Beyond these considerations, we need to add that uncertainty remains whether the Gallio hearing is even traditional material, as Luedemann believes it to be. However, we note very little correlation between the episodes in these chapters and what we find in the letters. In any case, where Acts correctly gives the order of events, it is the letters as primary sources that warrant the correctness of Acts, a secondary source. It is not recklessness but caution that prompts us to leave Acts to one side and to depend exclusively upon the letters as we reconstruct Paul s story. We offer the following reasons.
Acts is flawed by internal inconsistencies and anachronisms, especially in the earlier part.
We call attention to the Chart of an Acts Chronology , which shows something of the framework and data offered by the author, without their being assimilated to the data of the letters. 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.