Did Luke make a mistake when he referred to the province of Cilicia?

Question: A reader sent the following question via email: "Acts 6:9 mentions the Province of Cilicia during a scene allegedly taking place in mid-30s AD. The Roman province by that name had been on hiatus from 27 BC and re-established by Emperor Vespasian only in 72 AD (Bunson, Matthew, A Dictionary of the Roman Empire (Oxford University Press, USA, 1995), p. 90)."

Response: Regardless of whether the Roman government had a temporary policy involving the Province of Cilicia, there is no reason to jump to a conclusion that people alive during that time would have referred to the area by a name other than Cilicia.

That area, which was a south coastal region of Asia Minor, had been called Cilicia for many centuries, even before the existence of the Roman Empire. And the area continued to be called Cilicia long after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

When Luke refers to the area in Acts 6:9, he is not making a claim as to the provincial status of the area in regards to the Roman Empire, he is merely directly his reader to the geographical area that was commonly called Cilicia.

If it helps, here is the verse in question that mentions Cilicia: "Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called [the synagogue] of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen" (Acts 6:9, KJV translation).

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