Gospel Dating & Reliability

[SteveII]

I would like to start a thread on NT Gospel Dating & Reliability. It is a popular derailment in other threads and I thought an organized discussion would be useful.

RULE 1: Do not assert theories as fact. You have to give reasons to support your theory. Even if you use a third-party's opinion, you have to share why they believed the theory to be true.
RULE 2: Do not argue by link. If you include a link, you have to summarize the claim and the rationale why you believe it is true or the subject relevant.

I should note from the onset that I will only reply to people obviously willing to have a respectful discussion. I am a heavy user of the ignore feature to block people who seem more interested in being heard than respectfully interacting with the discussion. Life is too short and my purposes here are limited.

GENERAL BACKGROUND OF THE GOSPELS

Gospel of Matthew:
- Author: Traditionally attributed to the Apostle Matthew (Levi).
- Audience: Primarily Jewish Christians.
- Main Purpose: To demonstrate that Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and the Messiah expected by the Jewish people. Emphasizes Jesus' teachings, especially the Sermon on the Mount.

Gospel of Mark:
- Author: Traditionally associated with Mark, who was a companion of Peter.
- Audience: Likely a Gentile (non-Jewish) audience.
- Main Purpose: To present a concise and action-oriented account of Jesus' life, focusing on His deeds and miracles. Emphasizes Jesus as a powerful and compassionate healer and exorcist.

Gospel of Luke:
- Author: Traditionally attributed to Luke, a physician and companion of Paul.
- Audience: Addressed to a broader, Greek-speaking audience, including Gentiles.
- Main Purpose: To provide a detailed and orderly account of Jesus' life, ministry, and teachings. Emphasizes Jesus' compassion, inclusivity, and concern for the marginalized.

Gospel of John:
- Author: Traditionally attributed to the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee.
- Audience: Wider Christian community, including both Jewish and Gentile believers.
- Main Purpose: To emphasize Jesus' divinity and present a more theological and spiritual perspective. Highlights Jesus as the eternal Word of God and focuses on His "I am" statements and signs that point to His identity as the Son of God.

---

DATING

To get things started, it seems the earlier the date for the Gospel the better for reliability.

In support of an early date

Mark: 50s AD
Matthew: late 50s to early 60s
Luke/Acts: late 50s to early 60s
John: 70s to early 90s

The reason for an earlier date is that Luke/Acts was written before Paul died around 65 AD (Acts left off with him in prison after following his whole life), there was no mention of Nero's 64 Rome escapades, nor the death of the apostle James sometimes in the 60s.  Textual criticism has Luke/Acts written before Matthew (because it borrows phrases and stories from Matthew). Mark was written before Matthew (for the same reason). You end up with Mark at least in the 50's if not earlier

Matthew has 90% of the content from Mark but is 40% longer than Mark.
Luke incorporated 40-50% of Matthew and the other half is new material.

I have never heard and argument why content borrowing from an earlier gospels is a problem. I seems to me that if you have a different audience, why wouldn't you borrow some good stuff to give to the new group?

Why do people want to date them later?

Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 has Jesus predicting the destruction of Jerusalem . Of course we can't have any predictions like that...because, you know, God does not exist, so it must have been written after the temple was destroyed in 70AD. So if Mark was the first Gospel, all the others must be even after that. The late-date assumption is solely based on question-begging reasoning.

[Dānu]

Why do you date Matthew to the 50s or 60s?

[Dexta]

A work of fiction circa 1900 (bar translation modifications) years old. Who gives a fuck about the details? Thread = waste of space, why not go do something useful/interesting instead OP, rather than starting a thread which inherently lends credence to damaging religious SHITE written by goat roasting ignorant fuckwits.

[Bucky Ball]

bla bla bla

You did not follow your own rules.
More circular bullshit.
Using the Bible to prove the Bible.
What a waste of time.

There are no primary sources for Jesus or anything claimed about him. The original gospels had no names associated as authors.
https://study.com/learn/lesson/historica...%20sources.

There were 200 or more gospels. The justification given by Irenaeus for cutting them all out, except for the 4, was that there were 4 pillars upon which the Earth stands, and 4 winds.
Authenticity or historicity or acceptance by ANY of the very diverse communities played no part in the decisions to cut them out. The process was deceptive and inauthentic.
Gospel reliability was endorsed by the very best Christian scholars.

