The date of the census under Quirinius is A.D. 6, when Jesus would have been about ten years old. In the same connection, there is no evidence that the census was world-wide, or that citizens were obliged to register in their ancestral towns. Acts does not offer a comprehensive time span for Paul s work. Acts almost certainly got the Jerusalem visits wrong. The apostolic decree refers to the stipulations which would be required of gentile converts.
Acts mostly misses the point of the final visit, which was to deliver the collection.
Acts knows nothing of a Paul champing at the bit to be on his way to Spain, via Rome. We have to reckon with other discrepancies between Acts and the data of the letters, on certain more or less important details. It is doubtful whether a general chronology of Paul s career was available to the author, whether in written source or oral tradition. The author had to put together the sequential framework of Acts as best he could. This inference seems to be confirmed by an analysis of the transitional formulas and summaries which the author used to provide continuity between episodes and to give shape to his narrative.