Bible Discussion Thread

INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ACTS (Part 3):

III. NOW ABOUT THE BOOK OF ACTS ITSELF:

Luke and Acts express the highest level of Greek in the New Testament. Again, from a very educated man! In fact, many scholars, not bible scholars, but many Greek scholars hold that Luke and Acts are the highest quality of Greek in all ancient literature!

Putting Luke and Acts together with all the literature that they have found, it's the highest quality of Greek. There are 312 Greek words in Luke that are not in the rest of the New Testament. There are 478 Greek words in Acts that are not in the rest of the New Testament. So, he's got a big vocabulary!

Now some think that Luke and Acts are actually trial documents. Paul was on his way to Rome, and it was required, to make an appeal to Caesar, you had to have documents that explain yourself, preceding any appeal before you stand before him. Theophilus was thought of putting this together for Paul, and Luke was doing this for him.

So, Paul was in Rome, and Luke's there, and he contacts Theophilus, and he says if I write up some documents on the ministry of Christ, and the life of Paul, will you use these in your court appeal that goes before Caesar before Paul can stand before Caesar?

Now there are two things by way of characteristics of the gospel and the book of Acts that support the trial document theory. All uprisings recorded in Luke and Acts were caused by Jewish leaders. At no time does Luke make anybody who's Roman the fault. The Roman soldiers are always good guys in the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. They're not the bad guys! It's the Jewish leaders who are the bad guys. So, it helps throw weight into this view that these were court documents because it would be favorably received by the Romans.