I’ve been reading about the “we” passages and the argument that Acts probably was not written by one of Paul’s companions because its author seems unfamiliar with Paul’s chronology, relationships and theology. I understand why Paul’s undisputed letters should take priority when reconstructing his life, but I’m wondering how many of these differences are genuine contradictions rather than differences in emphasis, compression or omission.

For example, Galatians 1:22 says Paul was “unknown by face” to the churches of Judea, while Acts 9:26–30 has him meeting the apostles and preaching publicly in Jerusalem. But Paul cannot mean literally no Judean Christian knew him: he had just spent fifteen days with Cephas and met James. Galatians 1:23 also says the churches had heard about him but had not personally met him.

Could “the churches of Judea” mean congregations outside Jerusalem, or Judean Christians generally rather than every individual? Acts 9 describes activity in Jerusalem, not a tour of the wider churches. Acts 26:20 does later summarize Paul as preaching throughout Judea, but it does not provide a clear chronology or say that he personally met the established Christian congregations there.

Acts 15 and Galatians 2 also present the Jerusalem meeting differently. Paul emphasizes his independence and a private meeting with the recognized leaders, while Acts emphasizes public debate, church unity and the apostolic decree. Yet both accounts concern Gentile circumcision, involve Peter and James, and end with recognition of Paul’s Gentile mission. Craig Keener argues that many of the differences are omissions of detail of the kind found in ancient histories and eyewitness testimony. He also suggests that the authors have different purposes: Paul stresses his independence, while Luke retrospectively stresses continuity between Paul and Jerusalem (Galatians, 2018, pp. 2, 6–7).

Could the theological differences partly reflect genre as well? Paul’s letters are occasional and polemical, whereas Acts presents speeches composed, paraphrased or summarized by its author. Acts does not reproduce Paul’s characteristic language concerning participation “in Christ,” justification or the theology of the cross in anything like the depth of Romans and Galatians. Nevertheless, Acts 13:38–39 sounds recognizably Pauline: everyone who believes is justified or freed through Jesus in a way the law of Moses could not accomplish. William Walker therefore argued that, whatever Acts’ relationship to Paul’s letters, its author was not ignorant of the main outlines of Paul’s teaching.

Michael Thompson argues more directly that developments in Pauline scholarship have made the differences between Acts and Paul appear less substantial than they once did. On the other hand, Ryan Schellenberg argues that Acts’ geographical framework could have been reconstructed from Paul’s letters. Its accurate knowledge of Paul’s major locations would therefore not necessarily prove firsthand participation.

Could an intermittent companion have written Acts decades later without knowing Paul’s entire earlier career firsthand? He might have reconstructed those periods from incomplete traditions, compressed the chronology, omitted events irrelevant to his narrative and presented Paul through his own theological framework. That could explain why the “we” sections feel immediate while other sections appear more removed from Paul.

I’m not asking whether every difference can be harmonized. I’m asking how scholars determine when differences in selection, genre or perspective become evidence that the author could not have known Paul. Are there particular discrepancies that are genuinely irreconcilable, or is the argument mainly cumulative? Is Vielhauer’s influential picture of a fundamentally “non-Pauline Paul” in Acts still widely accepted, or has scholarship become more cautious about it?

Sources
Craig S. Keener, Galatians, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2018), especially pp. 1–7.
Ryan S. Schellenberg, “The First Pauline Chronologist? Paul’s Itinerary in the Letters and in Acts,” Journal of Biblical Literature 134.1 (2015): 193–213.
Michael B. Thompson, “Paul in the Book of Acts: Differences and Distance,” The Expository Times 122.9 (2011): 425–436.
Philipp Vielhauer, “On the ‘Paulinism’ of Acts,” in Studies in Luke–Acts, edited by Leander E. Keck and J. Louis Martyn (Abingdon, 1966), 33–50.
William O. Walker Jr., “Acts and the Pauline Corpus Reconsidered,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 7.24 (1985): 3–23.

Acts 19 has Paul arrive in Ephesus and show disciples of "John" a better baptism. This John is implied to be John the Baptist, especially with verse 4. But, do we have any evidence of disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus, or Asia Minor in general? I thought our sources seem to indicate that his disciples and the Mandaeans were located in the Levant, Jordan and Mesopotamia? Or am I wrong on this? Is Acts creating fiction here?

