From Bart Ehrman here.
… that unlike Paul’s letters, Acts gives us an “absolute date” on which we can (in theory) hang all the relative dates of Paul’s life and itinerary. What I mean by “absolute date” is this: it is one thing to say “Paul did this, then three years later he did that, and fourteen years later he did this other thing.” That gives us a relative chronology. But to assign YEARS to this relative chronology (e.g. he did this in 33 CE, then three years later in 36 CE he did this, and then fourteen years later in 50 CE he did this other thing) you need to have a fixed point that you can give an absolute date for, so that you can calculate backwards and forwards from that.
And Acts does provide us with one absolute date. In Acts 18:12 we are told that Paul was brought up on charges before Gallio when he was proconsul of Achaia. From the evidence of an inscription, we know that Gallio was proconsul in the year 51-52 CE. According to Acts, Paul was in Corinth (the capital of Achaia) for 18 months. That means that his 18 months must have overlapped with Gallio’s proconsulship in 51-52. And so we have an absolute date to calculate from before and after, to establish the dates for Paul’s intinerary and, as a consequence for his letters.
And so the question is whether we can trust Acts 18:12 that Paul really did appear before Gallio.
Even if so, with an absolute date in place, scholars debate the fine details. Heatedly. But a common view of the matter is this:
- Paul converted to be a follower of Jesus in possibly 32-33 CE
- His first letter was 1 Thessalonians, possibly in 49 CE
- His last letter was Romans, possibly in 60-62 or so CE
- The other undisputed letters (1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon) were written between these two dates, possibly in this order more or less.
- He was executed possibly in 64 CE.
