Nomad, perhaps you could tell us why it is so important to date the Gospels early? Legends can arise instantenously; consider the stories that arose during Alexander's own lifetime, or the supernatural stories surrounding others of the same era (wasn't Vespasian's touch alleged to have healed?).
Minor examples of the genre abound in our own
era, such as the fictitious story about Cassie Bernal at Columbine. Heck, I can turn on channel 99 and watch preachers doing miraculous healings all the time. It must be happening, I've seen it with my own eyes.

Even if you demonstrated that Mark wrote it while Jesus's body was still cooling, it would not rule out embellishments, lies, misunderstandings, and so forth. In short,
it seems that dating has no important function as far as making truth claims about Jesus, other than a very laudable scholarly one of helping sort out the evolution of ideas.

Michael
turton@ev1.net

I hate to jump into the fray this late and stir up the honey pot w/ poor summaries, but I thought I'd just throw this out there and see what others thought.

Jean Carmignac wrote "The Birth of the Synoptics" and holds the opinion as do several other scholars throughout the years, that the Synoptics Gospels were originally written in a Semitic language, most probably Hebrew (versus Aramiac), and that they were redacted into Greek.

If anyone is interested in this line of thinking, I could attempt to actually contribute to this threaad instead of just throwing out a second hand summary.

Then your objection is philosophical rather than historical. Any reference to a miracle must be a legend. No matter how many sources report it or how early those sources are. I disagree with this, but it certainly doesn't render the dating of the gospels moot from a historical perspective.

Even if we must assume that the life of Jesus portrayed in the gospels abounds with legends, it is more reasonable to assume that the longer the time between the events and the recordings, the greater the amount and extent of the legends. This can be seen by the clearly legendary apocryphal gospels.

Even if we must assume that the lif eof Jesus portrayed in the gospels abounds with legends, the date of the gospels is relevant to determining where those legends come from. Are the Jewish or Greek? The earlier the gospels, the more embedded Christianity was in its Jewish origins, the later the gospels, the more influence from Greek sources can be expected.

Then your objection is philosophical rather than historical. Any reference to a miracle must be a legend. No matter how many sources report it or how early those sources are.
___________________________________________

That's right! If I accept Biblical miracles, I must accept all miracles. Perhaps you could explain why miracles ceased in the last few hundred years? As for "how many sources report it," A LOT more sources in other traditions report other miracles. The gospel writers are not even eyewitnesses to the miracles they write about. Neither was Paul. So to what nonexistent sources of Jesus' miracles are you referring?

__________________________________
I disagree with this,
_________________________________

Great! Perhaps you have a tried-and-true
method for sorting "real" miracles, like
those of Jesus, from "false" ones, like those of.....Buddha? Krishna? I'd sure like to have one....

________________________________
but it certainly doesn't render the dating of the gospels moot from a historical perspective.
___________________

Never said it did. I wrote above that fixing the date was a laudable goal and useful for tracking the evolution of ideas, but it does nothing to prove or disprove the divinty of Jesus.


_________________________
Even if we must assume that the life of Jesus portrayed in the gospels abounds with legends, it is more reasonable to assume that the longer the time between the events and the recordings, the greater the amount and extent of the legends. This can be seen by the clearly legendary apocryphal gospels.
_______________________

Ah...what makes them "clearly legendary" and the reworked Homer and Jewish legends in Mark not? I certainly can't choose between them as to their truth value.

Furthermore, your assumption about time is incorrect. Obviously some gospels were written before others. But, their claims conflict. Do we then take the earliest as truthful and toss all others?

________________________
Even if we must assume that the life of Jesus portrayed in the gospels abounds with legends, the date of the gospels is relevant to determining where those legends come from.
Are the Jewish or Greek? The earlier the gospels, the more embedded Christianity was in its Jewish origins, the later the gospels, the more influence from Greek sources can be expected.
_______________________


This is also not necessarily true. It depends much more on WHO the writers were, not WHEN they wrote. Whether they were written in 50 or 70 or 90, tells us nothing about the source of the author's legends. For example, if you tell me Mark was a greek-speaking gentile living in Rome, that will tell me a lot more than if he wrote in 50 or 70 or 90. Ditto if you tell me he was a Syrian Jew, educated and living in Antioch.

