but with “exactitude” in supplying a complete interpretive picture, including causes and effects.

Balch, “Ἀκριβῶς,” 239, against Moessner.

For other groups with “accurate” interpretation, see, e.g., Jos. Ant. 12.49, 104; perhaps Ant. 1.14; Ag. Ap. 2.144, 149; for non-Jewish laws, Ag. Ap. 2.227, 257. Josephus’s clearest parallel to Luke might be 2.287, but by itself this could be interpreted either way.

E.g., Alciph. Court. 13, frg. 6, ¶19; in a history, Diod. Sic. 1.6.2 (writing as accurately as possible given his subject’s antiquity). Similarly, Herodian employs μετὰ ίάσης . . .  ἀκριβείας to his careful research—though we do not consider Herodian particularly precise (Whittaker, “Introduction,” xxxix–xl); Josephus, too, promises to treat everything with accuracy (ἀκριβῆ, Ant. 1.17; cf. 1.214), though we may think this an exaggeration; he also promises to narrate with accuracy in contrast to those whose histories are falsified (War 1.2, 6, 9, 22; Life 358, 360, 365, 412); cf. his favorable view of Thucydides (Ag. Ap. 1.18). Josephus surely concurs that Scripture speaks accurately (Ant. 1.82; cf. War 1.17; Ag. Ap. 1.29). That Luke is at least concerned for precision is suggested by his caution with estimates (e.g., Acts 25:6; “about” in 4:4; 5:7, 36; 10:3, 9; 13:18, 20; 16:25; 19:7, 34; 22:6; 27:27; Luke 3:23; 8:42 [vs. Mark 5:42]; 9:28 [cf. Mark 9:2]; 22:41, 59; 23:44; 24:13).

I have argued elsewhere for a high degree of reliability in the Synoptic tradition (Keener, Matthew, 16–36, esp. 24–32; idem, John, 29–34). I will not repeat that argument here specifically for Luke’s Gospel, since some commentators on that Gospel (e.g., Fitzmyer, Luke; Marshall, Luke; Bock, Luke; Nolland, Luke) have already offered fuller arguments than I would have space for here.

For possible dependence of John and Luke on related oral traditions (but not John on Luke), see Myllykoski, “Luke and John,” 115–56, esp. 152. Some of the proposed agreements between Acts and John (Cribbs, “Agreement”) are unpersuasive (the prophet-like-Moses allusions, p. 55, are hardly limited to Luke and John), but parallels in the passion narratives may be significant. Boismard and Lamouille, Actes, 1:15, think that Luke and John share some common tradition from what Origen knew as “Peter’s memoirs.” Many scholars believe that the Fourth Gospel preserves reliable tradition at points, especially in its narratives (see summary in Keener, John, 40–47).

See this commentary’s introduction to Acts 1, pp. –.

Luke writes as if the event is known; he also lacks reason to fabricate it (especially given the allusion’s brevity). Cf. also his allusion to the “assassins” in Acts 21:38, though it is not quite clear that even the speaker in the story world has all of the details straight. The details were better understood in hindsight (as with Josephus), but Luke’s report (or source) may be either slightly confused or based on the officer’s inaccurate assessment at the time of the occasion depicted, before hindsight was available.

Many scholars concur that Luke had good sources (e.g., Riesner, “Zuverlässigkeit,” 39–40).

One must expect a fairly popular level if his audience for Acts is the same as that for the Gospel (cf. Acts 1:1), since biographies tended to appeal at a lower level than histories (Corn. Nep. 16 [Pelopidas], 1.1)—though biographies, too, could list sources, especially when their subjects were not recent.

Genuine plagiarism was despised but not illegal (Schmitzer, “Copyright,” 778). At the least, it seemed courteous to mention predecessors (e.g., Vitruv. Arch. 7.pref. 10–17), although not everyone did so. Cf. discussion of the sense in Martial in Mira Seo, “Plagiarism.”

Pliny the Elder’s entire first volume of the Natural History consists of an extensive table of contents, with a bibliography of sources for each point. At least his nephew became sensitive to the use of bibliographies; Pliny Ep. 3.5.1–6 provides a friend a bibliography of Pliny the Elder’s works in chronological order. Indeed, despite adaptations, ancient historians depended heavily on their predecessors’ works for content about the past (see Marincola, “Universal History,” 178–79, citing esp. Bosworth, “Historians and sources”).

Despite some scholarly dissent (e.g., Bruggen, Narratives, 66), most today recognize Luke 1:1–4 as a preface for both volumes (see Fitzmyer, Acts, 59; cf. discussion in Wolter, “Proömien”), though we may doubt that others had yet written apostolic acts. Few have been persuaded by those who argue for free composition in the Gospel (on the basis of a very limited number of sources; e.g., Drury, Design, passim). Since the concern about borrowing words was directed at the theft of another’s rhetorical labors, borrowing Mark’s more common wording probably would have caused more offense for rhetorical weakness than for plagiarism (Luke often upgrades it).

Certainly, Livy reworked much of earlier historians, and Pliny E. N.H. did the same. Biographers had a limited number of sources they could use; they tended to name sources most when they conflicted. Sometimes storytellers reworked earlier, probably familiar stories (e.g., the story in Lucian’s Lucius is similar to Apuleius’s Metamorphoses [Macleod, “Introduction to Lucius,” 47, 50, follows Photius in thinking that Lucian probably followed the lost work of Lucius, also adapted by Apuleius]; Alciphron’s Letters of Courtesans might reflect familiarity with Lucian’s Dialogues of Courtesans). More formal works tended, however, to identify their sources.

Likewise, though lamenting that historians often neglect current personages (2.92.5), Velleius Paterculus eschews detail on the most recent sixteen years as superfluous for his readers (2.126.1).

Sen. E. Suas. 3.7. Lucian expected his audience to recognize the literary works he satirized (True Story 1.2).

This practice may have been more common for Jewish religious texts in other genres; cf., e.g., 2 Peter’s use of Jude, or the borrowing in Sib. Or. 2.56–148 from Ps.-Phocylides.

E.g., Apollod. Bib. 1.4.3; 1.5.2; 1.9.15, 19; 2.3.1; 2.5.11. With a historical person, Philostratus (Vit. Apoll. 1.2) claims that he gathered information from cities (i.e., local, century-old traditions), from others’ accounts and from his letters, and also (1.3) from Damis’s memoirs.

See Keener, Matthew, 8–10; idem, John, 31; for others, see further, e.g., Tuckett, History, 34–39; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:73–74.

See further my discussion in Keener, Matthew, 27–31; and idem, John, 23, 43. More often than in Matthew (who follows Mark and Q more frequently), some sections of special L material might reflect independent written sources, but Luke probably often supplements with oral tradition. The countless allusions to other stories in Homer (e.g., the voyage of the Argonauts in Od. 12.69–72) lent themselves to later development, but they clearly refer to fuller stories that Homer’s works did not record and that we have in forms developed from such traditions. In the case of the Gospels, the writers themselves assume knowledge of traditions about Jesus not recorded in their Gospels (e.g., Acts 20:35; John 20:30).

In some others, such as Luke 19:12–27 if it is really a parallel to Matt 25:14–30 (unclear, since Jesus himself, like many sages, may have employed multiple versions of the same story line on different occasions), the extreme divergence may stem from pre-Lukan tradition rather than from radically different uses of Q (in view of much closer wording elsewhere). On Luke’s relatively minimal editing of Mark, see, e.g., Ramsay, Luke the Physician, 47; Marshall, Luke, passim; Bock, Luke, 9–14.

With Witherington, “Editing,” 324–25. For Luke’s valuable early sources and his dependence on them, see Riesner, “Zuverlässigkeit.”

Johnson, “Luke-Acts,” 406, cites here Jos. Ag. Ap. 54. Some Josephus scholars now focus on the intratextual dynamics in Josephus, doubting supposed tensions in the text as a mark of sources (Mason, “Contradiction”; though others still seek to identify different sources on the basis of style, e.g., Bellemore, “Josephus, Pompey, and Jews”).

With, e.g., Knox, Acts, 16–39 (esp. 39), allowing only written documents possibly for Acts 1–5 (minus the speeches) and 9:32–10:48; cf. Byrskog, “History,” 259–79; the variety of sources in Bottini and Casalini, “Informazione.” That Luke knew Paul’s letters is possible, but that he used them (given some tensions between the sources and frequent omissions) is unlikely (see below).

On the second-century church’s reception of Acts, see, e.g., Barrett, Acts, 48.

With C. Williams, Acts, 8.

For such reconstructions, see, e.g., Pesch, Apostelgeschichte, 1:45–51; Fitzmyer, Acts, 80–89; Boismard and Lamouille, Actes, 1:4. For some source-critical works before 1965, see Mattill and Mattill, Bibliography, 157–65, §§157–65; before 1990, see T. Smith, “Sources”; through the early 1990s, see Green and McKeever, Historiography, 109–12; in greater detail (though earlier), see Dupont, Sources, on the single-source hypothesis (17–32), the parallel-source hypothesis (33–50), complementary sources (51–61), and the Antioch source (62–72). Older scholars cited doublets (e.g., Klausner, Jesus to Paul, 215), but scholars now usually see this as deliberate literary parallels (see discussion of unity below). Pervo, Dating Acts, wants to include Mark (35–47) and Paul’s letters (51–147) as sources of literary motifs and information.

With, e.g., Dibelius, Studies in Acts, 201; Jervell, “Future,” 119; idem, Unknown Paul, 69; idem, Apostelgeschichte, 67; Fitzmyer, Acts, 80–89. Neil, Acts, 24, thinks that what appear to be sources may simply represent Luke’s own editing and revision over time. Cadbury, Foakes-Jackson, and Lake, “Writing History,” 7–15, argue that Luke reworks his sources (at least in the Gospel) far less than one would expect of a Greek writer (less even than Josephus) but far more than older Jewish sources, e.g., the Chronicler.

