Question about the New Testament

[ScientArtist]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

The average life expectancy of a man at 0 BCE/CE was 30 years. According to my timeline, an eyewitness (which are proven to be unreliable) of at least 108 years would have to remember, by heart, exactly, all the events of Jesus' life four times. The main historian that some people cite actually lived during and recorded the Trojan War, which, according to the Iliad, ended in 75 BCE. He would have been 138 years old at Jesus' death, when a man's average life expectancy was 28. So how can we prove through literature that Jesus really did die on a cross in Golgatha? I do not aim to debunk Christianity. It is an honest question.

 

[juvenissun]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

The average life expectancy of a man at 0 BCE/CE was 30 years. According to my timeline, an eyewitness (which are proven to be unreliable) of at least 108 years would have to remember, by heart, exactly, all the events of Jesus' life four times. The main historian that some people cite actually lived during and recorded the Trojan War, which, according to the Iliad, ended in 75 BCE. He would have been 138 years old at Jesus' death, when a man's average life expectancy was 28. So how can we prove through literature that Jesus really did die on a cross in Golgatha? I do not aim to debunk Christianity. It is an honest question.

You don't try to prove that kind of thing from the point of view as you described. NOBODY can do that kind of study in a reliable way.

So, leave that line of thought alone and find some other ways to reason this matter.

 

[David4223]

MOD HAT ON

This thread is being moved from the Philosophy forum to the Exploring Christianity forum.

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[Hawkins]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

The average life expectancy of a man at 0 BCE/CE was 30 years. According to my timeline, an eyewitness (which are proven to be unreliable) of at least 108 years would have to remember, by heart, exactly, all the events of Jesus' life four times. The main historian that some people cite actually lived during and recorded the Trojan War, which, according to the Iliad, ended in 75 BCE. He would have been 138 years old at Jesus' death, when a man's average life expectancy was 28. So how can we prove through literature that Jesus really did die on a cross in Golgatha? I do not aim to debunk Christianity. It is an honest question.

You base your calculation on the assumption that "gospels were not written until over 70 years after..", please present your evidence to prove this.

The nature of history is that it can hardly be proven. You choose to put your faith in one human writing or another. You assume wrong here. Your faith goes to the one (human) who said that "gospels were not....". You miss the truth by putting faith in such a human. That's the case.

 

[TheyCallMeDave]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

The average life expectancy of a man at 0 BCE/CE was 30 years. According to my timeline, an eyewitness (which are proven to be unreliable) of at least 108 years would have to remember, by heart, exactly, all the events of Jesus' life four times. The main historian that some people cite actually lived during and recorded the Trojan War, which, according to the Iliad, ended in 75 BCE. He would have been 138 years old at Jesus' death, when a man's average life expectancy was 28. So how can we prove through literature that Jesus really did die on a cross in Golgatha? I do not aim to debunk Christianity. It is an honest question.

https://carm.org/when-were-gospels-written-and-by-whom . THe Gospels were written between ad 55 and ad 70 . The earlier Gospels were in circulation during the same time the eye witnesses and contemporarys of Jesus' death a resurrection took place. People watched his crucifixion and they saw him for 40 days afterward because he did not remain secret. He travelled about the countryside still doing healings and teachings. The Disciples were fully convinced he arose from the death and not once recanted their story , not even upon a death sentence of being flayed alive, boiled, crucified upside down, run in with a sword, and burned alive. People die for the truth but never knowing it was a lie theyd be dying for.

Additionally, we have other written sources and archeology that backs up the Gospels and Jesus. Discovered has been Ciaphasis tomb, the person who was the Sanhedrin Leader that put Jesus to death , We have Herods Temple who Jesus was taken to , we have artifacts of Pilate who Jesus was crucified because of his orders, we have many locations where Jesus performed healings and taught, Bone boxes from others who were crucified like Jesus , and a long list of other finds.

 

[Hawkins]

https://carm.org/when-were-gospels-written-and-by-whom . THe Gospels were written between ad 55 and ad 70 .

Between 55AD and 70AD instead of 70 years after Jesus' death.

