The Separation of Early Christianity from Judaism By Marianne Da ...

the limits of the dating by postulating that the document must have been composed later than the events of Acts 28 (the early 60s) and before the time of Justin Martyr's First Apology in the mid-second century, which he sees as indicating that Justin was familiar with the plot of Acts as well as its connection to Luke 24:25–27, 32.¹¹

James Dunn has asserted that a date in the middle of the second generation of Christianity (the 80s) best fits with the evidence, which he summarises as: (1) it is a work written some time after the Gospel of Luke, itself usually thought to be dependent on Mark's Gospel (usually dated to the late 60s or early 70s); (2) the author had probably been a companion of Paul; and (3) his depiction of the earliest Christians seems to reflect the concerns of the post-Pauline generation.¹³ Talbert concludes that ‘enough corroborating data has been assembled already by scholars to enable one to conclude that Acts is not mere fiction and that its record is reasonably reliable in areas where it can be checked’.¹⁴

When the Pauline mission began its outreach to the gentiles, the exegesis of Jewish scriptures in the synagogues to highlight the role of Jesus often caused friction and riots, thus capturing the attention of non-Jews.¹⁵ Feldman notes that the effect of the assimilation of Greek language and culture was not defection from Judaism but rather the creation of a common means of communication with non-Jews.¹⁶ It would appear that successful Jewish propaganda, which showed the superiority of Judaism as a moral and monotheistic religion over paganism, paved the way for the Christian mission.¹⁷

In the beginning, most local churches developed from an original nucleus of Jewish believers. When the Pauline mission began, Acts 16