Tyndale Bulletin 71.

2 (2020) 207-227

DATING LUKE-ACTS
FURTHER ARGUMENTS FOR AN EARLY DATE

David Seccombe
([email protected])

Summary
Alexander Mittelstaedt (2005) has provided new impetus to a long-
standing opinion that Luke-Acts was written in the early 60s of the first
century AD. Karl L. Armstrong (2017) provides a recent overview of the
dating debate and argues that an early date makes best sense of the
extensive evidence. This paper suggests three considerations arising
from the historical character of the rest of the century which support
Mittelstaedt’s and Armstrong’s view. The first: AD 66–98 was a time of
intense anti-Jewish sentiment, in which articulation of the nationalistic
Jewish hopes expressed in the third Gospel and Acts would have been
dangerous, and unlikely for a careful author. Second, it was also a time
that ill accords with Acts’ assumption of Jewish legitimacy and its plea
for the acceptance of Gentile Christianity. Third, the attention given to
the voyage as Acts draws to its conclusion bespeaks an author who knew
nothing of the cataclysmic avalanche of events that took place from AD
62–70.

1. The Search for Historical Context

The absence of proven quotations or allusions to Acts prior to the time
of Irenaeus made it possible in the mid-nineteenth century for F. C. Baur
and the Tübingen School to propound a second-century date.1 A mass of
scholarly reaction to the Tübingen hypothesis advanced a range of

1 Horton Harris, The Tübingen School (Leicester: Apollos, 1990): 181-97; William
Sanger Campbell, The ‘We’ Passages in Luke-Acts (Atlanta: SBL, 2007): 5.

https://doi.org/10.53751/001c.27747
https://tyndalebulletin.org/
208 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
considerations and soon repositioned Luke-Acts in the first century.2 By
the end of the twentieth century few still plumped for a second-century
date.3 Scholarly opinion in the twentieth century largely settled into three
camps: the early 60s, shortly after the end of Paul’s first Roman
imprisonment;4 the 70s and 80s (roughly speaking), after the Jewish–
Roman war and before Domitian’s persecution, the author being a former
companion of Paul;5 this latter period, but authored by a ‘Paulinist’,
whose account is removed from the real Paul.6 The present century has
brought with it a new push for a second-century dating.7
A majority of scholars favour a date between 70 and the early 90s
primarily, I think, because of a difficulty with dating Mark early enough
to allow a 60s date for Luke. For example, Craig S. Keener’s
monumental commentary on Acts sets out a case in some detail for
placing Acts between the end of the Jewish–Roman war and Domitian’s
reign, most likely (he thinks) about AD 75: ‘my best guesses … are in
the early 70s, with dates in the 80s and 60s still plausible, and a date in
the 90s not impossible’.8

2 For an overview of fifty years of scholarly reaction to the Tübingen position see W.
Ward Gasque, A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1975): 53-72, 96-135.
3 Two who did: J. C. O’Neill, The Theology of Acts in its Historical Setting (London:
SPCK, 1961); John T. Townsend, ‘The Date of Luke-Acts’ in New Perspectives from the
Society of Biblical Literature Seminar, ed. Charles H. Talbert (New York: Crossroad,
1984): 47-62.
4 R. B. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles (London: Methuen, 1901): l-lv; Adolf
Harnack, Luke the Physician (London: Williams & Norgate, 1907); Adolf Harnack, The
Acts of the Apostles (London: Williams & Norgate, 1909); Adolf Harnack, The Date of
the Acts and of the Synoptic Gospels (London: Williams & Norgate, 1911); A. J. Matill,
‘The Date and Purpose of Luke-Acts: Rackham Reconsidered’, CBQ 40 (1978): 335-50;
John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (London: SCM, 1976).
5 E.g. John Nolland, Luke 1–9:20 (WBC 35A; Dallas: Word, 1989): xxxvii-xxxviv; F.
F. Bruce, The Book of Acts (Rev. edn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988): 10-12; F. F.
Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (3rd
edn; Leicester: Apollos, 1990): 1-18; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (New
York: Doubleday, 1998): 53-57.
6 Philipp Vielhauer, ‘On the “Paulinism” of Acts’ in Studies in Luke-Acts, ed. L. E.
Keck and J. E. Martyn (London: SPCK, 1968): 33-50. Vielhauer’s position has received
added authority from the commentary of Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (tr. B.
Noble, G. Shinn, and R. McL. Wilson; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971): 112-16.
7 Richard I. Pervo, Dating Acts: Between the Apologists and the Evangelists (Santa
Rosa: Polebridge, 2006); Joseph B. Tyson, Marcion and Luke-Acts (Columbia:
University of South Carolina, 2006); Laura Nasrallah, ‘The Acts of the Apostles, Greek
Cities and Hadrian's Panhellenion’, JBL 127 (2008): 533-66.
8 Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 1 (4 vols.; Grand Rapids:
Baker Academic, 2012): 400.
SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 209
The question continues to be important, critical as it is to New
Testament history. Literary critics, too, frequently seek to read Luke and
Acts against a supposed historical background, and discussions of
purpose try to locate Luke’s writings in a historical context.9 The
advantage to critics of belonging to a dominant school of thought is that
they can proceed without the need to defend their supposed datings (at
least, this is true for those holding to the later first-century date). A recent
introduction to the Gospels, intended for students, locates them all in the
post-70 period, as though this were established fact, and mentions no
other possibility.10 Some members of the new second-century ‘school’
also feel they have proven their case and can proceed without argument.
Given he has written a monograph defending his view, Pervo’s
commentary on Acts dismisses the question of date in a sentence, as
though his own position were now the established orthodoxy.11
Scholars convinced of the early date felt (and feel) the need to defend
it because they are a minority, and also because they feel much of
importance hangs on it. Minority or not, there is a respectable tradition
of critical scholarship which backs an early date.12 My own interest in
the question originated at a debate between J. A. T. Robinson, following
the publication of his Redating the New Testament, and Morna Hooker,
shortly after her arrival in Cambridge as Lady Margaret’s Professor of
Divinity.13 Until then I had accepted as established fact what I had been
taught: that Mark was written during the Neronian persecution, and that
Luke was therefore unlikely to have been written before AD 70. At one
point in the discussion Robinson asked Hooker whether she could give

