Audio only:
In this eye-opening episode of The Jimmy Akin Podcast, Jimmy reveals what’s really missing from the Book of Acts! Luke’s careful history deliberately left out Paul’s most shocking untold perils—including 5 brutal lashings, 3 additional shipwrecks, and the dramatic fight where Paul publicly rebuked Peter in Antioch. Discover why the great historian omitted these wild adventures and what they tell us about the early Church. You won’t believe how much more dramatic Paul’s story truly was!
TRANSCRIPT:
Coming Up
The four Gospels tell us the story of Jesus’ earthly ministry, which is also the beginning of Christian history.
Luke’s book of Acts continues that history through the next few decades.
But Acts is not a complete history. There are things that Luke leaves out.
What are these things, and why does he leave them out?
Let’s get into it!
* * *
Howdy, folks!
We’re in our second year of the podcast now, and you can help me keep making this podcast for years to come—and get early access to new episodes—by going to Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast
Introduction
The book of Acts does not tell us the full story of early Church history. It provides only partial information.
This is obvious from the fact that it just covers the period between A.D. 33-60, when it suddenly stops, providing us an important clue to when it was written.
That’s something we talked about in Episode 63.
Many scholars think that the narrative in Acts cuts off in A.D. 62, but after a careful study of biblical chronology, my own estimate is that Acts concludes in A.D. 60.
Even within that time frame, though, it is only a partial record.
For example, the book of Acts tracks the activities of basically three individuals:
- Peter (Acts 1-6, 9-12)
- Philip the Evangelist (Acts 8)—not the same guy as Philip the Apostles
- Paul (Acts 9, 11, 13-28)
This gives us a big clue about who Luke’s main sources were in composing the book. They were Peter, Philip, and Paul.
The book ends with Paul spending two years under house arrest in Rome, between A.D. 58-60, and we also know that Peter was in Rome.
Since Luke was a traveling companion of Paul, it’s likely that Luke interviewed both Peter and Paul during this two-year period, and they provided him the information about their ministries that is reported in Acts.
What about Philip the Evangelist? How did Luke get information about his ministry?
Acts 21:8 records that, after Paul and his companions arrived in the coastal city of Ptolemais in Palestine, and
Acts 21:8-10
On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea [Maritima], and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.
So Paul and his companions—including Luke—stayed with Philip the Evangelist.
This event took place in Late May-Early June, A.D. 55, so that’s when Luke likely interviewed Philip and got the information recorded in Acts 8.
By the way, you’ll notice that Luke says we entered Philip’s house. This is one of what are known as the “We” Passages in Acts, where Luke shifts from describing what someone else did to what “we” did.
There are four of these passages:
- Acts 16:10-17
- Acts 20:5-15
- Acts 21:1-18
- Acts 27:1-28:16
The most obvious interpretation of these passages is that Luke is signaling that he was present for the events in them, so there is actually a fourth source in the book of Acts, which is Luke himself.
But Luke tells us almost nothing of the activities of the other apostles, or of other Christians, and so the book is not a complete history of the early Church.
It just focuses on certain key figures.
It does not even give us a complete record of what even its main figures did:
- Peter vanishes from the narrative after chapter 12, except for a brief reappearance in chapter 15.
- Philip has only a single chapter devoted to his activities.
- And, as we will see, Acts does not record many of the activities of Paul.
Luke Passes Key Tests!
Some time ago, I did a study of the flow of time in the book of Acts.
Periodically Luke will provide time cues—especially in the material about St. Paul and in the we passages.
For example, he mentions that Paul spent three years in Ephesus (Acts 20:31), that Paul stayed in Thessalonica for three weeks (Acts 17:1-2) and that “we” sailed from Mitylene and the next day arrived at Chios (Acts 20:14-15).
As a Bible chronology geek, I couldn’t resist going through the book of Acts and making a list of all the explicit time cues—as well as providing estimates for more implicit time cues, like when Paul goes from one place to another and we can estimate how long it took based on ancient travel times and methods.
Stamford University has a really great website—known as the Orbis Database—that lets you calculate how long it would take to travel in the ancient world between different cities based on different factors, like what route you took, what season it was, and whether you walked, road, or sailed there.