In 1952, a team was set in place by the world-famous, preeminent scholar, archaeologist and pioneer discoverer of Holy Land historical sites and documents, Dr. William Foxwell Albright, the professor of Semitic languages at the Johns Hopkins University. Their job was to write criticisms and scholarly work concerning all biblical texts. The team was composed of the most respected biblical scholars in the US and Europe, including Dr. John W. Bailey, Professor Emeritus, New Testament, Berkley Baptist Divinity School, Dr Albert E. Barnett, Professor Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Dr. Walter Russell Bowel, Professor, The Protestant Episcopal Seminary, Virginia, Dr. John Bright, Professor, Union Seminary and many others.

The team of 124 clergymen and scholars came mostly from conservative, mainline universities and churches for the most part, the likes of whom will never be seen again in one place, whose names evoke the utmost and deepest respect, even if one completely disagrees with their religious views. They wrote the huge 13 volume set, now considered a valuable rare book, called "The Interpreters Bible". Today it is usually kept under lock and key in seminaries and libraries. This set includes an introduction to scholarship and looks at every single verse and word in the Bible, discusses their origins and possible meanings from various points of view. It has been updated in the 1990's, but the original scholarship is still the central fundamental summary of knowledge, which summarized scholarship from the Medieval period (1850's -1950's) and is therefore considered to be an interesting historical snapshot. It is also an assurance that these absolutely respected leading intellectuals from the 20th Century scholarship, of whom most were religious, have agreed to have each other's names associated with their own and that they felt comfortable with what each other were saying in an academic setting and commanded world-wide respect as conservative, careful, and sincere, life-long teachers, academics and scholars.

On page 15 of "The Interpreters Bible", Dr. Herbert F. Farmer, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University wrote about the indispensability of the texts, their importance and how the "truth" of them should be approached, after an exposition of the traditional conservative Christian view of person-hood, sin and the salvific actions of Jesus (aka Yeshua ben Josef), known as "the Christ" in human history.

"The reason has to do with the evidence afforded by the texts themselves, and calls for fuller treatment. Scholarly research into the texts themselves, has convincingly shown that they cannot be accepted in detail as they stand."

Finally, there is no possibility, NOT ONE shred of possibility, that at a Passover meal, (the Last Supper), a JEW asked his Jewish friends to "eat" his body and drink blood.
They were abominations to Jews. Thus we can be absolutely certain none of them that claim this as a saying of a Jew, who said he came not to change a jot or tittle until all things were accomplished, were even written by Jews.

[Thethingaboutitis]

So what if someone gets lucky with a prediction? It doesn't make him god.

[epronovost]

Why do people want to date them later?

Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 has Jesus predicting the destruction of Jerusalem . Of course we can't have any predictions like that...because, you know, God does not exist, so it must have been written after the temple was destroyed in 70AD. So if Mark was the first Gospel, all the others must be even after that. The late-date assumption is solely based on question-begging reasoning.

That's incorrect. I do not want to date them earlier because there is no trace of any written Gospels prior to the mid/late 2nd centuries (and there is only two known fragments dating back from that era). If the Gospels were already a century old by that time and widely distributed in Christendom we would have found far more than two tiny fragments from a century later than their point of origin. 

Furthermore, there are numerous historical and cultural errors in the Gospels as well as a competing genealogy of Jesus that are so bad that neither of them can even agree as to who was Jesus paternal grand-father, a man that might have been very much alive when Jesus was born. This indicates that the Temple was already destroyed when those Gospels were penned down. Finally there is evidence that Gospels were modified and added over the years since the oldest codex containing the Gospels see passages missing from the modern versions.

I do not know any single historian who suggest that the Gospels must have been written after 70 AD because there is a prediction of the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in a parable about the temporality of human culture and construction. I have only heard such arguments from apologist. It seems to be a strawman.

[Dancefortwo]

Mark: 50s AD
Matthew: late 50s to early 60s
Luke/Acts: late 50s to early 60s
John: 70s to early 90s

Hardly! 

Whoever wrote Mark is dated at the earliest between 69 - 72 CE for many reasons.  The numismatic evidence dates it to after the Revolt of 69 -72.    The author is geographically confused and isn't familiar with the directions needed to get from one area to another thus, the writer never set foot in Palestine.   The writer is explaining Hebrew customs to an already existing Christian audience which also dates it later.   Whoever wrote this (and the other gospels) writes in a style of Greek that would have been exclusive to the highly educated which none of the followers of Jesus were. 

Josephus was a hightly educated, wealthy Jew but even he had a difficult time  writing  or speaking  Greek so it's ludicrous and laughable to think that poor followers of Jesus could write in the elitist style Greek.  

From Joesphus'  "Antiquities of the Jews":

  I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations....

Speaking and writing in Greek and Latin by the Jews in Jerusalem was considered an abomination and was banned because it was the language of their brutal overseers.  None of the followers of Jesus could have written any of these stories. 