9 E.g. Robert Maddox, The Purpose of Luke-Acts (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1982): esp.
180-87 situates it in relation to the expulsion of Christians from synagogues in the late
first century. The question of historical provenance is not always avoided by those who
circumvent the pursuit of a historical Sitz im Leben and attend to Luke-Acts purely as
literature, e.g. Mikeal C. Parsons, Acts (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008): 290-95; at various
points the narrative is elucidated from conditions in the early second century.
10 Warren Carter, Telling Tales about Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016): 26-29. Note

the way Daniel Marguerat assumes a date in the 80s and reads Acts in that light in his
The First Christian Historian (Cambridge: CUP, 2002): 228-29.
11 ‘Acts was written c. 115 by an anonymous author whose perspective was that of

Ephesus or its general environs.’ Richard Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Hermeneia;

Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009): 5. This position is taken as a starting point, at least for Acts,
by Parsons, Acts, 16, so it may be in order to call this an emerging school of thought.
12 See the impressive list of authorities holding to a pre-70 date in Karl L. Armstrong,

‘A New Plea for an Early Date of Acts’, Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and
Judaism 13 (2017): 98-99.
13 The debate took place in Cambridge in about 1977.
210 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
one solid reason why Mark could not have been written in the 50s. She
could not.
I do not intend to discuss the evidence for the later (post-70) first-
century dating of Acts. It is the majority view, long-established,
supported by a wide range of arguments.14 Nor can I here present my
own reasons for rejecting the new arguments for a second-century date.
The studies of Pervo and Tyson have been well summarised in a review
by F. Scott Spencer15 and subjected to a critical treatment in Keener’s
discussion of a possible second-century date.16 I agree with Keener that
a first-century date ‘should be regarded as secure’.17

2. Proponents of an Early Date

In 1899 in the first issue of the Journal for Theological Studies R. B.
Rackham put forward a case for dating Acts in the early 60s.18 In 1901
he summarised his argument in the introduction to what became the
major English commentary on Acts19 until the appearance of F. F.
Bruce’s two commentaries on the Greek and English texts in 1951 and
1954.20
In three books written between 1906 and 1911 Adolf Harnack
developed the view – as unpopular in Germany then as it is today – that
the author of the third Gospel and Acts was Luke, the companion of Paul.
In the first book Harnack judged Luke and Acts to have been written in
the 80s. In the second he continued with the same (standard) view, but
ventured the possibility that it could have been as early as the 60s, before
the Jewish War. In the third – convinced that this was in fact the case –
he argued for the latter in detail.21 For anyone familiar with the debates
of the twentieth and twenty-first century it is fascinating to observe
Harnack convincingly countering arguments for the later dating of Luke,

14 Recently Keener, Acts, vol. 1, 383-401 summarises the debate and gives reasons for

thinking Acts was written about AD 75.

15 In Interpretation 62 (2008): 190-93.
16 Keener, Acts, vol. 1, 395-400.
17 Keener, Acts, vol. 1, 401.
18 R. B. Rackham, ‘The Acts of the Apostles: A Plea for an Early Date’, JTS 1 (1899):

76-87.
19 Rackham, Acts of the Apostles, l-lv.
20 Bruce, Book of Acts, 10-12; Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles, 1-18.
21 Harnack, Luke the Physician, 152; Harnack, Acts of the Apostles, 290-94; Harnack,

Date of the Acts, 90-124.

SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 211
which are still commonplace in our own time. He was largely ignored in
his own country, where opinion continued to solidify around a date in the
80s.
However, proponents of the early date continued to raise their heads:
B. Reicke (1972), J. A. T. Robinson (1976), and A. J. Matill Jr (1978)
each argued for a date in the early 60s.22 More recently, Colin Hemer
(1990) cautiously weighed in for the early date,23 and now Alexander
Mittelstaedt (2005) has reopened the question in Germany with probably
the most thorough enquiry since Harnack’s.24 Mittelstaedt looks in detail
at the question of authorship, the references to the destruction of
Jerusalem, the dating of Mark and Q, indications of temporal proximity
to some of the events in Acts, and more. He mounts a strong case for a
date in the early 60s, which I find convincing for the most part. Most
recently, Karl L. Armstrong has reviewed the argument once more and
come down in favour of an early date.25 What I wish to do for the
remainder of this article is make three further observations which weigh
against a date later than AD 64, and which therefore support the
argument of Mittelstaedt and others. The first is of a historical-contextual
nature, arising from the likely effect of the Jewish War on Romans and
other non-Jews and the need of an author to be sensitive to the danger his
writing might pose to himself and other Christians.

3. Political Inappropriateness
From AD 66 a period of intense anti-Jewish sentiment prevailed
throughout the empire. Reports of the rebellion in Judaea gave immediate
pretext for the release of pent-up hostility towards Jews in the
surrounding cities and countries. There were massacres in Damascus,
Caesarea, Syria, Scythopolis, Ascalon, and elsewhere.26 Josephus says
50,000 Jews were slaughtered in Alexandria.27 Attacks were evidently

22 Bo Reicke, The Roots of the Synoptic Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986): 174-80;

Robinson, Redating the New Testament; Matill, ‘Rackham Reconsidered’.

23 Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Winona Lake:

Eisenbrauns, 1990): 365-410.

24 Alexander Mittelstaedt, Lukas als Historiker: Zur Datierung des lukanischen

Doppelwerkes (Tübingen: Franke, 2006).

25 Armstrong, ‘A New Plea’.
26 Josephus, B.J. 2.457, 461-65, 466, 477-80, 559.
27 Josephus, B.J. 2.487-98.
212 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
widespread, for he mentions three cities where massacres did not take
place.28
This was early in the war; one wonders what it was like in the years
following, and closer to Rome, and how long it continued. Titus
celebrated his victory in various cities by spectacles in which Jewish
prisoners were exposed to wild animals and forced to fight gladiator
battles with each other.29 Diaspora Jews were not directly implicated in
the war, but it must have added to the ever-present tension between Jews
and other citizens. It could not have been an easy time for Jews for the
remainder of the first century. Innocent or not, diaspora Jews were not
exempted from paying the punitive new Jewish tax. Though New
Testament scholars are fond of locating documents in this period, AD
70–100 is actually something of a black hole in Jewish history: ‘The
sources are almost completely silent about events between the first and
second revolts.’30 What evidence there is speaks of subjugation and
depression. We know of massacres of Jews after the war as far away as
Cyrene (Libya) and of ongoing maltreatment encouraged by an imperial
attitude that Jews should pay for what they had cost the empire.31 Mary
Smallwood sums up the evidence of periodic police round-ups of
members of the house of David:

28 Josephus, B.J. 2.479.

29 Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East 31 BC–AD 337 (London and Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1993): 78-79.
30 J. Alberto Soggin, The History of Israel and Judah (3rd edn; London: SCM, 1998):

