Geetarmoore

I've heard some things here and there, but I've never been convinced of the conservative dates, based on to me rather shaking reasonings...

What do you feel are the best evidences for first century dating of the Gospel tradition?

Toto

There is no hard evidence, but there are arguments based on internal references that are assumed to refer to the Jewish War of 70 CE. You can read a summary on earlychristianwritings - Mark.

But these references might refer to the Bar Kochba revolt of the second century.

Yellum Notnef

What time period makes the most sense to you?

Geetarmoore

I'd have to say that this reasoning for early dating is awful circular to me. I'm wondering why there is so much firm agreement on this, with evidence so slim?

Doesn't the evidence from silence among church fathers add anything to this, or do we feel this 'evidence' as similarly slim?

From my perspective and study, the Gospel tradition seems to turn on like a light in the second century. I was hoping there was something more substantial to the early dating, honestly.

Toto

The evidence is flimsy at best, and it has been speculated that the consensus date of 70 CE is about the earliest date that is possible, and has been adopted in deference to Christian sensibilities.

Note that there are also those who argue for an early date, analyzed here on Paul Tobin's site, primarily John A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk), although there is some question about how serious Robinson was. (Skim the reviews on Amazon for a view of the controversy.)

The Christian or Christian-friendly way of viewing the evidence is that the gospel of Mark is associated with a community, and other Christians (or members of the Jesus movement) did not discover it until later, which explains the silence of the earlier church fathers.

Placing the gospel of Mark as post-Bar Kochba seems to tidy up a lot of lose ends. It explains the silence of the early fathers, the references to destruction, war, etc. Read more on Detering's site

But with a second century Mark, you have to question the dating of Paul's letters. If they were written before 70 CE, who were the Christians that he persecuted, and what whas the Jerusalem Church? Why did Christians project their history back a century? Was there an earlier Christian (or Jewish) movement that would be unrecognizable to us as Christian, but which nevertheless, gave rise to orthodox Christianity? I don't have an answer.

Geetarmoore

List them. Thanks.

andrewcriddle

IF one accepts both a/ Markan priority (ie Luke and Matthew both used Mark) and b/ evidence for early 2nd century knowledge/usage of Matthew and Luke (eg Ignatius c 120 CE and probably Papias c 130 CE seem to know Matthew, Marcion c 140 brings out drastically revised version of Luke, Justin Martyr c 150 seems to use harmony of either Matthew and Luke or Matthew Mark and Luke) then a 2nd century date for Mark seems highly improbable.

Andrew Criddle

MortalWombat

It also explains Mark's use of a round blocking stone for Jesus' tomb, the custom of which was not widely in use until after the destruction of Jerusalem.

Gamera

The fact that P52 is dated to the early 2nd century makes a first century origin to the gospel mss more probable than not. The reasoning goes that the holograph must have been significantly earlier because the likelihood that P52 is the holograph or an earlier copy is less than the likelihood that it is a subsequent copy (given that there are more later copies than the single holograph, and there tends to be more later copies than earlier copies)

Clearly P52's date is not beyond dispute. But even assuming a later date, it still makes a first century origin if not without doubt, then at least possible, especially with the other handful of papyruses dated to the late 2nd century.

Julian

Question for Andrew and Gamera. Given that the earliest hard date that we have is 120, why is it plausible the writings are form the first century? It takes very little time to write a book and get it reasonably distributed. Consider the increase of references that we see in the second century. Within a few decades of our first references we suddenly have lots. If the gospels were written in 70, then one would logically have expected to see the number of references be much, much higher by, say, 120CE. P52 could be just as easily from the end of the 2nd century, which would fit much better with our MS collection. By around 200 we start having more and more manuscripts, yet we have none from the early part of the 2nd century or earlier (excepting P52). The problem with the dating is that there is a very unscholarly tendency to place a writing at the earliest point with in a terminus post/ante quem window. For example, since GMark could have been written as early as 70 and was probably written before 120 (I know, these years can be disputed, just go with me here) then scholars tend to automatically place the text around 70. There is, of course, no reason to do this other than a bias to place the material as early as possible for increased veracity.

I have been toying with the idea of graphing out the MSS in terms of dates and continue the trend backwards. If one can assume that more MS finds means greater proliferation, and that proliferation increases with time in some regular manner (excepting an expected jump post-Constantine) then one can work the numbers back to a single point in time. A point in time that would have better support that the current theories.

Julian