Historical linguists and translators find no shadows or echos of Aramaic in the gospels so the word origins are Greek not Aramaic. The writers used the Greek Septuagint Bible as their source.


Then you have this problem.

The end of Mark originally stopped at the empty tomb story.  There was no post- resurrected Jesus in the oldest complete copies of Mark so in the early 4th century church officials and scribes wrote and tacked on the ending  and that is what's in your New Testament.  

Matthew copies word for word large passages from Mark. And it's not just the sayings of Jesus that were copied.  He copies almost 80% from Mark. Someone who is an eyewitness does not copy word for word from someone elses paper.   They will write in their own words. 

Luke has the same problem.  He copies exclusively from Mark.  Luke has historical inaccuracies in the text.  The census never happened the way he claims. There was no massacre of the innocence. It never happened.  It was a literary device contrived by whoever wrote Luke to draw a parallel  between Jesus and the massacre of Hebrew children in the Old Testament.   The storytellers of Jesus used a lot of artifice to connect Jesus to the OT.  They backwrote him to fit what they thought was the messiah.   It looks prophetic but anything written after the fact can be made to look like prophecy.  It's a writing technique called "ex eventu".  The book of Daniel is also written this way. 

The vast majority of NT scholard date Luke from 80 to 90 CE.

Luke and Matthew have conflicting geneaological lists of Jesus. Either one is correct or the other is lying. They cannot both be right.   And if Jesus is the biological son of Joseph then he couldn't have been the son of a god.  The only way this would possibly work is if Mary was a godess who gave birth to Jesus but that's not part of the Christian doctrine.    

John was written too long after Jesus died, between 90 and 110 CE  and could not have been an eyewitness.  

Remember, none of the gospels even claim they are eyewitness.

[brewerb]

I've never dated anyone who's gospelly, they're not reliable.

(insert rim shot here)

[Dexta]

Badum tish!

[Minimalist]

I would like to start a thread on NT Gospel Dating & Reliability.

Trust me on this, asshole.  That's the LAST thing you want to do.

[pattylt]

@SteveII , why is it important for the gospels to be dated so early? Most Christian scholars accept the dates given by Dancefortwo. If anything, several scholars are pushing even later dates from the numismatic evidence in Mark which dates it post 71CE at the earliest.

Do you know the arguments for such an early date (besides wanting it to be so early) and could you explain why those minority views overcomes the consensus of biblical scholars?

[Minimalist]

A lot of this early dating shit comes from later xtian forgeries which attempted to backdate their story to the first century.  One of the biggies in this is the First Epistle of the legendary Clement of Rome.  He appears in the later writings of Irenaeus and Tertullian as the first "pope" at a time when there was no indication that there were any xtians in Rome.  But you can't expect facts to even slow the morons down when it comes to propagating their bullshit, can you?

The traditional dating for First Clement is c 96 AD supposedly because of the reference to the suspected Persecution of Domitian.

The only problem is, there was no persecution by Domitian or any other emperor until the later 3d century.  Again, jesustards hate facts.

[Dancefortwo]

I would like to start a thread on NT Gospel Dating & Reliability.

Trust me on this, asshole.  That's the LAST thing you want to do.

LOLOL!  

[Bucky Ball]

They were all a bunch of fucking liars.
There is no civil discussion possible with those who admit they are liars.

"John Chrysostom, 5th century theologian and erstwhile bishop of Constantinople, is another: "Do you see the advantage of deceit? ... "For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind ... And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."
– Chrysostom, Treatise On The Priesthood, Book 1.

John (above) is notable for his extensive commentaries on the Bible which emphasized a literal understanding of the stories; the style popular at Alexandria until then was to acknowledge an allegorical meaning of the text. Thus eminent ‘believers’ added falsehood to the beliefs of later generations. ‘For the best of reasons’ they ‘clarified’ obscure points, conjured up characters to speak dialogue that could have been said, invented scenarios that could have happened, borrowed extensively from a wider culture. And this all before they became the custodians of power and had real reasons for lies, inventions and counterfeits.

The 5th and 6th centuries was the 'golden age' of Christian forgery. In a moment of shocking candor, the Manichean bishop (and opponent of Augustine) Faustus said: "Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the speeches of our Lord which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since – as already it has been often proved – these things were written not by Christ, nor [by] his apostles, but a long while after their as'sumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the apostles of the Lord or on those who were supposed to follow the apostles, they maliciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits according to them."

[Jarsa]

Let me ask you this.
Do you have any evidence that these gospels are true?
You cannot include quotes from the bible or claim eyewitnesses who saw the miracles for your reply.
These are not valid evidence.

[Minimalist]

Ding!



We have a winner.