380. See also Peter Schäfer’s study of Jewish history in the Greco-Roman world. He
discusses only the reorganisation of Palestine as an independent Roman province, and
the rise of the rabbinate and Jamnia (the only significant ‘event’), before jumping to the
uprisings of AD 115: Peter Schäfer, The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World
(London and New York: Routledge, 2003): 131-43. Appelbaum deals with the period in
four lines: Shimon Appelbaum, Judaea in Hellenistic and Roman Times (Leiden: Brill,
1989): 157. Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule (Leiden: Brill, 1976): 331-
88 has a much more substantial discussion, but admits the paucity of information; e.g.
‘there is no continuous history of Palestine after 70’ (p. 331). Eck’s study of the Roman
army in Palestine (Werner Eck, Rom und Judaea (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007): 116-
45) has little to say of the period that interests us. He provides more information about
the period of the Bar Kokhba rebellion in AD 132–136.
31 Allen Kerkeslager, ‘The Diaspora from 66 to c. 235 CE: The Jews in Egypt and

Cyrenaica, 66–c. 235 CE’ in The Cambridge History of Judaism, ed. S. Katz (Cambridge:
CUP, 2006): 53-67, esp. 55. Eck, Rom und Judaea, 112 mentions a Roman consul of
Judaea in Trajan’s reign, known in Jewish sources as ‘Judenschlächter’ (‘Butcher of
Jews’).
SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 213
for at least thirty years [after 70] the Romans were on the alert to guard
against incipient messianic movements and to pounce on anyone who
looked like a potential trouble-maker.32

A first-century reader of Luke or Acts would see them as Jewish writings

and the author as the proponent of an essentially Jewish movement, albeit
one that sought to recruit Gentiles. If the author were writing after AD
66 he would need, therefore, to exercise considerable caution in relation
to anything that might be deemed political or revolutionary, considering
the fact that his writings might fall into the hands of, or be heard by,
parties hostile to the Christian movement. In this regard, it is hard to
imagine anything more inflammatory than the first two chapters of Luke.
The story is about the coming of a Jewish king who will scatter the
‘arrogant’ (a common Jewish designation of Romans and former Gentile
overlords),33 bring down rulers, and lift up the downtrodden of Israel. He
will rescue the Jews from those who hate them so they can serve their
God without fear.34 He has come for the ‘consolation of Israel’ and the
‘redemption of Jerusalem’,35 Old Testament expressions which, one
suspects, could have had some currency amongst the revolutionaries.
Most of the story is set in the temple, one day to become the headquarters
of the war against Rome. Christian readers tend to spiritualise this
militant political language,36 but it is difficult to see how such an account
could have been published or owned for many decades after AD 66
without considerable risk. To give the new-born child the titles ‘Saviour’
and ‘Lord’ – both titles of the reigning emperor – was daring at any time,
but needlessly provocative for an author and his movement for decades
after AD 66. Even more dangerous would be Luke’s unwitting detail that
one of Jesus’s disciples was a Zealot.37 It was the Zealots who were
blamed for the war. However, prior to the outbreak of war, these features
of Luke need not have caused such offence, and would have commended
his work to Jewish readers.38

32
Smallwood, The Jews, 352.
33 Luke 1:51-52; Pss. Sol. 2.17; Tg. Yer. I Exod. 15:1,21; Rom. 1:30.
34 Luke 1:71,73.
35 Luke 2:25,38.
36 I. Howard Marshall, ‘Political and Eschatological Language in Luke’ in Reading

Luke, ed. Craig G. Bartholomew et al. (Milton Keynes: Paternoster and Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2005): 157-77 argues for a metaphorical reading, but Luke doesn’t make this
obvious.
37 Luke 6:15.
38 Scholars disagree on whether Luke-Acts is intended for Jewish or Gentile audiences.

I am personally convinced that both are intended, and that one of Luke’s purposes is to
214 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
The same argument applies to the period following the Jewish
uprisings of AD 115 and 132. In fact, there is an almost unbroken period
stretching from AD 66–150 where Jewish nationalist sentiments would
have been dangerous. Regardless of what comes later in the story, the
author could be understood by a non-Christian reader to champion the
revolution which the first two chapters of Luke promise.
Admittedly, this only works as an argument for dating Acts if we see
Luke and Acts belonging together and close in time. Since Cadbury’s
ground-breaking classic, it has been accepted by most scholars that Luke-
Acts is a two-volume unit in the sense that the author intended both from
the outset;39 however, this has been challenged.40 In any case, that they
are both addressed to the same Theophilus suggests that Luke intended
that they be read (heard) together and that they proclaim a unified
message. Does Acts, then, have anything of the Jewish nationalist flavour
apparent in the early chapters of the Gospel?
Acts begins with the disciples’ question about when the ‘kingdom’
would be restored to Israel.41 This corresponds with the seeming
revolutionary promises in the Gospel prologue, so, although Acts lacks
the violent metaphor of the songs of the infancy narrative, it continues to
speak of a restoration of sovereignty to Israel in kingdom language that
could sound treasonous if read after the revolutionary uprising of AD 66–
70. Christian readers are accustomed, as I said, to spiritualising such
political terms, and a close study of the whole of Luke and Acts may
modify any suggestion of violence, but this hardly deals with the reaction
of a suspicious or hostile reader in the post-war period. It might be argued
that Acts casts the Roman authority in a positive light and obviates such
a reading, but without some clear disclaimer or explanation, the
combination of the revolutionary tone of the birth narratives, the
continuity of Luke and Acts proclaimed in the prefaces, and the
continuance of the motif of Israel’s restored kingdom could at the least
suggest sympathy with the Zealot uprising. Acts closes with Paul

persuade Jews that the full inclusion of Gentiles in the people of God, without
circumcision, is in accordance with God’s will.
39 Henry J. Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts (London: SPCK, 1968): 8-11. Paul S.

