beth

I am getting all sorts of conflicting info on when the texts were written. Many books I have read claim that some were written centuries after Christ, but the sites I looked at for sources date them as much earlier. I know that the Gospel of Thomas(Q) was an earlier written text and have read that some of the gospels seem to have copied off of it.

I just wonder if you can direct me to any credable sites that tell me the dates of the books, or perhaps the dates of the earliest copies that are known? Thanks.

Amaleq13

Peter Kirby's website (www.earlychristianwritings.com) would be a good place to start.

justsumner

First, Q is not Thomas. Q for the German word for "source" was never written down until recent time. It is a listing of oral traditions that predates all the gospels except for Thomas (Jesus' baby brother--sorry Catholics)

Thomas is still in the Koine and is more a list of Jesus sayings.

The dates I have come up with (and I may be way off) Of the Canonical books:

Mark: 72-75 ad
Matthew: 85-90 ad
Luke: 93-98 ad
John: 110-130 ad

For comparison, Thomas: 38-40 ad
Hermas: 60-70 ad
Paul:50-60 ad

Tertullian: 170 ad

spin

I have attempted to make sense of the question of when the nt texts were written in the past, looking for an outside indicator to help provide a real basis on which to place the dating.

The first church father to give indications of knowing gospel ideas is Justin circa 160 CE. How do we get earlier than that in a historially meaningful way? It's difficult. Eusebius that oh so questionable writer of xian history tells us that Papias said that Matthew wrote in the Hebrew language (Ebraidi dialektw). Obviously the text of our Matt that we have isn't such a document if it existed. It shows no signs of having being translated despite vocal support for such a position (based on highly questionable linguistics). Papias is also given to say that Mark was Peter's interpreter, yet Mark is critical of all disciples, so the Papias report if veracious is not helpful for dating our gospels because the comments don't reflect our gospels. It could be just more Eusebian fanta-history.

So when were our gospels written? The only parameter I can really give is before Justin's time, so any time within the 100 years before him, but we cannot assume that it was much earlier, and purely internally derived datings are a waste of time.


spin

andrewcriddle

You could go to the Wieland Wilker bible links page and follow the links from there

http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/bibel.html

Andrew Criddle