[Bucky Ball]

We all know Stevie will cook up all sorts of BS answers, etc etc etc.
The fact is his jebus in the gospels, told his (supposed) folowers, that prayers in his name would be answered. They aren't. There is no reason to buy this shit.
Stevie's god remains absent, just like he was last weekend in Israel.
What we observe today, (which is just as valid as any "miracle" observations), is the ABSENCE of any of the gods, just as they totally failed to intervene in the Holocaust.
Stevie makes up shit about a god that has never once intervened when it was necessary.
The gospels are worthless tripe about an absent deity.
And BTW, why is Stevie allowed to preach here ?

[Minimalist]

BTW, this is not exactly "news."  Wheless wrote this in 1930.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/forgery...1103755770

Forgery in Christianity
by Joseph Wheless

Incendiary in its passion and irrefutable in its evidence, this classic of atheistic literature condemns Christianity as superstition and wishful thinking rooted in early paganism, "sourced" by anonymous fables, and promoted by self-serving men seeking "worldly riches and power." Raging against the blatant manipulations of the early Church and the antiscience agenda of the modern Church, American writer JOSEPH WHELESS (1868-1950) takes on everything from faked "relics" and the "holy mummery" of stigmatics and other dramatic mystics to the "priestly terrorism" of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Church's historical intolerance. This is an absolute must-read for anyone looking for ammunition to counter the argument that the longevity of Christianity is evidence of its legitimacy.

[Aractus]

I would like to start a thread on NT Gospel Dating & Reliability. It is a popular derailment in other threads and I thought an organized discussion would be useful.

RULE 1: Do not assert theories as fact. You have to give reasons to support your theory. Even if you use a third-party's opinion, you have to share why they believed the theory to be true.
RULE 2: Do not argue by link. If you include a link, you have to summarize the claim and the rationale why you believe it is true or the subject relevant.

I should note from the onset that I will only reply to people obviously willing to have a respectful discussion. I am a heavy user of the ignore feature to block people who seem more interested in being heard than respectfully interacting with the discussion. Life is too short and my purposes here are limited.

You're putting forward fringe-of-the-fringe dating that is almost universally rejected these days by bible scholars. There is literary dependence on these texts to each other (the letters of Paul included as well as other available Greek literature), and besides - the dating that you're putting forward doesn't change the fact that you're ignoring what kind of texts that these are. Specifically you're literalising them when they were not meant to be read as literal. Which means, no it doesn't make a jot of difference to reliability whether gMark was written in 40 CE or 70 CE or 90 CE because Mark is a prose writer and is constructing a literary story to express his spiritual truth.

DATING

To get things started, it seems the earlier the date for the Gospel the better for reliability.

In support of an early date

Mark: 50s AD
Matthew: late 50s to early 60s
Luke/Acts: late 50s to early 60s
John: 70s to early 90s

The reason for an earlier date is that Luke/Acts was written before Paul died around 65 AD (Acts left off with him in prison after following his whole life), there was no mention of Nero's 64 Rome escapades, nor the death of the apostle James sometimes in the 60s.  Textual criticism has Luke/Acts written before Matthew (because it borrows phrases and stories from Matthew). Mark was written before Matthew (for the same reason). You end up with Mark at least in the 50's if not earlier

Matthew has 90% of the content from Mark but is 40% longer than Mark.
Luke incorporated 40-50% of Matthew and the other half is new material.

I have never heard and argument why content borrowing from an earlier gospels is a problem. I seems to me that if you have a different audience, why wouldn't you borrow some good stuff to give to the new group?

Why do people want to date them later?

Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 has Jesus predicting the destruction of Jerusalem . Of course we can't have any predictions like that...because, you know, God does not exist, so it must have been written after the temple was destroyed in 70AD. So if Mark was the first Gospel, all the others must be even after that. The late-date assumption is solely based on question-begging reasoning.

Okay so begin with, it makes no difference to reliability because we're not talking about documents that seek to document events dispassionately to record historical fact - that's not what they are. Secondly your assertion that gMark and the other canonical gospels are dated to after 70 CE because they contain predictions of the destruction of the Temple is wrong. It's unfortunate, but many theologians and scholars alike have badly worded this in a way can make it seem like they are simply saying “a prediction is too much”. No, no, no, no, no. That would be like if you read a piece of literature that predicts the destruction of the Twin Towers and then you say “Aha, it has to be written after 11 September 2001”. That's not the case, in fact lots of people predicted terror attacks on them before 2001, rather the question you'd need to ask is this: does the author show knowledge that this event is in their past? If so then yes it has to be written after 2001, but if not and if it's not specifically saying who, when, where, and how then it could be pre-2001.

