Some argue that Luke made a historical error regarding Lysanias, claiming that he had been dead for 34 years at this time (having been executed at the behest of Cleopatra) and that Abilene was not a tetrarchy. However, inscriptional evidence has since confirmed that a 'Lysanias the tetrarch' did indeed rule in Abilene in the period c. 15-30 AD.

Luke 3:1-2 dates the ministry of John the Baptist to the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, noting that Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene. Critics heavily objected to this for decades, claiming that the only known Lysanias had been executed by Mark Antony at the behest of Cleopatra 34 years prior to this date. This objection was based on incomplete and outdated historical information. Subsequent inscriptional evidence discovered at Abila (the capital of Abilene) has since definitively confirmed that a second, younger 'Lysanias the tetrarch' did indeed rule in Abilene during the exact time frame Luke specifies (c. 15-30 AD).