genesis2k3

Can we trace the dates of the authorship of the New Testament
right back to the year of the Resurrection?

On 12/7, I attended a huge Web conference headed by Lee
Strobel (author of 'The Case For Christ' and 'The Case For Faith'),
seen by probably hundreds of thousands of Christians across
America. In it, he claimed that we can trace the authorship of
the New Testament right back to the year of Christ's death!

He said that the book of Acts must have been written no later
than about 61AD, because it makes no mention of the martyrdom
of Peter and others who were martyred in the mid-60s AD. From
there, he says Luke was before that. Then he says Matthew and
Mark were before that. And he backs right up to the early 30s
AD.

Is he correct? Was there not enough time for any errors to find
their way into the Bible?

Radcliffe Emerson

As of yet there is little if no historical support for it. Paul started writing in the 50's ad, but the 4 Gospels so far have no support before the 2nd century ad.
Comments they were written in the first century so far are conjecture.

Layman

Probably the earliest attestation of the resurrection is the epistles of Paul and the epistle to the Hebrews. In 1 Cor. 15, Paul uses technical rabbinic language to introduce his account of Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and appearances to Peter, the Twelve, James the brother of Jesus, and finally to Paul himself.

That Paul is recounting established tradition here takes back the rote-account of the resurrection very early since Paul was converted about 3 years after Jesus' death.

Some will argue that 1 Cor. 15:3-11 is an interpolation. Their arguments are not persuasive and have failed to convince many serious scholars.

As for the Gospels, I doubt that they were written as early as Strobel suggests, though I understand his reasons for arguing such.

CX

This is really two questions. The second is much more guileful than the first. It seems to me their is really no reasonable basis for dating the gospels so early and noone in the field of biblical studies, save for apologists like Strobel, would even consider dating them as such. Strobel's argument is essentially one from silence and thus not very strong. Couple that with the fact that the supposed martyrdom of Peter and the other apostles is mostly a product of church mythology from a later period and the argument becomes even more tenuous. A more parsimonious argument is that Acts doesn't talk about the martyrdom of the apostles because it wasn't part of the Xian tradition until much later either because martyrdom was not significant to the earliest Xians or because it didn't happen.

The second question though is much more subtle. Accepting, for the sake of argument, the earliest possible date for the gospels how does that affect the potential for errors and omissions in the canonical texts? In short, it doesn't, we have no MSS evidence for the gospels until the 2nd century and that is extremely fragmentary accounting for an infinitecimally small portion of the texts of almost neglibile text critical value. We don't really see MSS evidence for the gospels until the 3rd century and nothing like complete until the 4th century. Thus even if the autographs were perfectly accurate we have at least 250-300 years of theological development, legendary accretion, copying errors and redaction to contend with. As usual Strobel comes up with an argument that sounds good on the face of it, but the smallest amount of scrutiny and it falls apart.

Vorkosigan

It might be a good idea to consult Peter Kirby's excellent website, www.earlychristianwritings.com, and read up on the individual gospels to see why scholars date them to 20-40 years after the period Strobel suggests. For example, in the case of Acts, the fact that it depends on Mark rules out any date earlier than the early 70s. Additionally, many scholars believe that there is a reference to Paul's death in Acts.

Errors about what? If something goes back to the day of occurrence, does that mean it is error free? Probably quite the opposite. For example, consider battlefield reports written while the fighting was raging. In most cases they contain numerous errors that can only be corrected after much time has passed, by scholars comparing many different kinds of evidence. Similarly, consider the first news reports of a major event. They almost always contain errors, even though they are written by organizations that have protocols in place to increase their accuracy. Later, sometimes much later, corrected versions appear as more information arrives. Strobel is appealing to an unconscious assumption of many that the nearer in time to the event the report is, the more accurate it is. In reality, this is not always the case.

Vorkosigan

edited by Toto to fix URL

sharon45

There is yet to ever be any real proof that jesus existed. Even if that were made, then there would have to be proof between that and the versions of jesus in the NT's writings.

spin

What makes anyone think that the gospels we have today were written before the middle of the 2nd century? The first father to show knowledge of gospel text is Justin Martyr.

Any talk of gospels being written in the 30s is ridiculous. The gospels themselves contain enough evidence to show a long literary development. For example, Mark contains a section from the last supper through to the crucifixion which gives the indication of a separate document, based on a long developed oral tradition (explaining the numerous oral traditional tricks, like the numerous use of lists of three). We have another Mark document which ends with believers being told to keep watch for the end to come (see chapter 130. This helps to explain why we find the term nazarenos being used in Mark, coming from the Hebrew NCR, meaning watch or observe.

We therefore have at least two documents in Mark alone, before we deal with the way (some form of) Mark was used in Luke and Matthew, which both sport certain material in common and other material unique to each.

The hypothesis of a writing of these gospels in the thirties ignores the sings of long literary development.


spin

Layman

Then what was Papias talking about when he wrote:

"If, then, anyone who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings. I asked what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the Lord's disciples--things which Aristion and presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. I concluded that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice."

And,

"And the presbyter would say this: Mark, who had indeed been Peter's interpreter, accurately wrote as much as he remembered, yet not in order, about that which was either said or did by the Lord. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, Peter, who would make the teachings anecdotally but not exactly an arrangement of the Lord's reports, so that Mark did not fail by writing certain things as he recalled. For he had one purpose, not to omit what he heard or falsify them."

Seems that in the early first century Christians were already relyin on "book" recounting that Jesus said. Papias considers his own interest in oral tradition to be something of an abberation.

spin

The reason why I talked of "the gospels that we have today", which were documents written in Greek, which show that long literary evolution I mentioned, was because, though we have this Papias stuff, it clearly doesn't describe the materials we have today, as Papias talks of literature formed simply by the gathering of first hand reports, whereas our gospels show long literary developments. I think Papias also mentions something about Matthew writing in Hebrew, yet the book was amongst other things a linguistic improvement on Mark's Greek gospel. So we must return to my original question:

What makes anyone think that the gospels we have today were written before the middle of the 2nd century? The first father to show knowledge of gospel text is Justin Martyr.


spin

Layman

You assume everything to get to your conclusion. You have to assume that Mark can only be the result of a lengthy period of literary development to assume that Papias could not have been referring to that Gospel. I see no basis for these assumptions and certainly have seen no proof offered. Of course if you assume that the gospels require a lengthy period of literary development you are going to assume that they are later documents.

Simply to spout off about Martyr and assume no gospel was written prior to that is not very persuasive.