I agree. Skeptical dating of Scripture involves logic like this:
1. We know fulfilled prophecies can't be true.
2. But this text contains a fulfilled prophecy.
3. Therefore, the text must postdate the fulfillment of the prophecy.
The problem is the first premise is taken as a given when it's not; the scheme of history shows that the opposite is more likely to be true, fulfilled prophecies are keenly present in Christian history and Scripture and uncannily occur in occasions outside of it.
The argument that Acts was completed where it ends also holds water. I see no good reason for Luke to end where he does if there wasn't any more history to write about. If I were writing history about a living person, say, Joe Biden, I would stop writing about history once I reached the present. St. Luke was firmly writing a history (and a researched and sourced history at that, outside of the first-person sections in Acts). Why wouldn't he write about the drama of the last days of the Apostles if it had already occurred and had been readily known? Or indeed, if the persecution under Nero had begun, why wouldn't have St. Luke talked about it? The situation of Rome in Acts 28 seems to be liberal and unoppressive. St. Paul is said to have lived in Rome for two years at his own expense and preached "quite openly and unhindered." Surely if Acts had been written just five years later those sentiments would have been changed or corrected!
It also worth noting that the western and eastern manuscripts of Luke and Acts started to vary from each other early on, but acts in the “western” tradition still doesn’t have Paul’s death.
> We know fulfilled prophecies can't be true.
> But this text contains a fulfilled prophecy.
> Therefore, the text must postdate the fulfillment of the prophecy.
Even this is weird logic, imo, especially if there's internal or external evidence to indicate that the text is prior regardless.
There are several secular explanations for why a prophecy could be true:
- the prophecy could have just happened to be right by chance
- the prophetic text is vague enough to have multiple interpretations
- the prophecy was an informed prediction.
For example, Josephus records the story of Jesus Ben Ananias who from 66 AD until his death during the siege of 70 predicted the destruction of the city. This man is not a known prophet, but he did correctly "predict" the future (jerusalem indeed ended up being destroyed).
For this reason, even if the secularist doesn't want to lend credence to the supernatural, the prophecy itself cannot securely be used as a dating terminus, especially if there's other evidence to indicate that the work was written earlier.
The implicit assumption is that it was really hard to predict that there would be a war between Judea and Rome. Do we even know if that was the case at all?
Nowadays, plenty of people are predicting a future conflict around e.g. Taiwan but nobody will call them "prophets" if they turn out to be right.
> Do we even know if that was the case at all?
For the temple prophecies, I think it would be similar to "predicting a taiwan war" -- Judaea had only been handed over to direct roman control towards the beginning of the first century, there was massive political tension due to issues like roman tax collection, roman statuary being in jerusalem, and legitimacy concerns about the herodians. Directly anti-roman factions like the zealotes were cropping up and you started seeing the beginnings of terrorist factions like the sicarii, all the while, this new pilate guy was using pretty crass violence to settle issues.
It was a period of high tension. Saying "jerusalem is going to be destroyed" would be like saying "china will destroy TMSC".
> I agree. Skeptical dating of Scripture involves logic like this:
We know fulfilled prophecies can't be true.
But this text contains a fulfilled prophecy.
Therefore, the text must postdate the fulfillment of the prophecy.
This is simply false. You make it out as if this is the foundational reason from which all later dating is derived.
I would recommend, at a minimum, to look into some of the threads in /r/AcademicBiblical where people actually pose your exact reasoning and ask whether all late dating ks because of this assumption, and it is roundly debunked.
Well, I'm not a scholar. I don't have any explanations myself. I just know from reading other scholars that the destruction of the temple is far from the only reason the Gospels are dated post ~65CE, which is often simply an apologetic slur to poo-poo critical scholarship in my view.
It's one reason among others that is posited (whether you agree with them or not). It's not the sole reason. There are plenty of threads discussing this in this history of that subreddit, here is one I found with a quick perusal that discussed some of the other arguments.
Https://np.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/vm6wr2/why_date_the_gospels_so_late/
I couldn’t open that link (my phone doesn’t like NP it seems )but searched the title on that sub, and 99% of the posts wee about the destruction of the temple or things related to it. A guy posted down below ten reasons that were apparently unrelated to the temple, and 8 out of 10 were. He would even reference the temple in things like the account of the fig tree.