With Mark what you have is the destruction of the Temple forms a core theological theme, and this can only be the case if he knows the Temple has been destroyed. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants is really about the destruction of the Temple, it forms part of the theological justification for the Christ movement to be the heirs to God's promise made to the Jews. The Wicked Tenants represent the Jewish Leaders who were centralised in the Temple. The Passion Narrative also gives the whole game away because the original Passion traditions had nothing whatsoever to do with the Jewish Temple. I would point to all of these as non-Marcan traditions: 1 Cor 15:3-8, Acts 2:22-36, 3:13-15, 4:10, 4:27-28, 5:29-32, 10:39-43, 13:27-31. Not a single one of them makes any mention whatsoever of the Temple - that's a narrative construct by Mark. Nowhere and never in the letters of Paul does he ever suggest the Temple will be destroyed as a sign to the transfer of God's promise to the Christ followers, or for that matter any other reason. The Temple was not destroyed in Jesus's lifetime, Jesus was executed around 30 CE and the Temple was destroyed some 40 years later in 70 CE. It was not destroyed in Paul's lifetime either. It's Mark that is dealing with this new setting and trying to make sense to what it means for his spiritual and theological convictions, in a similar way to how the original disciples had to deal with trying to understand the brutal execution of their Messiah by the hands of the Romans.

There will of course be arguments and scepticism on the Acts ones and that's okay, some people think that Acts 13:27-31 is a summary of the Marcan Passion whereas I see it as a separate earlier tradition from which Mark may have drawn (although with Acts written down decades after Mark the tradition may not have looked exactly the same in Mark's day). I think evidence for this is Acts 4:27-28 which may have been the tradition that Luke used to insert Herod into the Markan Passion for his gospel.

Mark has knowledge of the destruction of the temple and that places it sometime after 70CE. He is also dependent on the theology of Paul which places his gospel chronologically after the undisputed letters of Paul. The other three canonical gospels are all based on Mark. Probably Matthew comes second, then Luke, and then John. Mark's stories are primarily based on the Greek epics and the Marcan Jesus is based on Odysseus and on Hector (see the work of Dennis R MacDonald on this). Entire narratives in Mark have direct literary dependence on Homer as do narratives in Acts, and while scholars have recognised the dependency in Acts as “obvious” they've been more sceptical of Mark, but I think we're at a point now where any such scepticism leads to denial of this clearly literary connection is untenable.

Finally with the work of Steve Mason we also know that Luke-Acts has literary dependence on the works of Josephus, which means Luke-Acts is second century, not first.

So in summary what we know is that gMark comes sometime after 70 CE, Luke-Acts comes after 100 CE, and there is direct literary connection between the four canonical gospels. Mark Goodacre would argue that Mark's use of the Temple shows it's a recent very traumatic event for him: the Jerusalem-based Christ followers have perished. I am convinced that Mark's purpose in Mark 16:6-8 is to provide an exoneration for Jesus for the persecution of the Jerusalem Christ followers: he has tried to warn them to wait in Galilee for his return, but the women failed to deliver that message. These dates only provide lower-bound estimates for when the gospels were written, I wouldn't rule-out Mark being early second century. So basically I'd say gMark is written c.70-100 CE and the other canonical gospels all come after Mark.

The reason for an earlier date is that Luke/Acts was written before Paul died around 65 AD (Acts left off with him in prison after following his whole life), there was no mention of Nero's 64 Rome escapades, nor the death of the apostle James sometimes in the 60s.  Textual criticism has Luke/Acts written before Matthew (because it borrows phrases and stories from Matthew). Mark was written before Matthew (for the same reason). You end up with Mark at least in the 50's if not earlier

The reason why you don't have the death of Paul in Acts is 1. because Luke is basing his stuff on Paul from Paul's letters, and 2. Paul wasn't all that important in his own day. So by the time that Luke is writing Acts, let's say 40 years after Paul has died, he doesn't know how Paul died. He also doesn't know how Paul was converted either which is obvious if you read Galatians. He basically makes up a story about it that is more-or-less consistent with Galatians 1-2. He also doesn't know what happened to most of the original disciples or apostles either.

I have never heard and argument why content borrowing from an earlier gospels is a problem. I seems to me that if you have a different audience, why wouldn't you borrow some good stuff to give to the new group?

