Dating the Bible

[Radagast]

I am not really sure that this is the correct forum for this, but here goes. On a forum to which I have no posting privileges I just came across a statement to the effect that "almost all of the New Testament was written prior to the destruction of the Temple in AD 70". This certainly goes against modern biblical scholarship.

So-called "modern biblical scholarship" is often simply a set of assumptions. The two-part book Luke/Acts is obviously written at the point where the story stops, for example, somewhere in the early 60s.

The only reason to believe the gospels were written after 70 AD is refusal to believe that Christ could have predicted the destruction of the Temple -- a distinctly anti-Christian assumption. In fact, failure to mention the destruction of the Temple is a strong indicator of authorship before 70 AD.

And the non-canonical "gospels" are 2nd century. We have clear historical evidence of that.

John Dominic Crossan is simply not a credible author.

 

[Robban]

It is not like everyone carried a notebook and ballpoint pen
in those days.

 

[Robban]

There were forged letters being sent, judging by what Paul wrote in,
2 Thessalonians 3:17.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

So-called "modern biblical scholarship" is often simply a set of assumptions. The two-part book Luke/Acts is obviously written at the point where the story stops, for example, somewhere in the early 60s.

The only reason to believe the gospels were written after 70 AD is refusal to believe that Christ could have predicted the destruction of the Temple -- a distinctly anti-Christian assumption.

The only reason to believe that Caesar Augustus was not fathered by the god Apollo (as testified by ancient sources) is refusal to believe that the greek deities exist - a distinctly anti-Hellenic/anti-Roman assumption.

Sorry, but religious faith has got no place in scholarly research - at least not when it comes to evaluating sources and establishing historicity.
There is no more reason to believe that the historical Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple than there is to believe that the historical Buddha emerged from his mother's womb capable of intellectual conversation and walking, and sprouting white flowers in his footsteps.

 

[Erik Nelson]

What Qualifies As Evidence? Everything! | Cold Case Christianity

 

[Erik Nelson]

The only reason to believe that Caesar Augustus was not fathered by the god Apollo (as testified by ancient sources) is refusal to believe that the greek deities exist - a distinctly anti-Hellenic/anti-Roman assumption.

Sorry, but religious faith has got no place in scholarly research - at least not when it comes to evaluating sources and establishing historicity.
There is no more reason to believe that the historical Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple than there is to believe that the historical Buddha emerged from his mother's womb capable of intellectual conversation and walking, and sprouting white flowers in his footsteps.

From a purely Christian POV, "fallen Angels" miraculously impregnated human women on earth before Noah's Flood (Gen 6:1-4, circa 3500 BC) begetting through them the "giants" (Nephilim) who were powerful personages of renown.

After the Flood, Nimrod (Gen 11, circa 2500 BC), Greek & Trojan heroes of the Trojan War (circa 1200 BC), Alexander the Great (circa 350 BC, fathered by Zeus), Caesar & Augustus (circa 50 BC, descendants of Venus & Apollo) all claimed essentially similar.

From a Christian POV, such claims presumably stand as some sort of "demonic imitation of the Virgin Birth" of Christ. No reason to automatically deny them.

However, all such claims are much more miraculous & extra-ordinary, alleging what has never been otherwise observed (some sort of human "parthenogenesis" or something)… than some man (Jesus) standing up and making a verbal prediction about the then-near future.

That is much much more mundane of a claim. People predict the future all the time. Sometimes even accurately.

So while both might be "fruit" in the sense of being remarkable and attributed to supernatural causes, you really are comparing apples & oranges.

-----

Anyway, your argument is circular. The evidence for supernatural intervention into human history on earth, is that Jesus and other Religious leaders claim to communicate with God in heaven, who allegedly imbues them with extraordinary knowledge, e.g. "prophesy" prediction of events 40 years in advance.

You seem to be saying, "we know that's not possible, so it didn't happen... and since it didn't happen, there's no evidence it did... and since there's no evidence, we know it's just not possible".

You are being close minded. You rule out Divine intervention on earth out of hand, then, having excluded all reports to the contrary, satisfy yourself that "no evidence" exists to the contrary.

Open minded acknowledges (say) that Luke wrote Luke & Acts while Paul was imprisoned circa 60 AD, and he wrote his account as an "orderly" account, as opposed to the "non-ordered" account of Mark, who wrote down all of the ad hoc things Peter said in Rome, spontaneously on the spur of the moment, whilst evangelizing there... implying Mark wrote even earlier, say 50s AD, after Peter had been evangelizing there for a decade or more.