 

[pshun2404]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

The average life expectancy of a man at 0 BCE/CE was 30 years. According to my timeline, an eyewitness (which are proven to be unreliable) of at least 108 years would have to remember, by heart, exactly, all the events of Jesus' life four times. The main historian that some people cite actually lived during and recorded the Trojan War, which, according to the Iliad, ended in 75 BCE. He would have been 138 years old at Jesus' death, when a man's average life expectancy was 28. So how can we prove through literature that Jesus really did die on a cross in Golgatha? I do not aim to debunk Christianity. It is an honest question.

An honest question from a total mess of misinformation....

First off if you know anything about ancient Judaism to be a Sanhedrin Pharisee (as opposed to a general member of their sect) one had to be at least 40 years old and married (at least at some point)...your assumption about average age in 0 bce (not that such a year designation even exists) is pishtosh...even Ciaphas (whose tomb we have found) was older than that when he ordered the crucifixion and was counseled at the time by his father in-law Ananias (who obviously was much older thus priests also lived to be way over 30). The average Jewish person lived well beyond 30. They count the 480 years from the Exodus to Solomon building the Temple as 12 generations (thus the thinking that an AVERAGE generation was at least 40 years).

The Illiad (I cannot even fathom where you got this one) claims to have been written in about 1200 bce (but we do not know how they kept time) and archaeology has revealed the events to have taken place around 800 BCE...but if you are speaking of Josephus he was a young boy in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus and an adult in 70 CE and a friend of Titus of Rome (only 3 or 4 decades after the Christ events).

Matthew was a tax collector for the occupation government (thus the accusation "Publican") and not just some guy collecting tolls (like you expect on the Mass Pike). He was much more scary and hated. records from that time indicate such persons kept records of dates, names, excuses, and calculated payments and interest and had the power to have you arrested and endentured....even your family members...

When he was with Jesus do think he really put away his pen and was not writing down everything? So we are well within historical reasoning to assume he was collecting many notes...papyrologist Carsten Theide has a fragment of Matthew his team dated to 50 CE (less then two decades after the Christ events) though there is some controversy that indicates maybe late 60s CE...we also have a fragment of Mark's gospel (at the Pontifical Institute in Rome with Jose O'Calligan) dating to 68 CE which is an obvious copy of an earlier original. So all your info is incorrect.

Consider when you read about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in a reprint from the 90s....founded on an original from the 60s...is it not recording or speaking to an actual event? Of course it is, do not be absurd...

How can one prove Jesus was crucified? We have extra biblical writings that say so...whether you believe history or not is your choice. There was never a question as to whether or not Jesus was a real historical person or that he was crucified only that some so not believe he was who he and his followers said he was....even the empty tomb is not questioned just what happened to make it empty and that controversy raged al the way up to the Toldoth Yeshu of the 5th century...most theories have been debunked.

 

[ScientArtist]

"Although some scholars disagree, the vast majority of researchers believe that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, sometime around the year 70."
From an article on the Boston College website.

I admit a mistake on the whole Trojan War thing. That was from an article on ColdCaseChristianity. Forgive me.

pshun: Average life expectancy is measured over the entire population. You are citing individuals for examples. It doesn't work like that.

My apologies for posting this is the wrong section.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

"Although some scholars disagree, the vast majority of researchers believe that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, sometime around the year 70."
From an article on the Boston College website.

I admit a mistake on the whole Trojan War thing. That was from an article on ColdCaseChristianity. Forgive me.

pshun: Average life expectancy is measured over the entire population. You are citing individuals for examples. It doesn't work like that.

My apologies for posting this is the wrong section.

Well, we already know that Jesus was at least 30 or so when He died; and as we all know, His life was purposely cut short. So, it's rational to think if Jesus hadn't been crucified, He likely would have lived longer.

Paul the Apostle, according to tradition, likely reached his 50's or 60's.