E.g., Dupont, Sources, 166; Jervell, Unknown Paul, 69; Bruce, Commentary, 29; Arrington, Acts, xliii; Johnson, Acts, 3–5; idem, “Luke-Acts,” 406; Marshall, Acts, 37–39; Witherington, Acts, 165–73; Kea, “Source Theories”; Strelan, Artemis, 21; Bock, Acts, 20; Shillington, Introduction, 17; with a few concessions, Knox, Acts, 16–39; cf. Brodie, “Imitation of Texts,” 37.

Gaventa, Acts, 178 (cf. also 119).

Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 325–26.

Ibid., 327; on variations, cf. Allison, Jesus, 1–13, 24, 28–30, 374, 455; Kirk, “Memory,” 166–72. In contrast to Pervo, Dating Acts, 352, who dismisses Witherington’s approach “as fantastic,” doubting any correspondence with eyewitness-type narratives in Acts, Bauckham’s approach to gospel narratives (Eyewitnesses, 472–508) may prove more helpful (some of the particular questions raised in Tuckett, “Review,” including regarding names corresponding to sources, are legitimate, but Bauckham’s overall case for eyewitness tradition should move discussion in a direction more sensitive to ancient sources). Neil (Acts, 22–23) is among those who have thought that Acts sounds like “a vivid piece of first-hand reporting,” with greater detail and realism in the “we” parts.

Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 330. Gist may be accurate even where details are not (333–34); on interpretive structuring, see also 335–36. Memory studies show that (pace older form critics) “forms” or narrative structures precede even an eyewitness’s first telling (350–51). Redman, “Eyewitnesses,” warns that eyewitnesses’ memories may lapse over time; Bauckham’s model does, however, allow for memory’s imperfection. Professors who teach courses multiple times recognize that frequent retelling of material, as would have been expected of Jesus’s eyewitnesses, provides a firmer grasp on more of the material. For limits on memory, see Allison, Jesus, 1–10, 30; for significant recall or gist, 8–9n46, 11–13, 24, 28–29, 374, 455.

Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 331–32.

Ibid., 334–35. Bauckham (341–46) applies these and other criteria to memories about Jesus among his disciples.

Ibid., 336–37.

For an example of Pauline corroboration of basic outlines of Luke’s story (albeit from a clearly independent perspective), see comment on Acts 9:23–30.

Some others also suggest such oral sources, e.g., Knox, Acts, 39; C. Williams, Acts, 11–12; Blaiklock, Acts, 17–18; Chance, Acts, 6. Witherington, Acts, 166, suggests that Luke’s interest in lodgings may be to point to the early Christian network for transmitting the traditions; he mentions (168) Luke’s two years in the Levant, and he argues (169) for use of blocks of sources (such as above but also including Peter, Acts 1–5; 9:32–12:23) as in the Gospel; Luke added summaries but retained the existing blocks.

Especially if he accompanied Paul on the collection mission. One could object that some of Paul’s companions, such as Timothy (Acts 20:4), were legally Jewish (16:1–3), so that the point of the representatives is that they hailed from the Diaspora, not that they were Gentiles; but then, why not have taken more Diaspora Jewish believers, who would have been more welcome? Note also Rom 15:27.

Rural Jewish Galilee was probably not a friendly place for a foreign Greek-speaking Gentile (see , , below) to go exploring by himself ca. 60 C.E. Biblically informed, Luke might have passed for merely a hellenophone Diaspora Jew, but probably would not have ventured into rural Galilee on his own even if he already planned his book.

Johnson, Acts, 4. This was appropriate rhetorical practice for expanding stories (see, e.g., Theon Progymn. 4.37–42, 80–82; Longin. Subl. 11.1; cf. Men. Rhet. 2.3, 379.2–4; Talbert, John, 64, citing Arist. Poet. 17.6–11), and it could be performed without fabricating material (Theon Progymn. 3.224–40 [cf. 2.115–23]). Johnson, Acts, thinks that even if the Sanhedrin persecuted the apostles (1 Thess 2:14–15), Luke may have created the scenes of the hearings (Acts 4–5); though this contention is possible, we lack sufficient historical evidence to prove or disprove it.

See Johnson, Acts, 4.

See here also Riesner, Early Period, 413; Johnson, Acts, 4.

On variation in Luke’s three accounts of Paul’s conversion, see, e.g., Dunn, Acts, 117 (though the core does not change and the words of dialogue remain identical each time; cf. p. 121). See, perhaps more relevant, the recapitulation of Luke 24 in Acts 1:2–11 (see ), with changes even of Jesus’s wording but the same substance (probably what he had available in his source or sources for this occasion).

See my argument in Keener, “Luke-Acts and Historical Jesus”; idem, Historical Jesus, 85–94.

Cf., e.g., Burkitt, “Use of Mark.” Like Matthew, Luke often abbreviates Mark’s pericopes, following the rhetorical virtue of conciseness (Parsons, “Progymnasmata,” 54–55). Nevertheless, Frye, “Problems,” 268–71, provides historical analogies for a later writer putting more sophisticated language into the vernacular.

Only one historic present remains from 151 in Mark, and Luke usually changes Mark’s imperfects to aorists; Witherington, “Editing,” 326, 328; Burridge, “Gospels and Acts,” 526–27. On verb tenses in Acts more generally, see discussion in Victor, “Wechsel der Tempora.”

Witherington, “Editing,” 332–35. See Marshall, “Luke and ‘Gospel.’” Sayings may have invited more verbal care than narratives.

See regularly in Caesar C.W., e.g., 1.22, 25, 33, 41, 59; 2.21, 25, 26, 30 (while Caesar’s narrative seems unadorned, however, he may employ sophisticated rhetorical strategies; see Kraus, “Account”); in other genres, heavy in the narrative of Virgil’s Aeneid (Pinkster, “Present Tense”); cf. the grammatical shift in Philost. Vit. Apoll. 8.1–2. Osburn, “Historical Present,” argues that Mark’s use of the historical present resembles those in Xenophon, Plato, and the LXX.

E.g., Cic. Quinct. 4.14; 5.20. But the historical present is more common in classical and atticizing Greek (Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 215 [s.v. “Historical present”]).

Dion. Hal. 2 Amm. 12.

Blomberg, Gospels, 162 (citing the analogous practice in many modern translations). On oral as well as written sources in the gospel tradition, see, e.g., Baum, “Sources.”

Dibelius, Tradition, 3; see also idem, Studies in Acts, 2–4, 185; note especially the difference between collections of Jesus’s sayings in the Gospel and full speeches in Acts (184); cf. Pervo, Acts, 14. For the integrity of Luke-Acts as a literary whole, see esp. Tannehill, Luke; idem, Acts.

See, e.g., Witherington, “Editing,” 335–44; this commentary’s comments ad loc. Witherington concludes, “Luke appears to be rather more like a Thucydides or a Polybius, and the character of his work like what Lucian said ought to be the character of the work of one who seeks to do history writing, rather than say a Livy” (344). Few would quibble over insignificant detail (such as word order, e.g., Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25).

With Witherington, Acts, 165. As became obvious working on a writing project with my wife, I have full command of the material when recounting my own past, but needed to lean heavily on my wife’s written source material and consult her regularly because the material was not part of my own memory. The “we” material is the most detailed material in Luke-Acts. Witherington also suggests that had Luke engaged in free composition, he would have provided more information on other apostles (170). In view of the parallels among figures, however, this argument is weaker than some others.

E.g., Payne, “Semitisms,” 134–50; Torrey, Composition, 3ff.; Martin, “Evidence,” 59. But see Wilcox, Semitisms of Acts; see further discussion in the introduction to Acts 1, pp. –.

E.g., Farris, “Semitic Sources”; Laurentin, “Traces d’allusions”; Wenham, “Source Criticism,” 145 (tentatively); Jung, Language. See further discussion in the introduction to Acts 1, pp. 642–45.

Preference for atticizing style (albeit more dominant in the second century) may have contributed to appreciation for archaizing styles, on which see concisely Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 57 (“Archaism, literary and linguistic”); many scholars suggest that this affected Luke’s adoption of “biblical” style at points (idem, Environment, 117; Witherington, Acts, 44; Alexander, Context, 250–52). Many note Luke’s archaizing style, possibly modeled on the LXX (Plümacher, Lukas, 72–78; Rothschild, Rhetoric of History, 293). Epics employed archaizing style because they depicted the distant past (Nicolai, “Place of History,” 15), or because they imitated earlier epics.

Knox, Acts, 5–8, suggesting that Luke seeks to evoke a sort of “holy language,” perhaps echoing some traits already present in the gospel tradition; also Hanson, Acts, 52–53.

E.g., Alexander, “Septuaginta,” 19–26 (noting that objections to defining it as a dialect would work equally against Atticism, p. 21); Horton, “Semitisms,” 23; following Nigel Turner (see, e.g., Turner, “Thoughts,” 46–47; cf. Nock, “Vocabulary,” 138–39).

Horsley, Documents, 5:5–40 (not disputing Semitisms or other features of bilingualism but the existence of a distinct dialect, pp. 6, 40).

Languages can influence each other in contact situations (Gippert, “Language contact,” 215), and more relevant here, interference becomes common when minority linguistic groups adopt the dominant language (Binder, “Language switching,” 222).

Porter, “Greek of New Testament,” 430. Some earlier interpreters, e.g., Jerome (Commentary on Isaiah 3, 6, 9, 10) and later Bede (Comm. Acts pref. [L. Martin, 4]) argued for Luke’s greater education and eloquence in Greek than in Hebrew.

Jervell, “Future,” 119, notes that 90 percent of Luke’s language appears in the LXX (cf. idem, Apostelgeschichte, 74–75); on the pervasiveness of LXX language, see also, e.g., Mielcarek, “Język.”

Koester, Introduction, 1:108. Even Matthew reduces Mark’s parataxis (Burridge, “Gospels and Acts,” 526), though not to this degree.

