capnkirk

Thank you spin and vork, The referenced article bears out that contamination levels presumed in the Qumran samples limited the accuracy of C14 analysis to about 5% (100 yrs), while the paleographic ranges for those same documents was consistently much narrower. If the same level of paleographic certainty applies to the scrolls found in Egypt, then we already have about the best dating we'll ever have.

__________________
Enterprise...OUT.

Toto

Actually, Herod said the Jesus was JBap raised from the dead. Matt 14:1 says

See also Was Jesus John the Baptist Raised from the Dead?

Toto

Doherty dates gMark to around 80. There is no strain.

capnkirk

Either way, this places Herod's divorce/remarriage and JBp's execution several years before Aretas IV's response to it, or conversely has JBp alive and well years after Jesus' execution. Neither choice is satisfying. Either the gospels are wrong or Aretas took his own good time to attack Herod.

P.S. Mark 6:14 is not so specific as GMatt. The wording there sounds like Jesus raised JBp from the dead, but in the light of GMatt, ambiguous might be a better term.

At this point, my only interest in the matter is to point out the problems in using the death of JBp to date Jesus' ministry, much less GMark itself.

Besides, my OP concerned the basis for the dating of Paul's epistles rather than the gospels.

capnkirk

I knew that Mack dates Gmark to 85-90 CE, but I thought Doherty argued for a much later date, like after 100 CE based on lack of extrabiblical mention until much later. Personally, 80-90 seems about right. I defer to your knowledge of Doherty as superior to mine.

rlogan

Here's the Tacitus passage:

"But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired."

http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.11.xv.html

I don't find support for the written gospel here.

One does wonder what "abominations" he is referring to.

Toto

I checked Doherty. He seems to date Mark to "around 90" - he tends to accept Mack's dates.

Layman likes to argue that Doherty has a radically late dating for the gospels. Perhaps he planted that idea in your mind. Doherty does date the final redaction of Acts to a fairly late date - about 150, while the convention among liberal scholars is about 110. Presumably he would also date the final redaction of Luke to about that time, based on an expansion of Marcion's gospel (which might itself have been an edited version of an earlier gospel.)

spin

And you'd like to contemplate that Aretas took nearly ten years to vent his spleen? In those days he could easily have died before getting around to it.

Let's work on the assumption that Aretas who was born in 9 BCE had his daughter when he was twenty, ie 11 CE and she married Herod Antipas when she was 15, ie 26 CE, and according to Josephus "had lived with her a great while" (AJ 18.5.1), let's say to be miserly, over five years, ie at least 31 CE. . . Antipas went off and met Herodias in Rome and came back and divorced Aretas's daughter. We are already in 32 CE and we are starting to get to a more reasonable dating of John's death according to Josephus's indications.

People were talking about who Jesus was. Some said he was Elijah, but Herod said, "John . . . has been raised". Mk is straightforward.

Did you like my dating of Paul's work based on his visit to Damascus at the time of Aretas II?


spin

spin

Perhaps Layman got that idea from me.


spin

capnkirk

While no specific gospel was mentioned, there is content here that becomes very difficult to explain the presence of without at least one of the gospels. The key phrase is the one highlighted above. Since the (chronologically) first NT author to feature Jesus' crucifixion under Pontius Pilate is GMark, Tacitus' reference places at least one of the gospels in the hands of Xtians in Rome at the time of Tacitus' writing. This may thus be the earliest extrabiblical reference to any of the gospels, albeit indirect (and dependent on the understanding that "the Passion" was created by GMark). Also Tacitus' use of the term "Christians" to describe the group speaks of its familiarity in Rome in Tacitus' time.

Anyway, I don't want to spend too much time on the gospels since my question was what sources do scholars use to date Paul's Epistles? And particularly, what extrabiblical sources?