James the Apostle also likely reached an older age:

James remained the leader of the Jerusalem church until his death around A.D. 62. This is the account of his martyrdom according to Hegesippus (a 2nd century Christian about whom little is known), which is quoted in Eusebius'Ecclesiastical History, vol. II, ch. 23 (A.D. 323).
Source: http://www.christian-history.org/death-of-james.html
​

So, we can't just go by historical statistics in this case....

2PhiloVoid

 

[ViaCrucis]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

I'm not aware of any serious scholars that would date the Synoptics that late. When talking about early and late dating of the Synoptics we're talking a difference of only a couple decades; the earliest dating being in the 60's, and the latest being in the 80s (90s tops) with a usual figure of sometime in the 70's following the destruction of the Temple. That would place the dating of the Synoptics no more than 40-50 years following the crucifixion of Jesus. John could have been written 70 or so years later, late dating for the Gospel of John usually is between the year 100-120, (early dating for John is usually 80-90, so even early dating estimates for John are understood as rather late). John couldn't have been written any later than this as our earliest manuscript of the Gospel of John is dated to between 120 and 150.

So the time scale here of 70 years would be off, even by late estimates by several decades for the Synoptics.

The average life expectancy of a man at 0 BCE/CE was 30 years.

As a nitpick, there was no year 0. December 31, 1 BC/BCE is followed by January 1, 1 AD/CE.

According to my timeline, an eyewitness (which are proven to be unreliable) of at least 108 years would have to remember, by heart, exactly, all the events of Jesus' life four times. The main historian that some people cite actually lived during and recorded the Trojan War, which, according to the Iliad, ended in 75 BCE.

Now, hold on a moment. That's completely wrong. Homer--who wrote the Iliad--lived around 850 BCE; the Trojan War is believed to have happened in the 12th century BCE--that's 1,200 years before Christ. Not 75 BCE.

He would have been 138 years old at Jesus' death, when a man's average life expectancy was 28. So how can we prove through literature that Jesus really did die on a cross in Golgatha? I do not aim to debunk Christianity. It is an honest question.

If you are working with the idea that "the main historian people cite" to refer to Jesus witnessed the Trojan War that would make him the oldest man ever--at over 1,200 years old. I don't know what historian you could be referring to.

There are historians, such as Flavius Josephus who was a soldier during the first Jewish-Roman War and saw the destruction of the Temple, whose writings are appealed to as evidence of Jesus--though his passages are highly contested and remain a continued source of debate.

The most solid evidence we have are what Christians themselves wrote; and the earliest writings we have come from St. Paul; and there is a near unanimous consensus that most of the letters which bear his name in the New Testament are, indeed were written by him--these undisputed letters are: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. The earliest of these, 1 Thessalonians, is agreed by the general consensus of modern scholarship to have been written in the 50's, only 20 years after Jesus' crucifixion. We can, therefore, quite sensibly gather what the earliest Christians believed about Jesus and that there was in fact a Jesus and that He was crucified. No credible historian doubts Jesus lived or that He was crucified by the Romans; and the earliest Christian writings we have--the letters of Paul and the Synoptic Gospels--while obviously biased in favor of Christian belief--are still an historical source that there was a Jesus and this Jesus was crucified.

There is no reason to doubt these basic historical premises apart from an irrational skepticism, which if applied consistently would generally allow us to disregard the historicity of most ancient historical persons. Which is why such irrational skepticism is not taken seriously--regardless of religious position or lack thereof of the scholars and historians doing the scholarship and history.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[hedrick]

70 is a little high. Estimated dates were revised down slightly in the latter half of the 20th Cent. These days critical scholars typically accept a date right before 70 for Mark, and around 90 for Matthew and Luke. An early tradition says that Mark was written by a follower of Peter around his death, to record his preaching. Matthew and Luke are thought to have used written sources, or at least a verbal tradition that was well codified. While there’s no way to know the age of that source, it’s probably at least as old as Mark.

So I’d place the Gospels as based on the teachings of Jesus’ immediate followers, but recorded by the next generation. Recent study of transmission of sacred stories in the Mid-east says that even today religious traditions are passed down quite faithfully. This contrasts to other types of verbal account. It’s likely that in an oral culture such as the 1st Cent accuracy was at least as good.