Minear, ‘Luke’s Use of the Birth Stories’ in Studies in Luke-Acts, ed. L. E. Keck and J.
L. Martyn (London: SPCK, 1968): 111-30 has convinced many that Luke-Acts must be
considered a literary whole.
40 Parsons, Acts, 16-17 thinks Acts was written some thirty years after the Gospel.
41 Acts 1:6, and see 3:21. There is no indication that the disciples have asked an

inappropriate question, nor that Luke does not expect some kind of real fulfilment of
Israel’s restoration.
SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 215
declaring himself ‘bound with this chain because of the hope of Israel’
(28:20). These are fine words for Jewish readers before AD 66, but after
a five-year war fought over this very issue, I argue they would be
inflammatory and dangerous.
According to Acts, the case against Paul for his forthcoming trial in
Rome was to do with his dispute with Jerusalem; there is no accusation
of treason. The later trial, which resulted in his death, may have been of
this nature.42 Were Acts 28:20 and Luke 1 cited in evidence in a treason
trial, condemnation would be swift. If Luke had written any time after
the Neronian onslaught, he would have been mindful that what he wrote
might be so used against himself, Theophilus, or other members of his
movement.
Luke clearly intended his work primarily to be read and heard by
Christians.43 I do not think he was writing for Roman outsiders. His
purpose, judging by his major themes, was manifold. He reinforces an
understanding of who Jesus is and what he was like and develops the
nature of Jesus’s salvation mission – how he executed it, and its outcome.
He teaches on discipleship, and a large part of Luke is devoted to issues
of Christian life. In Acts he continues to answer the question of who Jesus
is and describes evangelism in various contexts. He mounts an apology
for the new entity, the church, defends the admission of Gentiles on an
equal footing to Jews, and explains why circumcision is not required of
Gentile converts. He outlines the course of Paul’s mission, and finally
defends the apostle against the charges of being anti-Jewish and his
teaching heretical, in the course of which he presents Christianity as the
authentic continuation of God’s scripturally revealed salvation plan. The
relevance of all this to Christian audiences can easily be seen, as can its
value as an apology towards Jews. Thus, I am not arguing for any
intention on Luke’s part to address pagan outsiders; rather, I am raising
the possibility of unintended consequences. Someone in the post-war

42 See the discussion in Harry J. Tajra, The Martyrdom of St. Paul (Eugene: Wipf &

Stock, 1994): 76. He argues that Paul’s history in Rome must be seen in terms of two
terms of imprisonment, the second being on a charge of ‘crimen laesae majestatis’.
Regarding the first imprisonment, Brian Rapske, The Book of Acts and Paul in Roman
Custody, vol. 3 of The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting, ed. Bruce W. Winter
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994): 191 thinks the conditions of Paul’s first custody
indicate a Roman estimate that he would be released.
43 E.g. Marguerat, The First Christian Historian, 23-24. He puts weight on the repetition

of the first-person plural in Luke 1:1,2, suggesting ‘a common adherence to a tradition’

and the establishment of a ‘reading community’, unparalleled in Graeco-Roman history
writing.
216 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
period (even after AD 64) writing about a predominantly Jewish (or
Christian) movement would know he must be careful; a book can be read
by anyone, and will be, in a climate of suspicion. This is presumably one
reason for the apocalyptic ‘code’ of the book of Revelation.
I conclude therefore that both Luke and Acts were probably written
before the Jewish–Roman War and Nero’s pogrom. From AD 64 until
the end of the century and later, the third Gospel or Acts would have been
dangerous books to have in one’s possession. This is a possible reason
for their not having had wide circulation before the second century.
I would add a small point related to the way Acts ends. To my
knowledge, little attention has been paid to the way Paul’s detention
might appear to unfriendly readers in the latter part of the century. Most
commentators are convinced that Luke wishes to portray Paul (and
Christianity) as innocent as far as the Roman state was concerned. This
is probably correct. But why then does Luke leave the outcome of the
trial undetermined? If one of his intentions was to highlight the
innocence of Christians, if he wrote when suspicions ran high, and if he
anticipated his writing falling into the wrong hands, he would hardly omit
some indication of an outcome in Paul’s favour – either an acquittal or a
discharge.44 Otherwise he invites a presumption of guilt. This is a lot of
‘ifs’, but these are likely considerations for a careful writer.45 It is all very
well to suggest a literary conclusion dovetailing with an outcome which
must have been common knowledge among Christians, but this hardly
works with an author who is mindful of hostile readers. If he wrote before
all the turmoil of AD 64–70, however, Luke’s silence is explicable
because he had reached the end of his knowledge, because he expected
his readers to complete the story from their own information, or for some
other literary reason.

4. An Apologia for Gentile Christianity

My second observation arises from the likely effect of the war on
Christians and Jews. Luke’s argument in Acts hardly fits the conditions

44 Tajra, Martyrdom, 46-47, 50 argues that Luke’s mention of a ‘biennium’ indicates

the closure of the period set for accusers to bring forward their case; Luke hints that Paul
was released. Hemer, Acts, 390-404 inclines to Paul actually facing trial and being
acquitted.
45 If Paul was condemned prior to Nero’s pogrom, a different kind of defence would be

required, but the evidence is against this.

SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 217
of Christians vis-à-vis Jews in the post-AD 70 period. Elsewhere I have
argued that Luke-Acts was written at a time when church and synagogue
stood opposed. Luke’s work is in part an apology for the church and its
inclusion of Gentiles, written when the synagogue was in an ascendant
position.46 Among other things, this is evident in the way the word
‘church’ (ἐκκλησία) is introduced and defined (Acts 7:38), the accusation
of its being a sect rejected (Acts 24:14), and the care with which Gentile
Christianity is introduced in the Cornelius story, with Peter, not Paul, as
its initiator (Acts 10:1–11:26). My second objection to a later date,
therefore, arises from the nature of Acts, which, whatever other purposes
it had, clearly included an apology for the admission of Gentiles among
the people of God.47 The need for such an argument after the war is
questionable.
Some argue that the church continued to be beholden to the synagogue
after the war, so the need to defend its inclusion of Gentiles remained.
J. Louis Martyn proposed that the prayer cursing sectaries, introduced
into the synagogue liturgy in Judaea sometime in the 90s,48 was directed
at Christians, and posed a serious threat. Both Maddox and Esler situate
the writing of Acts at about this time to answer this alleged crisis.49 We
should consider, however, that there was no coercive authority in Jewry
at this time. From a Roman point of view, the destruction of the
Jerusalem temple and the cessation of its cult meant the end of Jewish
religion50 (though Jews did not lose their legal right to practise their

46 David Seccombe, ‘The New People of God’ in Witness to the Gospel, ed. I. Howard
Marshall and David Peterson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998): 349-72. See also David
Seccombe, ‘Luke’s Vision for the Church’ in A Vision for the Church: Studies in Early
Christian Ecclesiology, ed. Markus Bockmuehl and Michael B. Thompson (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1997): 57-61. This is no novel contention; I am not aware of any scholar who
argues against it, though, of course, there are many views concerning Luke’s purpose.
Both Maddox, The Purpose of Luke-Acts, 6-9, 183-86 and Philip F. Esler, Community
and Gospel in Luke-Acts (Cambridge: CUP, 1987): 53-58 imply a strong position for the
synagogue late in the century. Esler thinks Acts was written when the church was still
emerging as a ‘sect’ of Judaism.
47 Keener, Acts, vol. 1, 161-64, following Gregory Sterling, describes Acts as

