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Critics in the 19th century attacked Luke’s Gospel and the book of Acts as historically unreliable documents that weren’t written until many generations after Christ. German critic F.C. Baur (1792-1860), for example, claimed that the book of Acts was not written until the second half of the 2nd century. The critics claimed that most of the New Testament is based on myths that were passed along by word of mouth for generations before being committed to writing.

But the book of Acts is clearly written as a historical document. Luke mentions 32 countries, 54 cities, nine islands, and 95 different people, including many civil and military officials. Likewise, Luke’s Gospel is filled with references to places and historical personages, such as the Herods, Caesar Augustus, Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Philip tetrarch of Ituraea, and Cyrenius, governor of Syria.

Luke claims to base his writings on the accounts of eyewitnesses who were still alive (Luke 1:1-2).

If the Bible is historically inaccurate, it is obviously not the divinely-inspired Word of God.

The liberal view was debunked by renowned archaeologist William Ramsay (1851-1939), among others. Ramsay was taught liberal theories at the University of Aberdeen and Oxford University and assumed that liberals such as Baur were correct. When he went to Asia Minor and Palestine on his first archaeological expedition he fully intended to prove that the Bible is “not the book from heaven it claimed to be.”

"He regarded the weakest spot in the whole New Testament to be the story of Paul’s travels. These had never been thoroughly investigated by one on the spot. Equipped as no other man had been, he went to the home of the Bible. Here he spent fifteen years digging. Then in 1896 he published a large volume, Saint Paul, the Traveler and the Roman Citizen. ... The book caused a furor of dismay among the skeptics of the world. Its attitude was utterly unexpected because it was contrary to the announced intention of the author years before. For twenty years more, book after book from the same author came from the press, each filled with additional evidence of the exact, minute truthfulness of the whole New Testament as tested by the spade on the spot. And these books have stood the test of time, not one having been refuted, nor have I found even any attempt to refute them” (Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, p. 62).

In 1915 Ramsay testified:

“Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense … In short this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians” (The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 1915).

“The present writer takes the view that Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness. At this point we are describing what reasons and arguments changed the mind of one who began under the impression that the history was written long after the events and that it was untrustworthy as a whole” (Ibid.).

Ramsay debunked the idea that the New Testament was written long after the events.

“We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about AD 80, two full generations before the date between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today” (Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands, 1955, p. 136).

“In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and the eighties of the first century AD” (Christianity Today, Jan. 18, 1963).

Following are other examples of how the New Testament has been authenticated over the skeptics:

The critics said Luke was wrong in Acts 14:6 when he wrote that Lystra and Derbe were located in Lycaonia and that Iconium was not in Lycaonia. Paul and Barnabas were in Iconium when they fled to Lystra and Derbe, which was said to be in Lycaonia, thus implying that Iconium was not in Lycaonia. In 1910, Ramsay unearthed a monument proving that Iconium was a Phrygian city rather than a Lycaonian city (McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, p. 64).

The critics said that Luke was wrong about the census described Luke 2:1-3. They claimed that Quirinius (Cyrenius) was not governor of Syria at that time, because Josephus placed him as governor in 6 AD, which was several years later. Archaeology disproved these charges. Ramsay unearthed an inscription in Antioch that stated that Quirinius was the governor of Syria in about 7 BC (The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, p. 63). Thus, Quirinius was governor of Syria for two terms, in 7 BC when Christ was born and again in 6 AD.

The critics further claimed that everyone did not have to return to his ancestral home for the census, contrary to what the Bible says. But a papyrus document found in Egypt says that all residents were required to travel to their ancestral homes (The New Evidence, p. 63).

Critics said that Luke was wrong when he said in Luke 3:1 that Lysanias was the tetrarch of Abilene in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, which was AD 27. Ancient historians had stated that Lysanias was killed in 36 BC. But an inscription found at Abila near Damascus dating to between AD 14 and 29 says that Lysanias was the tetrarch” (The New Evidence, p. 64). Thus, Luke was right.

Critics said that Luke was wrong in using the Greek term politarchs (translated “rulers of the city” in Acts 17:6) to denote the civil authorities of Thessalonica because the term is not found in classical literature. Archaeology has since uncovered 19 inscriptions that use the title after the same fashion as Luke (The New Evidence, p. 65). The British Museum displays one of these inscriptions from an arch in Thessalonica (Room 78, GR 1877.5-11.1).

In these and other cases the critics were wrong and Luke was right. Skeptics have repeatedly and ridiculously acted as if they have an omniscient knowledge of ancient history and thus are in a position to criticize the Bible, but they have been proven wrong countless times. The fact that this has not humbled most of them is further evidence of the Bible’s divine inspiration, because it prophesied their willful ignorance (2 Peter 3:3-5).

In 1963, classical historian A.N. Sherwin-White confirmed Ramsay’s view of Acts:

“Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted” (Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, p. 189).