Jefferson White charges that much of modern biblical scholarship has no connection with historical reality. "When the members of the Jesus Seminar sit around a conference room and vote to determine whether a particular biblical passage is historically true, their vote has nothing to do with evidence. It is all about theory. This kind of scholarship has the same relationship to historical evidence as astrology has to astronomy."

White maintains that in his own study of the travels of the Apostle Paul he takes care to report only what can be known from the actual evidence. "People are often intimidated by the fact that so little can be directly established about the events recorded in the New Testament. For example, no first century pagan or Jewish sources mention either the Apostle Paul or his journeys. But this is not the whole story. The real story is that there are hundreds of historical details, reported in the book of Acts, that can be confirmed by independent historical sources."

White argues that these details prove two things. First, since many of these historical details were true only during the middle decades of the first century, they establish that Paul’s journeys took place during that era. Second, he argues that the sheer number of details confirmed by independent evidence establishes the credibility of Acts as an historical record.

"To begin with, the descriptions in Acts of the many municipal, regional, and provincial political boundaries that Paul crossed are historically accurate. Some of those boundaries existed only in the middle decades of the first century. Secondly, the various political and religious titles of individuals that Paul met on his journeys are also consistently confirmed by independent evidence. Thirdly, the many political and social characteristics that Acts records as being unique to a particular city or province are also proven to be true."

White also argues for the importance of evidence outside historical records. For example, the distances and routes that Paul traveled on land and on sea, and the time that it took him to cover those distances, can be confirmed by modern measurements. Also, meteorological and nautical evidence can be brought to bear on Paul’s travels by sea. White states that one of the most spectacular confirmations of the Acts record concerns Paul’s shipwreck on the island of Malta, with the evidence demonstrating that the shipwreck must have occurred just as Acts reports it.

White also points to the evidence of ancient law. According to him, Paul’s legal maneuverings in various jurisdictions can be confirmed as accurate in light of our detailed knowledge of both Roman and provincial law. He also believes that the complex relationship between the book of Acts and Paul’s letters provides important evidence. Paul’s independent testimony about his travels largely confirms the account that is found in Acts.