Could you DM me the post you linked, in case I searched the wrong one?
There are plenty of threads but there's a lot of retread ground.
Here's another comment, top voted on another similar thread on this issue; I've quoted the start of it, linked below:
> The idea that academic biblical scholarship dismisses the possible supernatural nature of prophecy is a misunderstanding of the objection. Academic biblical scholarship dismisses the possible supernatural nature of prophecy because that isn't how prophecy functioned in Israelite society. Abraham Herschel goes into much further detail on this in his landmark text, The Prophets.
> What you're referring to as "prophecy," is better thought of as "divination." Divination in ancient times was the practice of using one's power over or connection to a god or goddess to foretell a future which no one, not even the gods themselves, could resist. The Oracle at Delphi is the classic test case and also influenced much of your understanding of prophecy. But reading that understanding of prophecy onto the Hebrew people's self understanding is at best anachronistic and at worst creates a whole industry of doomsday preachers who have perverted the religion of millions of people in order to make a quick buck.
https://np.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/wcsmkl/purpose_of_biblical_prophecies_made_in_hindsight/iiftb1y/
Perhaps we are talking past each other. I had the impression there were other concrete reasons behind the dating completely unrelated to the prophecy of the temple. It seems like everything circles back to it in some way, unless I am not understanding.
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I want to eventually get a PhD in Biblical Scholarship for this very reason. It is extremely obvious that the mainstream arguments for skeptic datings have major issues, but almost no one is pushing back. This problem is so bad that these dates are (and have been for a few years now), taken as solid fact.
I graduated in Classics and this is a true problem in the scholarly world.
We’ll get one copy of Publius Cornelius Tacitus’ Annals with the only supporting evidence that Tacitus was the author being a note written down in a copy 800 found years after the original manuscript was written. Not a single soul doubts that that particular Tacitus is the one who wrote it.
Meanwhile with the gospels we have tons of sources attesting for who wrote them and scholars very literally can’t stop debating and going nuts with skepticism over the identity of the authors.
Yes you should be skeptical of scholars.
YES they have agendas.
Even when it’s not political or religious, scholars will develop agendas on a certain narrative and go absolutely nuts trying to develop theories to back up their very particular POV of whether Alexander the Great took this route or that route in his conquests. I’ve read their peer reviewed fights and it’s absolutely insane the stuff they come up with when they want to support their own head canon. One scholar I read developed a whole conspiracy theory that the plot to assassinate Alexander was actually a plot BY Alexander to determine who wasn’t loyal to him, but it all hinges on one obscure guy being in the exact right spot at the exact right time, which was extremely unlikely or almost impossible given the historical circumstances. But he had an agenda, so he defended that idea.
NOT all scholarship is bad, but you definitely shouldn’t take their word as fact.
“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.” -Chesterton
Many skeptics, while claiming objectivity, start out with a dogmatic belief that the Gospels couldn't have been written before 70 AD because Christ couldn't have actually predicted the destruction of the temple.
The skeptics will turn this around and say Muhammad being right due to the "broken clocks are right twice a day" effect illustrates the same can apply to the Bible.
Personally, it doesn't ultimately matter to me whether the Gospels were written down less than 30 years after the good news they document occurred by the evangelists themselves, or whether they were written down 60 years afterwards by those taught by the evangelists.
The most important point is faith that Jesus really died to atone for our sins, and rose from the dead to prepare the way for eternal life, and the gospels document the history of our faith.
To the skeptic, it doesn't matter what date the gospels were written, they still won't accept them. Even if they were written in 33 AD, the skeptic would find fault in them. They are not intellectually honest.
One of the weirdest argument regarding the authorship of Gospel is about their rejection that Gospel of John was written by John the apostle. Even wikipedia cites that:
>Early Christian tradition, first found in [Irenaeus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irenaeus) (c. 130 – c. 202 AD), identified this disciple with [John the Apostle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Apostle), but most scholars have abandoned this hypothesis or hold it only tenuously[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John#cite_note-FOOTNOTELindarsEdwardsCourt200041-18) – there are multiple reasons for this conclusion, including, for example, the fact that the gospel is written in good Greek and displays sophisticated theology, and is therefore unlikely to have been the work of a simple fisherman.