Oh, we don't "assume" they are legends. All violations of natural law ARE legends until proof is adduced to show otherwise. Once again, show me the protocol you use to declare all other legends false and yours true.

Michael
turton@ev1.net

"That's right! If I accept Biblical miracles, I must accept all miracles. Perhaps you could explain why miracles ceased in the last few hundred years? As for "how many sources report it," A LOT more sources in other traditions report other miracles. The gospel writers are not even eyewitnesses to the miracles they write about. Neither was Paul. So to what nonexistent sources of Jesus' miracles are you referring?"

You are taking a simplistic approach to these issues. It does not matter whether the gospel writers were witnesses. What matters is whether their sources are reliable sources. One factor in determing this would be their date. The concept that Mark invented his story from wholeclothe has pathetically little support in the scholarly community. Ditto for John. Perhaps ditto for Q. And ditto even more the special M and L material. Josephus and the Babylonian Talmud also provide some source material.

Why don't miracles happen now? You are assuming facts not in evidence. I happen to believe that they do. But, in any event, even if they did not, I don't think that helps your point? By the very nature of the definition of miracle, it is an unusual, atypical event. If they were just falling out of the sky they wouldn't be miracles. In fact, many Christians are committed to the idea of dispensationalism. The idea that God used the miracles of Jesus and the Apostles in a unique way to confirm that their actions and teachings were commissioned by him.

"Great! Perhaps you have a tried-and-true
method for sorting "real" miracles, like
those of Jesus, from "false" ones, like those of.....Buddha? Krishna? I'd sure like to have one...."

I think the source material for Jesus' miracles is much stronger than for Buddha or Krishna. However, I do not rule out the possibility that either of these two men performed miracles. I just don't think the evidence is there.

The problem is that you seek to win the argument in a circular manner. You will not admit to the possibility of a miracle because there are no miracles.

"Never said it did. I wrote above that fixing the date was a laudable goal and useful for tracking the evolution of ideas, but it does nothing to prove or disprove the divinty of Jesus."

I disagree with the categorical nature of your claim. It certainly does have some tendency in reason to prove or disprove the divinity of Jesus. That is, unless we decide before we start that such a thing is impossible. If Jesus was divine and attempted to prove it by performing miracles, we would expect some evidence of said miracles to be passed down. If he wasn't divine, and could not perform miracles, then we would not be surprised if there were not any miracle reports. This is not conclusive, but it has some tendency in reason to prove the former, rather than the latter.


"Ah...what makes them "clearly legendary" and the reworked Homer and Jewish legends in Mark not? I certainly can't choose between them as to their truth value."

You keep comparing the New Testament to Homer without providing any substantive reason to agree with your conclusion. Are Greek myths and Jewish myths comparable? Did Homer or the New Testament authors believe they were writing real history or did they realize that they were creating legends? Was the time between the events comparable? And, most importantly, what are the results of applying the criterion of multiple attestation? Are there independent, but confirming, sources?

"Furthermore, your assumption about time is incorrect. Obviously some gospels were written before others. But, their claims conflict. Do we then take the earliest as truthful and toss all others?"

To the extent the claims conflict, there are several ways we decide which account is most likely true. Time is one, but certainly not the only, factor. Evidence of redaction, literary dependence, multiple attestation, coherence, dissimilarity. These are all factors.

"This is also not necessarily true. It depends much more on WHO the writers were, not WHEN they wrote. Whether they were written in 50 or 70 or 90, tells us nothing about the source of the author's legends. For example, if you tell me Mark was a greek-speaking gentile living in Rome, that will tell me a lot more than if he wrote in 50 or 70 or 90. Ditto if you tell me he was a Syrian Jew, educated and living in Antioch."

I didn't say it was necessarily true, but it is probative. The Greek influence over Christian thought grew as time passed. And, more importantly, the greater the division between Jewish and Gentile Christians. For example, the early church in Rome began as a distinctly Jewish church. As time passed, the church grew more and more Gentile.


You avoid a serious discussion of the source material by dismissing the possibility of miracles. Fine. But you will never be convincing to those who don't share your presupposition, whether they be Christians, theists, or agnostics.



[This message has been edited by Layman (edited February 14, 2001).]

