The Acts of Apostles Was Composed Before 100AD

Con: "Pro has completely dropped these (internal evidences) so far."Pro dropped a lot of stuff, and regrettably so, to correct blatant factual errors. Every point I made concerning internal evidences still stands, and Con's responses are mostly poor guesses.THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF ACTS Now that sums it up pretty well.Con: "Even sheer laziness, or the death of the author would make for an explanation"The author of Luke/Acts was ... ummm ... lazy? He just reached the climactic scenes and decided to quit! Con offers that as a plausible explanation. It is actually unworthy of critique. Another one is "death of the author". But Luke reportedly died in at age 84 in Boetia, which places his death closer to the AD 90's - not AD 64. (5) These are splattershot guesses by Con.More Factual Errors, Deja Vous All Over AgainCon: "The vast bulk of the Book of Acts is not written first person, including portions which portray Luke's presence. (Acts 16:10–17, 20:5–15, 21:1–18, and 27:1–28:16)"SIghs. Con cites dozens of passages (above) in which the author employs the word "we" and "us", then proclaims that they are not "written first person". Other than attaching a link to a basic grammar book, I'm not sure how to answer that.*****Con: " (In) A Dialogue with Trypho" and “Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord” respectively, no Luke exclusive or Acts quotes exist in either."...in the Memoirs which, as I have said, were drawn up by the apostles and their followers, it is recorded that sweat fell like drops of blood while He (Jesus) was praying, and saying, 'If it be possible, let this cup pass'." (Dial with Trypho, 103: 8)"And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." (Luke 22: 44)That's a "Luke-exclusive" quote in AD 150 or so - and if not, will Con please advice us as to its source? Surely Con will not claim that Justin quoted from the Gospel of Marcion. *****Con: "Moreover the book itself sets the criterea for apostleship, and Paul fails every single one of them"Acts 1 sets the criteria for apostleship among the original Twelve at that point in time (before the establishment of the church) - not for all time. Then Acts refers to Paul as an apostle. How much plainer can it get? You seek to force a contradiction upon Luke based upon your own misapprehension of the matter.*****Con: "However no such passage authentically exists in Josephus."Yes, it does. Notice that Con has an on-again, off-again love affair with textual criticism. " ... The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" (4) is regarded as genuine, whereas the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely an interpolation containing Christian additions.REBUTTALCon: "Tertullian is writing of events he is many decades removed from being contemporary (he was born in 160AD)"Why, it seems to me that Tertullian should have been very contemporary with your hypothesized date of composition of Acts (if not also Luke), and no doubt he had close contacts who greatly pre-dated your proposed date. Suffice to say that Tertullian had every opportunity to know that the Gospel of Luke was not of recent (AD 160-180) origin.*****Con: "I have read these passages dozens of times, and I have yet to find a miracle in them."You read Paul's statement, "I speak with tongues more than ye all" dozens of times and came to the conclusion that speaking fluently in a language that one has never studied does not constitute a miracle?*****Con: "Paul knows virtully nothing of Jesus' life as a human. Jesus is entirely revelatory to Paul in his epistles.[8]"I cannot find Con's "footnote 8", but I assume he is referring to the gospel of Christ - not the details of Jesus' "life as a human." At any rate, Con's statement is untrue. Paul instructed his followers to "have the mind of Christ" which implies Paul's knowledge of Christ's mind, His teachings, and the like.*****Con: "Con gives absolutely no reason to believe that Clement composed this epistle, and her entire argument is unsound until she does so."I am not out to prove that Clement of Rome wrote 1 Clement. All of antiquity testifies to that without a single dissent just as all of antiquity testifies that Marcion corrupted the Gospel of Luke, again without a single dissent. To the contrary, if you wish to dispute traditional authorship, don't quibble about it. Make a case for it.*****Con: "Pro seems to advocate for Lukan priority over Josephus ... Certainly I do. Con: "... moreover the disagreements are likely born of theological motivations."Theological motivations? Why, most of the discrepancies have nothing at all to do with theology. They are simple factual discrepancies, some involving minutiae. Even the supposed similarities rely almost entirely on Theudas and Judas the Galilean being mentioned in both works. (6) ***** Con: "Pro has not challenged my argument that the Gospel of Marcion is a late composition."I do not challenge that it is a late adulteration, a perversion of the Gospel of Luke*****Con: "falsified by the level of disagreement within the synoptics."Petitio principii again. I have not conceded any disagreement at all among the Synoptics - and if we depend on Con to point these out, we'll spend infinitely more of our time correcting his own factual errors rather than dealing with any proposed discrepancies.