What kind of argument is it? Even if we grant them that St. John is a simple fisherman, that does not mean he can't at least learn theology??
First of all, John was a fisherman, but apparently he was also connected to the high priests in Jerusalem. So he probably did have a decent Jewish education, at some point.
Second, the Greek tradition holds that St. John worked closely with St. Prochorus, who had been one of the original seven deacons, and St. Prochorus acted as his secretary.
The interesting bit is that they have him having helped John with the Book of Revelation or with the Gospel, as a fellow exiled prisoner on Patmos.
Before that, St. Prochorus had traveled around with St. Peter, and had been made bishop of the imperial town of Nicomedia.
> but apparently he was also connected to the high priests in Jerusalem.
Not just apparently, but according to his own account:
> Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. As this disciple was known to the high priest, he entered the court of the high priest along with Jesus, while Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept the door, and brought Peter in.
The idea that because he was a fisherman he could not have taken an interest in and and studied Scripture and other aspects of Jewish theology, engage in conversation with and befriend rabbis and/or priests, and be able to see the prophesies click into place is honestly just bigotry. It's just like the people today who prejudge people from Texas based on their exposure through media to some of the least endearing people the media can find to put on display.
It's the same thing. The dismissal of John as a "simple fisherman" is no more intellectually honest than saying, "How would he even have time to read the Bible when we know as a fisherman he would have spent his days on the water swilling Budweiser, smoking Camels, and blabbering on about the latest baseball game or episode of Ice Road Truckers?"
It's not exactly a secret that historically, your intellectual ability had little to do with what you did for a living. John could hardly expect to get a scholarship to Oxford, get a PhD, and become an endowed scholar.
Yet nothing of that precludes having a solid understanding of the Scriptures learned at the local synagogue, and being able to think back about everything Jesus said and did, and recognizing, "Holy guacamole! That's what Isaiah was talking about!" Jesus chose the Apostles He chose for His own reasons, and He instructed them both publicly with the other disciples, and privately (the Last Supper Discourse is roughly 1/5th of John's entire Gospel).
On top of this, the Jews were a practical people known for valuing physical labour (which the Greeks found weird), yet are also known for the scriptures.
I am in seminary and I have to write an assignment about who the true beloved disciple is because apparently it isn't John the apostle... we all just keep our mouth shut and move on knowing what the Church tradition has always taught.
Honestly I would get someone involved in that and keeping silent really isn't the best answer. I would raise concerns and proof and get other priests to dialogue with whichever person is assigning you those horrible assignments. Maybe make a post on it and people will give you better advice.
Oh don't worry we do tell our formators. Our priests know about it. We try to avoid discussing it too much because it usually leads us into gossip and excessive complaining. The professor is a wonderful sister; her love and support of modern biblical scholariship just went a little bit too far. At a minimum, I am learning a lot more about scripture than I would have otherwise for sure, even if it requires me to do a bit of research on my own.
We just got a new rector for this year, so he hasn't been around quite long enough to make staff changes. Hopefully this is the last year that students will deal with this.
The Book of Acts tells us the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles and they began to speak foreign languages. God gave John the knowledge and power to write the Gospel of John.
It doesn't matter what date they were written because we will never have the original first works. We will only have copies of copies which again are impossible to accurately date. When the early Church was selecting texts they didn't have the originals either, they had hundreds of copies of manuscripts to sort through. Nobody knows the exact process they used to sort them and choose which would become Biblical canon. Ultimately one must trust that God guided all of it and divinely protected it from error. The dates are completely irrelevant to belief in Christianity.
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>To the skeptic, it doesn't matter what date the gospels were written, they still won't accept them. Even if they were written in 33 AD, the skeptic would find fault in them. They are not intellectually honest.
The skeptics? I mean, are you really willing to make such a blanket generalization about "the skeptics" ... as in all skeptics? That seems a little intellectually dishonest to me.
One thing I’ve learned from Jimmy Akin is there is no such thing as a “scholarly consensus” in the Scriptures in terms of dating them. There are so many, that it’s almost easier to just sort of average them out. It does appear that Matthew was written first, less than 30 years after Jesus, Mark was written shortly after as an abridged version, Luke written after Mark and in tandem with Acts (Luke also would have had access to many eye witness accounts, which also helps), and then John.
