Although the date of Acts requires no introduction there has been consistent apathy in recent years with regards to this longstanding debate. While the ‘majority’ of scholars have been lulled into thinking it was written between 70 and 90 CE the vast majority of recent opinion is unanimously adamant that this middle range date is a convenient, political compromise. A large part of the problem relates to the recent and remarkable neglect of historical, textual, and source-critical matters. Compounding the problem further are the methodological flaws among the approaches to the middle and late date of Acts. A historiographical approach to the debate offers a stronger framework for evaluating the primary and secondary sources. Under this umbrella, and with the support of modern principles of textual criticism and linguistics, the historical context of Acts is determined to be concurrent with a date of 62-63 CE. This thesis also examines the much-neglected issue of Acts and its sources. As a consequence, it was found that there is no clear evidence that Luke used Paul's letters or the writings of Josephus—which (in concert with other evidence) effectively removes the plausibility of a late date of Acts. Additionally, the relationship between the date of Acts and the various interpretations on the end of Acts demonstrate that many of the modern and more recent theories are not only assumptive (especially with regards to genre), in some cases they utilize anachronistic literary methods that were originally applied to nineteenth-century novels. It is proposed below that the ancient interpretation (that Luke wrote no more because he knew no more) remains the most logical in light ofthe combined literary and historical evidence. This interpretation is further strengthened by a study of the variants at the end of Acts, the fall of Jerusalem (and its aftermath), the great fire of Rome and the subsequent persecution of Christians under Nero—all of which strongly indicate a pre-64 CE state of affairs. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (doctoral)--Tartu Ülikool, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-260).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universidad Central de Nicaragua.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universidad Javeriana.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Köln.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Breslau, 1929. / Includes bibliographical references (p. v-viii).

This thesis argues that, in addition to the concept of the Illocutionary use of sentences to perform speech acts, there is an aspect of language use that has been, for the most part, overlooked in the literature. We call this aspect Non-Illocutionary Use, and offer in the thesis a theory of such use. We argue that Non-Illocutionary Use does not replace a theory of meaning, but rather that it shows more clearly where a theory of meaning fits in an overall description of language. As a result, the concept of meaning takes on a somewhat diminished role. Moreover, we show that meaning can be best thought of as simply the "content" aspect of Non-Illocutionary use. The concept of Non-Illocutionary Use is argued to be descriptively relevant at four levels: at the lexical, the phrasal, the clausal and the sentential levels. At the sentential level, it augments rather than conflicts with the notion of Illocutionary Use. In order to adequately describe the Non-Illocutionary Use of expressions in a language, we find it necessary to employ nine distinct parameters of such use: these are collectively labeled the Specifications of Non-Illocutionary Use. These nine Specifications are systematized in our theory by means of four Representation Formats, corresponding to the four syntactic levels mentioned above. These Formats serve as the input and the output for a set of compositional rules and a set of contextual strategies which relate the various levels of Non-Illocutionary Use. Thus, we claim that the Non-Illocutionary Use of a complex expression can, with the aid of contextual features in some instances, be determined from the Non-Illocutionary Uses of its constituent parts. Our theory thus is a contribution to an understanding of the infinite scope of language. In addition, we offer a Taxonomy of Non-Illocutionary Uses, as well as a definition of such use. Finally, aspects of other approaches to language use are discussed briefly.

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