How accurate is Acts of the Apostles in reconstructing the history of the early Church?

Answer 1

A:I believe Acts of the Apostles is not very accurate at all. When we are able to compare passages in Acts about the Apostle Paul with what he himself wrote, there are often wide discrepancies:

• According to the epistles, Paul did not spend time in any existing Christian community for the purpose of instruction, nor did he have a mentor who travelled with him in order to instruct him in the faith. In fact, Galatians 2:9 suggests that the Jerusalem leaders and Paul were unknown to each other until nearly twenty years after Paul's conversion. Whereas Paul had represented Barnabas as a loyal assistant, Acts had Barnabas become a mentor assigned to Paul by the Jerusalem elders in order to educate him and play a part in the Gentile church as an equal to Paul. In this account, Paul became a leader within the church, performing great wonders and miracles, but always outshone by his superiors.
• In the epistles, there is no mention of Paul performing or experiencing miracles, and Paul presented himself as a man unlikely to have experienced miracles, other than the revelations from God. Paul faced many challenges to his authority, yet in his account he never performed miracles to persuade or repel his opponents, nor even described those miracles that appear in Acts when to write about them would have enhanced his authority.

  Paul could not risk his credibility by writing about miracles and wonders that he performed if they never really happened, since he could be challenged to substantiate any events he described. However, after a safe interval of many decades, the author of Acts attributed previously unknown miracles to Paul. In Acts, miracles were almost commonplace and, if miracles were attributed to Paul in order to ensure that Paul's followers were willing to accept this narrative and to gain their allegiance to Luke's concept of Christianity, then at the very least, there was significant division within Christianity during the early decades after the death of Paul.

• Acts says that after Paul's miraculous conversion, he went to Damascus, where his blindness was cured and he spent time being taught the gospel. Acts then divides the mission of Paul up into three missionary journeys. In his undisputed letters Paul gives us no information about the first missionary journey and his own account of his itinerary seems to differ considerably from that in Acts. Some who challenge the historicity of Acts dismiss the account of Paul's sea journey in Acts 27:1-28:14 as novelistic fiction. On these issues, Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says the three journeys are only a convenient classification developed by students of Acts.
• In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul describes how when he went to Damascus, he was lowered down a wall in a basket to escape the governor, who was furious at him for converting Gentiles. Acts chapter 9, written some decades later, mirrors Paul's account, but says that when Paul first went to Damascus, he was lowered down a wall in a basket to escape the Jews, who were furious at him for converting Jews. This change to Paul's account allows the author to portray Peter as the instigator of the decision to preach to the Gentiles.

Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that the scene involving Stephen's trial and death is significant because the death of Stephen in Acts matches so closely the death of Jesus in Luke. Both cases begin with a trial and then the Jewish mob demands the death penalty. Both accounts speak of the Son of Man at the right hand of God (Luke 22:69; Acts 7:56); both have a prayer for the forgiveness of those who are effecting this execution ( Luke 23:34a; Acts 7:60); both have the dying figure commend his spirit heavenward (Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59). Brown says that Acts has shown Peter providing continuity with Jesus' ministry of healing and preaching, while Stephen provides continuity with Jesus' death. Importantly, he says we can never verify the existence or martyrdom of Stephen.

Acts of the Apostles is not really a history of the early Church. An important, well disguised theme is the primacy of St Peter over St Paul, drawing them together in a number of subtle comparisons, even when those comparisons are in widely separated chapters. If a previously unknown miracle was attributed to Paul, then quite comparable miracles were also associated with Peter, and the miracles associated with Paul were always less impressive those associated with Peter.

• According to Acts, Paul's first miraculous cure was improbably similar to Peter's first cure. In both cases, a man who had been lame since birth was immediately cured by being commanded to stand and walk. Peter's first miracle cure was performed in the name of Jesus, at the Temple, where the faithful saw the healed beggar praising God, and was the opportunity for some outstanding proselytising. Paul's first cure was clumsy and without apparent purpose, given that Paul did not tell the man about Jesus and he was even mistaken for a pagan god.
• In an even more difficult challenge, Peter resurrected Tabitha, a good woman and a disciple, who was certainly dead and her body had already been washed. This miracle became known throughout Joppa and, as a result, many were converted. Paul also resuscitated a young man who foolishly fell asleep in an upper storey window and fell to the ground. There is some uncertainty as to whether the young man was really dead when Paul intervened to revive him, and the miracle did not present an opportunity to convert unbelievers.
• Peter and Paul were also capable of malevolent miracles. In an apparent miracle, Paul blinded Elymas (Bar-jesus) the sorcerer, for trying to frustrate his attempts to convert Sergius Paulus. But Peter was to be feared more than Paul. A certain man named Ananias sold a possession and gave only some of the proceeds to Peter, who believed that the church was entitled to all the money. Peter realised the deceit immediately and Ananias fell dead. Later, Peter told Ananias' wife she would also die, because she repeated the deceit. The two slayings were carried out with almost no effort on Peter's part, whereas Paul could only blind Elymas for a season, and to do this had to wave his hand across his victim's face.
• According to Acts, Peter was released from prison twice by angels, who in one case accompanied Peter from the prison. There was no doubt about the extent of divine assistance Peter received in his escapes. Paul was released from prison by a timely earthquake that arguably need not have been of divine origin, and furthermore he did not make good his escape.

Answer 2

The accuracy of Acts of the Apostles as a historical source for the early Church is a topic of debate among scholars. While it provides valuable insights into early Christian communities and the spread of Christianity, some historians suggest that the author may have embellished some details for theological or rhetorical purposes. It is important to use Acts alongside other historical sources to form a comprehensive understanding of the early Church.