E.g., Johnson, “Luke-Acts,” 406; Kodell, Luke, 23; Pervo, Acts, 7–8.

See, e.g., the defense of Lucian’s authorship of Syrian Goddess, despite its archaizing preference for an Ionic dialect as opposed to Lucian’s usual Attic (A. M. Harmon, in Lucian, LCL, 4:337n); by contrast, some doubt Seneca’s authorship of tragedies (Kohn, “Plays”). Whatever the merits of these particular cases, educated ancients were expected to be able to write in multiple styles (e.g., Pliny Ep. 3.13.4; 4.14.3; 9.29.1–2; cf. Dion. Hal. Demosth. 45–46; Rowe, “Style,” 151, 155).

E.g., Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 33, 347; Marshall, Luke, 39–41, 51; see also the rhetorical observations of Witherington, Acts, 45–46.

Cic. Fam. 9.21.1; Albucius in Suet. Rhet. 6.

It also leads some scholars to suspect that where the style remains unpolished (see Barrett, Acts, 524, for examples), it stems from the work’s being left unfinished (cf. Harnack, Acts, 48). The same is likely true of Thucydides’s work (Wade-Gery, “Thucydides,” 1517–18), though the lack of speeches in the later part might also stem (1518) from an experiment, as Cratippus suggests.

Keener, Matthew, 16–36, esp. 24–32; idem, John, 29–34, 40–47; idem, Historical Jesus, 139–61; idem, “Otho.” Accepting ancient reports concerning events of the prior one to two generations (up to a century) is not uncommon methodology (see, e.g., Downing, Cynics, 52).

Fornara, Nature of History, 47. See also Aune, Environment, 81–82, noting the interview of eyewitnesses (Polyb. 4.2.2); other sources when the writer traveled to the scenes in question (Hdt. 2.52; Polyb. 3.48.12; 4.38.11; 10.11.4); and reading accounts of eyewitnesses (Polyb. 28.4.8; 38.4.8). The practice weighs more than the terminology; Schepens, “History,” 39–40, notes this concept of historia (see also 47), but on 41–42 notes modern disagreements about it.

Fornara, Nature of History, 47–48; Schepens, “History,” 47–48. Thucydides notes that he procured (and investigated) reports of speeches from others who heard them (Thucyd. 1.22.1–2) and that he sometimes had to evaluate conflicting claims of eyewitnesses (1.22.2–3). Woodman, Rhetoric, 26, warns that more of Thucydides’s work depends on reports of others than on his own. (If the view is accurate, it might be relevant, as an illustration of the value placed on intellectual travel, that some scholars have even connected the Roman practice of meditative walking with the philosophic ideal of traveling for knowledge; O’Sullivan, “Mind.”)

He also claims to have consulted records (Diod. Sic. 1.4.4–5). Though granting Diodorus’s travels to some locations, Oldfather, “Introduction to Diodorus Siculus,” xiii, doubts that Diodorus visited either Mesopotamia or Athens; his skepticism concerning Mesopotamia is plausible (though certain only with respect to Nineveh), but his argument regarding Athens is from silence (i.e., what Diodorus does not mention).

On other occasions Philostratus’s research came up empty, but he incidentally confirms that he had done some (Vit. soph. 2.5.576).

Consultation with Odysseus’s ghost (Philost. Hrk. 48.12) underlines that the depicted investigation was fictitious; it draws, however, on known research methods. Philostratus may have drawn on a variety of local traditions (Maclean and Aitken, Heroikos, xc–xci). Likewise, Artem. Oneir. 1.pref. emphasizes gathering oral reports in addition to reading all the works of his predecessors.

LCL, 4:316–17. Polybius’s emphasis on investigation appears throughout Polyb. 12.4c.1–5.

It was possible, however, to visit places, consult witnesses, and still prove mistaken (Polyb. 12.4d.1–2, on Timaeus). Like a historian researching recent events, a prosecutor preparing a case would carry out research, such as tracking down eyewitnesses (e.g., Lysias Or. 23.2–8, §§166–67).

Even here, ancients sometimes found local oral sources that purported to have survived over the centuries (e.g., Paus. 1.23.2). Nevertheless, it is not without reason that scholars today often question the local oral information from a much earlier period (Pretzler, “Pausanias and Tradition”).

E.g., Philost. Vit. soph. 2.23.606 (who unsuccessfully tried to evaluate conflicting reports this way in 2.5.576), in contrast to his lack of interviews for earlier information.

Aune, Environment, 81, citing Hdt. 2.52; Polyb. 3.48.12; 4.38.11; 10.11.4; for travel research, see also Diod. Sic. 1.4.1 (though he certainly did not visit Nineveh).

Polyb. 3.33.17–18 (citing here a bronze tablet of Hannibal). For appeals to inscriptions and the like, see also Vell. Paterc. 2.25.4; Plut. Arist. 19.5–6; sources noted in Lendon, “Historiography,” 45 (citing the claim concerning Licinius Macer).

Also Plut. Demosth. 2.1–2. Urban centers tended to provide better access to documentary sources and those whose memories preserved events (2.1). For plausibility and probability as criteria in ancient historical writing, as in ancient rhetoric more generally, see Rothschild, Rhetoric of History, 62–64; cf. also discussion at Acts 26:8.

Meister, “Historiography: Greece,” 421. For the preference for oral sources, see also the discussion in Aune, Environment, 81. Thucydides could supplement interrogation of others with his own eyewitness experience more than Herodotus, but continued to depend also on the former (Schepens, “History,” 47).

Consulting distant records would be even more difficult (cf. Ben Zeev, “Capitol”), though this is different from consulting people orally when one traveled to a region, as I argue that Luke did.

Fornara, Nature of History, 56. Second-century sources (Aul. Gel. 11.17; 13.20.1; Fronto Ad M. Caes. 4.5) might suggest that in libraries slaves brought books to the scholars instead of scholars’ searching for the works themselves (Houston, “Library”). Apart from Athens (Aul. Gel. 7.17.1–2), Rome, (later) Ephesus, and (earlier) Alexandria (e.g., 7.17.3), however, the majority of libraries were private (Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 273–75). By its nature, earlier (rather than recent) history necessarily depended on earlier historians (Pliny Ep. 5.8.12).

Fornara, Nature of History, 61, citing Suet. Caesar 56. Nevertheless, the overlap in content and approach between Greek and Roman historians in the imperial period is significant; see Gowing, “Tradition,” 332.

Nor does he pretend to have; Luke includes the “we” sparingly, not pervasively or even commonly.

Alexander, Preface, 128.

See ibid., 128–30. The term ἄνωθεν could also mean “thoroughly,” but here it presumably means “from an early point,” paralleling “from the beginning” (Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 123); “from the beginning” appears in histories to claim the presence of eyewitnesses from the start (119–22).

Moessner, “Poetics,” 85–97. Cf. also Hemer, Acts in History, 322 (noting that Cadbury thought that this involved even participation, a reasonable surmise only in Acts, not in the Gospel).

Moessner, “Poetics,” 97; idem, “Prologues,” 413. The closest parallel is Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.54, 213ff., where Josephus uses the same language to underline that he is thoroughly immersed “in the events, traditions, and reports” and hence can evaluate the various claims.

Witherington, Acts, 27. Witherington (27, 32–34) places Luke closer to a Polybius than to many other historians. Still, most writers would not have the resources to travel as much as Polybius, and the limitations of the “we” narratives suggest that Luke’s travel, too, was limited, though this section specifies only the period that Luke was with Paul during the events he narrates.

Witherington, ibid., 59, following Nock, Essays, 828, suggests from Luke 1:3 that Luke may have also had contact with the Christian movement before the “we” narratives begin.

As Bruggen, Narratives, 65–66, notes, it does not require Luke to have been an eyewitness for the events of the Gospel.

BDAG cites for this sense Dion. Hal. Pomp. 6.3; Max. Tyre 16.3h; Jos. Ant. 18.342; 19.125; Ag. Ap. 1.55; Papias 2:2; 12:2; and Luke 1:2. The original apostolic tradents implied in Luke 1:2 knew Jesus’s entire public ministry (Acts 1:21–22; cf. Gerhardsson, Memory, 280–88). Although the term here would include the Twelve, it is broader than them alone (Acts 1:21–22; Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 389). For the recent trend in a number of studies affirming eyewitness tradition in the Gospels, see Riesner, “Rückkehr.” Collins, “Eyewitnesses,” 450–52, argues that what they witnessed was the written “word,” i.e., a document. Although the term has a broad semantic range, in Luke’s ninety-seven uses it normally means oral words, the vast majority for an oral message; early Christians could speak of seeing it (1 John 1:1), as visionaries could “see” the prophetic word (Jer 23:18; cf. Ezek 13:6; other “seeing” in Wis 2:17). All Collins’s own examples of “autopsy” (451) refer to something firsthand, and in Josephus War 3.432 it refers to the bringer of an eyewitness report; in 6.134, as one who watches firsthand; and in the more historiographic sense in Ag. Ap. 1.55, it refers to Josephus’s firsthand observation that supplemented his participation. Collins (451) insists that their observation of the word was simultaneous with their serving it, and hence insists that Luke refers to the period of reception; but even if one insists on simultaneity, the gospel tradition suggests that witnesses preached from the start (Mark 6:12; Luke 9:2; 10:9), and early Christian tradition could employ the phrase “from the beginning” to the witnesses’ early connection with Jesus himself (John 15:27; 1 John 1:1; see esp. here Acts 1:22). While “even as” (1:2) can be used for identical matters, it can also be used for comparison (Acts 22:3), such as adding eyewitness experience to oral reports (Luke 2:20); and if the observers of Luke 1:2 were merely identical with the writers of 1:1, Luke’s opening lines would be repetitious.

