Casing me doubt: the date of the writing of the gospels?

[Chad1480]

This has been eating away at me so much lately:

Most everyone has come to the conclusion that the gospels were written about 50 years after Jesus death.. doesn't this mean that the writers were not eye witnesses of Jesus at all? Can't this have caused many false teachings based on illegitimate information written?

Were the writings possibly even a huge hoax?

I am a Christian but this has been causing me much doubt lately. Any replies are greatly appreciated. Thanks, God bless..

 

[revanneosl]

I hate to make it worse, but the best biblical scholars place the authorship of the four Gospels even later than you think.

Mark: c70 CE
Matthew: c80 CE
Luke: c90 CE
John: c100 CE

But don't worry that they weren't eye witnesses of the things they wrote about. The eye witnesses didn't feel the need to write things down because they expected Jesus to come back just any day now, you see. It's only in the 2nd generation that there became a need to write things down. M, M, L & J drew upon the stories told by the people who knew Jesus.

 

[St_Worm2]

I hate to make it worse, but the best biblical scholars place the authorship of the four Gospels even later than you think.

Mark: c70 CE
Matthew: c80 CE
Luke: c90 CE
John: c100 CE

But don't worry that they weren't eye witnesses of the things they wrote about. The eye witnesses didn't feel the need to write things down because they expected Jesus to come back just any day now, you see. It's only in the 2nd generation that there became a need to write things down. M, M, L & J drew upon the stories told by the people who knew Jesus.

Would you please let us know who these "best Biblical scholars" are.

Thanks!

--David

 

[St_Worm2]

Most everyone has come to the conclusion that the gospels were written about 50 years after Jesus death.. doesn't this mean that the writers were not eye witnesses of Jesus at all?

Hi Chad, first off, welcome to CF ..

As far as the dating of the Gospels, first, we do not know how old the Apostles were when they wrote them, do we? They could have easily been 10 year younger than the Lord. And second, even if they were the same age, that means they would have finished writing their accounts while still in their 70's or 80's (or in the case of the Apostle John, perhaps in his 90's?). In any case, it is not unreasonable to believe that they may have lived that long, is it? And that, of course, would only be the case if the modern critics' timelines for authorship are accurate (which is simply impossible to say)!!

You too mention that "most everyone has come to the conclusion that..." the traditional dating of the Gospels is wrong. Who is "everyone". The theologians I know and have studied under still hold (for the most part anyway) to the Traditional dating of the Gospels.

Why would you let something that can only be guessed at, even by the best scholars, modern or traditional, cause you to doubt your faith? Or the fact that the Apostles may have been, at worst, old men, when they finished writing?

--David

 

[ViaCrucis]

The fact that the difference between the early dates and the late dates are the difference of only ~20 years should be significant. That these were written within the first generation of Christians (and nobody doubts this) seems to be meaningful in and of itself.

Whether or not the Gospels were written by those traditionally attached to them, and/or that they are eye-witness accounts seems trivial and rather unimportant. That they represent the witness of the earliest Christians seems, at least to me, undeniable. They are written accounts and witnesses of the Gospel as the oldest Christian communities understood it, confessing it.

When we combine this with the witness of Paul, who is near universally recognized as our earliest Christian source, with his earliest writings being placed within about a decade or so of Christ, then we seem to be able to quite nicely synch Paul's apostolic witness and his firsthand experience with those who DID know Jesus personally (and their agreement and work together) with the Gospel texts that were written only a few short decades later we have something incredibly rare in antiquity: We have a verifiable chain from Jesus Himself to the penning of the Pauline epistles and Gospel texts all within a span of only several decades.

However, one cannot prove the profound claims made by early Christians, not empirically. We have no way of testing resurrection, for example. That still remains a matter of faith--of believing what has been written and passed on to us. But the fantastic thing is that which has been passed down to us has, indeed, been passed down from the earliest strata of Christianity, from the beginning. Our faith is, as a point of fact, apostolic in origin.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[branchofthevine]

The date of Mark seems to best be placed around 64-67AD

Matthew is best dated between 75-85AD

The earliest that Luke could have been written is AD 62, and the latest most probably date is in the mid-70s. Also Luke himself was not an eyewitness, but investigated everything and interviewed eye witnesses in his research.

John is best dated around 90-100 AD.


John and Matthew were eyewitnesses, and Mark wrote down what Peter told him.

The source I used for this is actually a great book called: 'Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship"

It is one of the textbooks I used for my Gospel class this past year. Totally recommended

 

[revanneosl]

Would you please let us know who these "best Biblical scholars" are.

Thanks!

--David

Richard Hays
Joel Marcus
Adela Yarboro Collins
Gregory Sterling
John P. Meier
Hans-Joseph Klauck
Margaret M. Mitchell

 

[St_Worm2]

Richard Hays
Joel Marcus
Adela Yarboro Collins
Gregory Sterling
John P. Meier
Hans-Joseph Klauck
Margaret M. Mitchell

Thanks!

 

[pshun2404]

I hate to make it worse, but the best biblical scholars place the authorship of the four Gospels even later than you think.

