When Were The Gospels Actually Written?

[BuffDan 0]

After reading "A case for Christ" and then reading the various rebuttals to it, it seems to me that a lot hinges on when the gospels were actually written. Many of the arguments that Mr. Strobel makes are contingent on the gospels dating back very close to Jesus's death, for exmple, the fact that people are named who are said to have seen the resurection and the empty tomb, and if the Gospels were written immediately after the death of Christ, these people could refute these claims themselves, or naysayers could point to the tomb of Jesus and say "hey the body is still in there." Also, it is much more difficult for a legend to grow in such a short period of time.However, if the gospels came about much later in the first century, this is much more consistent with the legend having time to grow, especially if they are not by the authors they are commonly attributed to. We would expect the oral traditions to be embelished in this case.So which is it? This seems to me to be a case where finding the historical evidence can have an impact on whether or not to believe the metaphisical claims, beacuse if they are written by eyewitnesses or people who interviewed the eyewitnesses as opposed to people who had heard the stories that had grown with time, this does make a difference.

[Loismustdie 0]

Tuesday.

[crowTrobot 2]

After reading "A case for Christ" and then reading the various rebuttals to it, it seems to me that a lot hinges on when the gospels were actually written. Many of the arguments that Mr. Strobel makes are contingent on the gospels dating back very close to Jesus's death

many of the arguments strobel makes start with the assumption that the gospels are true and place the burden on disproof, in which case IF the gospel accounts are temporal with the events they describe it would be relevant evidence defending against counter hypothesis. however if the burden of proof is placed where it belongs the timing is irrelevant, since there is no evidence the accounts describe events that are possible at all. so logically nothing hinges on when the gospels were written - faith is required to believe them either way.

for exmple, the fact that people are named who are said to have seen the resurection and the empty tomb, and if the Gospels were written immediately after the death of Christ, these people could refute these claims themselves, or naysayers could point to the tomb of Jesus and say "hey the body is still in there."

historically many known false claims do not have a record of anyone bothering to refute them at the time they were made.

Also, it is much more difficult for a legend to grow in such a short period of time.

demonstratably false. modern myths often form in a very short period of time.

So which is it? This seems to me to be a case where finding the historical evidence can have an impact on whether or not to believe the metaphisical claims, beacuse if they are written by eyewitnesses or people who interviewed the eyewitnesses as opposed to people who had heard the stories that had grown with time, this does make a difference.

why? if a person came up to you today and claimed he was abducted by aliens and anally probed this morning, then another came up and claimed his father was abducted by aliens and anally probed 30 years ago because his father said so, why would you be more inclined to believe the former? since there is no evidence either claim is possible, science/logic contradict both claims equally.

[BuffDan 0]

many of the arguments strobel makes start with the assumption that the gospels are true and place the burden on disproof, in which case IF the gospel accounts are temporal with the events they describe it would be relevant evidence defending against counter hypothesis. however if the burden of proof is placed where it belongs the timing is irrelevant, since there is no evidence the accounts describe events that are possible at all. so logically nothing hinges on when the gospels were written - faith is required to believe them either way.historically many known false claims do not have a record of anyone bothering to refute them at the time. demonstratably false. modern myths often form in a very short period of time.why? if a person came up to you today and claimed he was abducted by aliens and anally probed this morning, then another came up and claimed his father was abducted by aliens and anally probed 30 years ago because his father said so, why would you be more inclined to believe the former? since there is no evidence either claim is possible, science/logic contradict both claims equally.

All good points. I do agree with the fact that regardless of when they were written, the gospels could still be religous propaganda, and conversely, they could still be the inspired word of God even if they were written centuries after the fact (he is God after all).But it still seems to me to be more likely to be legendary embelisment the more after the fact it was written.

[David_Nicoson 1]

After reading "A case for Christ" and then reading the various rebuttals to it, it seems to me that a lot hinges on when the gospels were actually written. Many of the arguments that Mr. Strobel makes are contingent on the gospels dating back very close to Jesus's death, for exmple, the fact that people are named who are said to have seen the resurection and the empty tomb, and if the Gospels were written immediately after the death of Christ, these people could refute these claims themselves, or naysayers could point to the tomb of Jesus and say "hey the body is still in there." Also, it is much more difficult for a legend to grow in such a short period of time.

I'm pretty sure the naysayers would be saying "Hey, somebody stole the body!" if it were missing. The absence of the body isn't really the remarkable part of the claim.