*****Con: "Moreover, the quantity of parallels rules a common source unlikely, no such source is extant today either""No such source extant today" has never slowed down a true skeptic. Where none exists, and there is no record that one ever existed, they'll make one up. ***** Con: "Pro depicts the author as a travelling companion of Paul."The author himself depicts himself as a travelling companion of Paul which makes absolutely no sense if the author was writing to Theophilus of Antioch in AD 170 or so.Con's Theory of the Gospel of MarcionCon's theory is basically that an orthodox Christian apologist- certainly not Luke, the companion of Paul - wrote a later fabricated gospel account and history to Theophilus, bishop of Antioch circa AD 170 as a type of rebuttal against the Gospel of Marcion, the latter being composed around AD 125. This rebuttal came to be known as Luke/Acts. Con says, "The simplest and cleanest explanation is it is addressed to Theophilus of Antioch."Con, recognizing the difficulty presented by the "we" and "us" passages, has further speculated that these 30 or 40 passages scattered throughout Acts 16 through Acts 28 were somehow later sneaked in! To boot, nobody caught on! And Con professes a lack of belief in miracles? It seems to me that Con advocates the miraculous. It would be about like Con writing an historical narrative to Queen Elizabeth today in which he professes to have been with Alexander Graham Bell when he invented the telephone back around 1870 - and strangely enough, such a farce would fool the queen and the overwhelming bulk of the scholars of Great Britain. A prophesy of the fall of Jerusalem would be more believable than that.*****Con states: "Our earliest reliable mentions of the Gospel of Luke or Acts are from Irenaeus and Tertullian writing ~180AD, and ~ 208AD respectively."... and right there is a basic problem with the historical method when used alone, i. e. when ignoring input from other methodologies.1. Con seeks to get mileage out of the fact that the Gospels and Acts were originally unnamed.2. Notice that Con carefully avoids asserting that this is the first time the works are referenced, realizing that the habit of early writers was to cite the books, the "Memoirs of the Apostles" according to Justin, without attributing authorship.3. Con further seeks to get mileage out of the fact that other works well known to Iranaeus and even Eusebius are no longer extant.4. Con implies that the statement by Iranaeus constituted a very new position, a position unknown to his predecessors.Con's mind apparently works this way: (1) Iranaeus first mentions Luke and Act in AD 177-180 AD, and (2) hence, we can trace Luke/Acts back to 177-180 AD - and no further! That's not how it works! Iranaeus got his information from somewhere, for Iranaeus stated,"We have not received the knowledge ... by any others than those by whom the gospel has been brought down to us. Which gospel they first preached, and afterwards, by the will of God, committed to writing ... and Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by him (Paul)." (2)Who were these "others"? After all, Iranaeus didn't just awaken one morning in AD 177 with a woodie and exclaim, "Hot dayum, Paul's companion Luke wrote those books!" Con knows that, yet that's his position. The following sums up Iraneus's known sources: 1. As a youth, Iranaeus had been a disciple of Polycarp who in turn was a disciple of the Apostle John.2. Papias (circa 70-163), writes Iraneaus, was "an ancient man who was a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp".3. Iraneaus was immediately preceded as bishop of Lyon by Pothinus, who according to Iranaeus died in AD 177. Later in life, Iranaeus worked closely with Pothinus. As a priest in Lyon in about AD 170, Iraneaus wrote on behalf of Pothinus and the churches in Lyon and Vienna to the churches in Asia and Phyrgia. (3) Once again, in the letter, we have direct quotes traceable to both Luke and Acts referenced.So there are three characters, two of whom were intimate associates of Iranaeus, whose memories linked right back to the first century. No doubt dozens of other such men existed. Con's argument against the early date is based purely on philosophical grounds which he attempts to disguise as the "historical-critical method" of criticism.(2) Iranaeus, Adv. Her., 1, iii, ch 8(3) Lardner, Cred., vol i, p. 232 as quoted in Paley's Evidences ed. by Whately, p. 131(4) Josephus, Anti, 20: 9: 1(5) Anti-Marcionite Prologue to the Gospel of Luke(6) Acts 5:36-37 compared to Josephus Antiquities 20:97-99, 102