Summary:
THE BOOK OF ACTS IS ONE OF THE MOST PROFOUND BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT — indeed,
the entire Bible! Yet it abruptly breaks off in the middle of the story. Why? The leading apostles of the time,
Peter, John, and Paul, were still very much alive when the book of Acts ended. It is like watching a cliff
hanger movie and suddenly the film breaks off right at the most crucial point in the story and you are
deprived from seeing the outcome. What was the final fate of the apostles? How did their writings, as well as
the other apostolic literature, become the New Testament?
Today, we are only left with scholarly speculations that only have given rise to doubts and skepticism
about how the New Testament was formed. If only the book of Acts had continued telling the story, we
would not be faced today with the many theories that place New Testament formation long past the days of
the apostles.
But there are other forms of internal evidence, as well as external evidence, that completes the story.
And when this story is told, it is a far different story than what you find in many a New Testament history
book today. At last, the missing conclusion of the book of Acts is now revealed as never before. At last, we
now have the final conclusion to the story of the first century apostles that makes sense!
The evidence was there all the time. But before that story could be told, there were many obstacles in
the way of a clear picture. One was a proper understanding of New Testament chronology. The true story
could never be told with the false chronologies that exist in Bible dictionaries today. The reader of Beyond
Acts will finally be treated to the correct dating of New Testament events, which, in itself is a ground breaking
revelation that can be found nowhere else.
In addition to this, another vital key to the story was to realize that the book of Revelation was not a
product of the last decade of the first century, but was initially composed in the days of Nero. Why is this
important? Because as long it is maintained that the book of Revelation, which is a description of the return
of Christ, is believed to have been written after the death’s of Peter, Paul, (and even John), then it is assumed
that the apostles believed until their dying day that Jesus was going to return in their lifetime. But if it is
understood that the book of Revelation was composed when these apostles were alive, then it can be understood
that the earlier writings of the apostles reflected the belief that Jesus was to return in their generation,
but as their generation was coming to a close, the apostles had scrutinized the events of their day to see if the
prophecies were for their day or for some generation beyond their time. And when they came to the realization
that the prophecies for a generation far into the future, THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS. And the actual
date of when this occurred can now be pin-pointed to the year of 63 C.E.
Why is this important? It is important because if scholars are correct in assuming that the apostles maintained
that the return of Christ was going to occur in their lifetime, then the latter writings of the apostles
paint a different picture. And it is this different picture that has forced many a scholar to deny the apostles
authorship of these latter books. That being the case, then, the New Testament was a post-apostolic formation,
so goes this line of reasoning. Yet, this is all false reasoning. The internal evidence paints a different
story. It is with this realization that the return of Christ was far into the future that drove Peter, Paul and John
to assemble their literature for the future Church. They warned about heresy coming within the Church and
to think that they would not have bound their writings together to fight off such heresy is to believe that the
apostles were indifferent to their own warnings. And indeed, no one in post-apostolic times ever came close
to having such authority to produce a canon of divine literature other than the apostles themselves, a fact that
also is lost on many scholars today who believe that the New Testament is a product of unknown clerics.
The story is far more gripping and vital than Bible codes or the so-called Da Vinci Code and far more relevant.
Indeed, it makes no sense to take the New Testament literally on anything it says if it were written by a bunch of post-apostolic fakes who wrote in the names of apostles. Nothing is more essential to the correct
understanding of how we actually got the New Testament than to understand the true story of Beyond Acts.
About the Author:
Paul R. Finch, an independent researcher in biblical studies for the past 40 years, resides in Palm Bay, Florida, with his wife, Mary Lou. He has for the past 6 years been a regular attendee of the Biblical Archaeological Seminars throughout the country, wherein he has been able to discuss his views on a personal basis with many leading scholars. Most of his research for this book was done at the Olin library at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and the Sterling and Beinecke Libraries at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Mr. Finch brings together in this single volume the culmination of his many years of study to produce a book that will reshape future research on the subject of New Testament history, chronology, and the canon. No serious study can ignore the challenges brought forth in this breakthrough research.
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Ordering Information
Beyond Acts:
New Perspectives in
New Testament History
Paul R. Finch
Price: $19.95 US 29.95 CAN
454 pages | ISBN: 1-4120-0364-4 |
