Detached9

A few questions, maybe someone can help me out here. I generally here the non-believers state that the earliest Gospel (Luke or Matthew? I forget) wasn't written until at least 60 A.D., while I hear most believers state that the earliest Gospel was written back around 12 A.D.

According to various encyclopedia's, the earliest Gospels (should I be capitalizing this?) were dated around 62 A.D. So I am leaning more towards that date. The only one's who say the Gospel's were produced at an earlier time seem to have a bias toward that view. I doubt that encyclopedia's have an atheistic bias, but it is possible.

How do you date these things and does anyone have any clear convincing evidence it was around 60 A.D.? If so, then that would place the supposed evidence of Jesus into hearsay, would it not?

Oral traditions tend not to be too trustworthy, remember the "password" game where someone says a message to one person, and you pass it around the room? Eventually the message is distorted.

On another topic, what about the dating of Josephus, Tacitus, Piany (spelling?), and the like?

Vorkosigan

<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/" target="_blank">Peter Kirby's site on Early Christian Writings</a> contains tons of information on the dating of texts as seen by the scholarly community.

There are many ways to date a text.

You can carbon-date the writing medium, although that will usually only give you a date within 50 or so years on either side, unless you can calibrate the date using tree rings. Note, however, that will only give you the age of the medium, not the age of the text.

The text might contain an internal clue, such as "written in the Xth year of the reign of Emperor Y"

The text might contain another kind of internal clue, such as the author wrote it when he was in a specific place. Since we might know the author's personal history, we can then date the time of writing.

We might date a text on the basis of the style of the characters, the vocabulary and grammar, and so forth. This can get complicated. For example, a scribe writing in style X might write in the style for 50 years, so pinning down an exact date might be harder. Texts might deliberately adopt the vocabulary of earlier texts to make some theological or political point.

Texts are also dated on the basis of historical events they might mention. For example, if the text refers to the death of X, we know it was written after the death of X. If it mentions the death of X but not Y, we might infer that it was written before the death of Y (although silence is not always a useful criterion for dating). Since Mark's gospel seems to mention the Fall of Jerusalem, most scholars date it after that time.

There might also be testimony regarding the text, or clues, in other writers. For example, if text A is referred to in text B, we know it is older than text B. For example, there are numerous gospel quotes in the third and fourth century writings of the church fathers, so it seems that the four gospels must have been around before that time. However, there are logical problems with this position. For example, some scholars argue that Luke used the writer Josephus, who published in 70 and 94. This would make Luke after 94. Yet, you could argue that Luke and Josephus used the same sources, thus preserving the possibility of an earlier date for Luke.

However, it is important to note that a text is dated on the weight of all of these things, when firm clues are not available.

For example, suppose we were going to try and date Mark's gospel. We first note that it mentions the fall of Jerusalem. That puts it after 70. Mark's gospel seems to contain numerous allusions to period after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, another clue that it might be from that period.

Additionally, Mark's portrait of Christ's ideas, behavior and thought is rather rough-hewn and undeveloped. This would also put it early in the gospel parade.

Finally, we know that Luke and Matthew both copied Mark. That would put Mark after 70, but before the earliest date for Matthew, since Matthew is usually thought have been written before Luke. That would put Mark between 70 and 100 (depending where you like Matthew), but probably early in that range, because of the references to the period 70-75. A date of 75 seems reasonable.

Read the discussions of each gospel on Peter Kirby's site; they are excellent and informative.

Michael

CX

You would probably do well to check out a good intro text, perhaps by Udo Schnelle or Raymond Brown. Most scholars today conclude that the earliest gospel is GMk and that it was written during or shortly after the Jewish Revolt of 66-70 C.E. Noone could seriously suggest any gospel was written in 12 C.E. so I'll assume that's just a typo.

The reasoning is this: According to the most popular forms of the 2 source hypothesis AMk wrote first. It is presumed that he must have known about the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. and that he refers to it in the "mini-apocalypse" (GMk 13). If AMt and ALk are using GMk as a source then they must have written after 70 C.E. most scholars date AMt and ALk in the 80's or 90's C.E. though some scholars, notably Burton Mack, date GLk much later to around 110 C.E. (read Who Wrote the Gospels) for his detailed argument. I am not as familiar with the Johannine corpus but scholars believe GJn was written between 90 and 95 C.E. based, I think, on the idea that it was Presybyter John spoken of by Papias who wrote that gospel and not the apostle John, son of Zebedee. In any case I don't think any modern scholarship, which is not motivated by an evangelical theology, dates the earliest gospel before 65 C.E. or so.

I should also correct your statement that it is unbelievers who date the gospels to 65 C.E. and later. Rather the main body of biblical scholars are believing Xians and it is they who give these dates. Only the fundamentalist and evangelical minority date the gospels earlier than that and that vast majority of them are not lettered biblical scholars, but preachers or other clergy and seminarians.

As to your question, the traditional authorial attributions themselves cast the NT as "hearsay" roughyl half the books in the canonical NT are by Paul (if we accept all the traditional attributions) who was not a direct witness to Jesus ministry. GMk is supposed to have been written by John Mark who was a disciple of Peter and his interpreter in Rome many years after the fact. GLk and Acts are both supposed to have been written by Paul's "beloved physician" Luke. Only GMt and GJn along with some of the catholic epistles are said to be by original followers of Jesus. That being said most scholars conclude that all the gospel authorial attributions are late and pseudepigraphal. I think there is a reasonable concensus among biblical scholars that none of the NT texts were written by eyewitnesses to the events.

Vorkosigan

Cowboy X, do you know of the word counts for the various NT writings?

Michael

CX

That depends on what you mean. Do you mean the number of words in each gospel in the original greek, the number of words in the English translations, the number of hapax legomena (words unique to each gospel) or what? I don't know the precise numbers off the top of my head, but I have several references that discuss this as well as the amount of overlap in the synoptics (which is my primary area of interest and study). I can look it up if you like.

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: CowboyX ]</p>

CX

Here:

GMk 11,025 words, 132 hapax legomena
GMt 18,293 words, contains 97% of GMk
GLk 19,376 words, contains 88% of GMk

[editorial note: I only have the numbers for the synoptics readily available]

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: CowboyX ]</p>

Vorkosigan

My fault. Not thinking through the question clearly. I was interesting in Acts and Paul's letters. How many greek words in Acts and in Paul's letters in total?

Michael

CX

I have no idea, but I bet it's a lot. Out of curiousity why do you want to know? Have you tried Dr. Goodacre's <a href="http://www.ntgateway.com" target="_blank">New Testament Gateway</a>?

CX

BTW, call me Jimi since we're both regulars and all. Heh. I'm regular. Plenty of roughage in MY diet.

Vorkosigan

BTW, for the original poster, this <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bible.html" target="_blank"> excellent article by Carrier</a> contains some good intro to how texts are understood and analyzed. Be sure to scroll down to the second half, that discusses a couple of problems in 1 Timothy.

CobowyX replied:
I have no idea, but I bet it's a lot. Out of curiousity why do you want to know? Have you tried Dr. Goodacre's New Testament Gateway?

Not yet. Several times you mentioned the weight of Paul in the NT texts, so I thought you might know offhand. I wanted the numbers as ammo for an argument I'm responding to.

Thanks, I'll check out goodacre's site.

Michael

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>