This doesn’t say that the accounts are perfect. First, modern evidence shows that even eye witnesses often don’t see things accurately. In particular, I don’t place high weight on stories of miraculous events today. But I don’t think the amount of time is enough to cause a serious problem. My own estimate is that we know Jesus’ teachings fairly accurately, and that major events such as the crucifixion are accurate. The accuracy of the resurrection is one you’ll have to assess for yourself, but again, I doubt that the amount of time before the Gospels were written is the issue there. N T Wright has an interesting analysis of the attitudes of people in the 1st Cent. He's convinced that there's no way the Church could have gotten started in the form it did without the Resurrection. It’s pretty clear that the accounts of the Resurrection are old, since Paul cites them as established tradition. It's pretty clear that he met with Peter and others shortly after his conversion. While we don't know the exact contents of the discussions, it's hard to believe that it wasn't about Jesus.

 

[Soyeong]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

The average life expectancy of a man at 0 BCE/CE was 30 years. According to my timeline, an eyewitness (which are proven to be unreliable) of at least 108 years would have to remember, by heart, exactly, all the events of Jesus' life four times. The main historian that some people cite actually lived during and recorded the Trojan War, which, according to the Iliad, ended in 75 BCE. He would have been 138 years old at Jesus' death, when a man's average life expectancy was 28. So how can we prove through literature that Jesus really did die on a cross in Golgatha? I do not aim to debunk Christianity. It is an honest question.

Things like high infant mortality, wars, diseases, and famines brought down the average life expectancy, it does not mean that people were living until 30 and then they died. Furthermore, Jews frequently washed themselves with ritual purity laws and ate healthier with dietary laws, so they tended to live longer.

The Gospels accounts contain many minor details about the land, such as about agriculture, architecture, botany, culture, economics, geography, language, law, personal names, politics, religion, social stratification, topography, and weather, which can be independently verified. If the Gospels were written a hundred years later in countries outside of the land of Israel, then chances are that they would have gotten many of these details wrong, but the fact that they get them right strongly suggests that what we have are high quality eyewitness accounts. I recommend watching this video:

 

[ScientArtist]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, speak no further. You are arbitrarily declaring that regional artifacts agree with scripture, which they do not. The Jews of Israel were one of the unhealthiest peoples on the planet, due to their huge dependence on wheat. And details, which are not the purpose of this thread, are very vague in my experience reading the New Testament. And if you want details, just know that the Gospels couldn't even agree on the date, attendees, or location of Jesus' crucifixion.

 

[com7fy8]

Hi, Scient Artist Pagan I am not familiar with artifacts and historical studies on this. I do understand that humans in general can favor the artifacts and historical studies which fit with each person's own prejudices; and I am human, too; so surely I can do this, also.

But when I read that a Gospel or New Testament letter was written at a certain time, I am curious how they decided what that writing time was.

For example, if someone says a Gospel was written in 70 AD, why? If they go by writing style, of a certain cultural time, fine. But it could have been translated from an earlier writing with a style update, for all I know, like how Bible versions are done, today, with updating of writing style and vocabulary. And earlier copies of earlier versions could have worn out with use. The earlier versions could have been in Hebrew or Aramaic, for all I know, and before they were worn out were translated into Greek manuscripts which were discovered.

Our Apostle Paul says, "I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some," in 1 Corinthians 9:22; so from this I see how Paul might adjust how he lived and communicated, in order to reach people in their cultural settings; and so, like this, possibly early manuscripts were translated to adjust to the writing style and vocabulary of whoever would be using those manuscripts. Therefore, in case ones date when something was written, based only on the style of the earliest manuscript found, this could be "hasty", I think.

Also, ones could have been sharing pages or portions of manuscripts they held, so that only partial copies were discovered, in some cases; and so, ones would suppose that parts were "added", later, if older copies were found without those parts. Ones can interpret according to how they have been trained to interpret, and/or more or less according to their motives and character, then, I offer.