With an early date of the Gospels before 70 AD, judging by all other internal literary evidence, Jesus' alleged Prophesy of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple then takes on a miraculous aspect.

The allegation of Divine intervention into human history on earth should not require that every human in human history personally witness a miracle. It ought not to be required that every single person witness flashing neon light-like effects in the sky scrawling the words "YHWH really actually exists".

The reports of such extra-ordinary "special effects" are already numerous, e.g. light-like "Star of Bethlehem" phenomenon.

"I didn't see it myself" is not a justification to dis-believe. You've never yourself seen a winning grand-prize lottery jackpot $50M winning ticket... but you believe that there have been a few. "I didn't myself win the lottery" does not mean a few others haven't. "I didn't witness the Star of Bethlehem" doesn't mean (quite a) few others didn't.

We have the eyewitness testimony of those who did. One does not get to automatically impugn those witnesses, for free, simply because what they reported was extra-ordinary. That's why they bothered to report it, in the first place!

"I didn't witness a miracle" does not mean it didn't happen.

"I didn't receive Laws from God in heaven at Mt. Sinai" does not mean Moses didn't.

God in heaven does not have to demonstrate "special FX" to every single pair of human eyes ever in terrestrial history, in order to have manifested miracles on Earth.

"God didn't choose me as His Prophet" does not mean God didn't choose others.

Sorry. That's what the allegation is, God intervenes into human history on earth, picking & choosing whomsoever's lives God chooses to intervene into.

Elijah was specially chosen & Contacted. Not every single Joe Schmo ever alive on earth. Every other Joe Schmo's non-experience of Contact does not imply Elijah was not Contacted, either... again, the whole claim is that he was an extra-ordinary exception.

The rule is that God in heaven does not (seemingly) manifest wondrous miracles in anybody's lives.

Supposedly, there are a few specific exceptions, that tell us God in heaven is watching us from above.

"I didn't win the lottery" does not mean nobody ever wins it. "I wasn't Contacted by God in heaven" does not mean Amos & Hosea weren't.

Of course, do we automatically know 100.000% that God communicated with Elijah, and took him up in a fiery tornado? No.

But Elisha and 50 other reputable "sons of the Prophets" witnessed Elijah sucked into a fiery tornado, drawn skyward, and they never found his remains, despite days of searching.

It was such a remarkable, extra-ordinary, miraculous event, that they wrote about... they and their followers preserved their writings... and Christians today TRUST & BELIEVE their witness... they say Elisha + 50 sons of the Prophets are credible witnesses, whose testimony "on the witness stand" is credible, believable, and accurate

That's the "Faith" part of believing... believing in the reports of others that God in heaven has wondrously intervened into their lives.

"I myself am not the exception-al Elijah" does not mean Elijah was not a miraculous exception to the general rule, of God not intervening into most peoples' lives most of the time.

If everybody experienced it, it wouldn't be an exceptional exception to the norm!

So again again again, circular reasoning.

"I'm not an exception, so they're can't be any"... say that the next time you hear about somebody hundreds or thousands of miles away from you, whom you've never met and never will, allegedly winning the lottery.

You didn't win the lottery... so they couldn't have either.

Not the way it (supposedly) works.

God in heaven intervenes into human history, eenie meenie minie moes whomsoever God chooses, and works miracles in their lives...

which they then report on the (ancient text-only version of) the Nightly News.

-----

According to the standard of evidence you seem to (me to) be applying, nobody ever commits a crime.

Because an eyewitness can report an exceptional event (hopefully crimes remain exceptions on earth for a while longer)...

one you didn't see yourself...

But you say, "only seeing is believing"...

and you didn't witness the crime...

so there was no crime...

and everybody gets off the hook

other people seeing is also (by rights) you believing

you're only escape, is to Accuse them of reporting falsely

and that is a charge of a crime, perjury, lying under oath, when they swore on their honor they spoke truthfully

Innocent until proven guilty?

And if you say, "don't trust everything you hear, don't trust everything people say"... would those words apply to yourself, also??

The founders of Christianity lied under oath... but I (and my friendly sources) tell God's honest Gospel truth ???