‘apologetic history’. William F. Brosend, ‘The Means of Absent Ends’ in History,

Literature and Society in the Book of Acts, ed. Ben Witherington III (Cambridge: CUP,
1996): 348-62 agrees with various scholars that ‘historical monograph’ is the best genre
with which to group Acts, and also recognises the apologetic dimension.
48 J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: John Knox,

2003): 56-66.
49 Maddox, The Purpose of Luke–Acts, 183-84 and Esler, Community and Gospel, 27-

29.
50 Seth Schwartz, ‘Political, Social and Economic Life in the Land of Israel 66–c.235’

in The Cambridge History of Judaism, ed. S. Katz (Cambridge: CUP, 2006): 23-52, esp.
218 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
distinct way of life). Judaea was annexed as a province of the Roman
Empire. Unlike the previous 160 years of Roman rule, when Jewish
leadership, institutions, and law were respected and kept intact, Jews in
Judaea were now ruled by Roman officials according to Roman law.51
There is scant evidence of a Jewish political leader being recognised by
Rome in the next hundred years, and perhaps longer.52 Vespasian levied
a two-drachma tax on every Jew in Judaea and throughout the empire,
and the fiscus Judaicus was established to collect the tax. What formerly
had been the right of Jews to remit gifts to the temple in Jerusalem was
replaced by a humiliating licence to be a Jew, the proceeds of which went
to the upkeep of a pagan temple. I have already said that no distinction
was made between those who took part in the war and diaspora Jews who
remained loyal to the empire.53
Ill treatment continued into the reign of Domitian (AD 81–96).
Suetonius writes: ‘I recall being present in my youth when the person of
a man ninety years old was examined before the procurator and a very
crowded court, to see whether he was circumcised.’54 The severity of the
Jews’ plight may be judged from the fact that the new emperor, Nerva
(AD 96–98), put a stop to denunciations of Jews for not paying the
Jewish tax and struck a coin to celebrate the reform. 55 However, his
successor, Trajan, did not continue his protectiveness, and Jewish
frustrations boiled over into new revolts in AD 115 and again in 132.
Thus, it is doubtful that there was any period between 70 and 140 when
being a Jew was not a handicap.

30. In AD 73 the Romans also closed the Jewish temple in Leontopolis in Egypt
(Kerkeslager et al., ‘Diaspora’, 55).
51 Schwartz, ‘Political’, 25-28. For another view see Appelbaum, Judaea, 164.
52 Smallwood, The Jews, 349 thinks the Romans treated the ruler of the Jamnia school

as a legitimate authority, but this is disputed (Schwartz, ‘Political’, 27-28). According to

Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1987), 221-22 only at the end of the second century was the head of the rabbinic
academy recognised by the Roman government as ‘leader of the Jews in Palestine’.
Schürer cites Origen’s reference to secret trials carried out by the ‘ethnarch’ of his time
(early third century) as evidence for some measure of eventual toleration of the practice
of Jewish law in Palestine after AD 70, but practice in Origen’s time is unlikely to reflect
that of the immediate post-war situation. Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People
in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135) Vol.1., ed. Geza Vermes et al. (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1973): 526.
53 Smallwood, The Jews, 374 speaks of ‘a psychological burden, marking them out as

members of a defeated race punished for their nationality’.

54 Suetonius, Dom. 12.2, tr. J. C. Rolfe (LCL 38; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1914).)
55 Schwartz, ‘Political’, 32.
SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 219
Thus, Martyn’s proposal seems an unlikely guess. The Birkat
Haminim, if it had anything to do with Christians, was more likely a
reaction to their successful proselytising than anything that could have
harmed them. One wonders what motive Christians might have had to
cling to the synagogue in a general climate of anti-Judaism, when there
was a real danger one might be denounced as a Judaist and required to
pay the tax. Ramifications of a local kind with regard to synagogue
expulsion are possible, but these could hardly have had much effect in
the Diaspora.56 Evidence that Christians in the post-war period clung to
the synagogue, and feared expulsion, is lacking.
It could be countered that despite the feeling against Jews, their right
to live in their own way was recognised by the state and their gatherings
were lawful. Christians would then have been obliged to stick close to
them, regardless of their unpopularity. In the first century, Christian
meetings were easily viewed as a form of Jewish gathering, albeit
sectarian. Did they continue to shelter behind the synagogue after the
war? The New Testament writings bear abundant testimony to Christians
meeting without restriction in many places. There is no indication of a
need for the protection of the synagogue. Nero’s attack in AD 64
identified Christians as a distinct movement, but this does not appear to
have resulted in later proscription of their meetings. Well into the second
century the writings of Ignatius evidence Christians meeting in cities of
Asia with no indication of dependence on a quasi-Jewish identity.57 Even
the younger Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan reveals that Christians
were meeting in Bithynia until the governor’s ban.58 The fact that
Christianity emerges into the second century as an independent
movement suggests a much earlier departure from the synagogue. What
evidence there is, therefore, suggests Christians met in the post-war
period without the protection of Judaism.
Common sense insists that Jews inside and outside Judaea kept a low
profile for many years after the war. Despite the fact that Jewish ideas
continued to have appeal for some Gentiles, this was not a period when
Judaism was self-confidently asserting itself against Christianity. Rather,

56 Cohen, Mishnah, 227-28, also 221-23.

57 Only in the letters of Ignatius to the Magnesians (8–10) and the Philadelphians (6.1;
8.2; 9.1-2) is there a warning to beware of Jewish ideas. 1 Clement contains no evidence
for Rome or Corinth of restrictions on Christian meetings.
58 Pliny, Letters, 10.96-97. These Christians met on Sunday, another evidence of a

distance from the synagogue.

