ACCURATE HISTORY
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A sceptic's view

Section:  The Bible > No Mistakes > History  >A sceptic's view

SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY

There are many details in the Book of Acts about places, famous people of the time, journeys, etc.

For a long time, people believed that the book of Acts was full of mistakes; that is was historically inaccurate.  One of these people was Sir William Ramsay.  He had been taught by men who doubted the accuracy of the Bible, so he had picked up their ideas. 

• A search for the truth

Sir William, though, decided he would find out for himself whether the Book of Acts was true, or full of mistakes. 

He travelled in the lands mentioned in the Bible, visiting cities.   He studied other old books and documents. He looked for evidence that certain Roman Governors were not ruling in the cities and at the times spoken of in Acts. 

• The conclusion he came to

At the end of all his study and travels Dr. Ramsay was shocked ! All the evidence proved the Book of Acts to be an absolutely correct record. There were no mistakes.

Here are the very words of Sir William Ramsay:

“I set out to look for truth on the borderland where Greece and Asia meet, and found it here [ he means in the Book of Acts]. You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian's, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment, provided always that the critic knows the subject and does not go beyond the limits of science and of justice.”  

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EYE-WITNESSES

Much of the Bible was written by people who were actually there at the events they described. They were eye witnesses.

Peter mentioned this in his second letter:

‘We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty’ (2 Peter1:16) 

If the writers were not themselves witnesses of the events, they fully checked out the facts before recording them. This is what Luke tells us:

‘Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eye-witnesses . . . Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you. . . so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught’ (Luke 1:1-3).

Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke, and also the Book of Acts, which Dr. Ramsay found contains no errors.

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