Such Accusations should be treated with the thickest most padded & armored gloves available

 

[Rubiks]

The topic of linguistic dating interests me. Once its established that Hebrew is related to other Semitic languages through common ancestry. The theory goes that parts of the Hebrew Bible that are more similar to other Semitic languages should be dated earlier than the parts that are more different. Only relative dates can be established this way, because the rate at which language changes is constantly changing.

 

[Rubiks]

So-called "modern biblical scholarship" is often simply a set of assumptions. The two-part book Luke/Acts is obviously written at the point where the story stops, for example, somewhere in the early 60s.

The presence or lack thereof of anti-supernatural assumptions would change virtually nothing when it comes to biblical scholarship.

The only reason to believe the gospels were written after 70 AD is refusal to believe that Christ could have predicted the destruction of the Temple -- a distinctly anti-Christian assumption. In fact, failure to mention the destruction of the Temple is a strong indicator of authorship before 70 AD.

And the non-canonical "gospels" are 2nd century. We have clear historical evidence of that.

John Dominic Crossan is simply not a credible author.

Plenty of secular scholars would place Mark in the 60's.

 

[Erik Nelson]

The topic of linguistic dating interests me. Once its established that Hebrew is related to other Semitic languages through common ancestry. The theory goes that parts of the Hebrew Bible that are more similar to other Semitic languages should be dated earlier than the parts that are more different. Only relative dates can be established this way, because the rate at which language changes is constantly changing.

Richard Elliott Friedman addresses this issue, e.g. "Who Wrote the Bible", "Bible with Sources Revealed", "Hidden Book in the Bible"

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Please. You are not even willing to concede the possibility that your beliefs might be incorrect, and stoop to "fallen angels" to explain non-Christian religious myths, yet point fingers at *me* for being "closed-minded"?

Suffice to say that we've had plenty of time to document supernatural occurrences and test them for their veracity, and NOT ONE of these tests revealed anything other than fraud or unsubstantiated belief.

Of course, the gospel of "Mark" *IS* commonly dated to 60-65CE, meaning that it was written before the Temple's destruction. That's not the only or even the main reason for giving the other books a later date, nor the reason why the claim that they were written by independent eyewitnesses is commonly rejected. Long story short, if you were working at a school, and three students handed in essays that showed the same correspondences as the synoptic gospels, you'd immediately flag them for plagiarism. (And no, I'm not suggesting the gospels' authors tried to deceive us or deliberately violated a journalistic or scholarly standard, because that didn't exist back then.) Likewise, if three witnesses handed in written testimonies in court that looked like the synoptics, everyone would KNOW that these were not the words of people who had seen the events they described.

 

[dlamberth]

Good luck with this. I would just point out that which is often omitted from discussions of dating. i.e. That WHEN the various books were originally written and WHAT was originally written are two totally different questions.

I might add that interpretation is important. Which brings in yet another set of questions. It took 400 years for the idea of the Original Sin to enter Christian theology for instance. Today that thought has become so important that the whole of Christian doctrine and interpretation of the Bible is dependent upon it.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

The only reason to believe that Caesar Augustus was not fathered by the god Apollo (as testified by ancient sources) is refusal to believe that the greek deities exist - a distinctly anti-Hellenic/anti-Roman assumption.

Sorry, but religious faith has got no place in scholarly research - at least not when it comes to evaluating sources and establishing historicity.
There is no more reason to believe that the historical Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple than there is to believe that the historical Buddha emerged from his mother's womb capable of intellectual conversation and walking, and sprouting white flowers in his footsteps.

Utter disingenuous nonsense that shows no knowledge of the sources. Suetonius goes into some length describing Octavian's parentage down to his grandparents. He even mentions taunts that he was descended of a baker and moneylender. True, as Augustus he did affect iconographic Apollo imagery, but no ancient biographer took it seriously. Even at his death, the whole farce with releasing an Eagle to show his ascent shows its vacuity. Writers like Juvenal, or bitingly Seneca's anti-Claudius Apocolocyntosis, or the fights around Livia's goddesshood, shows the disregard the educated held of such claims.

Not even Alexander the Great's divine descent was taken as a thing. Read Plutarch, where he mentions 5 or 6 extant versions of his divine origins, from a dream by Philip sealing his wife's womb to Bacchyntic rites or lying with a snake by Olympias. Sufficed to say, Arrian and others never questioned Alexander as Philip's son, and Plutarch mentions such stories off-hand before moving on.