Mark: c70 CE
Matthew: c80 CE
Luke: c90 CE
John: c100 CE

But don't worry that they weren't eye witnesses of the things they wrote about. The eye witnesses didn't feel the need to write things down because they expected Jesus to come back just any day now, you see. It's only in the 2nd generation that there became a need to write things down. M, M, L & J drew upon the stories told by the people who knew Jesus.

I love to make it better but these are only the so called "critical scholars" and so much more that they professed to be true has been proven to be false that I would not take their word for it.

Take the word of those closest to the events...Matthew was written first in Hebrew Aramaic probably within a decade after the resurrection...according to these writers and traditions (which of course the critics must reject or discredit as if the early church were full of liars) Thomas was in India around 52 A.D. preaching from the Hebrew gospel of Matthew. Mark, though the earliest fragment is from 68 A.D. could have been written earlier unless they want to claim (without real proof as is the case with most of their claims) that this was part of the autograph...

These people are by far not the "best" scholars but are considered among the best by modern western thinking ( as if they know better that Christ, the Apostles, and the first and second generations of people they trained)...

Paul

 

[E.C.]

I always find it amazing that we can accept the epics from Homer as being accurate unquestionably even though they were passed down by word of mouth for centuries before ever being put onto paper; but as soon as we get to the Gospels, God forbid they were written after the fact


Before we talk about the Gospels lets talk about the compilation of the Bible. The Bible wasn't compiled until a few centuries after Christ at earliest. What was going on at the time was there was a group of heretics called the "Gnostics" who believed all kinds of weird things. Anyway, they were spreading their own works and so the Christians at the time got together, went through all the texts, sought the advice of some wise guys called the Church Fathers (some of whom were dead by this point, but their writings were full of guidance), asked God for some direction and viola we have the Bible.

Now, to the Gospels. For the first few decades of Christianity there was little for the Christian to worry about because they were considered to be the same as Jews. Until the Great Jewish Revolt (66AD-70something AD) because the Christians did not participate in it against the Romans than after that the Christians started to have problems with the Jews and later the Romans as well.
One can guess a few things:
-It may not have been until that Revolt when the Gospel writers saw the need to put their words to paper.
-The Twelve Apostles were also being martyred around this time, so there goes one's main primary sources on Christ.
-The Gospel writers probably realized that if they did not write what they knew than later generations would probably have a harder time of knowing who Jesus really is and what He did while He was here because, after all, they witnessed some of what He did, they were very educated as well and they knew that they too would die one day and leave a lot of people without some bit of knowledge of Christ if they didn't write things down.

Just my thoughts. I highly doubt it is a grand hoax.

 

[branchofthevine]

I love to make it better but these are only the so called "critical scholars" and so much more that they professed to be true has been proven to be false that I would not take their word for it.

Take the word of those closest to the events...Matthew was written first in Hebrew Aramaic probably within a decade after the resurrection...according to these writers and traditions (which of course the critics must reject or discredit as if the early church were full of liars) Thomas was in India around 52 A.D. preaching from the Hebrew gospel of Matthew. Mark, though the earliest fragment is from 68 A.D. could have been written earlier unless they want to claim (without real proof as is the case with most of their claims) that this was part of the autograph...

These people are by far not the "best" scholars but are considered among the best by modern western thinking ( as if they know better that Christ, the Apostles, and the first and second generations of people they trained)...

Paul

Actually what we know about Matthew comes from Papias, and his wording could mean it was written in Hebrew, or in a Hebraic style in Greek.


Not that it is important, but it is interesting.

 

[Johnnz]

There are two major divisions within NT scholarship. There are those who have issues with the supernatural in the Gospels, and consequently a later date fits in best with their 'developmental ' stance.

But there are a number of excellent NT scholars who have very reasonable grounds to support earlier dates. N T Wright and Gordon Fee are two widely recognised 'conservative' NT scholars. Books published under the IVF label represent sound evangelical scholarship.

There is general acceptance that the three synoptic Gospels drew from an earlier, but unknown source(s). Paul's conversion occurred about 4 years after the crucifixion. In Galatians he writes how Jesus taught him, and when he met with the early apostles later, those who were eyewitnesses, they confirmed the accuracy his teaching. There is a high Christology in Paul's letters which preceded the Gospels. That is significant, as His views obviously reflected common teaching at the time.

John
NZ

 

[Spiritlight]

Chad dont freak about this, the later writing is normal in ancient history.

In Jesus day there was a low literacy rate and paper was a very expensive comodity used to record important things. They didnt do what we do and write things down on a notepad instantly and thier way of recording events was a thing called an oral tradition. they used to recount stories meeting in groups and pass the stories on.

In the time after jesus assention there would have been many witnesses to the events to validate the stories accuracy. These stories eventually were recorded in writing and eventually turned into the gospels. Thats how the ancients recorded thier history with a delay usually and many ancient writings we believe now were like this.

Its all good mate those gospels are trustworthy.

 

[Eretria90]

This has been eating away at me so much lately:

Most everyone has come to the conclusion that the gospels were written about 50 years after Jesus death.. doesn't this mean that the writers were not eye witnesses of Jesus at all? Can't this have caused many false teachings based on illegitimate information written?