Mark based his narratives on the Greek Classical Literature just like English writers were later trained to use Shakespeare for ideas and inspiration. There's a tendency for people to simply say “well you don't need literary dependency for a Homerism”. While that itself is correct - a cultural Homerism needs no literary dependency - it well overlooks the extensive use of Homer in constructing the prose. Iliad 22 and 24 form the basis of the Marcan Passion Narrative which goes from Mark 14:1 to Mark 16:8. Or to put this another way, starting with 1 Cor 15:3-8 as your Passion tradition there is a zillion different ways to construct a narrative story from it. So if he was doing something completely unique it would not line up perfectly with this source material. Similarly when we get to Matthew, Luke, and John - why do we have the Temple in the narrative? Why do we have Joseph of Arimathea? Why do we have the three women as the primary audience? Why do we have what starts as a straightforward translation fable in Mark 16:1-8 converted into an Empty Tomb in the later editions? Why does Pilate offer to release Jesus? Why do we have Paul's Lord's Supper in the narrative as the Last Supper? Paul didn't learn the Last Supper tradition from the Jerusalem apostles, he says quite clearly that the sacrament starts with him (1 Cor 11:23). That shouldn't be all that surprising because that's what Apostles were supposed to do - come up with their own teachings and their own religious practices/sacraments. But it also means it doesn't go back to the historical Jesus and finding it in a narrative can only be literary.

[c172]

*started thinking about my fake Christianmingle account*

[no one]

The best thing about gospel dating, is how well Mary works the pipes.

[Bucky Ball]

Speaking of "discussion" Stevie-weavie. ....
name two things you have "learned" here.

[Cavebear]

I would like to start a thread on NT Gospel Dating & Reliability. It is a popular derailment in other threads and I thought an organized discussion would be useful.

RULE 1: Do not assert theories as fact. You have to give reasons to support your theory. Even if you use a third-party's opinion, you have to share why they believed the theory to be true.
RULE 2: Do not argue by link. If you include a link, you have to summarize the claim and the rationale why you believe it is true or the subject relevant.

I should note from the onset that I will only reply to people obviously willing to have a respectful discussion. I am a heavy user of the ignore feature to block people who seem more interested in being heard than respectfully interacting with the discussion. Life is too short and my purposes here are limited.

You're putting forward fringe-of-the-fringe dating that is almost universally rejected these days by bible scholars. There is literary dependence on these texts to each other (the letters of Paul included as well as other available Greek literature), and besides - the dating that you're putting forward doesn't change the fact that you're ignoring what kind of texts that these are. Specifically you're literalising them when they were not meant to be read as literal. Which means, no it doesn't make a jot of difference to reliability whether gMark was written in 40 CE or 70 CE or 90 CE because Mark is a prose writer and is constructing a literary story to express his spiritual truth.

DATING

To get things started, it seems the earlier the date for the Gospel the better for reliability.

In support of an early date

Mark: 50s AD
Matthew: late 50s to early 60s
Luke/Acts: late 50s to early 60s
John: 70s to early 90s

The reason for an earlier date is that Luke/Acts was written before Paul died around 65 AD (Acts left off with him in prison after following his whole life), there was no mention of Nero's 64 Rome escapades, nor the death of the apostle James sometimes in the 60s.  Textual criticism has Luke/Acts written before Matthew (because it borrows phrases and stories from Matthew). Mark was written before Matthew (for the same reason). You end up with Mark at least in the 50's if not earlier

Matthew has 90% of the content from Mark but is 40% longer than Mark.
Luke incorporated 40-50% of Matthew and the other half is new material.

I have never heard and argument why content borrowing from an earlier gospels is a problem. I seems to me that if you have a different audience, why wouldn't you borrow some good stuff to give to the new group?

Why do people want to date them later?

Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 has Jesus predicting the destruction of Jerusalem . Of course we can't have any predictions like that...because, you know, God does not exist, so it must have been written after the temple was destroyed in 70AD. So if Mark was the first Gospel, all the others must be even after that. The late-date assumption is solely based on question-begging reasoning.

Okay so begin with, it makes no difference to reliability because we're not talking about documents that seek to document events dispassionately to record historical fact - that's not what they are. Secondly your assertion that gMark and the other canonical gospels are dated to after 70 CE because they contain predictions of the destruction of the Temple is wrong. It's unfortunate, but many theologians and scholars alike have badly worded this in a way can make it seem like they are simply saying “a prediction is too much”. No, no, no, no, no. That would be like if you read a piece of literature that predicts the destruction of the Twin Towers and then you say “Aha, it has to be written after 11 September 2001”. That's not the case, in fact lots of people predicted terror attacks on them before 2001, rather the question you'd need to ask is this: does the author show knowledge that this event is in their past? If so then yes it has to be written after 2001, but if not and if it's not specifically saying who, when, where, and how then it could be pre-2001.