220 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
there is evidence of disillusionment and defection.59 In addition, the
destruction of the temple would have provided powerful arguments for
Christians and have further demoralised Jews.60 Josephus enjoyed
imperial protection and wrote his histories in an attempt to reinstate his
people. The first rabbinic writings did not appear until about AD 200.
Prior to AD 66 Christianity was a predominantly Jewish movement
with Jewish leaders, a Jewish Bible, and Jewish theology. The main
debate was around the terms of admission of Gentiles. In the years that
followed, a radical change took place, for, when we emerge into the
second century, we find an overwhelmingly Gentile movement. It is not
hard to see the reason: apart from the short-lived persecutions of Nero
and Domitian, Gentile Christians had an open field. Judaism was not
such a powerful force.
Both Luke and Acts are works of Jewish history in the sense that they
describe mainly Jewish events in the period AD 27–62. One does not
expect much detail of the subsequent period, regardless of when they
were written. Nevertheless, the case they argue and the manner in which
the stories are told betray something of the author’s time, and it is neither
70–100 nor the first half of the second century. An inspection of Acts
reveals an intense concern for the legitimacy of the mission to Gentiles
and for Paul as its main protagonist. Chapters 10–11 are devoted to
proving that the mission was initiated by God through Peter, and that it
entailed an acceptance of Gentiles as clean, with consequent willingness
to visit their homes and eat with them. Chapter 15 establishes that
circumcision is not to be required of Gentiles as a condition of salvation
and membership of the people of God. Many chapters (9:1-30; 13:1–
14:28; 15:22–28:31) are given to Paul’s mission and to showing that his
ministry was initiated by God, led by God, and therefore representative
of true Christianity. The shape of the argument presupposes that Jews
were in the position of power vis-à-vis Gentile Christians, whom they are
being asked to accommodate. Jews are predominant in the synagogue
and the church, secure in their identity as the people of God; Luke wanted
them to acknowledge that God was doing a new thing with the Gentiles,
who stood formerly in an inferior position as regards membership of the

59 Schwartz, ‘Political’, 29-30.

60 There is no hint of this in Acts, one of the factors that has convinced some that it was
written earlier. See J. A. T. Robinson, Redating, 90-91. Acts deals with the Christian
story up to about AD 62, so it can be argued there was no place for mention of the
temple’s demise. However, Robinson notes that Jesus predicts it, or predictions are
placed in his mouth, so one could expect something similar in Acts.
SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 221
divine commonwealth. Such an argument ill befits the period after AD
70. It dovetails with what we know of the 50s and early 60s.61

5. A Momentous Decade
My third consideration is a repackaging of Rackham and Hemer and
relates to the effect of events of the 60s and 70s on the author of Acts.
AD 62–71 was a momentous decade for Christians, Romans, and Jews.
In 62 Festus died in Judaea, and in the interregnum, before the new
prefect arrived, the high priest, Ananus, seized the opportunity to put
James, the brother of Jesus, on trial, and executed him by stoning.62
Related, no doubt, to the wave of Jewish nationalism which would
climax in the war, this event caused a furore at the time, and led King
Agrippa II to depose Ananus from the high priesthood.63 Also about 62,
there is reason to think Paul was released from Roman captivity, possibly
after a trial, but perhaps through the dismissal of his case for want of
accusers.64 He then returned to the province of Asia, where he was
involved in further ministry.65 In 64 Rome burned and Nero made
scapegoats of the Christians, thereby unleashing the first attack of the

61 Contrary to the picture I am arguing, Jacob Jervell, ‘The Mighty Minority’ in The
Unknown Paul (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984): 26-51 sees the period AD 70–100 as one
of considerable ‘Jewish Christian’ influence. However, the evidence for this is drawn
largely from Luke-Acts, which he dates towards the end of this period. His reconstruction
of the history of this period is somewhat confusing. He holds that Jews were a dwindling
minority, but asserts their dominance. He is forced to relegate the major growth of Gentile
Christianity to the second century: ‘Early Christianity and Acts’ in The Unknown Paul,
20. I fail to see how Luke’s apology for the Gentile mission would be called for, even
given Jervell’s position. Jervell has done a service to scholarship in drawing attention to
the importance of Jewish Christianity, but appears to me to underestimate the Gentile
influence in the pre- and post-70 church.
62 Josephus, A.J. 20.197-203.
63 Josephus, A.J. 20.203.
64 See Schwartz, ‘Political’, 29-30 and Tajra, Martyrdom, 73-76. Haenchen, Acts, 731-

32 thinks Luke ‘presupposes’ Paul’s death because of the prophetic word in Acts
20:25,38. He doesn’t acknowledge the possibility that these statements may be evidence
that Luke did not yet know of Paul’s release (if he returned to Ephesus). There is no
positive evidence that Paul died prior to Nero’s persecution, so a negative outcome of the
first trial is unlikely.
65 Simon J. Kistemaker, Acts (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990): 996; Keener,

Acts, vol. 4, 3770-71 marshals the evidence. In Phil. 1:25 and Phlm. 22 Paul expects to
be released. Whether or not Paul wrote it, 1 Tim. is evidence of ministry beyond the
horizon of Acts. In 2 Tim. 4.6-8 Paul’s death is impending.
222 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
Roman state on Christianity.66 In 66 Jewish revolutionaries seized the
temple in Jerusalem and suspended sacrifices for the emperor.67 War
broke out in Judaea and Galilee. Probably towards the close of Nero’s
reign, Peter and Paul were executed in Rome.68 In 68 Nero was deposed
and committed suicide.69 Galba, Otho, and Vespasian succeeded to the
emperorship in quick succession. According to Eusebius, a large number
of Christians fled to Transjordan before the investiture of Jerusalem by
the Romans under the command of Titus.70 In 70 Jerusalem was captured
after a six-month siege.71 The temple was destroyed by fire.72 In 71
Vespasian and Titus celebrated their triumph in Rome and the surviving
Jewish revolutionary leader was executed.73
That there is neither mention nor hint of any of this in Acts is regarded
by Rackham as compelling evidence that the book had been published
beforehand: the author ‘must have been a skilful writer not to let even a
hint of these things escape him’.74 Arguments from silence are
notoriously difficult, but given the subject matter and argument of Acts,
its silence at least on the death of James, the outcome of Paul’s trial, and
the destruction of the temple is hard to account for, if Luke knew of
them.75 But can we not make something more of this than an argument
from silence?

66 Tacitus, Annals 15-16; for discussion, Paul Barnett, Jesus and the Rise of Early

Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP, 1999): 303-304.

67 Josephus, B.J. 2.408-410. See Schürer, History, vol. 1, 486.
68 In Peter’s case, an inference from 1 Clem. 5 and early tradition, e.g. Mart. Ascen. Isa.

4.4 (Gk). For evidence and discussion see Oscar Cullmann, Peter: Disciple, Apostle,
Martyr (London: SCM, 1953): 80-115. For Paul, Eusebius Hist. eccl. 2.22 and see Tajra,
Martyrdom, esp. 12-24, 73-76.
69 T. E. J. Wiedemann, ‘From Nero to Vespasian’ in CAH X: The Augustan Empire 43

B.C.–A.D. 69 (Cambridge: CUP, 1996): 256-61.

