Editing Paul the Apostle (section)

===Acts===
Although approximately half of the Acts of the Apostles deals with Paul's life and works, Acts does not refer to Paul writing letters. Charles Williams believes that the author of Acts did not have access to any of [[Pauline epistles|Paul's letters]]. He claims that one piece of evidence suggesting this is that Acts never directly quotes from the Pauline epistles. Further, discrepancies between the Pauline epistles and Acts could also support this conclusion.{{sfn|Williams|1957|pp=22, 240}} The scholarly consensus was indeed that the author of Acts did not know the Pauline epistles, but such consensus got superseded.{{sfn|Mount|2022|p=32}}

British Jewish scholar [[Hyam Maccoby]] contended that Paul, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, is quite different from the view of Paul gleaned from his own writings. Some difficulties have been noted in the account of his life. Paul as described in the Acts of the Apostles is much more interested in factual history, less in theology; ideas such as justification by faith are absent as are references to the Spirit, according to Maccoby. He also pointed out that there are no references to [[John the Baptist]] in the [[Pauline Epistles]], although Paul mentions him several times in the Acts of the Apostles.

Others have objected that the language of the speeches is too Lukan in style to reflect anyone else's words. Moreover, George Shillington writes that the author of Acts most likely created the speeches accordingly and they bear his literary and theological marks.{{sfn|Shillington|2007|p=18}} Conversely, Howard Marshall writes that the speeches were not entirely the inventions of the author and while they may not be accurate word-for-word, the author nevertheless records the general idea of them.{{sfn|Marshall|1980|p=42}}

[[Ferdinand Christian Baur|F. C. Baur]] (1792–1860), professor of theology at Tübingen in Germany, the first scholar to critique Acts and the Pauline Epistles, and founder of the [[Tübingen School]] of theology, argued that Paul, as the "Apostle to the Gentiles", was in violent opposition to the original 12 Apostles. Baur considers the Acts of the Apostles were late and unreliable. This debate has continued ever since, with [[Adolf Deissmann]] (1866–1937) and [[Richard Reitzenstein]] (1861–1931) emphasising Paul's Greek inheritance and [[Albert Schweitzer]] stressing his dependence on Judaism.