Hello turtonm

The questions about both the dates and authorship of the Gospels are central to attempting to understand both the historical Jesus, and the birth of the Christian Church. There are several reasons, therefore, to try to uncover when and who wrote them, and to a lesser extent, where. Such things will give us a very good insight into this critical juncture in history.

Perhaps one of the most important reasons to explore the dating of the Gospels is to find out exactly how much time we would have had for legendary embellishments to develop. Also, we can be much more confindent that the evangelists traditionally credited with writing these amazing stories actually did write them. After all, if Luke was written in 85 or later for example, the chances of it being written by an educated companion of the Apostle Paul is much less than if it turns out to have been authored 10-20 years earlier than this. The same holds true of Mark, and the other Gospels.

In the case of Alexander the Great, we do not have an account of his life that is closer than 400 years to the time he actually lived. This gives huge amounts of time for legends to spring up, and this is the common pattern amongst ancient legends and myths. We do not have anything approaching the level of testimony that is contemporanious or nearly contemporanious with the life of Jesus of Nazareth. This in itself is very interesting. After all, anything that is historically unique is going to generate a lot of interest, and I think we can all agree that the life of this peasant from Galilee in extremely unusaul, if not unique in itself.

As for Vespasian, I have never heard a convincing proof made against the miracles attributed to him by Josephus. Do you have access to any such arguments?

The difference here, is that our "urban legends" have demonstrated absolutely no staying power (so to speak), and the same is true of other legends, including those from antiquity. Most fade from memory within a few years, and almost none survive beyond a generation or so. This kind of argument actually serves to help prove the uniqueness of the Christian story more than anything else, since unlike other examples we can dig up, none of them every gather much of a following.

You have witnessed miraculous healings yourself? I have not done this. How did you respond? Do you believe that they were real?

To be honest, I hope you understand that this discussion is fascinating, but well outside of the scope of this thread. I am mostly interested in establishing when the Gospels were written, then who, and see what that can tell us about them.

Of course it wouldn't rule out legendary developement in and of itself. But it would dramatically increase the probability that we are receiving first hand witness testimony, and any historian will tell you that any time we can gain such testimony, that is a good thing. Evaluating that testimony becomes our next step, but at least we can eliminate the idea that everything was made up out of whole cloth long after the events allegedly took place.

I am pursuing the latter goal, as opposed to the former, althought I do believe reliable early dates can help the cause for better arguments for their potential verasity.

Thank you for your thoughts and questions.

Nomad

"As for Vespasian, I have never heard a convincing proof made against the miracles attributed to him by Josephus. Do you have access to any such arguments?"

I'd like to see the case anyone can make that Vespasian was considered to be, or was, a miracle worker comparable to Jesus. And what sources they depend on, specifically.

But, since Nomad has rightly chided me for
getting off-topic, I'm posting my response in a new thread.


Michael
turton@ev1.net

Hi Wandering, and welcome to the SecWeb

I would be very interested in hearing more about Carmignac's theories and arguments if you would be able to share them with us. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate his book, and to date I am unaware of any other scholars that are putting forward a defence of an "Aramaic" or "Hebrew" first Gospel.

The legend of such a Gospel written by Matthew was first written about by Papias in the second Century, and while I would personally love to see such a document (or hard evidence of such a thing), thus far we are left largely with the arguments for the various sayings of Jesus from the theoretical "Q" Gospel, and quite frankly, I have never heard a compelling case that such a gospel was ever written down until Mark, Matthew and Luke began their own books.

If you check out my thread 7Q5 and Redating the Gospel of Mark you will find, I believe, a pretty good case that has been put forward that a portion of the Gospel of Mark, or a Greek Ur-Mark dating from about 50AD was found in Cave 7 at the Qumran community.

If you have additional evidence for a similarily dated (or even older) Aramaic or Hebrew Gospel, please offer it. I would enjoy seeing it.

Thank you again, and peace,

Nomad

Alright, we have already seen how the Gospel of Mark is almost certainly the first of the Synoptic Gospels, and probably dates to the mid-50’s, if not earlier. We have also learned that there is general scholarly agreement that Matthew and Luke each used Mark independently of one another, making it probable that they wrote their own Gospels 5-10+ years after Mark, but within 5 years of one another. This would give us a date range of 60-70AD for each of these latter two Gospels, and personally, I think that the arguments that both were, in fact, produced in the early to mid-60’s is very compelling. The evidence for dates, however, is stronger for Luke/Acts (I will explain why I group Luke and the Acts of the Apostles together momentarily) than it is for Matthew’s work, so I would now like to turn my attention to looking at the evidence for dating Luke/Acts into the early part of the 60’s.