70 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.5.3.
71 Josephus, B.J. 5.1–6.434.
72 Josephus, B.J. 6.164-284. Mittelstaedt, Lukas, ch. 2 says the burning of the temple

was the chief characteristic of Jerusalem’s fall and notes that Luke makes no mention of
it.
73 Josephus, B.J. 7.123-157.
74 Rackham, Acts, li. Armstrong, Acts, 94-96 adds the interesting point that there are no

textual variants or expansions of Acts 28 that betray knowledge of events of the following
decade.
75 Robinson, Redating, 13-30, 88-92 sees the lack of mention of the fall of Jerusalem as

reason for dating the whole New Testament prior to AD 70. With some NT books this
argument from silence is not persuasive, but for Acts it is strong.
SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 223
If Acts is silent on all of this, what is it loud on, especially towards the
end, where we most expect something climactic?76 The answer is the
account of the ill-fated voyage on which the author – some say the
implied author – accompanied Paul to Rome.
Any consideration of the voyage narrative must, of course, reckon
with the possibility that it is fictional. Robbins argues that the first-person
narrative is a device to heighten the impression of immediacy,77 and
Pervo thinks it is part of a second-century ‘novel’ intended primarily to
entertain its hearers, though he is doubtful it is pure fiction.78 How does
one distinguish between fiction (‘fictive realistic prose’)79 and a narration
of something that happened, given that the former seeks to create the
sense of reality? On the surface, the two may look alike. Geographical
and historical embeddedness takes us some way, but it seems to me the
most telling factor is the homogeneity of the novel compared to the lesser
number of smooth transitions in the historical narrative. However
skilfully worked, the historical narrative is forced to conform to events.
As Brosend, comparing Acts with ancient novels, asks, ‘why so many
loose ends?’80 Chariton’s Callirhoe, for example, tells the tale of a pair
of ill-fated lovers who, after many exciting adventures, are reunited and
live happily ever after.81 Each part of the story connects with what
follows, one or the other of Callirhoe or Chaereas are always in the
spotlight, and there is little that is extraneous to the exhausting plot. Acts,
however, besides focusing on several main and lesser characters, has all
the unanswered questions and loosely connected events one expects in a
narrative of real happenings in a thirty-year period. The account of the
voyage holds together as story better than much of Acts. We do not have

76 There has been much discussion of the last chapter and conclusion of Acts. I decline
to address it here. I have touched on the subject elsewhere (Seccombe, People, 366-70).
77 Vernon K. Robbins, ‘By Land and By Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea

Voyages’ in Perspectives on Luke-Acts, ed. Charles H. Talbert (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,

1978): 215-42.
78 Richard Pervo, Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987); 10-11 states his thesis. Susan Marie Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts
and the Ancient Novel’, SBL Papers 20 (1981): 269-92 argues that genre-wise Acts
should be classified as a sub-genre of the ancient novel, though she allows for much
historical material, in the manner of a historical novel, and a didactic purpose. For Pervo’s
affirmation of some historical basis, see Acts, 645: ‘Solutions that judge this material
entirely factual or completely fictitious are questionable.’
79 Stanley E. Porter, Paul in Acts (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2001): 15 points out that

ancient novels are not historical novels, ‘but fictive realistic prose narratives’.
80 Brosend, ‘Absent Ends’, 353-54.
81 Chariton, Callirhoe (LCL 481; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014).
224 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
to dispute that Luke intended it to be enjoyed. It also carries forward his
portrayal of Paul. As Marguerat has shown, for pagan listeners, the story
establishes his innocence, and for Jews he is vindicated by the working
of providence.82 But why so much detail – and circumstantial detail –
which largely squares with reality? Even F. C. Baur, who saw Acts as a
mid-second-century creation, felt the author must have had in his hands
a genuine diary of the voyage. Haenchen, who is sceptical of Luke’s
portrayal of Paul, nonetheless treats Acts 27 as a serious account of a real
sea voyage.83 Porter presents a case for seeing it as part of a longer travel
narrative, possibly from Luke, but more likely some other companion of
Paul.84 Leaving the portrayal of Paul to one side, there is nothing in the
account of the voyage itself that betrays it as fictive, as Keener’s recent
serious and detailed discussion of all the elements of the story makes
clear.85 To my mind, another clear indication of the author’s attempt to
tell a real story is the first-person narration. Pervo concurs with Robbins
that Luke is following a sea voyage convention using first-person
narrative to heighten excitement with a sense of immediacy; the presence
of the author is not implied.86 Various scholars have refuted this.87 To the
unschooled hearer, ancient or modern, the author’s presence is implied.
Homer, Pervo claims, establishes the ‘we’ style in travel narrative with
‘details of time and fluctuations between persons in narration’. He cites
the voyage in Odyssey 14.244-258.88 In this passage, however, and that
in which it is embedded, with its skilful movement between speakers,
and with first- and third-person speech, there is never any doubt about
who is speaking (the narrator, Odysseus, or Eumaeus).89 Nor, in my

82 Marguerat, Historian, 216-19.

83 Haenchen, Acts, 697-716.
84 Porter, Paul in Acts, 10-46.
85 Keener, Acts, vol. 4, 3573-657.
86 Robbins, ‘We-Passages’, 215-42, esp. 241-42.
87 Colin J. Hemer, ‘First Person Narrative in Acts 27-28’, TynBul 36 (1985): 81-86; he

examines Robbins’ references and thinks they do not support his conclusion. Of the use
of the first person, Hemer says: ‘I contend that this is a natural tendency dictated by the
natural situation, not an artificial literary device’ (p. 86). See discussions in Eckhard
Schnabel, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Acts (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2012): 1030-32 and Porter, Paul in Acts, 15-24.
88 Pervo, Profit with Delight, 57. See the critique in Porter, Paul in Acts, 18-19.
89 There is a masterful movement between narrator, Odysseus (disguised as an old man

just come from the sea), and Eumaeus, his former swineherd, to whom he has come for
shelter. The reader, of course, knows the old man’s true identity. Within the narrative, in
first-person speech (reported by the narrator), the unrecognised Odysseus draws out the
swineherd about his former master and suggests that perhaps he may have encountered
him on his journeys and could bring news (14.115-120). Eumaeus answers, again in
SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 225
reading, is there for the listener to Acts, since the narrator has identified
himself at the beginning of each of his two volumes as the friend of
Theophilus.90 We should ask how Theophilus would have read the
voyage story. He, if anyone, would have known whether the author
accompanied Paul.91 If he did not, and Theophilus nevertheless acted as
publisher, he was complicit in a falsehood that belies the stated intention
of the first preface. I concur, therefore with those who, regardless of its
literary artistry, and the degree to which it is accommodated to its
theological and apologetic purpose (which are important factors), see the
narrative as the experience of the author.92 Indeed, this partly explains
the inclusion of the section.
Let us imagine ourselves standing with the author in AD 70–100,
looking back over the events of forty to seventy years, planning a work