With the claims of the Buddha's lilied feet and such, these aren't from early sources, which are usually judged best. They are the equivalent claims to fourth century non-canonical gospels.

With the prophecy of the Temple's destruction, we have early sources agreeing Jesus did so (John, Mark, and perhaps Q depending how you reconstruct the writing and relationships of the gospels). If anything, it would make more sense to think Jesus did do so - even on secular grounds that it was a lucky guess - as it accounts for these various sources making such a claim, and the phenomenal growth of the early Church after 70 AD could be in part explained thereby. I mean, even Bismarck had succesful 'prophecy' when he said a major war would result from some nonsense in the Balkans. To deny it makes little sense outside of some sense of bias, and personally I think is just a holdover of the hyperacute criticism of the 19th century, which had wanted to shift the Gospel composition into the second or third centuries or so.

Regardless, no. It does not mean we must trust the divine origins of Caesars or kings. Sources don't present that asa thing in the same manner. Even claimed divinity for figures like Romulus were often doubted. This is a frankly silly and fallacious position.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

The religious context is actually very important to understanding historic texts and recreating the view and subtext of the author and his readers. Bede for instance, wrote our best source on early Anglo-Saxon history, and it is replete with miracles and saints. They aren't ignored, for it describes nicely where saint-cults started and often maps well onto regional power structures. What historians do, is state Bede said that St Oswald died here and the soil had curative properties, etc.
Likewise, when reading ancient history, you would state the miracle of the great rainstorm when Marcus Aurelius faced the Quadi, or the stories of Archimedes' reflective mirrors or grapling claws at the siege of Syracuse. Some would then proceed to dismiss them on whatever grounds, or more likely, to see them as exaggerations or give naturalistic explanations, but historians don't ignore or reject such material off hand. Now and then, people will defend the ancient narrative, even if somewhat fanciful, as with Heron of Alexandria's works or those mechanical thrones of Justinian.

Only with Biblical material do we see this strange double-standard, where things are often rejected a priori, without even attempting to explicate the situation. History writing anyway creates a narrative, a hypothetical reconstruction, an historical model of events, based upon the underlying axiomatic view of the writer. The interplay between reader and writer is especcially acute when reading ancient texts, where we need to understand worldviews we seldom share anymore. Trying to discard material is not good historic methodology. History isn't truth, but an attempt to reconstruct events - so that some make Cola di Rienzi a tyrant, some a democrat; or some deny the existence of Ninja clans and other affirm them, etc. We must go on probability, or our trust in our sources, which can often be construed in favour of the Gospels - which works within a paucity of source material, and a lot of ancillary corroboration in titles and usages and such. The kneejerk rejection thereof is neither supportable nor good critical method.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

"Only with Biblical material"? I hold other religious texts to the same standards. For example, it's pretty obvious that the Qur'an references the apocryphal, decidedly ahistorical "infancy gospels", which in itself already discredits most of its claims of divine authorship. And don't get me started on the Book of Mormon. How that fraudulent nonsense managed to survive even for a decade, let alone claim roughly 15 million people as faithful followers in the 21st century, completely eludes me.
Even Wicca, a religion that I used to identify with for quite some time in my early 20s, didn't escape that kind of close scrutiny, leading to my discovery of its roots in fin de siecle occultism and certain Masonic rituals (as opposed to the "secret surviving stone age religion" postulated by some of the more fact-resistant fluff bunnies).

 

[Radagast]

Of course, the gospel of "Mark" *IS* commonly dated to 60-65CE

J.A.T. Robinson famously argued that it could be dated as early as 40 AD.

If, as seems likely, Luke was written in the early 60s using Mark as input, then a date for Mark in the 40s or 50s is reasonable.

nor the reason why the claim that they were written by independent eyewitnesses is commonly rejected.

There's no reason to reject that claim. John is clearly independent of the Synoptics, and the Synoptics are clearly composed of 4 independent documents (Mark, Q, M, and L), with Matthew = Mark + Q + M, and Luke = Mark + Q + L. There's no reason why some or all of Mark, Q, M, and L can't be eyewitness accounts, or closely based on eyewitness accounts. Indeed, there's reason to believe that Q is a Greek translation of the Sayings of Our Lord which tradition says Matthew wrote in Aramaic.