DATING LUKE AND ACTS

As with Mark, there are a number of pieces of evidence to consider when trying to establish a date for these two books, and I will cover off each in turn. In this post I will present arguments as to why I think early authorship has the stronger claim.

Authorship of Luke/Acts

Neither the Gospel of Luke, nor the Book of Acts is signed by the author, but in studying ancient documents (somewhat like studying works of art by past masters), there is evidence available to us to help establish who is the most probable author of such a work.

The first is, of course, the title of the Gospel itself. Quite simply, the only name ever associated with this Gospel is that of Luke, presumably the companion of St. Paul, and a doctor. Normally, in the case of what are called pseudonymous writings (a book written using the name of someone from the past, a good modern example would be “I Claudius” and “Claudius the God” by Robert Graves, but the practice was far more common in ancient times than it is today. The most famous examples would be the Gospels of Peter (2nd Century) and Thomas (also 2nd Century), neither of which could have possibly been written by the respective disciple), we see disputes in the tradition about who wrote the book in question. In Luke’s case (not to mention Acts), we have no such disputes, dating as far back as the first quarter of the 2nd Century, Luke was the only author proposed for this Gospel. In the words of one prominent NT scholar:

” Not all the traditions of the early Church are to be accepted at their face value, but there are good reasons for accepting this one. . . . a book which was meant for publication must have borne its author’s name from the start. In this respect the literary conventions of the first century were stricter than ours, which allow an author to hide behind a pen-name. Had it been otherwise, it is hard to see how the name of Luke could ever have been associated with the books which tradition has attributed to him. Luke can scarcely be described as a prominent figure in the annals of first-century Christianity.”
(G. B. Caird, Saint Luke, pg. 16-17).

Guthrie concurs, telling us that “[A]t no time were any doubts raised regarding this attribution to Luke, and certainly no alternatives were mooted. The tradition could hardly be stronger . . .” (Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, pg. 114).

If Luke was the choice of as a pseudonymous author, then it is definitely a curious one. Luke was certainly not one of the disciples, nor was he a prominent helper to Paul. In fact, he gets a total of three passing mentions in Paul’s epistles, Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11, and Philemon 1:24. Based on the NT alone, we have no idea of anything Luke did himself. Only the reference in Colossians tells us that he is a doctor, placing his age at this time at a probable early 30’s or older.

As for why it is believed that Luke and Acts were both written by the same author, Guthrie lists five reasons:

(1) Both books are dedicated to the same man, Theophilus (Luke 1:1-3, Acts 1:1)
(2) Acts refers to the first treatise (Acts 1:1), which is most naturally understood as the gospel
(3) the books contain strong similarities of language and style
(4) both contain common interests
(5) Acts naturally follows on from Luke’s gospel (IOW, read together, they do read as if they were part of the same book).
(Ibid. pg. 115-116)

There is little dispute about these five points amongst the great majority of scholars, so unless there are further questions, I will leave the argument that Luke and Acts shared the same author as presented above.

Another powerful argument that the author of Luke/Acts was Luke, is the evidence found within Acts itself. For example, the so called “we” passages in Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1–28:16. From Dr. D. B. Wallace Luke: Introduction, Outline, and Argument:

The “we” passages in Acts (16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1–28:16), prima facie, suggest a companion of Paul. On this supposition, this particular companion

(1) first joins Paul at Philippi [sic: Troas]; (2) reappears on Paul’s return visit to Philippi; (3) accompanies the apostle on the journey towards Jerusalem and stays with Philip at Caesarea, and (4) after Paul’s two years’ imprisonment at Caesarea, during which time there are no definite data regarding the author’s whereabouts, accompanies Paul to Rome and experiences shipwreck with him. It would also mean that the author could not be any of those companions of Paul who are mentioned by name in these sections (Silas, Timothy, Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Tychicus, Trophimus).

