It is not often that a non-specialist gets some special insight, but here we have one example. Mauck, an attorney, looks at Acts (and Luke) through his attorney's eyes and comes away (informed by much, but slightly not enough yet not contrary, Biblical scholarship) with the idea that this book was written as a sort of evidentiary document to defend Paul in his trial at Rome. This has important implications for proving several traditional arguments (the early date of Luke-Acts), affirms the argument that Rome did indeed take a major interest in Christianity (to the point of doing a special investigation), explains why Luke wrote some things that others did not, and in ways they did not (including why he did not mention Paul's letters -- they would have been legally useless, partly because they amounted to self-declarations of the accused), and adds a few surprises that make sense (Theophilus was NOT a Christian, but a Roman investigator).

Mauck ties in other points neatly (such as the character of Nero, and of his aides Seneca and Burrus) that glue the puzzle together in a way that is astounding. Most of the book goes through Acts section by section, showing how what Luke reported defended Paul from the indicated charges (preaching an illicit religion, stirring up riots). This is a very clever thesis, one critics will be hard-pressed to countermand, and the average reader will appreciate Mauck's understandable prose. We recommend Paul of Trial as a highly readable apologetic resource.