Reddit mentions of Redating the New Testament

John A. T. Robinson asked this very same question. His book Redating the New Testament argues that all the gospels were written pre-70 AD.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1579105270/

People have argued that the Gospels were written even before that, as in the years 40-50 AD.

Redating the New Testament by John AT Robinson. Robinson argues that due to the fact that no Gospel author ever noted the destruction of the temple, one of Jesus's greatest and most important prophecies, they must be written before it.

The Priority of John by John AT Robinson is his interesting argument that the Gospel of John was written much earlier and, much to the incredulity of biblical scholars, that it was the first gospel ever written.

Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem by John Wenham argues for Matthean priority and a much earlier date for the Gospels.

>Because you make that claim.

I would think it's the default seeing as people have believed it for around 2000 years. The burden of proof would be on those seeking to overturn something like that.

>Yeah and the reason we know is that the genitive case gives us a first name. Historians make an (unjustified?) assertion that this plutarch is the same as a plutarch in other works, where he gives us his credentials and identification.

It's also because there were ancients who attributed the writings to Plutarch.

>Here is an example of the exposition of identity and credentials that historians look for.

Maybe this is me being a cynic, but I don't think biblical scholars would just leave it at that if there were names attached. They are usually not trained historians, and they still reject many of Paul's writings as being Pauline. (that said only Hebrews is universally thought not to be from Paul, I tend to accept traditional attributions because those making the attributions knew ancient Greek and the culture of their time better than anybody alive today)

>No papias does not mention a date. It only says that it was Mark's gospel written by mark who was a companion of peter, the disciple of the lord.

That would require a relatively early date because Peter was martyred in the 60s.

>The problem is that we do not even have papias' original writings. What we have is Eusebius quoting papias 300 years later saying the above and then saying that he is a man of "very little intelligence" and explicitly states that he knew no eyewitnesses. (Hist. eccl. 3.39)
Even if I grant your point, it would translate to "A christian living 300 years after the gospels were written says that another christian of 'very little intelligent' says that 2 gospels were written by non-eyewitnesses and the other 2 are written by disciples."

Sure. Of all the manuscripts with titles they have those names, and not only that, we know of nobody contesting these attributions. Not only that, but there is ok internal evidence for all of this. Matthew, Mark, and John seem to be clearly Jewish, while it's pretty obvious that Luke is gentile or at least writing to gentiles.

>I agree!

Markan priority definitely makes the most sense.

>So how do you address the synoptic problem? Fraser hypothesis?

On wikipedia I saw the "Farrer hypothesis," is that what you mean? If so, yes. I like it because it doesn't require a long lost document to make sense and it's in line with early Church tradition, which is always a good indicator seeing as they lived closer to the time and spoke the language as their everyday language.

>Huge unsubstantiated "if". But i would agree that if that was the case, Matthew could have copied Mark. I would not agree that it is in fact the case that Mark used peter due to a lack of evidence. We simply have to stay agnostic on the issue.

Sure, this is a good point. I was more just trying to reject the argument that because Matthew uses sources he would not have been an eyewitness. (I forgot which scholar I saw making that point, but the Baker Academic commentary refutes that pretty well)

>Argument from silence. Historians 1000 years from now are not justified in dating Trumps state of the union address prior to sept. 2001 just because it does not mention the 9/11 attacks.

With due respect I think you're missing my point. The reason that people try to date Matthew late is because of Matthew 22:7, where they see it as a prophecy of the temple being destroyed that was made after the event. I don't think it's conclusive either way necessarily. There was an Anglican bishop who was extremely liberal, (I forget his name but he was definitely not trying to defend Christian orthodoxy - it could be Robinson or Robson or something like that - he wrote a book called "Redating the Gospels" or something) and he argued that there is no compelling reason to date any of the gospels post 70 AD if I remember correctly. I don't know if I'd go as far as he did, but I don't know of any real refutation that was made.

>Prophecy from the old testament that is.
Yet again, this is an argument from silence, check above.

It's an argument from silence, but most arguments about this stuff are pretty much inductive arguments without any real demonstrations. I would say it's a reasonable inference that if somebody who was interested in prophecy saw a prophecy made and fulfilled in his lifetime he would talk about it. - It's a lot more reasonable than lots of other claims people make in this field.

>Or he was just trying to convince jews.

Well sure, but he wouldn't have known as much about the Old Testament. Luke has to go through and explain parts of the Old Testament that he would probably have been taught by Jews, Matthew is just a natural with his references.

