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External evidence, which is relatively early and widespread (e.g. Muratorian fragmentThe Muratorian fragment is the oldest known list of New Testament books that were accepted by the churches known to the anonymous author of the fragment, thus an early list of which were accepted as canonical. It was discovered in the Ambrosian Library in, IrenaeusIrenaeus (c. 130 202) was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, which is now Lyons, France. He is recognized as a saint by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology., Tertullian, Clement and Origen), all points to Luke, the companion and fellow-worker of Paul ( Philemon 24), who probably accompanied him as physician also ( Colossians 4:14). If, as some scholars believe, 2 Timothy was written during Paul's imprisonment at Rome, Luke was with him then as his faithful companion to the last (2 Tim. 4:11). It must be noted too that evidence for his authorship of the third Gospel counts also for Acts (compare Luke 1:1-4 with Acts 1:1). Although the writer nowhere mentions himself by name, the tradition of Luke's authorship of these works stretches back at least to the second quarter of the 2nd century to ( Justin, Dial. 103, and most probably Marcion), when Luke no doubt stood at the head of the Gospel. Even Eusebius, who knew the earliest Christian literature intimately, is unaware of any other tradition of authorship.
If, then, the traditional Lucan authorship is to be doubted, it must be on internal evidence only. The form of the book, however, in all respects favors Luke, who was of non-Jewish birth (see Col. 4:12-14 compared with 10f), and as a physician presumably a man of culture. The medical cast of much of its language, which is often of a highly technical nature, points strongly the same way; while the early tradition that Luke was born in Antioch admirably suits the fulness with which the origin of the Antiochene Church and its place in the further extension of the Gospel are described. Again, the attitude of Acts towards the Roman Empire is just what would be expected from a close comrade of Paul (compare Sir W.M. Ramsay , St Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen, 1895), but was hardly likely to be shared by one of the next generation, reared in an atmosphere of resentment, first at Nero's conduct and then at the persecuting policy of the Flavian emperors.
Finally, the book itself seems to claim to be written by a companion of Paul. In 16:10 the writer, without any previous warning, passes from the third person to the first. Paul had reached Troas. There he saw a vision inviting him to go to Macedonia. "But when he saw the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into Macedonia." Thenceforth "we" re-emerges three moretimes in the narrative (20:5-22; 21:12-18;27:1-28:16) until Rome is reached. (The Western text of Acts, discussed more fully below, attests to the first person plural being used at 11:28, a variant that has attracted the speculation of many scholars.) Irenaeus (iii. 14. 1) quotes these passages as proof that Luke, the author, was a companion of the apostle. The minute character of the narrative, the accurate description of the various journeyings, the unimportance of some of the details, especially some of the incidents of the shipwreck, are strong reasons for believing that the narrative is that of an eyewitness. If so, we can scarcely help coming to the conclusion that this eye-witness was the author of the work; for the style of this eye-witness is exactly the style of the writer who composed the previous portions (see Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, reinforcing the argument as already worked out by B. Weiss, 1893, and especially by Sir J. C. Hawkins in Horae Synopticae, 1899, pp. 143-147).
So far from the recognition of a plan in Acts being inimical to a quest after the materials used in its composition, one may say that it points the way thereto, while it keeps the literary analysis within scientific limits. The more one realizes the standpoint of the mind pervading the book as a whole, the more one feels that the speeches in the first part of Acts (e.g. that of Stephen) -- and indeed elsewhere, too -- are not "free compositions" of our author, the mere outcome of dramatic idealization such as ancient historians like Thucydides or Polybius allowed themselves. The Christology, for instance of the early Petrine speeches is such as a Gentile Christian writing c. 80 simply could not have imagined. Thus we are forced to assume the use of a certain amount of early Judaeo-Christian material, in the manner in which he used the Gospel of Mark and the Q source in compiling his own Gospel.
C.C. Torrey expressed these suspicions in his thesis (The Composition and the Dates of Acts, 1916) that an Aramaic source underlay the text of Acts 1-15, arguing from (1) the preoccupation of this section on the church at Jerusalem, and on the church's Judaic background, and (2) a Semitic coloring of the language, which he argued was "distinctly translation-Greek" with a number of peculiarities in the language that he claimed were "Semiticisms". While the recovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls have provided us with an irrefutable sample of the language of Palestine in the 1st century AD, severely undermining Torrey's lingusitic arguments, study of the content has led to a general consensus that the author drew from a set of sources associated with Peter that originated in Jerusalem, and a set of sources associated with Paul that, at least in part, originated in Antioch.
In the second half which focuses almost exclusively on Paul's activities, we are confronted by the so-called "we" passages. Their explanation have led to several theories: (1) they are traces of an earlier document -- whether entries in a travel-diary, or a more or less consecutive narrative written later; (2) the use of "we" was due to the author's lapsing unconsciously into the first person plural at certain points where he felt specially identified with the history; (3) or this use of "we" was a feature of an ancient convention when talking about sea-travel (a thesis proposed by V.K. Robbins in 1975, and embraced by such scholars as Helmut Koester). The first hypothesis raises the issue whether the "we" document does or does not lie behind more of the narrative than is definitely indicated by the formula in question (e.g. 13-15, 21:19-16). The second likewise leads to the question whether the presence or absence of "we" may be due to the writer's absorption in his narrative causes, rather than to the writer's mere presence or absence. However, this alternation from third person to first person plural may be due to emphasis, as M. Hengel explains:
Robbins' suggestion has been treated with a certain amount of scepticism based on the examples he has produced for this genre; his examples are drawn from ancient Egyptian, as well as from Mesopotamian, literature, and even his Greek examples are fraught with problems that include the fact many of the examples come from narratives told in the first person. As Joseph A. Fitzmyer notes in his commentary to the Anchor Bible translation of Acts, "this 'conventional' literary device is more alleged than demonstrated."
In both parts, it is very likely that the author collected materials from oral tradition, if not directly from different witnesses. He would have the opportunity to collect materials, varying no doubt in accuracy, but all relatively primitive, whether in Antioch or in Caesarea Palaestina, where he probably resided for some two years in contact with men like Philip the Evangelist (21:8). There and elsewhere he might also learn a good deal from John, surnamed Mark, Peter's friend ( 1 Peter 5:13; Acts 12:12).
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