Johnnyboy

Hey Guys

I have a simple question for you today. Why does McDowell think that the new testament was written between 40-75 AC? And why is he so confirmed about that the dates theoligians normaly give about the new testament (70-95 AC) are "outdated"? Does he have any convincing evidence for his claimes?


Greetings from Heidelberg

rickP

because an earlier date would give more credence to his conclusion that the NT is reliable eyewitness accounts of real events. Therefore the evidence must fit the conclusion. I think it's called a post hoc fallacy or something like that.

Diogenes the Cynic

His view is based purely on a priori faith and a desire for the authorship traditions to be authentic. He has no methodology, evidence or scholarship to support this position and his contention that the consensus dates are "outdated" have no basis or support in objective NT scholarship. He's basically just arguing from assertion, hoping that if he makes the claims loud enough that will make them true....either that or he's just counting on his audience taking him at face value without doing any other reading or research. Sort of like what Hovind does.

Johnnyboy

Good to know. Thank you. That was sort of what I thought.


Greetings from Heidelberg.

Roger Pearse

Remember that it was the fashion up to 1936 among some NT scholars to date at least some of the gospels very late, and well into the second century, and this view only receded reluctantly.

That the NT gospels were written in the first century became obvious once fragment P52 of John (dated ca. 125 AD) was found, since obviously that wasn't part of the manuscript written by John himself, and one had to allow time for the text to be copied and copied and copied many times, and travel up through Egypt, etc; probably 30 years+.

That put John back to ca. 90 AD; the synoptics all clearly belong to an earlier and less theological stage, and there is evidence that John saw them, which also puts them back earlier. Once you reach this point, you're very close to the traditional dates, and there really is no convincing reason to date them later than the dates which arise from the patristic record. No doubt this is McDowell's thinking, and it seems sound enough to me.

I'm not sure about as early as 40 AD, tho: which texts are supposed to be this early?

I.e. Paul's letters must date to the 50's-60's (could any be earlier?), Mark cannot well be written until Peter is Rome in the 60's; since Acts ends in 61 AD, Luke-Acts can hardly be later, yet Luke uses some version of Mark which is supposed to be completed around the time that Peter died (64) or perhaps soon after (68-70). Matthew is inscrutable for dating purposes, of course, except that it also uses some of the Markan material, and addresses a Jewish audience (difficult to imagine after the synagogue-church split). The Catholic epistles are really undateable; Revelation is plainly post 64 AD since it reflects a very different world -- hostile to an illegal religion -- than that in Acts. Which of these could date to 40 AD?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Diogenes the Cynic

P52 could be as late as the 3rd Century. It's common for apologists to cite the extreme low-end of the dating range (often without mentioning that even Roberts' 1935 estimate allowed it to be as late as 150). Many modern paleographers have estimated to be mid to late 2nd century (Brent Nongbri gives it a range extending as far as 220 CE). The truth is that the fragment could date from just about any part of the 2nd century. 125 is by no means a terminus ad quem and no firm conclusion about date of authorship can be drawn from it.
90 would be the extreme low end with a high end around 120. Mainstream consenus puts it around c. 100 CE.
No, there is evidence that John saw Mark, not Matthew or Luke.,
There is no evidence that John saw Matthew or Luke and no reason to push back their dates. Mark is dated to 70 CE which allows plenty of time for it to influence John by the turn of the century. Matthew and Luke copy Mark which pushes them both to 80 CE. Luke knows Josephus which pushes it to the mid-90's. There's nothing sound at all about McDowell's reasoning.

Roger Pearse

Roberts publication gave it as 125 with a range of 100 to 150. But the feeling of those who dated it (I'm not sure whether this was in Roberts or one of the other publications of the same period, such as one by H.I.Bell) was that it was more likely earlier than later.

I do not recall such a date in Nongbri -- are you sure he offered this as his opinion? As far as I recall, he stated explicitly at the end that he was not proposing any change to Roberts' date. Did you have the chance to read Nongbri directly, or is this via some intermediate (and if so, I'd be interested who).

His paper seemed to consist mainly of an attack on the value of all dates derived from paleography as a reason to ignore Roberts' date, which I didn't find very convincing as an argument. I also felt unhappy with using P52 as the papyrus on which to make such an argument. Questions of methodology shouldn't be discussed in highly controversial contexts, in my ignorant opinion, because the controversy warps the decisions about methodology more often than not.

I'd be interested in which paleographers you know of who offer 150-200. Metzger on the Text of the NT lists only one, and I had the impression that this view had not been accepted generally. On the other hand I do have a vague memory of a general movement later of paleographical dates of Greek papyri, but not that late.

I was thinking of this passage:

"6. For Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue, and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence. And when Mark and Luke had already published their Gospels, they say that John, who had employed all his time in proclaiming the Gospel orally, finally proceeded to write for the following reason. The three Gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his own too, they say that he accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but that there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry."
(Eusebius, HE III, ch.24)

From what now lost source this comes Eusebius does not say, unfortunately.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Diogenes the Cynic

It seems my memory was imprecise on this and I made a mistake. Nongbri used a comparanda stretching out to 220 but did not commit himself to such a wide range for a final dating of the manuscript fragment. He does, however, say that 3rd century dates cannot be ruled out. From The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel published in Harvard Theological Review. (The article is not directly linkable but is available here):
(Bolding mine).
I didn't read the paper as being so agenda-driven as you seem to regard it, but I agree that he argues against being able to draw anything conclusive from P52.
A. Schmidt dates it to 170 +/-25. I think Schnelle suggests 150 (but I don't remember if that's a median or an upper range). I alos found this on Carlson's blog article on Nognbri:
I'm a little out of my element when it comes to paleoography and hard text crit so I'm going to defer to Stephen that this "trend" exists. You are free not to, of course.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you how weak this evidence is. Do you think GMatt was written by the apostle in his native tongue?

buckshot23

Absolute fact! There is a theory and thats it.

Julian

Could you expound a bit on this conclusion? A couple of papers I read last week seem to quite clearly state that manuscripts were sent around the mediterranean and that it only took a few weeks, sometimes a couple of months, for a package/letter to travel great distances. The articles list specific documents and how long it took them to travel from one area to another. In publication it was also common to make multiple copies and distribute them. GJohn would have needed maybe a year or so to have copies all over the place.

We see a number of writings which were well-known within a relatively short time of their creation. Why would it take the most important of all manuscripts decades to spread when other, less important, writings appeared in much less time in quotations or derivative work?

Julian