Debatable, but not worth it.
Paul did not write Hebrews.
And that may be right, but given the depth that the writer goes into defending Christianity against Judaism, who else of the Apostles
knew Judaism better than a Pharisee?
Since Luke-Acts is really of one piece and Acts was obviously written after Luke's gospel, it would be strange to put the dates so late. Acts ends with Paul in prison in Rome. Paul was later released from Prison and did a third missionary journey before a final imprisonment and execution (this third journey, final imprisonment, and execution are not mentioned in Acts). If Acts was written after all of these things, why wouldn't Luke have recorded them?
"The cleavage between the theology of Luke and Paul is simply a consequence of the student going off in his own direction, a venerable tradition. The disagreements noted between the narrative of Acts and the letters (mainly Galatians) may frequently be reconciled, but in any case are explained if the author of Luke-Acts didn't own any copies of Paul's letters to which he could refer. It is, after all, improbable that Paul would dispatch a letter both to a church and then to all his sometime companions. The ignorance of the letters of Paul on the part of the author of Luke-Acts actually speaks for a date before ca. 100, after which these letters were collected, published, and canonized.
So we come upon the third question of higher criticism, the date of Luke-Acts. It is sometimes put forward that the Gospel of Luke may be as early as 62 CE because Acts does not narrate the martyrdom of Paul.
F. F. Bruce writes on the occasion of Luke's writing (
The Book of Acts, pp. 10-12):
It is necessary, then, to look for an appropriate life-setting for a work which strikes the apologetic note in just this way. One attractive suggestion points to the period A.D. 66 or shortly afterward,..The argument that there is nothing in Acts--or even in Luke--that presupposes the Jewish revolt and the resultant destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem (A. D. 70) has been used in defense of a pre-70 dating for the twofold work--early in the twentieth century by Adolf Harnack and over sixty years later by J. A. T. Robinson. Indeed, it has been further argued, since there is no allusion to two earlier events--the Neronian persecution and the execution of Paul--that the composition of Luke-Acts should probably be dated not later than A.D. 65. So far as the Neronian persecution is concerned, even Tacitus (no friend to Christians) admits that it was the action of one man's malignity rather than an expression of public policy, and the official reprobation of Nero's memory and actions at his death could have been held to cover his persecution of the Christians of Rome. So Luke's recording of favorable judgments which had been passed on Christianity by other Roman authorities might have been intended to suggest that Nero's anti-Christian activity was an irresponsible and criminal attack by that now excrated ruler on a movement whose innocence had been amply attested by many worthier representatives of Roman power.
It is difficult to fix the date of composition of Acts more precisely than at some point within the Flavian period (A.D. 69-96), possibly about the middle of the period. The arguments by which Sir William Ramsay, late in the nineteenth century, concluded that it was composed about A.D. 80 are precarious, but nothing that has been discovered since then has pointed to a more probable dating."
Another detail is worth noting. In Acts 25:13, Luke writes, "When a few days had passed, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived in Caesarea on a visit to Festus." Luke assumes a knowledge of who this Bernice was in his Greco-Roman readers. This would be most easily assumed after she had been made famous by her affair with the emperor Titus in c. 69 CE. Juvenal mentions her in his
Satires in the book on "The Ways of Women," while Suetonius comments on "his notorious passion for queen Berenice, to whom it was even said that he promised marriage" (
Titus 7.1). This lends further probability to a post-70 date of Acts."
Stevan Davies writes (
Jesus the Healer, p. 174): "Luke wrote at least sixty years after Pentecost and perhaps closer to a century after that event. Scholarship on the subject presently vacillates between a late first century and an early to mid-second century date for Luke's writings." I would throw my lot in with those who favor a late first century date. If the Acts of the Apostles were written in the mid second century, it is hard to understand why there would be no mention or even cognizance of the epistles of Paul, which were being quoted as authoritative by writers before that time, especially since Acts has thousands of words devoted to recording things about the life of Paul, unlike Justin Martyr (whose apologies don't quote Paul). The idea that Acts didn't mention the letters of Paul because they were in Marcionite use (as is plausible for Justin) founders on the unity of the Luke-Acts composition. And, of course, if the author of Acts was a companion of Paul, it is improbable to place it very long after the turn of the century, even if St. Luke lived to the ripe old age of eighty-four in Boeotia as the Anti-Marcionite Prologue avers. I have not done enough research to come to a conclusion on whether
Luke used Josephus' Antiquities, which would demand a date after 93 CE. Marcion had a form of the Gospel of Luke from which he derived his
Gospel of the Lord, which sets an upper bound of around 130 CE. A date for Luke-Acts in the 90s of the first century or first decade of the second would account for all the evidence, including the alleged use of Josephus and the apparent authorship by a sometime companion of Paul. If Luke did not use the
Antiquities of Josephus, a date in the 80s is permissible."
Source
So here again, we're at a crossroads, Luke-Acts, could have been written as early as AD 62, but maybe as late as AD 130.
And either way, the Gospel of Luke as well as Acts would "post-date" the early writings of Paul.
God Bless
Till all are one.