Alexander, Preface, 34–36 (on the convention of αὐτοψία, see 34–41). Herodotean history uses the word this way more than Thucydidean history does (38; cf. Adams, “Preface,” 189) and often with an emphasis on distant locations (Alexander, Preface, 121; as Judea would have seemed to Luke). Alexander suggests that the use for the author’s presence at events in Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.55 depends on Polyb. 3.4.3 (against Polybius’s normal usage). (In principle, at least, Luke could depend on the same passage as Josephus, but in reality, he probably was less apt to know Polybius.)

Byrskog, History, 48–49 (noting [49] that Alexander focuses too much on the term whereas leading classicist experts on autopsy in ancient historiography emphasize the centrality of the practice).

Byrskog, ibid., 49–53, addresses Heraclitus and others; 53–57, Herodotus; 58–59, Thucydides; 59–62, Polybius (note esp. [p. 60] Polyb. 4.2.1–2); 62–63, Josephus (noting Ag. Ap. 1.47).

Byrskog, History, 63, noting Livy as the exception, most following the Greek preference. Byrskog notes that Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.6.2 “praises Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus . . .  for relating with great exactness only the events at which they themselves had been present.”

Byrskog, History, 93–94.

Ibid., 94 (for its not always being possible, Byrskog cites Polyb. 12.4c.4). Byrskog deals (94–98) with the use of oral sources in Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; he notes (98) the more unusual defense of some that oral sources were even better than autopsy (Isoc. Panath. 150; Strabo 2.5.11) but suggests (98–99) that more commonly they were appreciated as supplementing autopsy. For documents’ use of eyewitnesses in historians, see 149–53.

Byrskog, History, 122 (excepting Livy). Of course, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and others covering long periods of history could not depend on immediate oral history for most of it, as they themselves recognized. For apologetic use of autopsy (as in Josephus), see 214–22.

Ibid., 63–64, citing Pliny Ep. 6.16 (esp. 6.16.22); 6.20. For the Annals, Tacitus would have access to witnesses starting in the period of Nero’s later years (64).

Alexander, Preface, 120. Historians considered this the best evidence (Aune, Environment, 81, citing Hdt. 2.99; Polyb. 12.27.1–6; 20.12.8; Lucian Hist. 47).

Most extensively, see Rothschild, Rhetoric of History, 213–90, noting this authenticating technique.

As Maddox, Purpose, 21, 186, emphasizes, “confirmation” is a primary purpose of Luke-Acts; ἀσφάλειαν is the climactic, final word of the Gospel’s preface (Luke 1:4).

E.g., Isaeus Pyrr. 40; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.43.2; Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.107; cf. 1.50–52, 56; see comments on Acts 24:8; 26:5; and 26:26.

Cf. also Willis, “Networking”; on the network that Acts also reveals, see esp. Alexander, “Mapping”; (also in idem, “Εκκλησιολογία”).

Eurip. El. 361–62; Demosth. Ep. 5.1; Cic. Att. 2.11; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 47.1; P.Oxy. 32; Apul. Metam. 1.26.

Even in Tarsus in Apoll. K. Tyre 8 (though this is a novel, it likely presupposes social reality on this point).

E.g., Cic. Att. 1.10, 13; 4.1; 8.14. This method could be quick; a letter from Caesar in Britain reached Cicero in less than a month (Cic. Quint. fratr. 3.1.8.25). Despite a modern postal service, those of us traveling to and from many parts of Nigeria, Kenya, and Cameroon in recent years have still carried mail for acquaintances.

Haenchen, Acts, 86 (he dates Acts ca. 75 C.E., a reasonable estimate; this would, he notes, allow sufficient communal memories about Paul to remain extant). He even suggests that this is where Luke may have acquired the travel diary (87). Other examples of more skeptical critics who nevertheless believe Acts often depends on historical sources include Lüdemann, “Acts as Source.”

With Hemer, “Alexandria Troas,” 96–97.

For such information, see Hemer, Acts in History, 101–58; and this commentary’s comments ad loc.

Vermes, Jesus and Judaism, 139, opines that Josephus produced Judaism’s “best historiography”; certainly, he is our main source for postexilic Jewish history (Hengel, Acts and History, 7); he was also known to early Christians (e.g., Iren. frg. 32). Much has been written on early Jewish historiography; see, e.g., Mor and Rappaport, Bibliography. Suet. Vesp. 5 speaks of Josephus’s influence (probably ultimately dependent on Josephus on this point).

Indeed, until the nineteenth century, Christians employed Josephus as the most important extrabiblical source for understanding the NT (Krieger, “Priester”).

Meyer, Ursprung, 1:2–3 (as cited in Bruce, Acts³, 27); Bruce, Acts³, 28; Witherington, “Editing,” 344; for Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius and Luke’s location among them, see the discussion in Molthagen, “Geschichtsschreibung” (esp. 181). Josephus is closer to the model of Thucydides and Polybius in the War than in the later Antiquities, where he follows the more rhetorical model of Dionysius (Attridge, History in Josephus, 44–50; followed by Newell, “Suicide Accounts,” 285). Some modern readers show a bias against Josephus as a participant observer that they do not apply to his models in Thucydides and Polybius (Chapman, “Josephus,” 323). For participant observation in modern anthropology, see the discussion in Tedlock, “Observation”; in sociology, cf., e.g., Covell, “Foreword,” x.

Sacks, “Historiography,” 715. Some argue that subsequent historians such as Livy had forsaken Polybius’s principles (Weeden, Mark, 15–16; though cf. my comment on 281 below); but while many never followed such principles (e.g., many Roman historians did not travel), they remained interested in historical information, and many (e.g., Tacitus) did have access to annals and substantial historical data.

From sources in Egypt, one might guess that readers owned copies of Thucydides—despite his work’s level, length, and consequent expense—nearly twice as often as all Greek novels combined and nearly twice as often as Herodotus (and more than half as often as Demosthenes, though only about an eighth as often as Homer); see Stephens, “Who Read Novels?,” 411, 415–16. Thucydides continued to offer a model in this period (Marincola, “Speeches,” 123–27; Croke, “Historiography,” 567–68).

Alexander, Preface, 147–67, esp. 165. She does, however, suggest that it allows a marginal social location as found among Jewish writers (idem, Context, 41–42).

Somewhat like Luke, Josephus cites his sources directly far less often than did many other extant historians.

Cohen, “Josephus and Scripture,” argues that Josephus exercises more freedom and stylizes more in Ant. 1–5 than afterward. Comparing Josephus’s War and Antiquities where they overlap also reveals some of his rhetorical freedom, a freedom he was happy to display publicly to lavishly meet Greek rhetorical standards.

Sometimes Ps.-Philo Biblical Antiquities dramatically rewrites an account (e.g., Begg, “Ceremonies”), but usually it depends on the biblical text for events. Feldman, “Antiquities and Antiquities,” 76, argues that in narrative style, Biblical Antiquities is closer to Acts than to Josephus.

See, e.g., Penner, Praise, 113. Josephus explicitly excuses himself from the usual standard of dispassionate, objective historiography (highlighted by Polybius) on the grounds of his experience of his and his people’s suffering (War 1.9, 11; see Chapman, “Josephus,” 324); one may thus expect amplification of pathos.

See Höffken, “Reichsteilung.”

Cf., e.g., Attridge, History in Josephus, 44–50; followed by Newell, “Suicide Accounts,” 285. Even in the War, Josephus may write for Rome’s elite, who would recognize Greek tragic allusions in War 1 (so Forte, “Echoes Revisited”).

For sample analyses of many of his accounts, see the many works (not all are listed) by L. Feldman and C. Begg on this subject in this commentary’s (also noted above on biography, since many of them resemble biographic adaptation as well).

Bellemore, “Josephus, Pompey, and the Jews,” suggests that Josephus depended on more Roman sources and fewer Jewish sources in the later Antiquities than in the War. He may employ genuinely Iranian material (whether originally accurate or not) in Jos. Ant. 18.314–70 (cf. Herman, “Motifs”).

Josephus probably depends on Nicolaus as his main source from Antiochus IV through Herod I (e.g., Stern, Authors, 1:229).

Josephus also writes from a Jewish perspective that differs from Nicolaus’s Greco-Syrian one (Wacholder, “Nicolaus”). Josephus sounds less favorable to Herod in Antiquities than in War.

That the historians he had in mind probably made the same claims need not have troubled him; though reporting various perspectives as a rhetorical technique, ancient authors rarely reckoned with the multivalence of perspectives the way postmodernists would today. Josephus sometimes legitimates his own historical work (vis-à-vis that of other historians) by citing tradition (Gillet-Didier, “Paradosis”).

Josephus’s claim not to have added anything may be conventional (Feldman, “Hellenizations: Abraham,” 133, citing Dion. Hal. Thuc. 5, 8; Lucian Hist. 47) and certainly does not fit his adaptation of biblical narratives in his Antiquities (see articles by Begg and Feldman listed above).

But cf. Mason, “Contradiction.”

See the argument in Sievers, “Name.”

Perhaps Josephus meant only that the right continued among Herod’s relatives, though his ἀίογόνοις here normally means “descendants.” Herod replaces priests in Jos. Ant. 20.103; Agrippa II does so in 20.179, 196, 203.

Josephus provides only a later summary of what he already recounted, in Ant. 20.101.

His account of Caligula’s death reflects a source different from, and impossible to harmonize with, Suetonius’s (Scherberich, “Sueton und Josephus”).

Josephus, like Herodotus, fared much better on narrative than on speeches by our standards (cf. Mosley, “Reporting,” 11–22); he is heavily influenced by rhetoric (see Botha, “Rhetoric and Josephus”).

Safrai, “Description in Works,” esp. 320–21. On population estimates, see further the comment on Acts 2:41.

Cf., e.g., Jos. Ant. 18.206, which, at least in the text as we have it, misconstrues Germanicus’s relationship to Tiberius.

Sometimes there is considerable debate, e.g., surrounding Felix’s full name (See comment on Acts 23:24).

For proposed problems in Josephus’s summaries, see, e.g., McLaren, “Josephus’ Summary Statements”; further discussion at Acts 2:41–47.

