What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[watchamadoodle]

I reject the notion that Luke and Acts had the same author. Luke says in his Gospel that the ascension of Jesus happened on the day of his resurrection. Acts says the ascension happened 40 days later. You'd think if they were the same author they'd have gotten such an important detail straight.

Apparently most scholars think Luke and Acts had the same author, but it is highly suspicious that the ascension to heaven is inconsistent, and it is also suspicious that Marcion didn't include Acts in his NT if Acts and Luke were a pair. Acts is mostly about Paul, and Marcion would have liked that IMO.

So, maybe the similar writing style between Luke and Acts is a result of a single editor? Maybe Marcion's Luke was the original Luke instead of an edit of the Luke we know?

On the other hand, here is a quote describing the standard view of scholars:

The first question that confronts one when examining Luke and Acts is whether they were written by the same person, as indicated in the prefaces. With the agreement of nearly all scholars, Udo Schnelle writes, "the extensive linguistic and theological agreements and cross-references between the Gospel of Luke and the Acts indicate that both works derive from the same author" (The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings, p. 259). This implies the implausibility of the hypothesis of such as John Knox that Marcion knew only Luke, not Acts, and that Acts was an anti-Marcionite production of the mid second century.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/acts.html