Needless to say, I got really familiar with using the Orbis database, and I calculated the lengths of the travel times between all the destinations mentioned in Acts.
And here is where Luke passes a first key test.
He doesn’t always tell us how long it took to go from one place to another, but every time Luke does say how long it took, Orbis agrees.
Luke is not making up travel times. He’s recording them accurately, which suggests that he or someone else in Paul’s traveling party was keeping a travel diary of all the locations they visited.
Luke also sometimes gives vague time estimates, like if he says Paul spent “Many days” somewhere, I might reckon that as a month for my purposes.
I then put Luke to a second test.
I wanted to add all the time periods that are expressed or implied in Acts and see if they fit within the period of time that the book covers as a whole.
Could all of the activities ascribed to Peter, Philip, and Paul have taken place in the years within the timeframe that the book provides?
If—as some skeptics think—Luke was just making stuff up, if he was writing fiction rather than history, or if he was just a really bad historian, the numbers might not make sense.
Acts covers a period of 27 Years, from A.D. 33 to A.D. 60, but if he was writing fiction rather than history or if he was just a really bad historian, it might turn out that the total events he describes might add up to 40 or 50 years.
They might not all fit within the 27 years the book covers.
So what did I find when I added the numbers up?
Luke passed this key test also! My time estimates for the events Acts mentions only came to 13 Years in total.
That means that there is plenty of room in the 27 years that the book covers for all of the events Luke records—and more! So Luke passes that test as a historian. He does not give us an impossible chronology.
But if Luke records Peter, Philip, and Paul doing things that only took 13 years—and the book covers 27 years—then that means Luke is not giving us a complete record of everything that happened.
So what is he leaving out?
The Perils of Paul
Back in 1914, the Eclectic Film Company put out a 14-part movie serial called The Perils of Pauline, which told the story of a woman named Pauline Marvin who had a series of harrowing adventures in which she narrowly escaped numerous perils.
Well, like Pauline, St. Paul faced a similar series of perils and had his own narrow escapes.
In 2 Corinthians there is a famous passage where Paul has become so frustrated with some of the people at Corinth that he has an epistolary meltdown, and he says some very interesting things about what he has done in his life.
When comparing himself to his opponents, he writes:
2 Corinthians 11:23-27
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.
Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.
Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned.
Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
Focusing just on the perils that Paul assigns numbers to, we get:
- Forty lashes minus one from the Jews: 5
- Beaten with rods: 3
- Stoned: 1
- Shipwrecked: 3
- Adrift at sea for a night and a day: 1
So what we can do is compare this list with what Luke records in Acts and see how many of these events Luke mentions.
Any he doesn’t mention are things that Acts leaves out.
So how many does Luke record in the book of Acts? Exactly two.
Luke mentions the time Paul was stoned and one time where Paul was beaten with rods.
You might think he mentions more than that, because in 2 Corinthians Paul mentions being shipwrecked three times, and Acts ends just after Paul has had a climactic shipwreck, but that’s not one of the three that what Paul mentions.
We know that because 2 Corinthians was written sometime between Late A.D. 54-Early A.D. 55.
We know it was written before St. Paul went to Jerusalem for the final time, because in 2 Corinthians 9 he tells the Corinthians to be ready to make donations so that he can take them to the Jerusalem church when he makes his final visit.
For example, he tells them:
2 Corinthians 9:5
I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the gift you have promised, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction
Paul is currently on his way to Jerusalem, and by Acts 20:5-6 he had already passed Corinth.
Acts 20:5-6
These [companions] went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.
We know this because in that passage St. Paul arrives in Troas (“we came to them at Troas”)—which is a city to the east of Corinth.
Therefore, 2 Corinthians had to be written before this point on Paul’s final journey to Jerusalem, and so what is found in 2 Corinthians must have happened Before Acts 20:6.
That means that all the perils Paul mentioned in 2 Corinthians must have occurred before this Acts 20.
But only two such perils are mentioned by Luke. One is the stoning at Lystra that occurs in Acts 14:19. Luke writes:
Acts 14:19
But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.
So this incident is the single stoning that Paul mentions in his list.
A few verses earlier, Luke also mentions an attempted stoning at Iconium, but that attempt failed.
Acts 14:5-6
When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country.