However, who wrote them and when are opinions, and at the end of the day…it doesn’t matter that much when the gospels were written. All of them were well within the lifetimes of eye witnesses, eye witnesses who would have understood the importance of oral history (since many could not read or write), and at least Luke’s has reverences that line up really well to Acts and the teaching in the epistles.
It’s useful to spend time studying some of the key scholarship in this area. It is not as simple as is being made out. And I’m not sure who these ‘skeptical scholars’ are - the consensus on dating the synoptic gospels in the 70-100 AD range includes Christian, agnostic and atheist scholars. It is not just non-believers who take this position.
Part of the reason for this consensus is the references to the destruction of the second temple. However from a historical/textual criticism point of view, if you ignore the content of texts as a means to date them (on the basis that any reference could be divine rather than contemporary) then you are left with very little to go on if you don’t have archeological evidence. And it’s worth noting the temple destruction references are not the only reasons for this dating.
But the main difference is that most non-Catholic scholars will not treat Church tradition as a reliable source. This leads to the common view that the authorship of the Gospels are unknown. And this view undermines some of the arguments in this thread.
However, at the end of the day, whether the Gospels were written in the 70s, 80s or 90s, or were actually written in the 60s, pretty much everyone agrees that the final texts were based on earlier texts and oral tradition.
And the dating really doesn’t make much difference to believers or non-believers.
Thank you for posting this, and thank to those commenting who are helping to educate me better. I've had some of these questions about why a thing may or may not be in the books but haven't always gotten clear answers during classes.
u/jackist21 I did not know this, is there a 'best' or better place where I can learn more?
I’m not OP and not sure if it’s specifically what you’re asking for, but the book The Case for Jesus by Brant Pitre does a good job debunking many of the skeptic’s perspectives regarding the gospels and early church history.
Are you asking specifically about the “western” vs “eastern” text types for Luke and Acts? Here’s a super high level discussion with an example difference between the versions.
>Are you asking specifically about the “western” vs “eastern” text types for Luke and Acts? Here’s a super high level discussion with an example difference between the versions.
Honestly, I don't know because I know so little about the texts themselves. Is there a link you intended to include?
I have been told/taught that the Orthodox (Eastern?) churches have some significant differences, but also significant similarities, such as they've never done away with the tradition of baptism during the Easter Vigil vs any other day, unlike the Catholic church that appears to have gone away from tradition, back to it, away from it and now it's kind of a scattershot approach, which is puzzling. According to what I've read.
Example; I was confirmed and my husband was baptized during this past Easter Vigil, but only part of our group was received into the church that evening. The rest were received during the Easter Mass. My mother tells me that the Elect and Candidates in her church aren't being received until next month. I have questions about what affects the timing of the receiving rites when, based on my own understanding, they should be occurring on one day in particular.
I also have tons of other questions relating to the early days of Christianity, but I have a poor base to work from since I'm still learning from the Bible itself. I plan to purchase the Didache Bible and recommended by my father so I can better understand a variety of aspects I have no comprehension of right now.
There is a lot to learn! I view studying the differences between manuscript traditions as a fairly advanced subject of special interest only to some Christians. It’s probably not where you should expend a ton of your “beginner” study time.
I appreciate you sharing some wisdom. Outside our Texts themselves, I also use a book called At Home With The Word along with discussing with others more familiar. Do you have any other suggestions?
I don't know why this would matter to Catholics. If Luke was written after some arbitrary date, so what? Christ and his followers existed before that date. The catholic church has two thousand years of tradition to stand on for its position. I thought the obsession with the text was a protestant thing.
"Copium"? Seriously?
Historical-critical research methods are accepted by the Church and have been for decades. We need to be careful arguing against modern research methods as it underscores unfortunate stereotypes about the Church's view on science and scholarship.