[David_Nicoson 1]

Wikipedia articleGospels -> DatingEstimates for the dates when the canonical Gospel accounts were written vary significantly; and the evidence for any of the dates is scanty. Because the earliest surviving complete copies of the Gospels date to the 4th century and because only fragments and quotations exist before that, scholars use higher criticism to propose likely ranges of dates for the original gospel autographs. Conservative scholars tend to date earlier than others, while liberal scholars usually date later. The following are mostly the date ranges given by the late Raymond E. Brown, in his book An Introduction to the New Testament, as representing the general scholarly consensus in 1996 (for a fuller discussion of dating, please see the articles for each Gospel):

• Mark: c. 68–73
• Matthew: c. 70–100 as the majority view; some conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 date, particularly those that do not accept Mark as the first gospel written.
• Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85
• John: c. 90–110. Brown does not give a consensus view for John, but these are dates as propounded by C K Barrett, among others. The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

Traditional Christian scholarship has generally preferred to assign earlier dates. Some historians interpret the end of the book of Acts as indicative, or at least suggestive, of its date; as Acts does not mention the death of Paul, generally accepted as the author of many of the Epistles, who was later put to death by the Romans c. 65. Acts is attributed to the author of the Gospel of Luke, and therefore would shift the chronology of authorship back, putting Mark as early as the mid 50's. Here are the dates given in the modern NIV Study Bible (for a fuller discussion see Augustinian hypothesis):

• Mark: c. 50's to early 60's, or late 60's
• Matthew: c. 50 to 70's
• Luke: c. 59 to 63, or 70's to 80's
• John: c. 85 to near 100, or 50's to 70

[11 to 1 0]

After reading "A case for Christ" and then reading the various rebuttals to it, it seems to me that a lot hinges on when the gospels were actually written. Many of the arguments that Mr. Strobel makes are contingent on the gospels dating back very close to Jesus's death, for exmple, the fact that people are named who are said to have seen the resurection and the empty tomb, and if the Gospels were written immediately after the death of Christ, these people could refute these claims themselves, or naysayers could point to the tomb of Jesus and say "hey the body is still in there." Also, it is much more difficult for a legend to grow in such a short period of time.

This area of Biblical Scholarship is one of the most subject to swings of opinion. We are just leaving the "Historical/Critical" period of scholarship that insisted none of the NT was written until after 70A.D. Now, the thinking is that parts of Mark, and the so-called "Q" document, were actually written during Jesus' lifetime. That is, those verses are from letters that circulated about Him during His ministry. Later, these were incorporated into larger books about Him. Part of what you can do is look at the "lineage" of the writers. While Mark (the oldest) and Matthew weren't written by the apostles Mark or Matthew, it is possible John did write most of John and Luke was a real guy, a disciple of Peter and of Paul. So, even if John didn't write down the work until a few decades after the Resurrection, you still have a primary witness. (Though it is likely His words were written down by a scribe, which was the practice in those days - everything pretty much ewas "ghost written." )

[David_Nicoson 1]

Even if we assume a totally skeptical perspective, I think we have to date the gospels within the lifetime of observers. In Matthew 13, Jesus says, after describing the tribulation and the second coming:"Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away before all these take place." I don't think someone embellishing the story of Jesus would intentionally create a myth that was already disproved. I think the skeptics should award integrity points to the Christians for not editing this stuff a bit over time. (I'll be disappointed in Lois if we don't get an alternative explanation to this chapter, by the way.)

[crowTrobot 2]

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/(secular compilation)

[Mattnxtc 0]

hadnt been on the forum in a bit so i thought id through a little history in on this one...to be frank, we arent exactly sure...the toughest part is that the Jewish writers didnt like to keep old records. When a scroll (which was fragle enough as it is) got to worn, it was copied down and then usually destroyed. So while we know they were extremely accurate copies, it makes it hard to get an understanding of how old a story/letter was b/c older records didnt survive

[semaj550 0]

http://www.carm.org/questions/gospels_written.htm

[KramitDaToad 0]

hadnt been on the forum in a bit so i thought id through a little history in on this one...to be frank, we arent exactly sure...the toughest part is that the Jewish writers didnt like to keep old records. When a scroll (which was fragle enough as it is) got to worn, it was copied down and then usually destroyed. So while we know they were extremely accurate copies, it makes it hard to get an understanding of how old a story/letter was b/c older records didnt survive

What a strange thing to say.The originals were destroyed but we know they were extremely accurate copies?I'd love some of the stuff you must be smoking

[semaj550 0]

What a strange thing to say.The originals were destroyed but we know they were extremely accurate copies?I'd love some of the stuff you must be smoking

Well we can do some extrapolation. We have many different transcriptions recovered from a large number of geographical areas. Not only are those transcriptions remarkably alike they are over 99% the same as the current copies of the Bible with no major doctrine in question. It's like hearing the same story from many independant witnesses, if their stories mesh we are more likely to believe that they are telling us the true story.

