Acts Knows Greece. It Also Knows Judea. Here Are the Receipts. (C.J. Cornthwaite Response)

Acts gets tons of tiny historical details right. For instance, Luke keeps using the exact local titles for officials.

At Philippi, he first calls the officials archontes, a general word for rulers, and then uses their proper Roman colonial title, strategoi (Acts 16:19, 22). In Thessalonica, they are politarchs (Acts 17:6). In Athens, a member of the ruling council is an Areopagite (Acts 17:34). Gallio is correctly called the proconsul of Achaia at Corinth, which places Paul there around AD 51–52 (Acts 18:12). In Ephesus, Luke gets three more local terms right: grammateus for the city clerk, neōkoros for Ephesus as temple keeper, and agoraioi for the court sessions held under the proconsuls (Acts 19:35, 38). Luke calls Publius “the first man of the island” (ho protos ho nēsos) after Paul’s shipwreck (Acts 28:7). Inscriptions from Malta confirm that “First Man” was the title used for the island’s top official.

That’s just one category. Colin Hemer lists 84 verifiable details in Acts 13–28 involving overland routes, cities, landmarks, political boundaries, sea routes, local religious practices, customs, local religious beliefs, languages, dialects, and even slang.

Canadian New Testament scholar and YouTuber C. J. Cornthwaite grants this. In a recent video collaboration with Bart Ehrman, C.J.’s answer is that Luke did a huge amount of homework. Maybe he used maps, travel documents, eyewitness reports, and literary sources. Maybe he traveled through parts of the Mediterranean himself and later used that knowledge to spin a convincing yarn. Accurate details don’t prove that Luke traveled with Paul or met other apostles. 

Leaning on the scholar John Kloppenberg, Cornthwaite says the real test is Palestine. That’s where Luke goofs up plenty of times and shows his hand. (Supposedly.)

Then Cornthwaite goes full Steve Mason. Luke supposedly mined Josephus for Judean history and occasionally twisted what he read. He reversed Theudas and Judas, mashed the Egyptian prophet together with the Sicarii, and lifted background information about rulers like Felix and Agrippa. So that’s the theory in a nutshell. Watch the video for the full argument. 

The problem is that most of these supposed “mistakes” are, well…there’s no nice way to say it. They’re shockingly bad. Let’s take a look.

Luke Did Not Understand the Climb From Jericho to Jerusalem

Cornthwaite says Luke does not seem to know there is a “huge climb” between Jericho and Jerusalem. Um, what?

• In the Good Samaritan parable, Luke says: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho” (Luke 10:30).
• Then, after Jesus passes through Jericho, Luke says: “He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem” (Luke 19:28).

Cornthwaite never gives a verse where Luke gets the climb wrong. He just says Luke doesn’t know about something Luke directly correctly states twice. This is C.J.’s worst mistake in the video.

Luke Wrongly Calls Bethsaida a Polis

Cornthwaite says Bethsaida was only a village, so Luke calling it a polis shows that he did not understand the area. This isn’t a mistake at all.

Josephus says Philip raised Bethsaida from a village to the status of a city around this period (Antiquities 18.28). Whether that happened shortly before or after the feeding isn’t for certain. Either way, Luke wrote later and used the status by which Bethsaida was then known. That’s no more a geographical mistake than calling Paul’s birthplace “Tarsus in Turkey.” It uses the familiar later description to identify the same place.

Bethsaida Cannot Be Both a City and a “Deserted Place”

Cornthwaite asks how Luke can link the feeding to Bethsaida while calling the spot “deserted.” If Bethsaida was a city, why look elsewhere for food? This seems to assume Luke is a dummy who can’t keep his own story straight.

Maybe the feeding didn’t happen downtown? Luke connects the event with Bethsaida (Luke 9:10), then says the actual spot was deserted, with villages and countryside nearby (Luke 9:12). That fits fine. If I say I went camping in Denver, nobody thinks I pitched my tent downtown. Denver names the general area. “Deserted place” tells you where I camped. Mark uses place names the same way when he mentions “the villages of Caesarea Philippi” (Mark 8:27).

There were five thousand men there (Luke 9:14). Matthew says five thousand plus women and children. (Matthew 14:21) So Bethsaida naturally wouldn’t have thousands of meals ready for an unexpected crowd, so sending them into nearby villages makes sense.