With Mark what you have is the destruction of the Temple forms a core theological theme, and this can only be the case if he knows the Temple has been destroyed. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants is really about the destruction of the Temple, it forms part of the theological justification for the Christ movement to be the heirs to God's promise made to the Jews. The Wicked Tenants represent the Jewish Leaders who were centralised in the Temple. The Passion Narrative also gives the whole game away because the original Passion traditions had nothing whatsoever to do with the Jewish Temple. I would point to all of these as non-Marcan traditions: 1 Cor 15:3-8, Acts 2:22-36, 3:13-15, 4:10, 4:27-28, 5:29-32, 10:39-43, 13:27-31. Not a single one of them makes any mention whatsoever of the Temple - that's a narrative construct by Mark. Nowhere and never in the letters of Paul does he ever suggest the Temple will be destroyed as a sign to the transfer of God's promise to the Christ followers, or for that matter any other reason. The Temple was not destroyed in Jesus's lifetime, Jesus was executed around 30 CE and the Temple was destroyed some 40 years later in 70 CE. It was not destroyed in Paul's lifetime either. It's Mark that is dealing with this new setting and trying to make sense to what it means for his spiritual and theological convictions, in a similar way to how the original disciples had to deal with trying to understand the brutal execution of their Messiah by the hands of the Romans.

There will of course be arguments and scepticism on the Acts ones and that's okay, some people think that Acts 13:27-31 is a summary of the Marcan Passion whereas I see it as a separate earlier tradition from which Mark may have drawn (although with Acts written down decades after Mark the tradition may not have looked exactly the same in Mark's day). I think evidence for this is Acts 4:27-28 which may have been the tradition that Luke used to insert Herod into the Markan Passion for his gospel.

Mark has knowledge of the destruction of the temple and that places it sometime after 70CE. He is also dependent on the theology of Paul which places his gospel chronologically after the undisputed letters of Paul. The other three canonical gospels are all based on Mark. Probably Matthew comes second, then Luke, and then John. Mark's stories are primarily based on the Greek epics and the Marcan Jesus is based on Odysseus and on Hector (see the work of Dennis R MacDonald on this). Entire narratives in Mark have direct literary dependence on Homer as do narratives in Acts, and while scholars have recognised the dependency in Acts as “obvious” they've been more sceptical of Mark, but I think we're at a point now where any such scepticism leads to denial of this clearly literary connection is untenable.

Finally with the work of Steve Mason we also know that Luke-Acts has literary dependence on the works of Josephus, which means Luke-Acts is second century, not first.

So in summary what we know is that gMark comes sometime after 70 CE, Luke-Acts comes after 100 CE, and there is direct literary connection between the four canonical gospels. Mark Goodacre would argue that Mark's use of the Temple shows it's a recent very traumatic event for him: the Jerusalem-based Christ followers have perished. I am convinced that Mark's purpose in Mark 16:6-8 is to provide an exoneration for Jesus for the persecution of the Jerusalem Christ followers: he has tried to warn them to wait in Galilee for his return, but the women failed to deliver that message. These dates only provide lower-bound estimates for when the gospels were written, I wouldn't rule-out Mark being early second century. So basically I'd say gMark is written c.70-100 CE and the other canonical gospels all come after Mark.

The reason for an earlier date is that Luke/Acts was written before Paul died around 65 AD (Acts left off with him in prison after following his whole life), there was no mention of Nero's 64 Rome escapades, nor the death of the apostle James sometimes in the 60s.  Textual criticism has Luke/Acts written before Matthew (because it borrows phrases and stories from Matthew). Mark was written before Matthew (for the same reason). You end up with Mark at least in the 50's if not earlier

The reason why you don't have the death of Paul in Acts is 1. because Luke is basing his stuff on Paul from Paul's letters, and 2. Paul wasn't all that important in his own day. So by the time that Luke is writing Acts, let's say 40 years after Paul has died, he doesn't know how Paul died. He also doesn't know how Paul was converted either which is obvious if you read Galatians. He basically makes up a story about it that is more-or-less consistent with Galatians 1-2. He also doesn't know what happened to most of the original disciples or apostles either.

I have never heard and argument why content borrowing from an earlier gospels is a problem. I seems to me that if you have a different audience, why wouldn't you borrow some good stuff to give to the new group?