If Jesus died when He was 30, His mother Mary was still alive and at His cross > John 19:26-27 > so, she was older than 30. Plus, John lived long enough after Jesus was on this earth, so that John had time to be put on the prison island of Patmos > Revelation 1:9. So, in case John was Jesus' age, he would have lived longer than Jesus; Jesus trusted John to take care of His mother Mary.

Now you might have claims of information which you can use to question things, but I am aware how people in this world can rig things, and fix which books and historical claims make it to the present day. I believe we have certain people claiming to be "Christian", too, who can rig things, maybe in order to get a name for themselves.

So, I pray and trust God to do with me whatsoever He pleases. And I find He does better with me and others, than how I can understand the Bible to mean, with me and others. I might be Bible smart, but very love stupid; but God is able to correct us into real loving.

Your own character and your own motives will have a lot to do with what you decide, how you see things, and how you are able to interpret and filter what you have for claims of information. I am finding that as God corrects me, I become more able to understand the Bible and life more in terms of enjoying and trusting God while I have compassion for any and all people and share more and more as family with His people. But, as for those who are deceivers >

"Destruction and misery are in their ways;
. The way of peace they have not known."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Romans 3:16-17)

You "might" take a look at how people are becoming while they do what they are doing, and how their marriages are becoming. God's grace is almighty, and His love can effect how our minds and bodies function, so that we live longer than we would by living for ourselves in stress and using each other. Love does not have us using anyone, and "Love does no harm to a neighbor" (in Romans 13:10). So, yes, obviously there are people who have claimed to be Christians, but who have harmed people. So, it is good to make sure; and making sure with God Himself works best, I will offer you

The Bible itself does say >

"Test all things; hold fast what is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

But this means to test with God and the ability and honesty of love which you can have with Him.

"'Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.'" (Matthew 11:29)

 

[Soyeong]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, speak no further. You are arbitrarily declaring that regional artifacts agree with scripture, which they do not. The Jews of Israel were one of the unhealthiest peoples on the planet, due to their huge dependence on wheat. And details, which are not the purpose of this thread, are very vague in my experience reading the New Testament. And if you want details, just know that the Gospels couldn't even agree on the date, attendees, or location of Jesus' crucifixion.

I was making a point about their knowledge of the land, not about the content of their testimony. For example, if you were to make up a story that took place in another country 100 years ago and used over 100 personal names, would you be able to pick the right sort of names and in the right frequencies to be historically accurate? The use of certain names and their popularity changes over time, so someone living 100 years later in the same country who was picking names from their own period would have a different pattern of names. Furthermore, our idea which names are popular often isn't very accurate. Lists of names of Jews in 1st century Palestine forms a very different pattern from lists of names of Jew in 1st century Egypt, so when you consider that the Gospels were written outside of the land, that makes it even less likely that someone making up a names would get the right sort of pattern. Names are also one of the hardest things to remember, so if there was not an accurate means of transmission, then names would start to drop out and names like Simon the Tanner, Simon the Leper, Simon of Cyrene, and Simon Peter would simply become Simon, but the Gospel accounts correctly disambiguate for more common names and do not disambiguate for the less common names.

There are other details that we can independently verify, such as at one point the Gospels mention someone who climbed a Sycamore tree in Jericho, so we can look at whether there were Sycamore trees in Jericho at that time. Someone living outside of the land might never have even heard of a Sycamore tree, so the only way someone would know that there were Sycamore trees in Jericho was if they had been there or they had talked with someone who had been there. Another example, during the feeding of the 5000, one account mentions there was green grass and another that there was much grass, so we can look at precipitation charts for that area during that time verify whether the grass would have been green. These sort minor details would have been very easy for someone removed from the events to have gotten wrong, so getting them right doesn't prove that Jesus performed a miracle, but it does strongly indicate that the accounts were accurately remembered and transmitted, and if they accurately remembered the minor details, then we have all the more reason to think that they accurately remembered the major details.