Were the writings possibly even a huge hoax?

I am a Christian but this has been causing me much doubt lately. Any replies are greatly appreciated. Thanks, God bless..

I suggest giving this Christian apologetics book a read: "History and Christianity: A Vigorous, Convincing Presentation of the Evidence for a Historical Jesus" by John Warwick Montgomery. It's a short little book (around 100 pages) and it has some scholarly discussion. Particularly, to answer your question, Parts 2 and 3 of Warwick's book are the main reading.

Obviously, the NT Gospels we know were recorded in the 1st century, written decades after Jesus' Crucifixion. Many of our surviving manuscripts date from the 4th century, obviously hundreds of years after Jesus' death. Therefore 200 to 300 years passed. Seems like a long time right? Well compare it to these instances: manuscripts we have from Plato's works date more than 1,000 years after his death, yet we assume and trust the source material so much we know Plato wrote them. Many of the tragedies/plays written by Euripides were not known until 1500 to 1600 years later after his death, but again, we associate his writings to be of that author and trusted. Many trust in the historicity of classical authors but for some reason we cannot trust in the New Testament texts. Seems ironic right?

Think of the 4 gospels as coming from 4 different witnesses. They each have a story to tell and not all of them are going to tell it the same way. They are recording eyewitness testimony about Jesus, His life, His ministry, etc. They can therefore be trusted.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I find it significant that the earliest Gospel manuscript, the John Ryland's P52, a fragment of the Gospel of St. John is dated to between the years 125-150; and even the most conservative dating of John's Gospel is typically no earlier than about 80 AD, with the latest dating falling between 100-110 AD. In either event, we have a well recognized manuscript of a Gospel text that is within a generation of the text's actual penning.

In the realm of paleography, that is astounding.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[lismore]

Any replies are greatly appreciated. Thanks, God bless..

This is an interesting passage:


For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

2 Peter 1:16-18

 

[floating axehead]

This has been eating away at me so much lately:

Most everyone has come to the conclusion that the gospels were written about 50 years after Jesus death.. doesn't this mean that the writers were not eye witnesses of Jesus at all? Can't this have caused many false teachings based on illegitimate information written?

Were the writings possibly even a huge hoax?

I am a Christian but this has been causing me much doubt lately. Any replies are greatly appreciated. Thanks, God bless..

Beginning with the Day of Pentecost, the Church met in the Temple. Daily. They rehearsed the Gospel. All were involved. Everyone knew what it was. There was no reason to write it down until Church leaders of new Churches springing up far away asked for it, so they wouldn't mess things up.

When you read your NT, you are seeing what the early Church did in Church!

Why does the date it was written down matter? Why does who wrote it down matter?

What matters is that the Church accepted it, and used it in their Church services. From the years 60 - 100 AD (the time period it is thought the Gospels were actually penned) no one would be able to get away with writing anything that changed the story.

 

[RevelationTestament]

This has been eating away at me so much lately:

Most everyone has come to the conclusion that the gospels were written about 50 years after Jesus death.. doesn't this mean that the writers were not eye witnesses of Jesus at all? Can't this have caused many false teachings based on illegitimate information written?

Were the writings possibly even a huge hoax?

I am a Christian but this has been causing me much doubt lately. Any replies are greatly appreciated. Thanks, God bless..

Hi Chad,
and welcome to CF!!
You know, I took a course in this, and was disappointed - by the time I finished the course by the professor who wrote the book on it, I wasn't even sure if he believed in Christ as our Savior. The critical analysis gets tiring imho.
Let me try to relieve some of your angst by saying that the scriptures are inspired. The fact that some may not have been written by eye witnesses is not important. Jesus told His disciples:

John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

So there was no problem with things being inaccurate - God made sure everything was remembered that needed to be written.

Hope this helps!

 

[abacabb]

Strange, people claim the Gospels were written decades after the events, but Acts of the Apostles obviously ends in 62AD. Then, according to not only the Pastoral Epistles, but the first generation of church fathers (Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp), all these guys quoted the gospels AND Ignatius added that Paul went to Spain, which obviously occurs after the events in Acts of the Apostles.

I'm tired or argumentum ad populums...Someone show me a good historical reason they actually understand to substantiate that the Gospels were written so late?

Quite frankly, the evidence is very unconvincing.

 

[abacabb]

Actually there is no evidence for those dates. The 1st dates for the canonical gospels are wishful thinking based on internal evidence only. When we look at history the first person to actually mention any of the canonical gospel was Papias (140ad) and this was mention by Irenaeus(180ad). So we dont see any canonical gospel untill the end of 2nd century. The earliest manuscript that exists is P52 dated to 125-150 ad and its size is the same as a small credit card.

The gospels where most likely written in the 2nd century. Also remember Papias mentioned that Matthew was in hebrew not Greek.

Try something like

Mark: mid 2nd century
Matthew: mid 2nd century
Luke: mid 2nd century
John: 130ce+

Wishful thinking. Clement quoted Gospels and Ignatius was quoting even the Gospel of John, far before 130 AD.