Luke says that an attempt was made to mistreat and stone them, but Paul and his companions learned of it and fled.
So they weren’t actually stoned on that occasion.
The stoning in Acts 14:19 is therefore the same stoning that Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians.
The second event Luke mentions is in Acts 16:22, where Paul is beaten with rods at Philippi. Luke writes:
Acts 16:22
The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods.
So this would be one of the three beatings that Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians.
But these are the only events in 2 Corinthians that can be referred to in Acts.
What Luke Leaves Out
There must, therefore, be two other times Paul was beaten with rods in the period Acts covers, but they are not mentioned in Acts.
In addition, all five of the times that Paul received the “forty lashes minus one” from the Jews are not mentioned in Acts.
Nor are the three times he was shipwrecked, because the only shipwreck mentioned in Acts 27 is after his final journey to Jerusalem and thus after 2 Corinthians was written.
Furthermore, when that shipwreck occurs, Paul and his companions slam into a bay on the island of Malta. Luke writes:
Acts 27:41-44
Striking a reef, they ran the vessel aground. The bow stuck and remained immovable, and the stern was being broken up by the surf. The soldiers’ plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any should swim away and escape. But the centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land, and the rest on planks or on pieces of the ship. And so it was that all were brought safely to land.
So they didn’t spend a night and a day in the sea. That must refer to an earlier event.
There are several other events mentioned in Paul’s letters that aren’t found in Acts.
Some of these are in the Pastoral Epistles—that is, = 1-2 Timothy, Titus—but these letters likely were written after the book of Acts closed.
This is not the case, however, for events found in Galatians, which was clearly written during the time period covered by Acts.
In Galatians 1, Paul writes:
Galatians 1:18-19
I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.
However, Luke does not mention this event in Acts.
Similarly, in Galatians 2, Paul writes:
Galatians 2:11-14
When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
Luke also does not mention this event in Acts.
We thus see that Acts is not only a limited record of a few key figures like Peter, Phillip, and Paul, it is also restricted even in what it records about all of these three.
Undoubtedly, each did many more things than are recorded in Acts.
And, in particular, St. Paul experienced many things that aren’t mentioned in the book even though they fell in the period it covers.
Why Luke Omitted These Events
So why didn’t Luke record these events? There are several possible reasons.
- Distraction
In some cases, he may not have wanted to because he didn’t want to distract the reader from his overall message.
For example, if he included Paul’s rebuke of Peter at Antioch, it could have distracted from the fundamental agreement between Peter and Paul—which is something present in both in Acts and Galatians.
His recording a disagreement between the two might have confused people about the fact that they were fundamentally on the same page.
- Didn’t Know
In other cases, Luke may have simply not have known about an event.
He wasn’t by Paul’s side during the whole time of his ministry. Indeed, the first “we” passage doesn’t even occur until Acts 16:10-17, so there was a lot of Paul’s ministry that Luke didn’t witness.
Still, Paul may have recounted some of these events to Luke, though, just as he did for the readers of 2 Corinthians. So why wouldn’t Luke include those?
- Too Repetitive
Likely, because they would have been too repetitive for Luke’s readers. Recording five lashings, three beatings with rods, and three shipwrecks before we get to the one in chapter 27 could be seen as overkill.
- Space
It also would have taken more space than Luke felt he had available to him if he were going to keep Acts to approximately the same length as his Gospel, which was the length of a typical scroll.
In the ancient world, there was enormous price pressure to keep books short. A single copy of the Gospel of Matthew would cost the equivalent of $4,000 after all the inflation the governments have caused.
That’s why each of the four Gospels is the size of a standard scroll or less.
Given that price pressure, we’re lucky that Luke wrote Acts at all, because together the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts required two scrolls, which would have cost something like $8,000.
Luke thus had good reasons for not recording everything that happened to Peter, Philip, and Paul—not to mention the other apostles.
Still, it would be fascinating to know more.
* * *
If you like this content, you can help me out by liking, commenting, writing a review, sharing the podcast, and subscribing
If you’re watching on YouTube, be sure and hit the bell notification so that you always get notified when I have a new video
We’re in our second year of the podcast now, and you can help me keep making this podcast for years into the future—and can get early access to new episodes—by going to Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast
Thank you, and I’ll see you next time
God bless you always!