Mark based his narratives on the Greek Classical Literature just like English writers were later trained to use Shakespeare for ideas and inspiration. There's a tendency for people to simply say “well you don't need literary dependency for a Homerism”. While that itself is correct - a cultural Homerism needs no literary dependency - it well overlooks the extensive use of Homer in constructing the prose. Iliad 22 and 24 form the basis of the Marcan Passion Narrative which goes from Mark 14:1 to Mark 16:8. Or to put this another way, starting with 1 Cor 15:3-8 as your Passion tradition there is a zillion different ways to construct a narrative story from it. So if he was doing something completely unique it would not line up perfectly with this source material. Similarly when we get to Matthew, Luke, and John - why do we have the Temple in the narrative? Why do we have Joseph of Arimathea? Why do we have the three women as the primary audience? Why do we have what starts as a straightforward translation fable in Mark 16:1-8 converted into an Empty Tomb in the later editions? Why does Pilate offer to release Jesus? Why do we have Paul's Lord's Supper in the narrative as the Last Supper? Paul didn't learn the Last Supper tradition from the Jerusalem apostles, he says quite clearly that the sacrament starts with him (1 Cor 11:23). That shouldn't be all that surprising because that's what Apostles were supposed to do - come up with their own teachings and their own religious practices/sacraments. But it also means it doesn't go back to the historical Jesus and finding it in a narrative can only be literary.

The point is that humans made all that stuff later up based on dreams and myths and thoughts of what "maybe was". There is no reality of any of it involved.

[Aractus]

The point is that humans made all that stuff later up based on dreams and myths and thoughts of what "maybe was".  There is no reality of any of it involved.

No not at all, you've missed my point entirely.

Christianity started with Jesus of Nazareth and those who followed him (his disciples). We don't know much about the historical Jesus, but we do know about the historical Nazareth and the latest research on Nazareth come from Ken Dark which finds it was as politically and religious-socially as conservative as you could possible come in the ancient Levant.

We also know from Josephus and other sources that there were many different Jewish schools of thought or sects. He lists several in Ant.XVIII. Jerusalem was a place, a walled city, where all Jews could come together and worship peacefully and bring their offerings/sacrifices without argument with one another despite their different beliefs and interpretations of Torah/Law.

The so-called “oral tradition” that underpins the canonical gospels is religious practices by the followers/devotees of Jesus following his death. Sacraments, Ritual, Prayer, Song, and so-on. This is where we get the Passion tradition (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) from. Really there are five New Testament gospels and the first is the gospel according to Paul and yes we know that Paul was definitely the author. Unfortunately it's not a narrative and he didn't know the historical Jesus of Nazareth as he was converted to the following after Jesus had been crucified. Nevertheless there are clear differences between Paul and the canonical-narrative gospels. The narrative gospels begin the Jesus story with the baptism by John. Yet Paul didn't like Baptism (1 Cor 1:10-17) and he starts the Jesus story very differently, he starts with Son of David (Romans 1). In effect what we have with the Gospel of Mark is not just an expression of the gospel into prose, but he is writing at a later time than Paul and while Mark's theology is the closest to Paul's, I would argue that's because he is writing in the next generation or two whereas the other gospels come later still and diverge further and further from Paul as they go on (he wasn't the only Apostle after all!)

So what you've said is where the age of the Apostles comes in - in the first century in the first two or perhaps three generations after the death of Jesus where Apostles are using ritualised methods to come up with new teachings (most likely the ritual use of altered states of consciousness which can be brought about in a variety of ways including fasting, exhaustion, sleep depravation, and the use of psychedelic substances). Those who have convinced others of their new teachings are hailed as prophets and said to have the gift of prophecy.

When we come to the canonical gospels though we have something different. We have written phenomena. Specifically we have Greek literature that conforms to Greek literary norms, the earliest of them which appears to be Mark is a conversion of the Jesus story into prose but it's still fundamentally a theological document first and foremost. Imagine if you will early first century Christians asking “why are we remembering Jesus through the Eucharist?” The Eucharist is a sacrament most likely invented by Paul, but we can use an entirely different one as well: “Why are we remembering Jesus through Baptism?” Or speaking in tongues, or through having christophanies. This is what I would argue gMark is doing, he's taking those traditions and weaving them into a narrative so that his audience feels they have a close connection to their Messiah. He's not attempting to hoodwink them into thinking he's writing history, rather he's expressing his spiritual truth through storytelling. He's not making up any of the traditions he's putting in, they're all what people refer to as “oral tradition” - the stuff they were practicing - he's just putting it into prose using the Greek Classical Literature as his main source for narrative (plot, stories, characters etc). This is why he contrasts Jesus against the Greek heroes. His audience doesn't know who the Nazarites were, and he's not arguing for the hard-line conservative interpretation of Jesus that the Nazarites did, rather he is contrasting Jesus against the Greek heroes that he does know in an attempt to demonstrate how Jesus is better.

So in summary, the gospels are expressing the spiritual truth of their authors. That isn't being “made up”. But, it's not history.

[Thethingaboutitis]

*started thinking about my fake Christianmingle account*

I'm betting that most Christians use 'Plenty of fish.'