Then you cant dismiss Acts, as historically not reliable.
I take it you can read, the article explained it very clear for you to pull this pucky.
Its not all or nothing
And we can dismiss certain aspects. If you inew what you were actually talking about, and knew this topic you would know, Paul decsribes himself differently then Acts does.
Acts and Paul contradicts each other. I trust Paul on most of these contradictions.
Historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A key contested issue is the historicity of Luke's depiction of Paul. According to the majority viewpoint, Acts described Paul differently from how Paul describes himself, both factually and theologically
Passages of disputed historical accuracy[edit]
Acts 5:33-39: Theudas[edit]
Main article:
Theudas § The Theudas problem
Acts 5:33-39 gives an account of speech by the 1st century Pharisee
Gamaliel, in which he refers to two first century movements. One of these was led by
Theudas.
[27] Afterwards another was led by
Judas the Galilean.
[28] Josephus placed Judas at the
Census of Quirinius of the year 6 and Theudas under the procurator
Fadus[29] in 44-46. Assuming Acts refers to the same Theudas as Josephus, two problems emerge. First, the order of Judas and Theudas is reversed in Acts 5. Second, Theudas's movement comes after the time when Gamaliel is speaking. However, it is possible that Theudas in Josephus is not the same one as in Acts, or that it is Josephus who has his dates confused.
[30] The early Christian writer
Origen referred to a Theudas active before the birth of Jesus,
[31] although it is possible that this simply draws on the account in
Acts.
Acts 2:41 and 4:4 - Peter's addresses[edit]
Acts 4:4 speaks of
Peter addressing an audience, resulting in the number of Christian converts rising by 5,000 people. A Professor of the New Testament
Robert M. Grant says "Luke evidently regarded himself as a historian, but many questions can be raised in regard to the reliability of his history [
] His statistics are impossible; Peter could not have addressed three thousand hearers [e.g. in
Acts 2:41] without a microphone, and since the population of Jerusalem was about 25-30,000, Christians cannot have numbered five thousand [e.g. Acts 4:4]."
[32]
Grant's estimate of the population of Jerusalem relied on an influential study by Jeremias in 1943.
[33][34] However, Grant does not mention that Jeremias calculated a far higher population figure for festival seasons such as passover, at which he calculated Jerusalem would contain up to 125,000 pilgrims.
[35] Furthermore, the lower estimate of Jeremias is significantly lower than the lowest of the moderate to high estimates made by Wilkinson in 1974 (70,398 under Herod the Great),
[36] Broshi in 1976 (60,000),
[37] Maier in 1976 (50,000, with three times that many during festival seasons),
[38] and Levine in 2002 (60,000-70,000).
[39] Accordingly, Cousland notes that "recent estimates of the population of Jerusalem suggest something in the neighbourhood of a hundred thousand".
[40]
Estimates for the number of Christians in the Roman empire by the end of the 1st century range widely from 7,500,
[41] to more than 50,000.
[42][43]
Acts 6:9: The province of Cilicia[edit]
The
New International Version translation of
Acts 6:9 mentions the Province of
Cilicia during a scene allegedly taking place in mid-30s AD. The
Roman province by that name had been on hiatus from 27 BC and was re-established by Emperor
Vespasian only in 72 AD.
[44] All other translations only mention the name of Cilicia, without referring to it as a province.
Acts 21:38: The sicarii and the Egyptian[edit]
In
Acts 21:38, a Roman asks Paul if he was 'the Egyptian' who led a band of '
sicarii' (literally: 'dagger-men') into the desert. In both The Jewish Wars
[45] and Antiquities of the Jews,
[46] Josephus talks about Jewish nationalist rebels called sicarii directly prior to talking about The Egyptian leading some followers to the
Mount of Olives. Richard Pervo believes that this demonstrates that Luke used Josephus as a source and mistakenly thought that the sicarii were followers of The Egyptian.
[47][48]