John casually adds that Jesus asks Philip where to buy bread (John 6:5), but never says why. But Philip is hardly a main character in John, he speaks only a few times. Wouldn’t a fiction writer use a more well-known disciple, like Peter? Or maybe Judas, since he had the money bag? Elsewhere, John tells us Philip was from Bethsaida (John 1:44; 12:21). But interestingly, Luke is the only evangelist that gives the place where the feeding happened. Put together, the picture makes sense: John gives the local guy, which makes sense of the question. The two sources interlock in an undesigned way that points to truth.

Luke Mistakes Samaria for a City

Cornthwaite points to Acts 8:5, where Philip goes to “the city of Samaria,” and says Luke confused the region with a city. Some manuscripts read “a city of Samaria.” But even if we take the harder reading, this objection fails badly.

Samaria was both a region and a city. Josephus says Herod rebuilt the city of Samaria, filled it with settlers, and renamed it Sebaste (Antiquities 15.292–298). He also calls it “Samaria, which he named Sebaste” (Antiquities 15.246). The new name didn’t automatically erase the old one, just like the name “Sea of Tiberias” co-existed with “Sea of Galilee” and “Lake of Gennesaret” (John 6:1; Luke 5:1). Saying “Samaria” no more shows confusion than saying “New York” means you can’t tell the city from the state.

Worse for C.J., Acts clearly knows the difference:

• Jesus distinguishes “Judea and Samaria” in Acts 1:8.
• The believers scatter through “the regions of Judea and Samaria” in Acts 8:1.
• Simon practices magic “in the city” in Acts 8:9.
• Peter and John preach in “many villages of the Samaritans” in Acts 8:25.
• The church has peace throughout “Judea and Galilee and Samaria” in Acts 9:31.

Luke knows Samaria is a region with cities and villages. Cornthwaite has failed to carefully read Acts, and has ignored Josephus.

Luke Calls Nazareth a Polis

Cornthwaite says Luke calls Nazareth a polis even though it was a tiny village. He then guesses at Luke’s motive: Luke wanted Jesus to sound less like a backwater hick.

But Luke openly shows Jesus’ poor background. Mary speaks of her “humble estate” (Luke 1:48). Jesus is laid in a feeding trough because there is no room for him (Luke 2:7). His parents bring the sacrifice allowed for poor families (Luke 2:24; Leviticus 12:8). Luke isn’t trying to hide Jesus’ humble origins. If anything, he makes it into a big deal. And Matthew also calls Nazareth a polis (Matthew 2:23), so this isn’t exclusively a Luke thing.

But all this motive reading is off the mark, anyway. Josephus calls Lydda a kōmē, or village, while saying it was “not less than a polis in size” (Antiquities 20.130). Elsewhere, he simply calls Lydda a polis (Jewish War 2.515).

Josephus grew up in Jerusalem and commanded troops in Galilee (Life 1–15; Jewish War 2.568). Yet he could call the same place a village in one book and a polis in another. These terms were a lot more flexible than C.J. thinks. If Josephus can use polis this way without being clueless about Palestine, so can Luke.

Luke’s Journey to Jerusalem Is Geographically Confused

Luke says Jesus “set his face” toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51). Yet much later, Jesus is traveling “between Samaria and Galilee” (Luke 17:11). Since Samaria sits south of Galilee, why is Jesus still near their border instead of farther south?

But Luke never says Jesus took a straight route through Samaria. The Greek phrase in Luke 17:11 has been translated “between Samaria and Galilee,” “along the border,” or “through Samaria and Galilee.” Jesus could travel east along the border, head toward the Jordan, go south through Perea, and then turn west toward Jerusalem.

Luke 13 gives us a strong clue that this may be what happened. While Jesus is traveling toward Jerusalem (Luke 13:22), some Pharisees warn him that Herod Antipas wants to kill him (Luke 13:31). But Luke only tells us that Antipas ruled Galilee (Luke 3:1; 23:5–12). If Jesus had left Galilee, why was Antipas still a threat?

Josephus gives us the missing detail. Antipas ruled both Galilee and Perea, the land east of the Jordan (Antiquities 17.318–320). The other Gospels place Jesus in that same area late in his ministry. Matthew and Mark say he traveled “beyond the Jordan” (Matthew 19:1; Mark 10:1). John also places him across the Jordan shortly before his final trip to Jerusalem (John 10:40–11:18).

The pieces fit:

• Luke gives us the threat from Antipas.
• Matthew, Mark, and John place Jesus east of the Jordan.
• Josephus tells us that Antipas ruled that land.