direct speech, that many have tried to ingratiate themselves by pretending to bring good
news of Odysseus; the old stranger should not resort to such trickery to ensure a good
reception (14.121-147). Then the old man (Odysseus in disguise) solemnly declares that
Odysseus will return and asks for ‘a reward for good tidings’ (εὐαγγέλιον) (14.148-164).
The narrator then addresses Eumaeus: ‘To him then, swineherd Eumaeus, did you make
answer and say ...’ introducing the swineherd’s direct speech to Odysseus (14.165-193).
Then Odysseus continues his first-person speech, recounting his make-believe origin, and
telling the tale of his misfortunes and journeys, on one of which he claims to have heard
news of Odysseus (14.235-359). This includes the first-person account of the sea voyage
which Pervo cites as a much-imitated style of narration. (Quotations from Homer,
Odyssey, vol. II, tr. A. T. Murray, rev. George E. Dimock (LCL 105; Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1919).)
90 Campbell, ‘We’ Passages, makes much of the anonymity of Luke-Acts and the lack

of any explanation of the change to first-person speech in the ‘we’ sections: ‘The shift in
grammatical person in these passages presents interpretive problems because the narrator
does not provide an explanation for the change and the reason is not obvious from the
narrative context’ (p. 1). But surely it is. ‘We’ normally indicates the presence of the
speaker or narrator. Only a reader’s prior decision that he couldn’t have been there would
present a problem and demand some solution.
91 Porter, Paul in Acts, 10-46 in his careful study of the ‘we’ sections in Acts concludes

that they were all part of a once-consecutive source; he allows that Luke may have been
the author, but thinks it more likely that he was not. I fail to see his reasons for this last
judgement. A competent author incorporating a first-person source will either indicate
the author of the source or transpose it into the third person. Otherwise he gives the
impression that he himself is speaking. The author of the third Gospel indicates his use
of sources at Luke 1:2 and always indicates the speaker when he employs direct first-
person speech, e.g. Luke 1:19-20; 1:41-45; 1:46-55; 1:67-79; 2:25-32. Luke could no
doubt have quoted something in direct speech from Anna, but transposes to the third
person. This is his practice throughout the Gospel and Acts; e.g. see Acts 1:15-22; 15:6-
21; 23:26-30; 24:1-8.
92 Among others J. B. Lightfoot, The Acts of the Apostles: A Newly Discovered

Commentary (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014), 215; Bruce, Acts, 307-308, 474-
500; Fitzmyer, Acts, 580, 766-85; Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998): 480-86, 754-82; Darrell L. Bock, Acts (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2007): 13-14, 726-48; Schnabel, Acts, 39-40, 1022-57.
226 TYNDALE BULLETIN 71.2 (2020)
of some 18,000 words that will be historical, theological, evangelistic,
apologetic, and listenable. How much space will he devote to what? The
account of the last voyage is one of the lengthiest sections in the book.
Verse for verse, it is the least theological.93 On the surface, it makes a
small contribution to any evangelistic purpose. Its contribution to
Christian history is of little significance. It has an important apologetic
function in relation to the author’s ongoing defence of Paul.
Nevertheless, its disproportion to the rest of Acts demands explanation.
Admittedly, it would have been enjoyed by audiences, but not for the
amount of detail of geography, winds, and nautical practice Luke
provides.94 It is easier to account for, however, if it comes from someone
for whom the impression of the voyage was recent, personal, and
profound. But, as Hemer suggests, the impression of the voyage would
surely have faded as the cataclysmic events of the following decade
unfolded. The amount of vivid detail betrays the recentness of the
recollection:
It is our contention that these inconsequential details are hard to explain
except as vivid experiences recalled at no great distance in time. Even an
eyewitness writing years later would be likely to shape and smooth his
narrative to fit more considered, selective criteria of significance.95

In support of a late date, it might be argued that the author was silent
about Paul’s death, because he (the author) had provided him with a form
of death and resurrection in the shipwreck.96 However, the attention
given to Paul’s shipwreck experience points rather to the author having
no other account of Paul's death. Certainly, the story is part of the
author’s apology for Paul: through a life-threatening ordeal, he stands tall
in comparison with all around him; God brings him safe to Rome. But

93 It is not without any theological purpose. It supports the contention that God was with
Paul as he carried out a God-ordained mission. However, this point has been made in
various ways through Acts and hardly requires a story as lengthy as the voyage. Some
further explanation is called for.
94 The story is told with some restraint. An author whose main intention was storytelling

might dwell on the heaving waves, howling gale, terror of the passengers and crew, etc.
95 Hemer, Acts, 389. The argument holds for an author making later use of a written

account of the voyage.

96 Parsons, Acts, 360 thinks the shipwreck functions as a ‘symbolic’ death and

resurrection account for Paul, though he does not connect this with the short ending of
Acts. See also Pervo, Acts, 652-76 and Carl N. Toney, ‘Paul in Acts: The Prophetic
Portrait of Paul’ in Issues in Luke-Acts, ed. S. A. Adams and M. Pahl (Piscataway:
Gorgias, 2012): 259-260.
SECCOMBE: Dating Luke-Acts 227
this hardly compares to an imperial trial or martyrdom, if the author had
knowledge of them.97

6. Conclusion
The case for dating Acts in the early 60s has been argued by others. This
paper offers two additions to the case for a date in the early 60s and a
restatement of a third. First, the manner in which Luke has portrayed
salvation in terms of Israel’s national hope would have been dangerous
for the author and recipients of the book any time after the outbreak of
hostilities with Rome, and well into the second century. Second, the
viewpoint of Acts presupposes a church whose Jewishness is taken for
granted, with justification needed for Gentiles to be admitted. This was
the situation before AD 70, not afterwards. Third, the prominence given
to the voyage to Rome and the vividness of detail in the account indicate
an author at work prior to the extraordinary disruptions of the following
decade.
I do not pretend to have closed the discussion; there are a multitude
of considerations. My wish is that these three should be given their place.

97 Of course, this now begs a discussion of the purpose of the conclusion of Acts,

including both the voyage and the final chapter, but this is beyond the scope of this article.