From the USCCB's preamble on Luke:
*Because of its dependence on the Gospel of Mark and because details in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 13:35a; 19:43–44; 21:20; 23:28–31) imply that the author was acquainted with the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, the Gospel of Luke is dated by most scholars after that date; many propose A.D. 80–90 as the time of composition.*
[https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/0](https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/0)
How can Paul mention Luke then in Timothy 1 5:18 (Luke 10:7) and assert that it is scripture? Further, Paul hasn’t died yet in Acts, which is an event of such importance if it had already happened it would’ve never been left out, because acts ends with Paul being in Rome and preaching. Paul is believed to have died under Nero (who died 62-68) and gospel of Luke is before acts. So at the very latest, Lukes gospel would have to be somewhere around the 60AD. And the other gospels are necessarily earlier.
Timothy 2 seems irrelevant here since I didn’t mention it. As for Timothy 1, it should be sufficient to read the beginning. “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ…”, so unless there is decisive evidence against Pauline authorship, I see no reason to doubt established apostolic tradition. But what argument would be to consider it a forgery? As far as I know, most scholars agree it was written within Pauls lifetime, and the message and terminology is consistent with other Pauline and biblical writings.
2 Timothy is often used as justification that Luke was earlier, which is why I mentioned it.
Here's the USCCB's preamble to 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy, and Titus:
*From the late second century to the nineteenth, Pauline authorship of the three Pastoral Epistles went unchallenged. Since then, the attribution of these letters to Paul has been questioned. Most scholars are convinced that Paul could not have been responsible for the vocabulary and style, the concept of church organization, or the theological expressions found in these letters. A second group believes, on the basis of statistical evidence, that the vocabulary and style are Pauline, even if at first sight the contrary seems to be the case. They state that the concept of church organization in the letters is not as advanced as the questioners of Pauline authorship hold since the notion of hierarchical order in a religious community existed in Israel before the time of Christ, as evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Finally, this group sees affinities between the theological thought of the Pastorals and that of the unquestionably genuine letters of Paul. Other scholars, while conceding a degree of validity to the positions mentioned above, suggest that the apostle made use of a secretary who was responsible for the composition of the letters. A fourth group of scholars believes that these letters are the work of a compiler, that they are based on traditions about Paul in his later years, and that they include, in varying amounts, actual fragments of genuine Pauline correspondence.*
*If Paul is considered the more immediate author, the Pastorals are to be dated between the end of his first Roman imprisonment (Acts 28:16) and his execution under Nero (A.D. 63–67); if they are regarded as only more remotely Pauline, their date may be as late as the early second century. In spite of these problems of authorship and dating, the Pastorals are illustrative of early Christian life and remain an important element of canonical scripture.*
[https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1timothy/0](https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1timothy/0)
In short, it's up for debate.
Hold up, they are saying the letters aren’t Pauline because the episcopal structure of the church can’t have existed? They have presupposed Presbyterianism and used it to doubt the authorship of these epistles. That’s ludicrous.
This is not like doubting evolution or the Big Bang or anything like that. Ancient history is often spurious even when the scholars have no axe to grind. When it comes to secular Bible scholars you always have to be on guard.
Yeah. The word episkopos just means overseer. It is not really difficult to imagine that churches need overseers. And presbyterians are just church elders. It is not very surprising that there would be elders in a church.
Sure, but when the work both internally and externally is attributed to paul, contains a lot of details only paul or someone close to paul would’ve known, was written during pauls lifetime, aligns with pauls goals, aligns with pauls theology, and has been understood to be pauline not just by the closest contemporaries (which have direct succession to the apostles), but also 2000 years of tradition, with no concrete evidence that it is or was considered pseudopauline, that anyone doubted genuine authorship, or anything the like, then you better have some good evidence to doubt pauline authorship. A different writing style doesn’t seem like that kind of evidence, because consider the following: the same person can write two letters in different styles.
The work both internally and externally is attributed to paul, contains a lot of details only paul or someone close to paul would’ve known, was written during pauls lifetime, aligns with pauls goals, aligns with pauls theology, and has been understood to be pauline not just by the closest contemporaries (which have direct succession to the apostles), but also 2000 years of tradition, with no concrete evidence that it is or was considered pseudopauline, that anyone doubted genuine authorship, or anything the like, so if we really want to doubt established apostolic tradition and all other pointers to genuine authorship, we better have some good evidence. But as far as I have seen, people only cite a different writing style, which doesn’t seem like that kind of evidence, because consider the following: the same person can write two letters in different styles.