I just wonder how a Christian in Ephesus reading/hearing Acts 19 for the first time would interpret Paul usurping a "John" there. Asian traditions seem to imply there was a famous John in Ephesus specifically. Polycrates of Ephesus even has this to say:

and, moreover, John, who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and, being a priest, wore the sacerdotal plate.

§ 5.24.3  He fell asleep at Ephesus.

Sorry if I'm grasping at straws here but it's just that the start of Acts 19 rubs me the wrong way. Regardless of when you date Acts, you'd think the author would be a bit clearer on this John not being the John highly associated with Ephesus.

If Jesus’ objective was to proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles, how can we explain the fact that the Gospels explicitly record him performing miracles on behalf of individuals who were not part of Israel, such as the healing of the royal official’s son (John 4:46–54) and the healing of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter (Mark 7:24–30; Matthew 15:21–28)? Do these accounts suggest that Jesus’ mission was not exclusively directed toward the Jews, but that the inclusion of the Gentiles was already part of his purpose from the very beginning?

I want to investigate a bit more about historical figures in history, whose life was full of mythical and supernatural deeds like for example Jesus. We know that there was a historical Jesus but after decades his death, we have people creating different miracles and other events in his life.

Is there a book out there that takes similar cases to the life of Jesus, men who after their death they have multiple mythical or miraculous deeds?

People outside of Judaism

I just have a bunch of questions about the empty tomb theory, explanations for the empty tomb, etc.

And credits to the authors of the following resources for what I so far have learned about the stuff related to this post…
“How Empty Was the Tomb?” by Mark Goodacre

“The Case Against the Empty Tomb” by Peter Kirby

“The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel, specifically chapter 12

Questions:

Is there any way to know what type of burial Paul’s writings imply? He never explicitly mentions a tomb, but he does mention the burial of Jesus in his writings such as in the 1 Corinthians 15 creed. Are there any other burial accounts pre-dating 1 Corinthians? Is there any counter-evidence to the possibility of Paul referring to a tomb burial here?

Pretty much all the burial accounts claim that Jesus was buried in a tomb. How then do some prominent scholars believe he was left on the cross to be devoured by birds? There are no accounts of this, and the only evidence for it is that it’s just a possibility because that was typical Roman execution practice. But we have corroborating archeological evidence that a crucifixion victim named Johanan was buried in an elite tomb like Jesus, so shouldn’t the tomb burial be more plausible than the birds theory?

Did Mark even believe that Jesus had risen from the dead? How long were the women silent for after seeing the missing body?

According to Mark Goodacre’s article, rock-hewn tombs kept multiple bodies, and there is no record of a single-person tomb from the time that Jesus would have been crucified. This makes it highly unlikely that Jesus would have been the only one in the tomb, and even if he left, the tomb probably wouldn’t have been empty. I think the empty tomb theory should be rephrased to the missing body theory because of this. The following are a list of explanations for the missing body, and I’m wondering which ones seem the most plausible? Also which of them seem least plausible?
Disciples stole the body: lol umm what? Is there even any logic behind this argument? If there is, I'd like to know but I don’t see this as plausible thus far.

Jewish authorities stole the body: maybe they did this to prevent his followers from starting a shrine or cult or protest or whatever? That would be hilariously ironic if they actually did this to prevent a cult and then oops looks like that’s what started today’s most prominent religion!

Swoon theory: Considering the torment Jesus would have went through during the crucifixion there’s almost no chance that he wouldn’t have died. Even if he did manage to survive, he would be in critical condition and wouldn’t be the type of person that a whole movement could start from. Unless of course I could be wrong. 

Left on the cross to be devoured by birds: as explained above, but then according to this theory he was probably taken down eventually and tossed in a common grave. 

Wrong tomb theory

Wrong body: maybe they went to the right tomb, but since it was a multi-person tomb then the witnesses saw an empty spot and thought that must have been where Jesus’ body was supposed to be when really it could have been laying two pews over. 

Buried shamefully in the sand by Jewish enemies: like the Secret Gospel of James mentions.

The resurrection theory: still a possibility, if none of the naturalistic explanations outweigh this one. 

Any insight is helpful! Thanks in advance for your answers!