How have scholars attempted to resolve the problem of the Dating and Authorship of Luke: Acts.

How have scholars attempted to resolve the problem of

the Dating and Authorship of Luke: Acts.

The problem of anonymous authorship and speculative dating is common to all of the New Testament texts. Added to this is the problem of authenticity in that the Church would have been inclined to ascribe the name of the text to someone with authority in the Church. The authenticity factor sheds light on the selection process of the twenty-seven Christian writings that compile the New Testament Canon. We must bear in mind that these writings are not wholly representative of contemporary literature and that there were many Apocphoral writings that were not integrated along with Luke:Acts. This can be explained either because of a lack of reliability of the content and in particular – the question of orthodoxy which would determine whether the writing would be of interest to the wider Church as a whole. Primarily however – issues of authorship are related to the value the early Church would have placed on a piece of work. For example, the authorship of the Hebrew letters is considered very hazy but the work is acknowledged because it is thought to supply the early Church with useful material. Added to these uncertainties is the possibility that the writing could have been re-worked at a later date and consequently sole authorship cannot be attributed.