So why is the authorship of Luke important in dating these two books? Basically, for a many in his 30’s (as Luke or any other educated man would have been) to have authored Luke and Acts in the late 70’s to mid 80’s, he would, himself have had to live well into his 60’s or 70’s himself. While this is not impossible, given the average lifespans of the period in question, it is less probable than if he were to write 10-20 years earlier.

The Olivet Discourse (Mark 13:1-36/Matthew 24:1-51/Luke 21:5-36)

I have already covered off this question at considerable length in my discussion of Mark (see my post from Feb. 11 above). If anything, these prophecies create more problems for those who would date Luke and Acts later rather than earlier.

The Problems in Acts

The problems in Acts are, in my opinion, the most powerful argument against a late date for Acts, and therefore, for Luke as well. I will rely upon Donald Guthrie again to summarize these problems:

(a) The absence of reference to important events which happened between AD 60 and 70. The fall of Jerusalem (66-70), the persecution of Christians by Nero (64), and the death of James by the Sanhedrin (62) are not mentioned. On this last point, it is a significant silence, for “no incident could have served Luke’s apologetic purpose better, that it was the Jews not the Romans who were the real enemies of the gospel.”
(b) The primitive character of the subject-matter. In particular, “the Jewish-Gentile controversy is dominant and all other evidence apart from Acts suggests that this was a vital issue only in the period before the fall of Jerusalem.”
(c) The primitive nature of the theology. Terms such as “the Christ,” “disciples,” “the Way,” and the reference to the first day of the week for the time when Christian met together to break bread, all imply primitiveness.
(d) The attitude of the state towards the church. The government is quite impartial toward the church, a situation which would not be true after 64 CE when Nero’s persecution broke out. It is significant that Luke ends this book by saying that the gospel was able to spread “unhindered” (ajkwluvtw").
(e) The relation of Acts to the Pauline epistles. Luke shows no awareness of Paul’s literary endeavors. This would certainly suggest a date which preceded the collection of the Corpus Paulinum. Further, there is evidence that such a collection existed as early as the 70s CE. In the least, this suggests that the purpose of Acts was not to reinstate Paul’s letters, as some have suggested.
(D. Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, pg. 355-61)

To me, the silences on the hugely important events, not just of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Herod’s Temple, but also the death of Acts two main characters, Peter and Paul (c. 65-67), as well as James the brother of Jesus (c. 62) is inexplicable given late dates to this book. Further, Luke’s primitive phraseology for Christianity, coupled with the clear neutrality of the Roman government (especially hard to explain if the persecutions of Nero, or even the minor ones of Domitian) is another telling feature. Perhaps alone, none of these silences, or representations of Christianity or Rome would be decisive, but taken together, we are left with enormous unanswered questions as to why the author of Luke and Acts never brings up these points.

Finally, if Luke was, in fact, writing in the 80’s (IOW, over 15 years after Paul’s death, and by which time Paul’s letters had taken on near Scriptural status for the Church, why does Acts show no awareness of them?

Quite simply, each of these problems presents a whole in the argument for late authorship of Acts and Luke. Taken together, the silences are almost deafening, and leads me to the conclusion, in agreement with Robinson, Guthrie, Wallace and others, that an early (60-65AD) date is more reasonable than the commonly held dating of 75-85AD.

Conclusions on Dating the Synoptics

As we have seen, the dates for the three Synoptic Gospels are very closely linked together. If we begin with the assumption that Mark (the first of these Gospels) was written in the late 60’s, and Luke and Matthew came out about 5-10+ years later, we end up with some very implausible dates for the latter two. But if we accept that Luke was probably written in the early 60’s, and Matthew at about the same time, then working backwards, the most reasonable date for Mark becomes mid to late 50’s. And having done this, we find that the explanations for the Olivet Discourse, as well as the numerous and astonishing silences in all three Gospels about some of the most important events in the first Century Church (i.e. the death of Peter and Paul, the destruction of Jerusalem, the Diaspora, the persecutions of Nero, ect.) becomes much more understandable given these early dates for these Gospels.

Thus, I conclude with the following probable dates for the Synoptic Gospels:

Mark 55-60AD
Matthew 60-70AD
Luke/Acts 60-65AD

Thank you again for your interest and patience. I invite questions and comments.

Peace,

Nomad

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited February 17, 2001).]