TheDiddleyMan

I am a young person who is rather confused about how dates are chosen for the gospels and the New Testament books. Conservative scholars like Albright and Geisler say that all books were written before 80 A.D. Others like Mack and Doherty say many (including some of the gospels) were written after 100. How do I go about deciding what is right?

Kevin

spin

Dating the gospels is quite a difficult task, as there are no obvious dating indications to be pointed to.

The Christian wants to date them early for obvious reasons: if they can't be dated early then there is no way to justify the attribution of the figures who supposedly wrote them.

The only indicators I can see are the citations in the early church fathers. I recently checked up on one example, "the Son of Man" and found that it was not used in the earliest church literature even though it was supposed to have been a term used by Jesus. The first church father to use "the Son of Man" as a messianic title was Justin Martyr in about 157 CE. This suggests that ther term is rather late. It is also not found in bona fide Jewish literature at all -- other than with its original meaning of "human being" and not in any way messianic. Some people will point to the book of Enoch which has a late section called the Similitudes which talks of "that son on man" with an apparently messianic flavour to it. However, the Sim,ilitudes were not found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, so there is no way to date the text or know whether it was a Jewish or Christian development.

As no church father uses "the Son of Man" until 157 CE then it is probable that at least the sections which deal with it are rather late. As it is integral to the gospel of Mark then I'd guess that Mark wasn't written until quite late as well, but both Matthew and Luke are based on Mark, so I'm led to believe that all these gospels are from the second century.

It is worth noting that the first written gospel mentioned was that of Marcion, who was accused of bowdlerising the gospel of Luke, though it could mean that he was responsible for writing or developing that gospel and more mainstream Christians rendered it acceptable to them.

In brief the problem is too difficult for most people to give a reasoned response to, as there is too much involved.

Vorkosigan

Criteria used to date the gospels

a) textual evidence. What is the earliest manuscript? In case of John, a scrap of 70 words dating from 125-150 has been found (dated by the writing).

b) internal evidence: what hints are there in the text? Where Jesus refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, it must mean the author knew of the destruction, and hence must date from later.

c) relationship between NT gospels and other writings. Do others cite them? Do they cite others? What are dates of such cites? For example, since Luke copies Mark, he must date from after Mark (unless you are one of those rare scholars who believe that Mark is a bioled down version of Luke).

d) external evidence: What is the date of the earliest cite? The earliest reference to a gospel?

e) word usage, style and paleographical considerations. Certain documents use identical vocabularies, and probably date from around the same time. In others the type of lettering enables scholars to give a broad date.

f) Timing considerations. How much time did require for John to be edited and redacted several times, and to have the ending of Original Mark grafted onto it? BTW, what does it mean to "date" a gospel that was written edited by several hands over the course of decades, with even later adjustments and interpolations by the Church?

g) ideological reasons. Conservative scholars try to date the NT writings as early as a possible. Liberal scholars tend to late first century dates. "Radicals" tend to dates after 110. Sensing a pattern....?

Michael

spin

Criteria used to date the gospels

a) textual evidence. What is the earliest manuscript? In case of John, a scrap of 70 words dating from 125-150 has been found (dated by the writing).

This is of course quite an arbitrary decision. Just look at what happened to the dating of the Unknown Gospel Fragments from Oxyrhynchus when they discovered they belonged to Thomas.

b) internal evidence: what hints are there in the text? Where Jesus refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, it must mean the author knew of the destruction, and hence must date from later.

If the gospels were not written in Palestine then this criterion has little meaning.

c) relationship between NT gospels and other writings. Do others cite them? Do they cite others? What are dates of such cites? For example, since Luke copies Mark, he must date from after Mark (unless you are one of those rare scholars who believe that Mark is a bioled down version of Luke).

That doesn't help us date any of them.

d) external evidence: What is the date of the earliest cite? The earliest reference to a gospel?

This is a difficult criterion because one can claim that something is a citation from a gospel when it it only citation of oral tradition. YOu can't demonstrate this so it has little calue.

e) word usage, style and paleographical considerations. Certain documents use identical vocabularies, and probably date from around the same time. In others the type of lettering enables scholars to give a broad date.

Paleaography is supposedly the key to your point a) so it is of no help given the arbitrary nature with which it is applied.

The rest here seems like mumbling. (Sorry.)

f) Timing considerations. How much time did require for John to be edited and redacted several times, and to have the ending of Original Mark grafted onto it? BTW, what does it mean to "date" a gospel that was written edited by several hands over the course of decades, with even later adjustments and interpolations by the Church?

This is an important question, though I can't see a way of anyone answering it given the data available.

g) ideological reasons. Conservative scholars try to date the NT writings as early as a possible. Liberal scholars tend to late first century dates.
"Radicals" tend to dates after 110. Sensing a pattern....?

Naturally. I'm left not dating them, only showing that they emerge in the writings of Justin Martyr.

spin