He defends both Rome to his people and his people to Rome (as widely noted, e.g., Neusner, Politics to Piety, 2; Crossan, Jesus, 93).

Nearly three centuries before this time, an Italian city used the same excuse of being forced by a few troublemakers (in that case, their leaders), and escaped punishment (Livy 24.47.6). Experiences and observations in northern Nigeria have given me more respect for the possibility of a few extremists’ ultimately provoking wider conflict.

Cf., e.g., Pastor, “Strata.”

Although some scholars think that he emphasizes the Pharisaic connection because of the changed political landscape. Williams, “Josephus on Pharisees,” attributes to Josephus the full force of his anti-Pharisaic passages (by denying them to Nicolaus of Damascus); he may have followed much of Pharisaism without having officially joined (Mason, “Was Josephus a Pharisee?”).

With, e.g., Ferguson, Backgrounds, 387.

Ibid., 387.

See, e.g., Syon, “Gamla”; Cotton and Geiger, “Yyn”; Mazar, “Josephus and Excavations”; Safrai, “Education,” 995; Feldman, “Introduction,” 45–46; Thackeray, Josephus, 49; Riesner, “Gate”; Pixner, “Gate”; Pixner, Chen, and Margalit, “Zion.”

Safrai, “Description in Works,” esp. 320–21.

Feldman, “Introduction,” 45–46; Mazar, “Josephus and Excavations,” 325–29; Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism, 118–19.

McRay, Archaeology, 117–18.

Ibid., 140.

Ibid., 144 (noting esp. Jos. War 1.415; Ant. 15.341; cf. 18.57; War 2.172).

Yigael Yadin in Shanks, “BAR Interviews Yadin,” 19.

Thackeray, Josephus, 49; Mosley, “Reporting,” 23–24. Broshi suggests that the sources for much of Josephus’s accurate information included Roman military commentaries (“Credibility of Josephus”; see esp. Jos. Life 348, 352; Ag. Ap. 56 [p. 381]). Newell, “Suicide Accounts,” argues for conventional forms in Josephus’s suicide accounts, the battle suicides probably simply following the form; the evidence may not be sufficient to verify this suggestion, but Josephus does use tragic pathos like other rhetorical historians. Given his own experience, it is not surprising that he digresses to lament (e.g., War 5.19), though quickly returning to the subject with the notice that the rules of history prohibit such lamentation (5.20).

Mosley, “Reporting,” 23–24, noting that Josephus composed speeches freely, but he has many firsthand sources (e.g., Ant. 14.144–45, 189, 219, 224, 228).

Jos. Ant. 1.17; 20.154–57, 260–62; War 1.9–12, 30; 7.454–55; Ag. Ap. 1.47; Life 65.

Just as, we may note, Luke could not have easily avoided criticism if he fabricated new events contradicting those known to Theophilus (Luke 1:4). On appeals to common knowledge, see, e.g., comment on Acts 26:26; this appeal is a higher-order appeal than some, since it encompasses a range of data.

Most notably, for literary purposes Luke brings the Nazareth pericope forward and makes it programmatic (Luke 4:16–30; Mark 6:1–4).

In the War, Josephus is closer to the model of Thucydides and Polybius (Attridge, History in Josephus, 44–50; followed by Newell, “Suicide Accounts,” 285).

In general, see Rhet. Her. 1.9.15. An author, if following other than a chronological outline of material, may need to justify arranging it as he has (Vitruv. Arch. 2.1.8). Synchronizing local chronologies to produce a standard sequence could be difficult; see discussion in Feeney, “Time.”

E.g., Thucyd. 2.1.1; 5.26.1. For one’s personal notes or diaries in the Roman tradition of the commentarius, see Rebenich, “Historical Prose,” 313–14; Pelling, “Commentarii.” Commentarii were originally minutes of civic authorities or councils, normally in a series, but by the late republic, they included lecture notes, speech drafts, etc. (Rüpke, “Commentarii,” 628), and personal or business diaries (idem, “Ephemeris”). Others filled notebooks with their thoughts (Pliny Ep. 1.6.1, 3).

Even in oral performance of standard stories, performers often can rearrange the sequence (Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 433–35). For weaknesses in chronology, see, e.g., Sallust’s historical monographs (Laistner, Historians, 58–59); different reckoning methods in Livy’s sources confused his chronology (Laistner, Historians, 94–95).

Sen. E. Controv. 1.pref. 4. Allison, Jesus, 5, notes memories’ sequential limitations.

Euseb. H.E. 3.39. Early Judaism also recognized the need to rechronologize some OT accounts; see 4Q158; Wise, “Introduction to 4Q158,” 199–20.

Ancient biographies were not expected to be in chronological order (Görgemanns, “Biography”; Stanton, Jesus, 119–21).

Suet. Aug. 9 (LCL, 1:133). For Suetonius’s thematic approach, see also Matthews, “Emperor and Historians,” 292.

See, e.g., Suet. Calig. 22.1 (after positive acts in Calig. 13–21).

See Suetonius’s criticism of Pliny in Calig. 8.3. Later rabbis doubted that the Torah was chronologically arranged (originally to resolve potential contradictions; see Kaunfer and Kaunfer, “Time and Torah”).

E.g., explicitly in Jos. Ant. 18.194 (though he does this elsewhere without noting it, e.g., placing Pilate’s recall in 18.89 before Philip’s death in 18.106).

Also sometimes the material that he shares with Matthew, who, however, otherwise does not share the same interest in chronology, rearranging Mark and, presumably, the material shared with Luke as well.

Hemer, Acts in History, 74. Cf. one element of Suetonius’s topical approach in Thorburn, “Tiberius.”

Dion. Hal. Pomp. 3. Thucydides went so far as to divide his narrative by summers and winters, distorting continuity so inappropriately that later historians avoided this method (Dion. Hal. Thuc. 9; LCL, 1:485n8, mentions one partial exception).

For one example of Luke’s selectivity, he omits many of Paul’s sufferings (Lentz, Luke’s Portrait, 169; although Pervo, Profit, 18, may think that Luke includes too many!).

Witherington, Acts, 440; see further 436–38. E.g., the conspicuously concise summary in Libanius Narration 27 highlights only key points, years apart.

As a notorious example of the latter, see Josephus’s omission of the golden-calf episode (Ant. 3.79–99), though even Josephus rarely omits such a critical event. Some accuse even Tacitus of bias in his omissions (Laistner, Historians, 132); likewise Xenophon (Brown, Historians, 95–97, though regarding Xenophon as otherwise mostly evenhanded, 93–94).

E.g., Jos. Life 339; Ag. Ap. 1.60–66; Dio Cass. 1.1.1–2 (though Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.66.5; 11.1.1–6 emphasizes accuracy over brevity). In novels as well, retellings could omit some uncomfortable details (e.g., Chaereas’s kick in Char. Chaer. 2.5.10–11). Noting omissions concerning Paul’s life in Acts, Chrys. Hom. Acts 21 (Martin, Acts, 112) explains that “the historian, for conciseness, often omits incidents and condenses the times.” (Bede Comm. Acts 9.26 explains the same omission simply by Luke’s lacking reason for interest.)

Jos. Life 365–67 boasts that Agrippa II testified to the accuracy of his work but offered to supply additional information.

Whittaker, “Introduction,” xlviii–lii, on Herodian.

Ibid., li–lii, citing Lucian Hist. 4–6, 27.

Brownson, “Introduction to Anabasis,” ix; he concedes (xi) that the work remains “the best authority we have for the half century which it covers.” As noted earlier (ch. 5, sect. 2), some observers today challenge even some brief media reports that lack sufficient context to produce the interpretations the observers consider balanced.

Ibid., x. Likewise, Arrian or his source omits one story damaging to Alexander’s reputation, possibly deliberately (Baynham, “Quintus Curtius,” 428), although he includes some others.

Mor. 854E–874C; cf. Philost. Hrk. 24.1–2 (on Homer). In fact, it may be Plutarch who displays the malice, because Herodotus criticized Plutarch’s native Boeotia. In other cases, he evaluates various historical sources by noting their relational or political biases (e.g., Plut. Themist. 32.3–4; Alc. 3.1).

Dion. Hal. Thuc. 13, expounding this point more fully in Thuc. 13–17; see further Satterthwaite, “Acts,” 345, who cites in this respect Lucian Hist. 56–57; Cic. De or. 3.27.104–5; 53.202–3; Quint. Inst. 8.4; Longin. Subl. 11–12; cf. Lucian Hist. 6). Narrators should pass over quickly matters that would disturb the audience (Theon Progymn. 5.52–56)—probably one reason for the brevity of Jesus’s baptism in the canonical Gospels.

Polybius is not equally gracious in his criticisms, complaining that some historians’ narrow focus requires them to exaggerate and focus on irrelevant matters (Polyb. 7.7.1–8).

Hengel, Acts and History, 61. For one example with an external referent, Luke’s δῆμος (Acts 12:22) abbreviates fuller information on which Josephus’s picture of Agrippa’s death in the theater is also based, but one would not know this without knowing such information.

Hengel, Jesus and Paul, 97–128, responding to those who have regarded Luke’s knowledge of Palestinian geography too negatively. One would not expect even a Jerusalemite such as John Mark to know Galilean geography (idem, “Geography of Palestine,” 33n19). Because visiting the temple was common piety for Jews and God-fearers, however, knowledge of Jerusalem’s topography does not prove that Luke visited as Paul’s companion (Theissen, Gospels, 17–18). Neither Luke nor the other Gospel writers were interested in geography the way sources such as Josephus were (see Freyne, “Geography,” 79–80).

Lucian Hist. 24 attacks one for inaccuracies concerning the geography of Syria—especially for placing Lucian’s native Edessa in Mesopotamia instead of Roman Syria!