>This has no bearing on the actual author and date of composition though.

Well it's in line with what Luke himself claims about the Gospel, that it's from collected historical documents.

>Idk, I think I would be open to the fraser hypothesis. It definetly seems much simpler than the two-source hypothesis.

I agree, it's pretty elegant and it makes sense seeing as it doesn't rely on a hypothetical document that was cooked up less than 300 years ago.

>I think i agree with conservatives more on this issue than skeptics but i think that the titles with the kata formulas were original to the autographs. So i would think that gLuke had the title "the gospel according to Luke". This however is not any identification of the author or of his credentials.

It seems reasonable that it is what it indicated.

>The reason Irenaeus attributed the gospel to Luke is because that was the first name in the genitive case. Thats all.

Sorry, I'm confused. When you say first name in the genitive case do you mean first name in the genitive case in the text? If so, that is not true, seeing as the first name in the genitive is Herod. Luke 1:5 - Ἐγένετο ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις Ἡρῴδου βασιλέως τῆς Ἰουδαίας ἱερεύς τις ὀνόματι Ζαχαρίας ἐξ ἐφημερίας Ἀβιά, καὶ γυνὴ αὐτῷ ἐκ τῶν θυγατέρων Ἀαρών, καὶ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῆς Ἐλισάβετ. If that's not what you meant, sorry for being uncharitable. :/

>I would like some evidence of that though if you have any.

This is not exactly scholarly, but according to National Geographic (and wikipedia but that's even worse, especially on biblical issues), John died around 100 AD. People date the Gospel of John from I think 110 (or 100) to around 90 usually. (I don't think it's impossible to date it earlier but that is what I know of as the usual datings)

>And i also posted in r/debatereligion defending the post-mortem appearances in the Corinthian creed (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).
I am just looking forwards to hear arguments on both sides.
I am reading books by critics and conservatives.

Sorry, what I said was uncharitable and out of line. I misread your posts and thought you were trying to debunk Christianity on Reasonable Faith, but now I see. Please accept my apologies on that.

>I am reading Bart Ehrman's Forged and NT Wright' The Resurrection of the Son of God. If you would like me to reach the truth, then provide some actual evidence or recommend good books. I do not think that reading through my profile and finding instances where I post some of the problems with the gospels will help.

I've been reading the Baker Academic Exegetical Commentaries of the New Testament. They're from an evangelical perspective, but I asked my professor at a big public secular university if they're any good, and he says they are. The one on Matthew is the one I've spent the most time with. Also if you want a really conservative position by an extreme liberal theologian, here is the book I'd mentioned earlier:

It's expensive to get a hard copy, I have not read through much of it, but here it is on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Redating-New-Testament-John-Robinson/dp/1579105270

You can also read the PDF here:

http://richardwaynegarganta.com/redating-testament.pdf

If you have access to a big theology library they would likely have it.

>Yes, you do. If you want to claim the "appearances" weren't originally understood to be spiritual visions from heaven then you need actual evidence for that.

How could the appearances have been "originally understood to be spiritual visions from heaven" when we have Mark, Matthew, and Luke writing about Jesus' physical resurrection before Paul? Or whoever you think wrote 1 Timothy 5:17–18.

>No you just keep asserting it despite the problem of Paul not necessarily being the author

Well whoever you think wrote 1 Timothy 5:17–18, it was still written after Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

>You're ignoring other possibilities.

Don't give me "possibilities", give me an argument for whomever you think is the best explanation for the authorship of 1 Timothy 5:17–18. Arguing that Paul didn't write 1 Timothy 5:17–18 would have to be demonstrated rather than just assumed.

But again it seems pointless; you'd have to show that it was written prior to Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

>In summary, the mention of the verses in Deuteronomy by the Apostle Paul in 1 Tim 5:17-18 appears to include the prevailing interpretation of the verse according to the oral tradition of the Jews.

But Paul didn't say this is what "the oral tradition of the Jews" says; Paul writes: For Scripture says“Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.; equating the scriptural status of Deut. 25:4 and Luke 10:7

>So one can even assume Pauline authorship for the last option but that wouldn't necessarily mean he copied Luke.

Difficult to see why Paul would call "The worker deserves his wages" Scripture under your view.

>But this doesn't follow at all or address the problem. Luke 10:7 isn't even part of the appearance report.

The point is that Paul quotes Luke thus the physical appearance in the synoptic Gospels pre-date what Paul wrote; thus destroying your evolving story theory.