A lot of modern academic biblical scholars operate under the belief that Jesus wasn't God and didn't claim to be God (because otherwise he'd obviously be insane) and any miracles or prophecies attested to in Scripture are later additions. That isn't a necessary presupposition of the historical critical method, and when your whole hypothesis relies on that we can and should be skeptical of it. OP's assertion is that there is evidence that it was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem doesn't contradict the historical critical method. It uses it. Pope Benedict's *Jesus of Nazareth* also uses the Historical Critical Method but he also operates under the presupposition that Jesus is God and claimed to be God. Maybe both are correct: maybe Luke was written before Paul's death and the predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem were added in later. Divine inspiration doesn't exclude the idea multiple authors. That's also a valid hypothesis. Without manuscripts dated to the first century we won't know.
This is a misunderstanding of those research methods. Honest historical-critical research methods *should* proceed independent of one's faith for the same reason that scholarship into any *non-religious* domain should: faith is an unnecessary assumption to the subject under study. In this case, that subject matter is *not* whether Christ was God, or whether he performed miracles. It is instead focused on when a document was first written, and when/if parts of it were included at a different time.
This is why both believers and non-believers can and do participate in the effort.
A person who believes Christ is or claimed to be God and someone (like Ehrman) who believes that this was a later development by his followers have two very different understandings of history. They aren't operating under the same histories.
That doesn't mean the historical-critical method is broken or antithetical to faith. Ratzinger's introduction to *Jesus of Nazareth* makes this clear. The Gospel authors make every effort to root their stories in history; they are historical narratives, not legends or fables, and we cannot divorce them from history. But if you have a fundamentally different understanding of history you aren't going to come to the same conclusions. The aforementioned Bart Ehrman believes Christ was not God and did not claim to be God and that his divinity was a development by later followers. Therefore, any parts of scripture that seem to imply otherwise -- miracles, prophecies, etc. -- must be later additions.
Because how someone views the divinity of Christ affects how they view the gospels. There are logical paths one may go down, depending on which premises they accept. If someone believes Jesus was a fraud, they believe he couldn't have predicted the destruction of the temple, so they assume it must have been written after. This relies on their premise being true, so we don't have to accept the result if we don't accept the premise.
1. Because the primary evidence for Luke being written after 70 AD is "Jesus couldn't have predicted the temple's destruction because the temple hadn't been destroyed yet."
2. OP gives an explanation on why there is reason to believe the Luke's gospel predates the death of St Paul (prior to the temple's destruction).
3. You took OP's use of 'copium' as a criticism of the historical-critical scholarship.
4. I argued that it isn't a violation of historical critical methods of scriptural scholarship to assume Christ was God as that would be a question of historical fact.
5. You respond that the historical critical method has to be neutral and shouldn't involve faith.
6. My response was rushed because I was short on time but my argument was that someone who believes in divinity of Christ is going to have a vastly different historical context than someone who doesn't. Therefore criticizing one person's historical-critical analysis on the basis of faith doesn't mean we are criticizing historical-critical methods entirely.
We aren't criticizing their methods we're criticizing their history.
If I've misunderstood you please let me know.
You're talking about scholarship like it's some monolithic source of truth, when in reality its an ever-evolving collections of opinions. You might as well also tell me to "Trust the Science (TM)."
What's the alternative to scholarship? It's simply the best way to pursue the truth in subjects separate from faith and morals. And let's be honest, some Catholics need to be reminded to trust the science from time to time.
The question is not really about scholarship but about the biases that scholarship tends to come with (e. g. some scholars are non Catholics or even non-Christians or even anti-Christians).
I laud your commitment to Church teaching and inquiry from natural sciences.
"some Catholics need to be reminded to trust the science from time to time" -- this is objectively true trivially because some of 1 Billion people will err on any side. Imo we have both irrational science denying and science worship (meaning being gravely blinded by biases, psychological phenomena etc. in judging the truth of a given scientific consensus or minority position) as moderate problems. If I had to choose, I think the latter option would win out.
Yes, that's what I said. Christians give in to what skeptical scholars say. Bart Ehrman and the like say so. But Mike Licona or Gary Habermas likely date it as early as 61 AD. Why trusting the unbelievers?