Luke never names Perea or explains why Antipas still had power there. He just reports the event. That’s a weird way to fake local realism from Josephus, but it makes perfect sense if Luke preserved a real part of Jesus’ travels.

There’s also a good reason not to cut straight through Samaria. A Samaritan village had already refused to welcome Jesus because he was going to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51–56). Josephus tells us that under Cumanus, Samaritans killed a Galilean pilgrim traveling to Jerusalem, sparking a larger fight (Jewish War 2.232–246; Antiquities 20.118–136). So we find out that this was in fact a dangerous route, and tensions were high between Samaritans and travelers from Galilee to Jerusalem. Moreover, to travel east along the border would keep Jesus and his disciples near fresh water.

Most importantly, Luke 9–18 isn’t some kind of day-by-day travel log. Luke keeps reminding us that Jesus is heading toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51; 13:22; 17:11; 18:31), but he chunks sayings and events without giving each stop or date. He might not know what story or teaching happened when and where, but that’s achronological narration—meaning narrating without meaning to indicate an order of time. This isn’t a reason to assume Luke is ignorant about the regional inland geography.

Luke Supposedly Gets the Distance to Emmaus Wrong

This is is the only argument C.J. has that rises to the level of a real objection. Luke says Emmaus was sixty stadia from Jerusalem, roughly six to eight miles (Luke 24:13). Cornthwaite identifies it with Emmaus-Nicopolis, about nineteen miles away, and concludes that Luke knew the place but botched the distance.

But the problem is there wasn’t just one Emmaus. Extra-biblical sources mention at least three:

1. An Emmaus near Tiberias in Galilee (Antiquities 18.36; Jewish War 4.11).
2. An Emmaus in the hill country of Judah (Jewish War 7.217).
3. An Emmaus in the Shephelah lowlands, mentioned by Josephus and 1 Maccabees 3–4.

The Galilean site is obviously too far away. Nicopolis is the traditional identification because Eusebius connects Luke’s Emmaus with the place later called Nicopolis (Onomasticon 88). But Nicopolis lies around 160 stadia from Jerusalem, not sixty. Some manuscripts of Luke do read 160, including Codex Sinaiticus, but the better-attested reading in Papyrus 75 and Codex Vaticanus is sixty.

The 160 stadia reading is problematic for other reasons. The disciples reach Emmaus near evening, recognize Jesus during the meal, and then immediately return to Jerusalem (Luke 24:28–35). When they arrive, the apostles are still gathered and food from the evening meal is apparently still available (Luke 24:33, 41–43). If Emmaus were Nicopolis, they traveled roughly nineteen miles back to Jerusalem, uphill and after dark, and still arrived while everyone was gathered around the dinner table. That doesn’t work.

However, Josephus mentions another Emmaus only thirty stadia from Jerusalem in the hill country of Judah (Jewish War 7.217), commonly associated with modern day Mozah. This is probably a better fit although it does have its own problems. Luke’s sixty stadia could reflect the complete journey out and back, although that would be an unusual way to state the distance. Still, Mozah fits the terrain and makes the evening return much easier.

At worst, Luke may have made a good-faith measurement error. but this doesn’t do the work Cornthwaite needs for his argument to succeed. I don’t think he can confidently say “it must be Nicopolis and ONLY Nicopolis, therefore Luke is clueless about the region.”

Did Luke Get His Judean History From Josephus?

Cornthwaite, drinking the Steve Mason Kool-Aid, argues that Acts copies Josephus. Acts 21:38 is one passage that allegedly contains a fingerprint of Luke’s dependence. Josephus discusses the Sicarii and then, a few paragraphs later, the Egyptian prophet (Jewish War 2.254–263). Acts calls the Egyptian’s followers Sicarii. Therefore, Luke supposedly remembered two neighboring sections of Josephus and accidentally mashed them together.

But this is a mess. It only works by treating agreement and disagreement as evidence for the same theory. It’s an unfalsifiable theory.

Acts says the Egyptian led about 4,000 Sicarii into the wilderness (Acts 21:38). Josephus describes him as a prophetic figure who gathered 30,000 followers, led them from the wilderness to the Mount of Olives, and promised that Jerusalem’s walls would collapse so they could seize the city (Jewish War 2.261–263; Antiquities 20.169–172).

So Luke changes the size of the movement, the identity of its members, and the most memorable feature of Josephus’ account? I mean, I guess that’s possible. But why think a thing like that? 

