Dating Acts in its Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts - (Library of New Testament Studies) by Karl Leslie Armstrong (Paperback)

About the Book

"Karl Armstrong addresses the long-established scholarly debate surrounding the precise dating of Acts, arguing that a historiographical approach offers a stronger framework for evaluating primary and secondary sources"--

Book Synopsis

There has been consistent apathy in recent years with regard to the long-standing debate surrounding the date of Acts. While the so-called majority of scholars over the past century have been lulled into thinking that Acts was written between 70 and 90 CE, the vast majority of recent scholarship is unanimously adamant that this middle-range date is a convenient, political compromise. Karl Armstrong argues that a large part of the problem relates to a remarkable neglect of historical, textual, and source-critical matters. Compounding the problem further are the methodological flaws among the approaches to the middle and late date of Acts.

Armstrong thus demonstrates that a historiographical approach to the debate offers a strong framework for evaluating primary and secondary sources relating to the book of Acts. By using a historiographical approach, along with the support of modern principles of textual criticism and linguistics, the historical context of Acts is determined to be concurrent with a date of 62-63 CE.

Review Quotes

"Armstrong has written a major work of scholarship defending the early date for Acts, and he has given weight to seeing the terminus of the events described in the text as representing the limits of the author's knowledge of events that had transpired." --Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies

"Armstrong's work takes seriously the historical content of Acts and persistently pursues the difficult problems that are too often dismissed as intractable." --ARYS: Antigüedad: Religiones y Sociedades

"Armstrong's work contributes to an ongoing debate concerning the dating of Acts, and all scholars of Acts should take his arguments seriously. At the very least, he raises important historical questions that must be examined critically." --Review of Biblical Literature

About the Author

Karl L. Armstrong received his PhD (Christian Theology) from McMaster Divinity College, Canada.