Where Were Lukes Gospel and Acts Written?
In Acts of the Apostles, Luke records many events that he himself either witnessed or learned directly from Paul. Acts ends abruptly at a point in time two years after Paul had been in Rome, preaching the Gospel, but guarded by a Roman soldier (Acts 28:16, 30). If Luke were living in a major Christian community during those two years, such as in Rome, Jerusalem, or Antioch, he would likely have included events occurring within that community. Yet Luke has little to say about those two years. Perhaps, then, Luke spent those two years in relative isolation from the larger Christian community, not traveling from place to place as he formerly did with Paul. He could have been living in a small town, some distance from Rome and other major centers of Christianity, focusing on writing. Acts describes nothing beyond Paul’s two-year stay in Rome, even though a number of significant events occurred not long afterwards, including the martyrdoms of James the Less and Mark the Evangelist. Neither