Hutton, “Introduction,” 156–58 (comparing, in more recent colonial times, the memoirs or biography of a British imperial officer in India, 159–60). Most ancient historians were inaccurate on topography (Laistner, Historians, 58, 95; on Tacitus, ibid., 130), even when visits to a location could have acquainted them with it better (ibid., 58–59).

At other points, however, Luke or his sources, like the other Gospels, reveal remarkable acquaintance with Galilean geography (Aviam, “Topography,” provides examples from all the Gospels).

Hengel, Acts and History, 61; also Patzia, Emergence, 87. Early Christians believed that biblical history was accurate history (cf. Allison, Jesus, 444); thus Bruce, “Record or Reconstruction?” may be right to argue that even Luke’s theology would invite good historiography.

Riesner, Early Period, 413. Omitting or playing down a subject’s mistakes was acceptable rhetorical practice (Gibson, “Notes,” 195).

See Fitzmyer, Acts, 124; Hemer, Acts in History, 43–49; van Unnik, “Book and Historiography”; Bruce, “First Church Historian.”

Alexander, Preface, 207–8.

Van Unnik, “Book and Historiography.” Bock, Acts, 2n4, observes that Marguerat (Historian, 14) finds Luke deficient in only two of van Unnik’s ten rules, and Bock explains these in terms of Jewish historiography. Marguerat, Actes, 26, recognizes in Acts a confluence of Hellenistic and traditional Jewish historiography.

Pervo, Mystery, 5, is correct when he implies that relying on Acts simply because we lack other relevant sources is not by itself a historical argument.

Blaiklock, “Document.”

Gill and Gempf, “Preface,” xiii.

See, e.g., Foster, “Introduction,” xxxi, who argues that though Livy is sometimes uncritical, he is our only source, and hence our best source, “for long stretches of Roman history.” Likewise, Josephus is, for all his weaknesses, our best source for postexilic Jewish history (Hengel, Acts and History, 7). The work of Megasthenes may be imperfect, but “it is the best we have” on its subject (Brown, Historians, 151).

Larsson, “Apostlagärningarna”; Green, Thirty Years, 7; Wallace and Williams, Acts, 1; cf. Lüdemann, “Acts as Source,” 121; Strelan, Artemis, 23. Thus, e.g., by excluding Acts and considerable other evidence, Crossan, Birth, can say little about early Christianity beyond speculation (cf. Wright, “Birth”; Doherty, “Figure”).

Cf. my complaints about Burton Mack’s historical reconstructions in Keener, Historical Jesus, 26–31, 61–66, 352–55. Against such arguments from silence, see also Brown, Death, 7–8.

Hengel and Schwemer, Between Damascus and Antioch, 119 (noting Paul the pure Hellenist and Paul the complete non-Hellenist).

See Baugh, “Paul and Ephesus,” 12–13 (citing A. N. Sherwin-White and others); Winter, Left Corinth, xiv; cf. Nobbs, “Historians” (on Sherwin-White, 285–87; on A. H. M. Jones, 287–88; on Fergus Millar, 288); see, e.g., the works of B. Levick and S. Mitchell on Asia Minor; also Paul’s letters, in Judge, First Christians, 554. For examples of those who use Acts in other disciplines related to the study of Mediterranean antiquity, see Jonge, “New Testament,” 42; also the critique of more skeptical Acts scholarship’s subjectivity in Stark, Cities, 15–17.

Especially in Phrygia, because his ship landed in Turkey instead of Greece (Finegan, Apostles, 3–4). My examples here are from ibid., 3–5.

Wikenhauser, Geschichtswert (Münster: Aschendorff, 1921); also idem, Apostelgeschichte (cited in Finegan, Apostles, 4).

Hengel and Schwemer (Between Damascus and Antioch, 10–11) argue that from the Tübingen school forward, arguments against Luke have been primarily ideological (e.g., Tübingen presupposed a romantic and dialectic reality obscured by Luke’s tendentiousness, or judged Luke by Pauline standards). They also argue (20) that Tübingen advocates, Bultmann, and others dismissed historical information as uninteresting and irrelevant, preferring only the “highest” (by their standards) theology, history remaining “theologically . . .  largely irrelevant and at the same time almost ‘inferior,’ because it was only relative” and not certain.

This has also been argued, e.g., with regard to Josephus (e.g., in Sievers, “Name”).

When taking notes on my wife’s randomly remembered accounts of her refugee experiences, I gained confirmation from other eyewitnesses but often had to clarify apparent inconsistencies in dialogue with her—something much more difficult to do with ancient texts.

See Polyb. 3.47.6–9 for demands for internal consistency and plausibility in accounts.

Polyb. 3.8.1–11 (even given Carthage’s pride, which Polybius does not take into account, his critique here is undoubtedly accurate).

Polyb. 3.9.1–5.

See below. Although I, along with most others, would disregard many signs and “prodigy” reports from antiquity, some reports can be explained on naturalistic grounds (prodigies such as ashes or stones from the sky, whether at the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or, more commonly, unattributed in our sources), and even the a priori exclusion of the possibility of any genuine divine activity is necessarily a philosophic premise rather than a conclusion from an inductive, strictly historical examination.

Ancients also would employ plausibility as a criterion for evaluating (or discrediting) a position (Hermog. Progymn. 5, “On Refutation and Confirmation,” 11; Aphth. Progymn. 5, “On Refutation,” 27–28S, 10R; Nicolaus Progymn. 6, “On Refutation and Confirmation,” 30).

E.g., Euripides was known for attending to plausibility (Dio Chrys. Or. 52.11); everyone recognized fables as fictitious (cf. Nicolaus Progymn. 4, “On Chreia,” 22), but to be effective, they needed to be plausible, i.e., resembling truth (Hermog. Progymn. 1, “Fable,” 2; cf. Aphth. Progymn. 1, “On Fable,” 21S, 1R; Nicolaus Progymn. 2, “On Fable,” 6).

For a survey of views on the historical reliability of Acts, see Marguerat, Histoire, 12–18; idem, Historian, 2–7.

E.g., Erlemann, Heiligenthal, and Vouga, “Urgemeinde” (treating reliance on Acts for history as naive); Smith, “Rewriting.” See further discussion in , , above, concerning novels. Many who reject Acts’ historicity prefer some earlier, reconstructed portrait of a “pristine” Christianity once sought in Acts itself (Walsh, “Reconstructing”).

In a sense, academia, as a whole, is “self-selecting”; I mention this feature of the Jesus Seminar only in contrast to the popular assumption outside the academy that its conclusions spoke for Jesus scholarship as a whole (note the critique in Johnson, Real Jesus, 41).

On the Acts Seminar, see Smith, “Acts Seminar”; for voting tabulation, see, e.g., “Voting Records”; “Records 2002”; Smith, “Meeting 2006”; idem, “Meeting 2007”; idem, “Fall 2007”; idem, “Spring 2008”; idem, “Fall 2008”; idem, “Spring 2009.” Unfortunately, this group may present themselves to the media, as the Jesus Seminar sought to do, as representing a scholarly consensus. A larger number of the leading commentaries on Acts currently in the process of publication, however (excepting especially Pervo), point in a different direction. In the final analysis, of course, “majority scholarly opinion” (which changes over time) has no necessary bearing on truth.

See, e.g., the summary in Tyson, “History to Rhetoric,” 39–40. White, “First Christians,” views both Acts’ pre-Lukan information and Luke’s adaptation of his material as legitimate goals of study.

See Stenschke, “Hinweise”; cf. Casalini, “Nuovi commenti.”

Hengel, Acts and History, 60.

Goulder, Competing Mission, 223.

Johnson, “Luke-Acts,” 406. (Johnson is citing Hengel, Acts and History.)

Barrett, “Historicity.” Cf. also Parsons, Acts, 7–8: Luke seeks “to get the story straight”; this does not guarantee accuracy in every detail, but “neither is Luke free simply to ‘make stuff up.’”

E.g., Rackham, Acts, xliv–xlvii; Sherwin-White, Society, passim; Gasque, “Acts and History”; Munck, Acts, xli; Ehrhardt, Acts, 12; Hemer, Acts in History, 43–49; Larsson, “Synpunkter”; Marshall, “Luke and ‘Gospel,’” 273–92; D. Williams, Acts, 7–10. This is true even of Harnack, Acts, 298, though he complained that his brilliant pupil William Ramsay (for all “his great learning”) tried to salvage too much (302). For a survey of views on the historical reliability of Acts, see again Marguerat, Histoire, 12–18; idem, Historian, 2–7.

Cf. Massey, “Disagreement,” 54–55. Memory studies show that memory generally preserves gist even where details vary (Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 333–34); in the Gospels (e.g., Peter’s denial), this helps explain variation in detail while the essential story remains basically stable (344–45); cf. Allison, Jesus, 11–13.

Ramsay, Bethlehem, x, 107–96 passim; Robertson, Luke, 118ff.; sources mentioned in of this introduction; see discussion in Porter, “Census.”

See discussion ad loc.

Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 216, notes Lüdemann’s way of posing the problem: is Luke’s work true unless proved false, or false unless proved true? In contrast to Lüdemann, I think it more nuanced to reframe the question thus: do the data suggest that Luke is usually right or usually wrong where we can check him? Since Luke could not predict what evidence would survive, his usual pattern where we can test him should shape our basic default approach elsewhere. We also need to take into account where he is accurate; e.g., if we found Luke accurate on narratives but not on speeches, this would adjust the burden of proof for these kinds of genre. On burden-of-proof issues (as applied to Gospels studies), see Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 364–71 (for the range of views among both historians in general and NT scholars, see 366–69); Goetz and Blomberg, “Burden of Proof.” (I use “burden of proof” here not to imply that claims will always prove right or wrong, but simply as how the evidence we do have should shape our expectations where tests are not possible.) Public claims, such as inscriptions, are usually accepted as valid (though slanted) sources of information in the absence of contrary evidence (Yamauchi, Persia, 144, following Frye, Persia, 86).

