bacht

Well, if a gospel had been written before 60 ce then Paul could've seen or heard about it. As you know there's no evidence in his epistles that he knew about such a book (and no hint about it in Acts, supposedly covering the years up to the early 60s). We're really only talking about a decade or so variance. Plus the appearance of Josephus' history in the mid-70s may have been a spur to the idea of a Jesus bio.

sschlichter

A decade does not seem to be unsubstantial in this case. I would have expected Acts to cover the death of Paul and it does not (strange exclusion for someone who seemed interested in Paul's life). If Paul died before 70 then this puts Acts (and Luke) before 70.

Paul appears to be aware of sayings of jesus in the epistles. the gospels may have been a source for this (while not necessarily so)

My point is that the year of AD70 is selected for the reason I indicated, not because of some other evidence that I am aware of.

show_no_mercy

It's pretty reasonable to exclude someone's death if your focus is on their life. Why would the author of Acts of the Apostles end his story with the death of its main character?

Newfie

But when treated as separate books they do contradict each other. Simply google "gospel contradictions" for any of the exhaustive lists that have been compiled.

By the time that the church decided what was canonical it already had Jesus and it's role in relation to his message defined for itself, so of course the selection of books would not have contradicted this. This is not how scholarly work in history is done, and that's ok, because they were not trying to find the historical Jesus. They were looking to witness to the Jesus of Faith.

Looking backwards and looking for the historical Jesus in the canonical gospels is already tainted then. It's like looking for King Arthur within the romances written about him. Outside sources, what ones that have managed to survive, are needed, but like the Jesus Seminar, the answers are not always accepted. Plenty of Christians seem to believe that Jesus left the KJV bible on the nightstand at the rooms he ate the last supper in.

sschlichter

No, it is not. If it focused on Paul's life in a biographical sense then an inclusion of his death would be appropriate. it certainly does not provide evidnce to a later dating regardless.

He includes the death of Stephen, beatings, shipwrecking, imprisonment of Paul. Why would these be included and his death excluded? As a matter of fact, why would it end at his imprisonment?

sschlichter

How did you rule all 4 of them out then? perhaps 3 contradict or only one but you ruled all out because you understood them to be one book.

scholarly work would not let the decision process of the church effect their analysis of the 4 distinct witnesses. There is no reason you cannot get in front of the evolving church.

Newfie

All four contradict each other to some degree. Are you suggesting that three contradict one? Which one do you consider definitive, and why?

No, it would not, but not all elements of the church are evolving and willing to accept the findings of scholarly work. This brings up the question in the original post. It seems that only believers are willing to accept just the canonical gospels as sufficient proof of a historical Jesus.

Take, for example, the life of another religious leader: L. Ron Hubbard. If you are a believer in Scientology then the sanctioned works of Hubbard himself and the church are sufficient to you in defining the history of the man. You may even filter out or avoid anything else recorded about the man, but if you are not a Scientologist then you would not likely be satisfied with only these sources, and if the character of L. Ron Hubbard existed only in official Scientology documents (as is the case of Xenu) then you may in fact become skeptical of this portrayal, the "facts" about the man's life, and even his ever being a factual person, correct?

sschlichter

If all 4 contradict each other then one could be true. How did you eliminate this possibility?

I do not beleive them to be in conflict so i cannot answer your question.

bacht

I disagree that Paul indicates familiarity with the gospels, I think you have to read between the lines to get that, plus there's the question of how many hands have contributed to the epistles.

The end of Acts only gives us a starting point, it doesn't prove that Luke/Acts were written before 70. There's also the question of when these books are first discussed in the patristic literature, which seems to be not before mid-2nd C.

There's been lots of discussion here about dating Mark, which is usually considered the first gospel. I won't go into it in this thread, but I don't think the prophecy argument is the only one, though admittedly secular commentators usually rule out supernaturalism as an explanation of historical events. Historians have to follow scientific rules, the supernatural just brings in a huge "get out of jail" card that trumps everything.

sschlichter

Paul demonstrated an awareness of the words of christ to the apostles, the gospels are only a possible source - not a conclusive one.

No, you are right, it doesn't. the exclusion of the death of Paul is peculiar though for a book written after AD70.

In this case the supernatural is the event. Take away the supernatural and there is nothing left to explain and no reason for the authors to write. I think this is rare.