Your post is rather repetitive and hard to respond to because I'm going to have to go back and dig out at least my item and in several cases. Instead I'm going to just list a bunch of things you think are unknown/speculation and why you is wrong.
1. It is well established that Daniel was written in the time of the Maccabean revolt/early Hasmonean monarchy. It's stated as such even in my 80s NAB.
Nah. I think it's historically underdetermined. I'm fully aware of the various interpretive positions on the book of Daniel (or on any book of the Bible, really). And neither Christians nor Atheists should continue to use so-called "consensus" where historical matters for dating a book are all too easily relied upon. It's the rational and evidential qualities of specific arguments that make them true or accurate, not how many scholars sign on to the subscription page----------especially not from simply reading one scholar who says, "Consensus says...................!!!"
So, I don't rely on claims of consensus as some sort of definitive and final answer to anything that pertains to the past or to Christianity.
2. No sane person thinks that *Jesus* wrote the interjection in that bit of Mark about *readers*. It was clearly done by the author ( or interjected by a later copyist, I suppose).
I never said that bit was something Jesus wrote or said. Go back and re-read what I wrote. I didn't say that in the least. So, it's better not to contest with me on that, Hans.
3. Some of the dumbest parts of this conversation were because you wrote "even if the Gospels were written after A.D. 70 (and we don't know for sure that they were)." Now I'm all for a bit of academic hedging, but to call my references to the *consensus* dating of Mark as post-, but near to 70 CE as "speculating" is going too far. I'm not speculating. I am repeating scholarly consensus. It's also exactly what you posted in your link to the "Bart Blog". Speaking of which...
Yes, it's speculation, especially where 'knowing' exactly when much of the literature in the New Testament was actually written. You should know this, as should just about everyone out there. It's time to get better educated folks!!!
At best, we can place arguments as to 'when' we think each book or letter was written, but our claims either way are underdetermined by the evidence.
Moreover, as I said before, positing our personal credulity or incredulity of an event as some kind of heuristic by which to gauge 'when' some New Testament work was actually written is the height of irresponsible historical evaluations. No one should be doing that. It's not a bona-find criterion for historical scholarship; it might be for speculation, however.
4. I did slightly speculate about a small extension to the date range given in that blog post, because I thought the authors strict restriction to *during* the actual war was a bit tight given the lags in communication and writing. The dates given in that article were exactly what I thought they would be other than the oddly sharp ending of the range with the end of the war.
Sure. I acknowledge that you were within the range that Ehrman and similarly minded scholars place the Gospels. But, regardless, it's all still speculation. People need to stop talking like they know, especially if they don't actually widely read and compare various positions. .... then again, I realize it takes a lot of time to even attempt to come to a final position on any one chosen nuance embedded within the details pertaining to the Synoptic Gospels.
5. Perhaps the other "synoptics" can be pushed to or near the 2nd century CE, but I've never seen any scholarly attempt to put Mark there. I have heard of literalist/fundamentalist academics who try to get all of the gospels written before the war so they can get the names in their KJV17xx to be the authors and the Olivet Discourse (you remember that, right?) to be a literal prediction demonstrated by the pre-event publication.
The truth is, the claims are underdetermined by whatever evidence we think we might have in this regard, either way. People need to stop talking as "if" they know with certainty one way or another.
6. As to copying, I've seen plenty of chunks of text (translated into English) comparing Mark/Matthew/Luke and every last one of them sets off my "plagiarism alarm". (Yes, I know that was not the standard at the time.) That the texts are dependent (as they say in the field) on each other is clear. The Greek readers tell us that often the words are the same. Given that I am well familiar with revision (or in this case making your own version) of a text (something I need to get back to in a few minutes) the scholarly consensus that Mark is first and Matthew/Luke copy most of Mark. One of the other two probably copies or rewrites the other, but the scholarship is less agreed on which direction or if both are copying "Q". Outside the literal copying, I will stick with my original characterization of those writings as "copy cats". Their authors mimicked not only the general concept and overall content, but large bits of text.
They utilized a similar body of texts by which to construct their own narratives.
7. I don't know if it is called "consensus", but the use of Josephus for some "historical color" in "Acts" by "Luke" is well known in scholarship.
Yes, I already know that. I'm fully aware of the positions, especially that of scholar, Steve Mason, who is one of the foremost scholars on that topic.
Doesn't mean I agree with him though (even as I sit here staring down at my copy of his book,
Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins). And I've heard his many youtube talks with various youtube skeptic brats.
The potential use of a few bits of it in the Luke gospel is less clear (from what I can gather). That puts the writing of "Acts" in the 90s or later. Unless you'd like to speculate about those books not having the same author, it does have implications about the dating of "Luke".
Again, no one knows for sure when these where written and it's especially not determined by what our intutions tell us about when the Synoptics could have been written as ad hoc piences. That's just not good, scholarly historical thinking.
I would have linked a video, but the only one I could find was embedded in reddit and I couldn't figure out how to extract it.
Yeah, somehow it always tends to work out that way.
Sorry Hans, I'm not trying to smack a hair-lip on you, but I do begin to get a little testy when folks talk to me as if I'm sitting here with empty hands, empty bookshelves and an empty brain, as if I've never studied.
........... sorry, I couldn't help myself.