Mason admits these differences but blames Luke’s poor memory. Apparently Luke remembered that Josephus discussed the Sicarii near the Egyptian but forgot almost everything Josephus actually said about the Egyptian.

As Ben Witherington asks, does poor memory really explain the change from 30,000 to 4,000? Did Luke just pick a number at random because Josephus’ number slipped his mind? (The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, pp. 237–238).

There’s a simpler explanation: The Egyptian led a real public movement during Felix’s administration. Acts and Josephus preserve independent reports about it, and those reports disagreed over his numbers and followers. Luke did not need Josephus to know about a revolt remembered by Roman officials in Judea.

Cornthwaite, borrowing Mason, has a stronger example in Theudas. In Acts 5:36–37, Gamaliel mentions Theudas and then Judas the Galilean. Josephus discusses Theudas and then, a few paragraphs later, mentions the sons of Judas and reminds readers of Judas’ earlier revolt (Antiquities 20.97–102). Mason argues that Luke remembered Josephus’ paragraph order, confused Judas with his sons, and forgot that Judas had lived decades before Josephus’ Theudas. That’s some rather interesting selective memory.

Luke supposedly remembers the order of two neighboring paragraphs but forgets their actual substance. As F. F. Bruce puts it, “only a very superficial and cursory glance at Josephus could give a reader the impression that Judas himself came after Theudas” (quoted in Witherington, Acts, p. 238).

Luke also drops Josephus’ most memorable detail. Josephus says Theudas presented himself as a prophet and promised to divide the Jordan river (a la Joshua) so his followers could cross (Antiquities 20.97–99). That would have made Theudas a perfect false-prophet-like-Moses foil for Luke’s portrayal of Jesus. But Luke says nothing about it.

Apparently Luke remembered where Josephus put the paragraph but forgot the chronology, Fadus, the Jordan miracle, the cavalry attack, and Theudas’ beheading.

There are other, better options:

• Josephus may have misdated his Theudas. Josephus rearranges episodes and creates chronological problems elsewhere, so we can’t simply treat him as the measuring stick and declare Luke wrong whenever they differ.
• Then there is the possibility of two men named Theudas. As Witherington points out, the name appears repeatedly in Greek inscriptions (CIG 2684, 3563, 3920, 5698). And Josephus himself records four rebel leaders named Simon within roughly forty years and three named Judas within about ten years.

Josephus also doesn’t describe every rebel who ever gathered a following. The period was full of obscure rebels, prophets, and wannabe Messianic figures (Antiquities 17.269–285; 20.167–172). An earlier Theudas not mentioned by Josephus isn’t some desperate apologist save of Acts. 

C.J. and Mason really should remember the lesson of Lysanias. Luke places “Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene” during Tiberius’ reign (Luke 3:1). Josephus knew a Lysanias who ruled the same region but was executed decades before Jesus was born (Antiquities 15.92). Critics decided Luke had grabbed the right name and dropped it into the wrong century.

Then the Abila inscription was discovered. It names “Lysanias the tetrarch” and was dedicated for the welfare of the “Augusti,” commonly understood as Tiberius and his mother Livia. So a later Lysanias connected with Abilene fit exactly.

That is why “Josephus only mentions one Theudas” doesn’t prove much. People reused names, especially within the same families and regions.

Acts also drops historical figures into the story, gets their surrounding details right, and never explains the background that makes the scene hit so hard. Josephus supplies that background. Acts does not look like an author showing off notes he mined from Josephus. It looks like an author telling a story whose participants already belong to that world.

Take Ananias. In Acts 23:1–3, the high priest Ananias orders Paul struck on the mouth before Paul finishes his opening statement. Paul fires back: “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall!” (Acts 23:3)

Luke gives no biography of Ananias. He never tells us why this act fits the man, but Josephus does. Ananias acted more like a mafia boss than a high priest. He hoarded money, bought political influence with gifts, and employed violent goons. Those hired thugs raided threshing floors, stole the tithes belonging to ordinary priests, and beat up anyone who resisted. Josephus tells us that it became so bad that some of the priests starved (Antiquities 20.205–207). That’s the guy who orders Paul punched in the face. 

But there’s more. Why is it that Paul didn’t realize who the high priest was? Wouldn’t a guy like Paul, a self-proclaimed Pharisee of Pharisees, recognize the high priest? 

