The coincidences reviewed in this essay and in the preceding one span multiple facets of Paul’s ministry – his travels, imprisonments, companions, financial circumstances, and numerous incidental personal relationships. If Acts is anchored in genuine historical memory, this is precisely what should be expected. The accounts bear the texture of authentic reportage.
There is a peculiar intellectual paralysis that often sets in when someone speaks with an air of academic authority and is introduced as having a doctorate after their name. Arguments that would, in other contexts, be immediately recognized as plainly absurd if uttered by an anonymous skeptic on the internet, suddenly become “serious scholarship” upon being delivered by someone with a formal credential.
One of the most powerful tools in persuasion, irrespective of the credibility of what you are saying, is confidence. Assertions delivered with certainty and rhetorical force can often sound very convincing to an untrained audience. For the uninitiated, confidence is very easily, and subconsciously, taken as a proxy for competence.