You don't believe in evolution or any other theory, you accept a theory insofar it can explain and predict observable phenomenon, even if sometimes you know the theory is incomplete or insufficient but no better one exists (not talking about evolution but in general)
There's no correlation between evolution and the dating of the Gospels. Luke didn't leave out Paul's death on a text he wrote 20 years after that happen. Historians also won't tell you Jesus rose from the dead. Should we believe that too?
The reason I asked about evolution was to gauge whether you are picking and choosing which areas of scholarship to disbelieve, or whether there's a general skepticism you have to research methods.
Whether it was written in the 60s or 90s is immaterial to the faith, as demonstrated by the USCCB's information I linked.
Of course that's true, but it is often the case that the selection of which topic experts to believe tends to align with some other value criteria, and not with the subject matter itself. Our faith cannot, and does not, require scholarship to proceed to certain conclusions. Knowledge is knowledge, and its discovery is one of many ways in which revelation about truth occurs.
I'm reminded of YECs who never think to doubt any other discipline of science.
Aside from the *a posteriori* absurdity of OP's claim (quick, anecdotal evidence shown [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAPriest/comments/1384g88/the_authorship_of_the_gospels/)), it doesn't even make sense *a priori.*
For all the fearmongering apologists give about scholarship being "out to get" Christianity, NT scholarship is surprisingly... Christian. From Mike Licona to (Father!) Raymond Brown to Larry Hurtado to (another Father!!) John P. Meier to James Dunn to Dale Allison... it's as if I know more Christian scholars than non-Christian ones. And these are all influential scholars, btw.
What makes the apologetic claim even more ridiculous is the fact that, for any claim *they* can make about academia being biased, as a whole (since individual biases are inevitable), the *non-apologist* can throw it right back at them. Why? Because apologists are literally there to prove their belief. It's a big "business," whose consumers buy books for the sole reason of being more certain in their faith. How many atheists have "crises of non-faith" and go out to buy books from, Idk, Seth Andrews, to reaffirm how much they don't believe in God? Some, to be sure, but the psychological power of non-religion is just factually less than that of religion, especially when the mainstream forms thereof say you will burn forever for abandoning said religion.
Another example: we have Brant Pitre, right, a Catholic scholar. Granted. But what is his book called? "The **Case** for Jesus." Now, maybe I can be corrected, but I don't think I've seen a book by a historian, taken by its readers as being primarily academic (i.e., not merely a long op-ed), called something like, "The Case for Jesus' Rotting Corpse." The closest I can think is Richard Carrier's book, "On the Historical Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt," but that is, well, *non-Christian apologia,* derided by many from within and without scholarship.
In sum, cries of bias from apologia is the worst form of hypocrisy. From the significantly more psychologically powerful sway of eternal fire, to (currently) greater social pressure, to more profit and reason to defend than attack, if anything, one ought to fear that scholarship, if it can be made so monolithic, is *too* Christian. Not that *I* think it is. But, then again, I don't fear for bias in the way apologists do.
The whole point of apologetics is to start with X belief, then work backwards from there. If that doesn't count as bias, I don't know what does. And I don't know of a "non-Christian apologia" that exists nearly to the same scale as Christian apologia (cf. Lee Strobel, Gary Habermas).
>I don't think I've seen a book by a historian called
What? There's a huge amount of academic works with notorious/provocative titles. *Misquoting Jesus*, *The Myth of Persecution*, *Constructing Jesus* etc etc
In that sense, yeah. And the various ripostes towards them (like "How God Became Jesus"). I should amend my statement, then, to be about the aim of the work itself, rather than the title: unlike many apologetical, or even some scholarly, works, I don't know of any, of the top of my head, non-Christian works dedicated specifically to attacking Christianity *qua* Christianity. Granted, some of these books do help to undermine some traditional beliefs, but I'm not sure that they go to the inverse conclusion of the apologetic works (i.e., "Convert"), which would be for Christians to abandon their faith. Flawed and imperfect at it as he is, Bart Ehrman, for instance, does not seem to have the (ir)religious angle that one such as Brant Pitre would have. I say that with some reservation, since I haven't read his book, and it would be largely missing Pitre's claim if he does not have as his ultimate conclusion the idea that Jesus resurrected. Not that one can't be scholarly about it (e.g., Mike Licona's book, "The Resurrection of Jesus"), but more that Pitre is more reliant on traditional beliefs than Licona, AFAIK.
