The "We" Section Travel-Diary in the Book of Acts (16:10-17, 20:5-21:18, and 27:1-28:16)

Luke the Evangelist at the Kalvarienberg Church in Graz, Austria

The “We” Sections

In the book of Acts we have what is referred to as the “We” Sections. These are points within the narrative where the narrator moves from describing events in the third person, to doing so using the first-person plural, i.e., “We went here, there, did this, that," and so on.  It is a reasonable assumption to suppose that perhaps these "We" passages represent Luke’s incorporation of someone’s travel diary, or perhaps his own, into his narrative.  

Whoever “We” is, they first appear during Paul’s 2nd Missionary Journey, joining him at Troas in Asia and accompanying him as far as Philippi in Macedonia (Acts 16:10-17), where “We” appears to remain while Paul and Silas finish out the 2nd Missionary Journey.
   

Then, during Paul's 3rd Missionary Journey when Paul passes through Philippi again, “We” rejoins the party and travels with him to Jerusalem (Acts 20:5-21:18).

At Jerusalem Paul is arrested and imprisoned at Caesarea, where he eventually appeals to Caesar. “We” again accompanies him on his journey from Caesarea to Rome (Acts 27:1-28:16).

The question is, if this was a travel diary, whose was it?  Was it Luke’s own, or someone else’s?  And then further, if Luke was the source, was he recounting the events from memory, or from a written account he had made himself while traveling with Paul?  These are hard questions to answer definitively.  Perhaps it is  Luke's.  But then again perhaps not.

There is one bit of evidence that might suggest it wasn't Luke. In his volume on the varying styles of the different New Testament writers, Nigel Turner observed one interesting difference between the style of the “We” Sections and that of the rest of Luke-Acts generally.  He is referring to to the absence in those sections of the use of “en tō with present infinitive to express time during which, and aorist to express time after which...a frequent Hebraism in all parts of Luke-Acts except Q and the We sections." [1]  

Either way, the "We" sections provide much significant information.  So, for example, Acts 21:17-18 reveals that whoever "We," was (s)he met James and the other leaders of the Jerusalem church:

• “When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly. The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present.”

Early tradition insisted that Luke was not an eye-witness to Jesus.  But if "We" was Luke, then we know that he at least met Jesus's brother James, and therefore might have consulted him about details included in his Gospel.  On the other hand if "We" was someone other than Luke, that source amounts to an additional, potentially independent witness to the continuing importance of Jesus's brother James in the leadership of the Jerusalem Church at the time of the conclusion of Paul's 3rd Missionary Journey, that is to say, around AD 55-58, some twenty-plus years after the death and resurrection of his brother Jesus.[2]

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1. Nigel Turner, “Style,” volume 4 of James Hope Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1976): 47.
2. I.e., two years from the end of the Roman Procurator Felix's tenure in office (see Acts 24:27).   For a discussion of Felix's dates, see Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (rev. ed.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998), 397-402. Finegan would see Paul's 3rd Missionary Journey ending in c. 55 AD and Geza Vermes in c. 58 AD (see Vermes, "Felix," Who's Who in the Age of Jesus [London: Penguin Books, 2005]), 88-90.