Acts: Author and Dating

Acts and the Gospel according to Luke both have the same author. It is not known who wrote these books. The books were probably written around the year AD 80.

The book of Acts was attributed, according to church tradition, to Luke, the beloved doctor who came from Antioch in Syria. The tradition is based on the mention of Luke in some of Paul’s letters (Philemon 1:24; Colossians 4:14; 2 Timothy 4:11), in combination with the mention of “we” in certain passages in Acts (such as in Acts 16:10).

Acts was transmitted anonymously and only later attributed to Luke. On the basis of the text, scholars know that the author:

The author, therefore, is as much at home in the Hellenistic culture as he is in the Jewish. And so it is difficult to ascertain whether he was a Gentile or a Jew. We do know that he belonged to the second or perhaps third generation of Christians. In the introduction to the Gospel according to Luke, he says clearly that he himself is not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus and that he based his writing on tradition (Luke 1:2).

Seeing that the writer of Luke was a Christian of the second or third generation, had been familiar with the Gospel according to Mark and knew about the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, he probably wrote Acts around the year AD 80. It is unclear where it was written; it might have been written anywhere in the Hellenistic world.