Roland

I understand the reasoning scholars use to argue that the canonical gospels can't be any earlier than 65 A.D.

What I don't understand is why they feel compelled to place them all in the late 1st Century. What is the POSITIVE evidence for the dates usually assigned to them (Mark 65, Matthew 75, Luke 80, John 90 or thereabouts)?

From what I can tell, all we have is the Rylands Papyrus containing what appears to be a snippet of The Gospel of John, usually dated to around 125 A.D., and a few vague comments by Papias (conveyed by Eusebius) making possible reference to Matthew and Mark. These, too, would come from about 125. We have to wait all the way to Irenaeus in around 170 A.D. before we have a clear reference to the gospels as we now know them.

So, my question is how do scholars arrive at so confident an early date for each of the gospels? Am I missing something?

Bede

We know Luke was a companion of Paul in the 50s and that he used Mark for his Gospel. Mark's references to the destruction of the Temple place it not too long after 70AD while Luke needs to complete two volumes of writing before he must have died before 100AD. Also Acts has no knowledge of Paul's letters which were well known (see 2 Peter and Clement) by 100AD. Mark is also linked to Peter by Papias. John is dated by external evidence saying it was written in the 90s and the author's knowledge of Jerusalem before 70AD. It also claims to be an eye witness account. Matthew is the hardest to date and I place it late due to the volume of legendary accretions, especially around the crucixfxion.

Sceptics, and especially Mythers, like to pick away at all this but the sum total places at least three gospels before 100AD. Anywhere outside biblical studies there would be little or no argument over this.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Roland

:banghead:

Roland

Bede, Thanks for your response.

How do we "know" Luke was a companion of Paul? Is Luke ever cited as the author of this gospel prior to Ienaeus in the late 2nd Century?

As to the argument about the writer of Acts having no knowledge of Paul's letters, that sounds suspiciously similar to the one used by Jesus Mythers when pointing to Paul's seeming ignorance of most of the details of Jesus' ministry as evidence that the gospels are largely fictitious in nature. Or even the argument I used above - that if these gospels existed under these authors, someone as knowledgable and prolific as Justin Martyr would surely have made clear reference to them.

Moreover, using that argument, you might as well date Acts to before 50 A.D. since it doesn't show Paul being martyred (if indeed he was).

Toto

But we don't know that Luke wrote the gospel ascribed to him by Irenaeus.

This means that gMark was not written before ~70, but does not establish that it must have been written then.

We don't know when Luke must have died, if he in fact wrote gLuke-Acts.

I had a long go around with Layman on this. Acts shows many indications that its author knew Paul's letters or the substance of them.

Egad, man. Papias refers to a Mark who wrote down what Peter said. Nothing links that reference to gMark.

The "external evidence" is a fragment that is dated to 125 by optimistic apologists, but might be from 150.

Liberal Christians and literary scholars have picked away at this and rejected it completely apart from the Jesus Mythers. Anywhere outside of Biblical studies this sort of analysis would be subject to derision.

Bede

I should be clearer here. We know that the author of Acts was a companion of Paul because parts of Acts are in the first person. We also know that GLuke and Acts are by the same person as Acts says so the Greek is very similar. We don't know he was called Luke! But for convenience I use the name attached to the Gospel.

It's not a question of clear reference. Paul's letters and Acts have some minor contradictions where they describe the same thing. From this we can be almost certain the letters are not a source for Acts and we can be almsot certain Luke would have used them if he had them (see his use of Q and Mark, for instance which is very clear).

Acts ends in 62AD. This is strong evidence it was written shortly afterwards but as Luke's Gospel uses Mark, such an early date for Acts would require Mark to be pre-62AD too which is harder to argue.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Toto

You can argue that the author of Acts was a companion of Paul because a few passages are in the first person plural, but you cannot "know" that this is the case with any reasonable degree of certainty. Most scholars reject the idea that a companion of Paul's wrote gLuke-Acts.

Paul's letters and Acts have some contradictions but also some indications that the author of Acts knew about Paul's letters, used them as a source, and intended to present a different point of view.

Bede - this is not strong evidence. It is not much evidence at all. You will find many history books which end on a particular date, but were written years or centuries later.

gregor

According to Mason, Acts borrows from Josephus, placing it considerably later in the 1st Century.

Amaleq13

I was wondering if you would ever provide me the opportunity to, for the third time, repeat some questions related to the above claim. Christmas has come early!

Originally posted by Bede:

I replied with the following quotes on the subject from The Catholic Study Bible (1990, Oxford Press, pg146 of the NT section) which carries both a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur :

"Critical analysis makes it difficult to accept the idea that the gospel as it now stands was written by one person."

"...the inconsistencies were probably produced by subsequent editing in which homogeneous materials were added to a shorter original."

"Other difficulties for any theory of eyewitness authorship of the gospel in its present form are presented by its highly developed theology and by certain elements of its literary style."

"Although tradition identifies this person [the author] as John, the son of Zebedee, most modern scholars find that the evidence does not support this."

I then asked:
Am I wrong to consider this a "conservative" source?

You chose not to offer a reply at the time but I would still be interested in your answer. I would also be interested in whether you disagree with any of these statements.

Bede

"Critical analysis makes it difficult to accept the idea that the gospel as it now stands was written by one person."

Agreed

"...the inconsistencies were probably produced by subsequent editing in which homogeneous materials were added to a shorter original."

Agreed

"Other difficulties for any theory of eyewitness authorship of the gospel in its present form are presented by its highly developed theology and by certain elements of its literary style."

Disagree

"Although tradition identifies this person [the author] as John, the son of Zebedee, most modern scholars find that the evidence does not support this."

Factually probably true.

I then asked:
Am I wrong to consider this a "conservative" source?

Yes.