Assessing Other Information in Acts
But what of those parts of Paul’s story which cannot be checked
directly against the letters? Would they provide us an
additional useful and reliable source for telling the story of Paul?
We consider various sorts of information coming from Acts.
1. Was Paul a tentmaker (Acts 18:3)? Was he a native of Tarsus (Acts
22:3)? Did he also bear the name “Saul”?
Possible, but neither confirmed nor refuted by the letters. This kind of information is plausible,
or would fit easily
into a first century environment, but it has little to contribute to our understanding of the
2. Was he a student of the Jewish rabbi, Gamaliel (Acts
Possible, but uncertain. Some contend that Paul does not show
evidence of technical rabbinic training in his letters, and that
serious study of Torah (Galatians 1:14) would have been available in
a synagogue of the dispersion.
3. Was he a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37-38; 22:25-29;
23:27; compare 25:10-12, 25-26)?
Doubtful, if only because beating with rods, a Roman form
of punishment, was not to be administered to Roman citizens, and
Paul suffered such a beating three times (2 Corinthians 11:25).
The reasons for questioning his Roman citizenship are laid out convincingly by Stegemann (1987).
4. How are we to evaluate his arrest in Jerusalem, the two-year imprisonment in
Caesarea, transport to Rome, shipwreck, and the two-year residence in
It is very difficult to make a historical judgment, except to
say that the general outlines of the narrative may be reliable,
without our being able to confirm many of the details. To know more
about these final days of the apostle would satisfy our curiosity,
but in this case wishing does not make it so.
Using Acts Where It Cannot Be Checked Against the Letters?
We conclude: there are sufficient discrepancies between Acts and the
letters, where Acts can be checked, that it is not prudent to use
Acts where it cannot be checked.
If one were to use Acts at all, one might
insert Acts material into a letters chronology, on condition
that such information was flagged as belonging to a second order of
reliability and that the material was “purged” of any tendencies
which might distort the representation of Paul in the letters. For example,
one might at some point insert travels of Paul to Cyprus and south
central Asia Minor (Perga, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Derbe), so long
as such a tour was stripped of his speeches, of references to his
subordination to Antioch, and of other embellishments of the author.
(Would this be during, or before, or after, his visit to Syria and
Cilicia mentioned in Galatians 1:21?) But we would be left with a
bare list of stopping places, places which have little bearing upon
the concerns of the letters (e.g., nothing is said of their
participation in the Jerusalem collection). Even such a limited
concession might be an invitation to confusion, and would not seem
to advance our understanding of Paul to any appreciable degree.
We also take note of the possibility of
using the Gallio hearing,
discussed in a previous page, to establish a synchronism for
absolute dating in a letters chronology. The Gallio hearing is
usually dated in A.D. 51, or more likely, in 52. But do the letters
provide any support for such a date? The letters do not exclude such
a date, but neither do they support it. Aside from the uncertainties
expressed earlier about the usefulness of the Gallio incident, we
have difficulties in knowing on the basis of the letters what years
Paul spent during the founding visit to Corinth. The
Aretas datum, discussed in A Letters Based
Chronology (1), might support a date for the Jerusalem
Conference between A.D. 50 and 54; these dates would in turn permit
a founding visit to Corinth as early as 47 to 48, and as late as 53,
if we use the order of events presented in this site. But such a
reckoning is far from the precision which would be useful.
Consequently, we post a warning: Caution: use
the Gallio datum at your own risk!
It is evident then that the author of Acts, writing from the last
decade of the first century, working with very inadequate sources,
whether written or oral, did his best to tell the story of the
earliest days of the church, and especially of its two most
prominent apostles. That he got parts of the story right, in terms
of biographical accuracy, is a tribute to his devotion and industry.
That he failed to get the story right at certain significant points
should not dim our appreciation of his contribution in terms of a
vivid and dramatic work which still continues to inspire and edify