Saying that we have high quality eyewitness accounts does mean that they agree on everything or that what is being recounted is true. In fact, if they agreed on everything, then that would indicate collusion. Police do not put eyewitnesses together before they are questioned because then they would end up with the same account multiple times, which is not what they want. Different eyewitnesses notice different things from different perspectives and have different ideas about which details are important, so it is through these differences that we can piece together a more complete account of what happened.

The genre of the Gospels is Greco-Roman biography and we look at people like Plutarch and see that that he wrote biographies of people who lived at the same time and attended some of the same events, so we can see how the same author retells the same events differently. When we do that, we note that these differences form patterns, which strongly suggests that they were an intentional literary device rather than an unintentional mistake. For instance, when someone sent a messenger, the middleman was often cut out and replaced by the person who sent the messenger, even though they weren't actually there. We see this happen a few times in the Gospels, such as when one account says that an centurion came to say something while another account says that he sent a slave. So we see the same sort of patterns that happen in other Greco-Roman biographies also appear in the Gospels, which accounts for many of their differences and falls within the literary freedom of the authors.

 

[Hawkins]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, speak no further. You are arbitrarily declaring that regional artifacts agree with scripture, which they do not. The Jews of Israel were one of the unhealthiest peoples on the planet, due to their huge dependence on wheat. And details, which are not the purpose of this thread, are very vague in my experience reading the New Testament. And if you want details, just know that the Gospels couldn't even agree on the date, attendees, or location of Jesus' crucifixion.

Show verses.

Moreover, do you know what human witnessing could be?

Show me two human history books which are about human history 2000 years ago, and they agree with each other on dates, people, and locations. Plus that their original scrolls exist.

Alternatively, show us what you yourself did exactly a year ago on Oct 02, 2014, with 2 independent sources strictly agreeing with each other.

I think that you need to first get a grasp of what human witnessing is before you can get into how accurate the Bible is.

 

[Hawkins]

"Although some scholars disagree, the vast majority of researchers believe that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, sometime around the year 70."
From an article on the Boston College website.

I admit a mistake on the whole Trojan War thing. That was from an article on ColdCaseChristianity. Forgive me.

pshun: Average life expectancy is measured over the entire population. You are citing individuals for examples. It doesn't work like that.

My apologies for posting this is the wrong section.

Gospel of Mark can be as early as AD64 when Peter was thought to be in Rome. It is also possible that gospel of Mark was written not after Peter's martyrdom in AD66. That's why some scholars think that the gospel of Mark is not yet completed.

Mark was writing in accordance to what was provided by Peter. He also tried to make his writing as short as possible probably due to the high price for publishing in Rome.

 

[singpeace]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

The average life expectancy of a man at 0 BCE/CE was 30 years. According to my timeline, an eyewitness (which are proven to be unreliable) of at least 108 years would have to remember, by heart, exactly, all the events of Jesus' life four times. The main historian that some people cite actually lived during and recorded the Trojan War, which, according to the Iliad, ended in 75 BCE. He would have been 138 years old at Jesus' death, when a man's average life expectancy was 28. So how can we prove through literature that Jesus really did die on a cross in Golgatha? I do not aim to debunk Christianity. It is an honest question.

The Gospels were written approximately in the years 58 to 70. Christ died approximately in the year 30. While the average life expectancy was less than 50 years, it is true that some men lived to be 80+ years old.

 

[Job8]

So, recently, I read that the gospels were not written until over 70 years after the reported death of Jesus. There are some questions I have.

What people should understand is that the Bible and the Gospels have been under attack ever since Christianity had an impact on the world. Whoever came up with this theory has absolutely no proof, but there is plenty of evidence to confirm that some of the New Testament books were written within 20 years of the resurrection.

 

[hedrick]

What people should understand is that the Bible and the Gospels have been under attack ever since Christianity had an impact on the world. Whoever came up with this theory has absolutely no proof, but there is plenty of evidence to confirm that some of the New Testament books were written within 20 years of the resurrection.

I'd say this is as unreliable as the original assertion of 70 years. We don't know, of course, though we do have a fragment of John from the early 2nd Cent. We also have some statements by early church writers. But the evidence I've seen supporting very early dates hasn't been widely accepted.