For a summary of his historical survey and critique, see Gasque, Criticism, 306–9. While not all “conservative” approaches to Luke’s historical reliability (in the modern sense of that phrase) are equally plausible, they share the common value of a disciplined attempt to explain the text rationally before cavalierly dismissing it. If employed heuristically, such an approach helps us grapple more carefully with the text in its context, and may be comparable to a helpful approach toward classical sources (cf., e.g., Green, “Diodorus,” on Diodorus as a “reasonably competent” [363], though second-tier, ancient historian).

With Gasque, Criticism, 247.

Cf. esp. Brown, Death, 7–8, commenting on the Gospel writers; Sumney, Opponents, 86, commenting on the matter of Paul’s opponents.

See earlier the summary of scholarship in Wilson, Gentile Mission, 255–57; Wilson himself holds a mediating position (267). Barrett, “History,” however, argues that modern NT scholars have simply shifted Baur’s view of the later conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christians back into the NT era.

Fitzmyer, Acts, 127; similarly Dunn, Acts, xvi–xviii; Barrett, Acts, 2:xxxiii–lxii, esp. xxxiii–xliii.

By “popular” history, I mean only that much of Luke’s audience (and, correspondingly, his rhetoric) need not be elite; we do not seek to evoke K. L. Schmidt’s contrast between grand writings and a folk literature that evolved haphazardly (cf. Keener, Matthew, 17; Burridge, Gospels, 11, 153; Aune, Environment, 12, 63).

Ehrhardt, Acts, 12 (following E. Meyer); Witherington, “Editing,” 335–44; idem, Acts, 27, 32–34 (following Fornara, Nature of History, 25ff., 49); Bruce, Acts³, 27 (following Meyer, Ursprung, 1:2–3). Harnack moved from skepticism to increased respect for Luke over time (noted, e.g., by his student Ramsay, Luke the Physician, 4–5; for Ramsay’s own view, see, e.g., 80).

Bornkamm, Paul, xix; though uncertain which elements are historical, Bornkamm is most optimistic where scholars “find least traces of obviously legendary embellishment” (a potentially subjective criterion), “of the overriding interests of the book,” and, perhaps most debatable (since telling a story in an artistic way does not make it untrue), “of the literary activity of its author.”

Perhaps most fully in the earliest chapters. A popular historian may tell stories more freely in one way, a rhetorical historian more freely in a different way, each with his own conventions (though the more rhetorical works probably follow more explicitly defined conventions).

E.g., Acts fits well most of the itinerary suggested in Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and 1–2 Corinthians; we would, then, expect it to provide useful information where we cannot check it as well (deSilva, Introduction, 350; cf. 375–80).

See Fitzmyer, Acts, 125–26; see discussion of individual texts in the current commentary. Since Luke could not know which external evidence would be preserved for future readers, we must take these correspondences as a representative sampling.

Bruce, Acts³, 32; deSilva, Introduction, 369, 375, among many others.

Cadbury, Acts in History, 40–41.

Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 201; idem, Acts, 237 (though also citing Gasque’s argument that the level of correspondence fits history, not novel; Gasque, Criticism, 193n94).

Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 201; idem, Acts, 236. He notes (Mediterranean Milieu, 200–201; idem, Acts, 236) lack of congruence (e.g., in Acts 5:36–37; Luke’s weaker acquaintance with noncoastal Palestinian geography) and (Mediterranean Milieu, 198–200; idem, Acts, 235) more examples of congruence.

Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 202–6; idem, Acts, 237–41. For a discussion of correspondences and differences between Acts 15 and Gal 2:1–10, see this commentary’s comment at Acts 15.

Hemer, Acts in History, 108–220, esp. 108–92 and most fruitfully 108–58.

Ibid., 109.

Ibid., 110.

Ibid.

Ibid., 111.

Ibid.

Ibid., 113. This datum would, however, have been well known.

Ibid., 114.

Ibid., 115.

Ibid., 116, also noting the proximity of many idols (but these were pervasive).

Ibid., 117; likewise the form Ἀρεοίαγίτης in Acts 17:34 (p. 119).

Ibid., 118.

Ibid., 119, 167–68.

Ibid., 119, 168–69.

Ibid., 122.

Ibid. (citing, e.g., I. Eph. 27.12–13).

Ibid., 123. He also compares the “regular” assembly to I. Eph. 27.468–69 (also p. 123).

Ibid., 124.

Ibid., 125–26.

Ibid., 126 (citing CIJ 1400).

Ibid. (citing Jos. War 5.244).

Ibid. (citing Jos. War 5.243).

Ibid. (citing Jos. War 2.261–63; Ant. 20.169–71, and noting that where the figures diverge, Luke’s more modest figures should be preferred, since Josephus is known to inflate figures).

Ibid., 127, 170.

Ibid., 128, 170–71.

Ibid., 128, 171.

Ibid., 128.

Ibid., 128, 172.

Ibid., 172–73.

Ibid., 130.

Ibid., 173.

See ibid., 132–56.

Some of these details may have been widely known. A writer would not easily have known so many details over a wide geographical range, however (and especially lesser-known areas), unless he had traveled to many of the places in addition to his own region. Getting the right associations during the appropriate range of years in such cases (e.g., with Drusilla and Berenice) is also probably more than coincidence.

Hemer, Acts in History, 190–93 (for these particular examples, 192).

This is not to say that one must concur with all Hemer’s conclusions, such as the work’s date, which need not all follow from his data.

See the caution about Hemer’s approach in, e.g., Lentz, Luke’s Portrait, 6.

Haenchen, Acts, 360, speaks of “Roman soldiers,” which is technically true, since these would have been auxiliaries. But his point in the context appears to be Gentile soldiers in general, since the objection is to these troops being stationed there during the reign of Agrippa I, to 44 C.E. He counts this presence of soldiers against the narrative’s historicity. Against this position, see Keener, “Troops.”

Wallace and Williams, Acts, 27. They note that (28) one can evaluate Luke’s historical accuracy by “comparison with other sources,” by assumptions that “particular elements ‘must have’ been invented,” and by “a priori assumptions that certain kinds of event cannot have occurred,” noting that only the first approach is objective enough to “yield secure results.”

Everyone acknowledges that Luke knows the coasts of Asia Minor better than the interior (see, e.g., Bechard, Walls, 345–52); although I think Luke’s information regarding the interior normally accurate where he does report it, he includes far less detail than on the coastal itinerary.

Larkin, Acts, 22; for a more skeptical critic impressed with Luke’s accuracy on minutiae Larkin cites Koester, Introduction, 2:50. Other examples of more skeptical critics who nevertheless believe Acts often depends on historical sources include Lüdemann, “Acts as Source.”

Would Luke care enough about accuracy to travel to out-of-the-way locations simply in order to create a purely fictitious narrative (less detailed than in the “we” narratives)? And if Luke carried out such research for a fiction, why not write himself into the narrative fictitiously, if this was what he supposedly did with the “we” in the “we” narratives (as some scholars opine)? Is it not more probable that Luke did not travel to these locations but had genuine information about Paul’s mission there? (The mission certainly happened; the churches were founded early by someone, and Paul was an early church founder with a reputation for founding churches, presumably for good reason. See also this commentary’s comments on the sections in question.) Genuine tradition best accounts for the correspondence of these incidental details to features of the region less widely known outside.

See Hemer, Acts in History, 101–58; on the Anatolian interior, see esp. works by Stephen Mitchell (cited in our commentary loc. cit.).

Brodie, “Imitation of Texts,” 38; Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 399; Pervo, Acts, 11.

See Johnson, Acts, 4; Riesner, Early Period, 413.

For discussion, see, e.g., Keener, Historical Jesus, 156–57; Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:173; Brown, Death, 19; Stanton, Gospel Truth?, 143; Young, Jewish Theologian, 257; cf. Mealand, “Dissimilarity Test”; Mack, Lost Gospel, 193; Sanders, “What We Know,” 60n12; idem, Jesus and Judaism, 16, 145; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 11, 115; Ehrman, Prophet, 92 (though using the criterion in a limited manner); Holmén, Covenant Thinking, 20–31, esp. 29–30; idem, “Introduction,” 2; idem, “Doubts about Dissimilarity”; Kazen, “Son of Man,” 87; Broadhead, “Priests,” 125; Dunn, Perspective, 57–78 (esp. 58); Stein, Messiah, 48; Tuckett, “Sources,” 133; Levine, “Introduction to Historical Jesus,” 10–11; Borg, Conflict, 20–23; Bird, “Quest.”

For details in this paragraph, see comments in this commentary on the relevant passages.

See Keener, “Official.”

A severe famine in Egypt, the primary grain source for the eastern Mediterranean world, is well attested ca. 45–46 C.E., with repercussions beyond Egypt in the years immediately following. Josephus indicates that the dearth struck Judea forcefully (see comment on Acts 11:28).

Conzelmann, Acts, 94 (Luke has “factual support” for it). Such information would have been available during his visit to Jerusalem (Acts 21:15–18).

The unclear role of Blastus suggests Luke’s abridgment of a source besides Josephus (see Barrett, Acts, 589).

Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:7.

Nobbs, “Cyprus,” 287.

Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:6; cf. also Levick, Roman Colonies, 112.

Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:7. On the Caristanii, see also Levick, Roman Colonies, 111–13.

Attalia’s more heavily trafficked harbor, directly on the sea, provided the better port for a return voyage to Syrian Antioch (Acts 14:25–26; Campbell, “Paul in Pamphylia,” arguing from this information and the asymmetry of Luke’s references in Acts 13:13–14 and 14:24–26 for the virtually assured historical accuracy of Luke’s itinerary here).

Especially the use of gezerah shevah; note also implicit links presumably present in Luke’s source but omitted in his more compressed account.

The exception might be if Luke’s primary audience was located there—which is extremely unlikely. Wallace and Williams, Acts, 27, emphasize Luke’s accuracy regarding “Derbe and Lystra, neither of them well known cities.”

Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:24, arguing from this for “the historical precision of the famous episode in Acts.”

James’s choice of text justifying an eschatological perspective is plausible enough in Judea. The Amos quotations used by him here and by Stephen in Acts 7:42–43 are among those used in a key Qumran document to define that sect’s own identity; James’s quotation may even diverge from the traditional LXX reading in favor of the Hebrew at various points despite Luke’s normal dependence on LXX versions. This correspondence need not imply a literal translation of a verbatim transcript, but it could suggest that Luke depends on a very specific oral tradition. Given the importance of the meeting (and probably others like it), we need not even rule out the possibility that a summary transcript or notes existed.

A novelist would not dare fabricate the precedent about a recent figure, nor would a novelist research the details that Luke has accurately provided. Luke would hardly dare invent an official hearing before a named proconsul in recent memory. Indeed, if he was simply fabricating an account many years after the fact, how would he even know in what years to place Paul in Corinth (see Sherwin-White, Society, 104–5)? Moreover, had Luke been freely inventing precedents, we might expect him to have granted Paul a full acquittal instead of portraying a case as being dismissed out of either anti-Jewish prejudice or procedural issues.

Cf. Conzelmann, Acts, 164 (citing Pauline evidence); Dunn, Acts, 263; Johnson, Acts, 351–52. See this commentary’s comment on Acts 20:17.

Trebilco, “Asia,” 331; Horsley, “Inscriptions of Ephesos,” 155–56; see esp. Sokolowski, “Testimony on Cult.”

Trebilco, “Asia,” 332.

Ibid., 338.

See esp. Baugh, “Phraseology and Reliability.”

Calder et al., “Ephesus.”

Millar, Empire and Neighbours, 199; quoted in Gill and Gempf, “Preface,” xiii. In the same passage, Millar compares an “inscription from Ephesus of a few years earlier.”

Conzelmann, Acts, 164–65 (noting that Alexander remains unexplained in the narrative); Selinger, “Demetriosunruhen”; Lampe, “Acta 19.”

Burkitt, Sources, 16.

Barrett, Acts, 960 (also observing that although he might have invented a speech in Ephesus, he lacked reason to invent one to Ephesians in Miletus).

Uncomfortable with the ambiguity of a true prophet misleading another in 1 Kgs 13, Josephus turns him into a false prophet (Ant. 8.236–45).

Luke even uses a correct term for the smooth “beach” outside Tyre (αἰγιαλόν, Acts 21:5). This description fits local topography (Bruce, Commentary, 422n6; Bruce, Acts¹, 385); see further Strabo 16.2.25.

Even the crowd’s confusion (Acts 21:34), which serves Luke’s narrative purpose, is not implausible, at least no more than in some other histories (e.g., Corn. Nep. 3 [Aristides], 1.4; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.15.4).

Soldiers could run down two pairs of stairs into the outer court from the Antonia if they needed to intervene during festivals (Jos. War 5.243–44). That the soldiers could and did intervene at times during this period of tension reinforces the plausibility of Luke’s account (cf. Johnson, Acts, 382).

Cf. Sherwin-White, Society, 154–56; Gasque, “Acts and History,” 57.

See also Jones, Empire, 288.

E.g., Pesch, Apostelgeschichte, 2:237; Hemer, Acts in History, 127, 170; Johnson, Acts, 392.

Although the “we” is not present on this occasion, it is surely nearby and hence soon after again in contact (Acts 21:17–18; 27:1–2).

As is generally noted (Jones, Seyrig, Sherwin-White, and Liebeschuetz, “Syria,” 1464; Cadbury, “Law and Trial,” 310; Gasque, “Acts and History,” 57; Täuber, “Cilicia,” 330; Green, “Syria and Cilicia”).

Fitzmyer, Acts, 729; Hemer, Acts in History, 172. They were separate provinces in Cicero’s day (Sest. 25.55), though their adjacent position entailed military implications for both (Fam. 15.4.4); they shared a border in Strabo 16.2.1.

Sherwin-White, “Trial,” 101.

Sherwin-White, Society, 48–70.

Winter, “Official Proceedings,” 307n7, challenging Haenchen, Acts, 656.

With Bruce, Commentary, 479; Witherington, Acts, 726. Paul may have also heard of Seneca’s influence and might know that Seneca was brother of Gallio, who dismissed the case against Paul in Acts 18:14–16.

For a defense of Paul’s Roman citizenship, see comment on Acts 16:37.

As noted above and as emphasized in , below, that Paul expected trouble from Judeans (Rom 15:30–31; and elsewhere had conflicts with some leaders of his own people, 2 Cor 11:24; cf. 1 Thess 2:15) and we next find him in Roman custody (Phil 1:13) also independently coheres with Luke’s narrative.

Available to the defendant or at least cited at the hearing if there was one.

Luke is happy to lay blame for the real accusation at the feet of some Asian Jews who did not appear for the hearing, but he does not omit the more prominent local accusers who carried the case (and without whom it would have been dropped for lack of accusers); see Acts 24:1, 19.

Writers hoping to gain a hearing could not afford to misrepresent matters of public interest on which they could be readily challenged (see, e.g., the comments of Judge, First Christians, 379–80, regarding the Gallic Romans publishing their own version of Claudius’s speech).

This conclusion does not rule out the use of traditional language from storm scenes in epic tradition, as is likely, especially prominently at some points (e.g., Acts 27:41).

Meyer, Ursprung, 1:2–3, as cited in Bruce, Acts³, 27. (Meyer does not specify Luke’s location on the implied range of good historiography; most would regard Polybius as more careful than Livy.) F. F. Bruce, a classicist by training, argued that Luke follows the historiographic approach of Thucydides, noting Luke’s contrast with his predecessors and his use of synchronisms (28). These particular elements, however, were hardly uniquely Thucydidean. He also notes (29–30) that Luke fares well according to Lucian’s standards (How to Write History), setting out his theme (the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, Acts 1:8) and following it through.

Vielhauer, “Paulinism,” 50n37.

With Bruce, Acts³, 28, himself a classicist before he became a NT scholar, as already noted.

Hemer, Acts in History, 219 (Hemer also began as a classicist and became a NT scholar). As much as it may embarrass some within our guild, I believe that an open-minded reader of Hemer may discover that this conclusion follows fairly from the evidence he presents. Those inclined to doubt this statement should survey his voluminous evidence before dismissing it.

This principle does not, however, prove that historians regularly invented freely (Rothschild, Rhetoric of History, 81).

Perhaps because Luke, probably far more than the more Greco-Jewish biographies Matthew and John, employs forms of Hellenistic historiography (more amenable to modern historiographic tastes than are less hellenized Jewish biographic forms of that period). Although Luke may make use of the genre’s flexibility at times (e.g., compare perhaps Luke 24:4 with Mark 16:5), I have discovered concrete signs of this freedom less than in Matthew and much less than in John.

Many others have complained about such cavalier approaches to ancient evidence (e.g., Moody, “Chronology,” 240).

A point not lost on some ancient Christians, such as (seventh century) Bede Comm. Acts pref. (L. Martin, 5).

Some reviews, including some reviews of my Matthew and John commentaries (Keener, Matthew; idem, John), focus mostly on whether works on NT topics or books are as “critical” or as “conservative” as the reviewers, sometimes considering other views less thoughtful or “orthodox” or even “warning off” their constituents from reading a work. (The faulty assumption of some that only two “sides” exist, self-identified as “conservative” and “critical,” suits binary thinking but fails to reckon with the genuine range of positions and the range of issues on which diverse positions are held.) Although reviews should identify works’ general historical and theological orientation, it is unfortunate when they ignore elements more intrinsic to a work’s broader value for readers. In my own works, the examples I know best, a few of the reviewers, preoccupied with these issues, virtually ignored my commentaries’ strength, the marshaling of thousands of citations from ancient sources not cited before so as to enable readers to better hear the works in their first-century setting. Yet a reader who bracketed out the historical conclusions with which she or he disagreed would still have most of the commentary left over to work with. (Analogously, a reader interested in Luke’s theology can approach the story without addressing most historical questions [Gaventa, Acts, 213], though as we have argued, historical questions do matter.)

The leading classicists publishing on southern Anatolian colonies more often than not concur, decades later, with his conclusions. Thus his publications appear forty times in the bibliography of Levick, Roman Colonies, 231–40; although Levick lacks an author index, Ramsay is cited, always respectfully and usually in agreement, on 10, 18, 21, 23, 27, 29, 32–35, 37, 40, 44, 45, 49, 52, 53, 66, 72, 78, 83, 86, 88, 93, 112ff., 121, 124–25, 128, 153–55, 183, 189, 193, 197, 211, 212, 222. His work is no less pervasive in Mitchell, Anatolia, passim. Although, naturally, subsequent discoveries have reversed some of his minor archaeological judgments, more have stood the test of time.

I have been labeled variously by others to my “right” or my “left” but would self-identify myself as “conservative” with respect to Luke’s historiography (as defined here) because I believe it is where the evidence strongly points.

In terms, i.e., of Greco-Roman historiography in general and especially what this would have looked like at the more popular level (though elite sources by prominent statesmen tend to dominate in what remains extant).

Even if Luke designed the programmatic scene in Luke 4:16–30 with no other tradition except what remains to us extant elsewhere (a skepticism that presumes too much knowledge about Luke’s possible sources), we know from Mark that Luke did not invent Jesus’s teaching in the Nazareth synagogue, the hearers’ amazement, their unbelief, or Jesus’s saying about a rejected prophet. And this scene is one of the few places where Luke departs from Mark’s sequence, probably indicating a special literary design here rather than Luke’s usual practice.

Along with granting the benefit of the doubt regarding events, we should allow the same skepticism toward any modern verbatim notion of Luke’s speeches as we grant to those of other ancient historians. From ancient historians’ perspective, however, this would not be skepticism but rejection of the unfair imposition of a standard culturally different from the expectations of their own contemporaries. See below.

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