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The Acts of the Apostles (Koine Greek: Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, Práxeis Apostólōn and Latin: Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament. It recounts the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message across the Roman Empire.
Acts and the Gospel of Luke form a two-volume work known as Luke–Acts by the same author. Tradition identifies the writer as Luke the Evangelist, a doctor who travelled with Paul the Apostle, though the text does not name its author. Critical opinion remains divided about whether Luke the physician wrote it. Many scholars still regard the author of Luke–Acts as a companion of Paul, although they note tensions with the Pauline epistles. Most scholars treat Acts as historiography, though focus is more on the author's aims than on settling questions of historicity. The book is usually dated to 80–90 AD.
The Gospel of Luke depicts the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Acts continues the story of Christianity, beginning with the ascension of Jesus and the mission from Jerusalem into the wider Mediterranean world. The early chapters describe Pentecost, the shared life of the first believers, and the establishment of the church at Antioch. The later chapters follow Paul as he carries the message throughout the empire and conclude with his imprisonment in Rome as he awaits trial.
Luke–Acts addresses how the Jewish Messiah came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church by arguing that the message reached the Gentiles after the Jewish rejection. The work also defends the Jesus movement for Jewish audiences, since most speeches respond to Jewish concerns while Roman officials arbitrate disputes about Jewish customs and law. Luke presents the followers of Jesus as a Jewish sect entitled to legal protection, but remains ambivalent about the future of Jews and Christians, affirming Jesus' Jewish identity while emphasizing the Jews' rejection of the Messiah.
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