>Unless you have Paul explicitly showing knowledge of a physical resurrection and physical appearances such as in Luke 24 then you're left holding an empty sack.

His quotation of Luke shows that he had this knowledge of a physical resurrection and physical appearances!

>Luke copied Mark's gospel which, even according to church tradition, was not an eyewitness source.

Read the first 4 verse of Luke's Gospel - he carefully investigated everything from the beginning, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught and he went to the those who from the first were eyewitnesses.

>Paul implies the appearances were....

Irrelevant since Paul had Luke's writings which spoke of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ.

>...for gentile audiences in other countries, there would have been no one around to verify or fact check the events.

Irrelevant since Paul had Luke's writings which spoke of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ.

>No, because if all the gospels were written post 70 (scholarly consensus)

But it goes against the evidence and the better explanation.

To wit:

But based on the argument of Markan priority, everything fits: 1) Mark wrote down Peter’s messages (probably sometime in the 50s, certainly sometime during Peter’s lifetime); 2) Matthew used Mark’s Gospel as a framework to write his own work; 3) Matthew wrote his Gospel in the early 60s (the only time when both Peter and Paul were in Rome together).

If Acts is to be dated no later than 62 CE, then Luke and Mark must precede that date (Markan priority). And since Matthew is apparently unaware of Luke’s literary efforts, it is reasonable to conclude that his work was published at about the same time as Luke (for the later we date Matthew, the less likely it is that he was unaware of Luke's gospel).

Was the Olivet Discourse a prophecy after the fact)? This seems to be the single most important reason for overturning an early date (pre-70) for Matthew. However, two considerations argue against this supposition.

Only if one denies the possibility of genuine prophecy would the date of Matthew have to be later than 70 CE. But what are the reasons and argument that genuine prophecy are not possible? Usually none are given. but if Jesus spoke predictive prophecy, then there would be no necessity in placing the synoptic gospels so late.

John A. T. Robinson has pointed out that the specifics of the Olivet Discourse do not altogether match what we know of the Jewish War. He states, for example, that “‘the abomination of desolation’ cannot itself refer to the destruction of the sanctuary in August 70 or to its desecration by Titus’ soldiers in sacrificing to their standards.

Furthermore, by that time it was far too late for anyone in Judaea to take to the hills, which had been in enemy hands since the end of 67. He adds that “if Matthew intended the reader to ‘understand’ in the prediction events lying by then in the past he has certainly given him no help.”

And, most significantly, that “it is significant therefore that in 24.29, ‘the distress of those days’ (i.e., on the assumption of ex eventu prophecy, the Judaean war) is to be followed ‘immediately’ (εὐθέως) by the coming of the Son of Man . . . This makes it extraordinarily difficult to believe that Matthew could deliberately be writing during the interval between the Jewish war and the parousia.”

Finally, Robinson concludes, “I fail to see any motive for preserving, let alone inventing, prophecies long after the dust had settled in Judaea, unless it be to present Jesus as prognosticator of uncanny accuracy (in which case the evangelists have defeated the exercise by including palpably unfulfilled predictions).”

In other words, since this prophecy is not altogether accurate, it most certainly cannot be a prophecy ex eventu. I find Robinson’s argument quite compelling at this point, with one quibble: the prophecy was completely accurate, but it has not yet been completely fulfilled. Just as the separation in time between the Lord’s first and second comings was unforeseen by the OT prophets, so also the separation in time between the destruction of Jerusalem and Jesus’ return were unforeseen by Jesus himself (cf. Matt 24:36). Robinson’s argument is a tour de force for a pre-66 date of the synoptic gospels...

1. Matthew depends on Mark and therefore probably should not be dated earlier than the 50s CE.
   
   
2. Luke neither knew of Matthew’s work, nor Matthew of Luke’s. If Luke is dated c. 62, then Matthew was probably written within two or three years of Luke (60-65).
   
   
3. Thus, regardless of when Mark was written, the independence of Matthew and Luke argues for a date of close proximity to the other.
   
   
4. Matthew was written before the start of the Jewish War because his appeal to the reader to flee from Jerusalem is too late in 67 CE since the Romans had shut off that possibility at that time.
   
   
5. The best date would therefore be the early 60s (i.e. 60-65).
   
   
6. This is confirmed by Irenaeus’ statement that Matthew composed his work when both Peter and Paul were in Rome (c. 60-64).
   
   Given the above an early date for the the NT documents is most likely.
   
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