Ananias was the son of Nebedinus (Antiquities 20.5.3), who occupied the office of high priest when Quadratus (Felix’s predecessor) was president of Syria. Josephus reports that he was sent bound to Rome by Quadratus in order to give an account of his crimes to Claudius Caesar (Antiquities 20.6.2). Agrippa got involved and pleaded their case, and they were dismissed and went back to Jerusalem. 

While it’s not clear whether he got his old job back as high priest or not, some scholars argue that Ananias didn’t. Josephus seems to indicate as much. He was succeeded by Jonathan, as is shown by the fact that Josephus refers to one called Jonathan occupying the office of high priest during the government of Felix. This would imply that Ananias’ high priesthood was interrupted (Antiquities 20.8.5). Jonathan himself was murdered in the temple by Felix’s own conspiracy (Antiquities 20.8.5).

Following Jonathan’s death, no one held the job of high priest until Ismael, the son of Fabi, was given the job by King Agrippa (Antiquities 20.8.8). The events in Acts 23 took place right at this time. Ananias was in Jerusalem and the office of the high priesthood was unoccupied. It looks like Ananias acted on his own and kept showing up to work even though he was fired. This makes sense of Paul’s words in Acts 23:5: “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest.” Paul was probably being salty, because he knew wasn’t really the high priest. This fits Paul’s use of sarcasm we see throughout his letters. (1 Cor 4.8-10, 14:36, 2 Cor 11:19-21, 12:13, Gal 5:12)

But Luke doesn’t even take the time to explain the historical backstory in his account of this event. The sources interlock in a way that points to the truth of the story we find in Acts. If Luke were mining Josephus for dramatic material, Josephus gave him bribery, hired thugs, stolen tithes, beaten priests, and starvation, and the fact that Ananias was acting as the high priest. Luke simply puts Ananias into the story, lets him act exactly like Josephus’ Ananias, and moves on.

Next up, there is Felix and Drusilla. Acts says Felix arrived with “Drusilla, his wife, who was Jewish” (Acts 24:24). Paul speaks to them about “righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment,” and Felix becomes frightened (Acts 24:25). Luke never explains who Drusilla was or why those topics might make this couple feel so awkward.

Josephus spills the tea. Drusilla was the daughter of Agrippa I and had been married to Azizus, king of Emesa. Felix saw her, lusted after her, and sent a Jewish magician named Simon to smooth-talking her into ditching Azizus and marrying him. Josephus says she was persuaded “to transgress the laws of her forefathers” (Antiquities 19.354; 20.139–144).

Paul is preaching righteousness and self-control to an evil governor sitting beside the woman he persuaded to leave her husband. Then he gets to God’s judgment, and Felix suddenly gets nervous. But again, Luke never explains the scandal.

So, Mason’s theory now needs two completely different Lukes. When the accounts differ in big ways, Luke is forgetful and sloppy. When the accounts fit, Luke has to be a super sneaky editor. This isn’t even a remotely consistent picture of the author. 

What Would it be Like if Acts is Fiction?

Cornthwaite’s list of Luke’s supposed errors is full of errors of its own. And the claim that Luke copied Josephus doesn’t come close to explaining the evidence.

The alternative requires a super inconsistent hoaxer. He researches obscure titles, ports, routes, political jurisdictions, and local customs without Google or Wikipedia, then makes up journeys for Paul, switches naturally into “we” narration (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–21:18; 27:1–28:16), and peppers the details through the story without stopping to draw attention to them. Then the author sent this carefully prepared hoax to someone who probably hadn’t traveled to these places himself and probably didn’t know these details himself and therefore couldn’t be impressed by their accuracy.

But on Cornthwaite’s late-first, early-second-century dating scheme, this same literary genius somehow researched obscure local details yet failed to smooth out the tensions that he and Ehrman see between Acts and Paul’s letters, which had been circulating well before Josephus wrote the Antiquities.

C.J. briefly claims, for example, that Acts and Galatians contradict each other about the Jerusalem Council. I don’t think they do, but surely a late author carefully constructing historical fiction from written sources would have made the accounts fit more smoothly. 

It’s a lot easier to take Acts at face value. Luke traveled with Paul, traveled with him to Jerusalem, stayed with Philip in Caesarea, and met James and the Jerusalem elders (Acts 21:8–18). That gave him direct access to disciples, eyewitnesses, and members of Jesus’ family, exactly the kind of people he says he consulted in his prologue (Luke 1:1–4).

Cornthwaite’s view gives us a great researcher, a bad copier, and a hoaxer whose best tricks his first reader might never notice. The companion view just fits the facts better.