[KramitDaToad 0]

Well we can do some extrapolation. We have many different transcriptions recovered from a large number of geographical areas. Not only are those transcriptions remarkably alike they are over 99% the same as the current copies of the Bible with no major doctrine in question. It's like hearing the same story from many independant witnesses, if their stories mesh we are more likely to believe that they are telling us the true story.

Well that doesn't count for anything. If all the existing copies were transcribed from the 3rd 'generation' of a text and the first 2 don't exist for comparison there can be no 'extrapolation'. Don't support a weak concept simply because you want it to be true. It removes your objectivity. Also the word 'true' is unsupportable. It should read 'if their stories mesh we are more likely to believe that they are telling us a story of common source...' but as I pointed out this is not neccesarily the original.

[semaj550 0]

Well that doesn't count for anything. If all the existing copies were transcribed from the 3rd 'generation' of a text and the first 2 don't exist for comparison there can be no 'extrapolation'. Don't support a weak concept simply because you want it to be true. It removes your objectivity. Also the word 'true' is unsupportable. It should read 'if their stories mesh we are more likely to believe that they are telling us a story of common source...' but as I pointed out this is not neccesarily the original.

If you want to attack the Bible at least pick a front on which it is possible. There is simply no legitimate reason to believe that, in all material respects, the Bible you can buy from Barnes & Noble is not a true copy of the original manuscripts.I suggest you start with the following: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html

[KramitDaToad 0]

If you want to attack the Bible at least pick a front on which it is possible. There is simply no legitimate reason to believe that, in all material respects, the Bible you can buy from Barnes & Noble is not a true copy of the original manuscripts.I suggest you start with the following: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html

Who was attacking the Bible? I was addressing the lack of logic in Mattntx's post and yours as well. ie One makes a copy, destroys the original and then a thrid party can be sure that it is an accurate copy... The fact that we were discussing books of the Bible is completely irrelvant.

[semaj550 0]

Who was attacking the Bible? I was addressing the lack of logic in Mattntx's post and yours as well. ie One makes a copy, destroys the original and then a thrid party can be sure that it is an accurate copy... The fact that we were discussing books of the Bible is completely irrelvant.

There was nothing wrong with my logic. We have a bunch of copies recovered from different places. They are extremely similar, practically the ancient version of photocopies. Only one of two things is possible; they came from the same source or every transcriber across large distances somehow manged to colude to produce the similar copies. Since the latter literally impossible the former must be true.We can date currenetly availalbe copies of the Old Testament to the time of Jesus (the Dead Sea Scrolls) and copies of New Testament books to within a few decades of Jesus' death. Since we can very easily conclude that the New Testament has been extremely reliably preserved over the centuries and there is no mention of the Old Testament books being poorly transcribed up to that point we can reasonably infer that the Old Testament transcriptions are equally true to the orginals.Since we know that the transcriptions are true to a common source and we can reliably determine that original source is true to the original the logical conclusion is that the transcriptions are true to the original.Please point out how that logic is faulty.

[KramitDaToad 0]

There was nothing wrong with my logic. We have a bunch of copies recovered from different places. They are extremely similar, practically the ancient version of photocopies. Only one of two things is possible; they came from the same source or every transcriber across large distances somehow manged to colude to produce the similar copies. Since the latter literally impossible the former must be true.We can date currenetly availalbe copies of the Old Testament to the time of Jesus (the Dead Sea Scrolls) and copies of New Testament books to within a few decades of Jesus' death. Since we can very easily conclude that the New Testament has been extremely reliably preserved over the centuries and there is no mention of the Old Testament books being poorly transcribed up to that point we can reasonably infer that the Old Testament transcriptions are equally true to the orginals.Since we know that the transcriptions are true to a common source and we can reliably determine that original source is true to the original the logical conclusion is that the transcriptions are true to the original.Please point out how that logic is faulty.

My goodness, can you be any more blinkered? You know your enthusism for defending the Bible is commendable but did you miss the point I made about the fact we are discussing the Bible being irrelevant.Let me try it this way:When were the works of William Shakespere first written?We are not sure because when the original got into a state it was copied and destroyed so we know it was an exact copy of the original...What a strange thing to say, how do we know it was the same as the original if the original has been destroyed?Because we have lots of copies that say the same thing.Were these copies made from the original or were they made from a copy of the original?We can't be sure because as we said at the beginning we don't know when the first copy of William Shakespere's works was made.So how do we know that todays copies are the same as the original?Because they are all the same