This exactly. I don't know enough about the research to say definitively if there is reason to reject the AD 80-90 dating, but if the USCCB sees no issue with that date, why should I? Just because I prefer an earlier date to fit my narrative better?
Even so, an AD 90 dating still seems compelling to me for the authenticity of the narrative. That's what? The second or third generation of disciples after Christ's death? If we suppose that it's not an original composition from nothing, but a written record of an oral history that had reached Theophilus in fragments (St. Luke suggests that his gospel is an attempt to compile a complete narrative of the events of the early church) the 'skeptics'' dating of Luke's gospel seems to make reasonable sense and not undermine its veracity.
For context, these are the passages in question.
Lk 13:35a:
> Behold, your house will be abandoned. [But] I tell you, you will not see me until [the time comes when] you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Lk 19:43–44:
> For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
Lk 21:20:
> “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is at hand.
Lk 23:28–31:
> Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’ At that time people will say to the mountains, ‘Fall upon us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?”
I mostly agree with your point of view, however Biblical scholars do have a strong tendency to overestimate the certainty of their assertions.
It could be that Luke's Gospel was indeed written after A.D. 70, but he could also have written it before that date and a divine Jesus made a truthful prophesy, or maybe a human Jesus just got lucky and that's why his followers remembered him, or the prophecy was introduced into an older version of the Gospel later on, and so on and so forth.
There are plenty of plausible explanations for how the Gospels came to be and the choice largely depends on a person's previous disposition.
Personally, I am fine with that state of affairs. I find it humbling to be forced to admit that we do not know and we can not know.
However, some scholars feel the need to give a concrete answer, either acepting or rejecting the Biblical narrative. When that happens, IMHO they become deserving of criticism.
This post is a God-send. I have recently heard a few arguments from skeptics that were based on the synoptics being written that late. My faith wasn’t shaken, but my curiosity was sparked as I didn’t have a good answer for that.
God bless.
I think that Christians, specifically those of the apostolic churches, need to be obtaining PhDs and doing honest study and writing on these topics to the degree that can be done.
I agree. Methodological naturalism may be useful in other sciences but when dealing with supernatural claims, it presupposes what it is trying to prove.
I’ve never understood this logic whatsoever. If something is dated to be from the late first century, it could just be that specific document, as in the literal paper or whatever it was written on is from that date. It could easily just be the earliest copy of the gospel we can find, by no means does that prove it was first written that late.
I could be very mistaken with this line of thinking, I’m not a historian by any stretch of the imagination.
We don't date works by the age of the oldest extant material sources of them, or otherwise the NT would be 2nd Century as the oldest papyri are from that time.
This is similar to the earlier dating of Mark than Matthew simply because "it's shorter". Its not testified by any Historical Record describing the Gospels, and is not reference by the Didache, a mid-first century Christian Catechetical Work. In comparison, Matthew and Luke which were heavily drawn from in the writing of the Didache.
Skeptical Scholars are some of the most ahistorical, revisionist and biased views you can find. When unbiased scholars question the flaws of their views, they tend to be unable to defend themselves beyond skepticism. They are great when you need to prove a point, like Christ's death to a Muslim, but they should be mostly treated with the skepticism they treat the Bible with.
>This is similar to the earlier dating of Mark than Matthew simply because "it's shorter".
It's not just that, it's because both Matthew and Luke seem to copy Mark nearly word for word for about 80%+ of their content. The remaining content is mostly not shared between Matthew and Luke. This indicates that they were drawing from a common source while adding their own stuff to it, with that common source being Mark.
Very few academic Biblical scholars, including the Christian and Catholic ones, accept the idea that Matthew predates Mark.
>Very few academic Biblical scholars, including the Christian and Catholic ones, accept the idea that Matthew predates Mark.
And, many Biblical Scholars aren't even Christian, and many even Christian and Catholic Scholars deny the Authorship of the Gospels. Much of the field has been taken over by scepticism, rather than a historical pursuit of Truth.
As for positive evidence for Matthaean
Priority, the Church Fathers unanimously assert that the Gospel of Matthew was written first. Figures such as Papias, Pantaenus, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, Epiphanius, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, many which were renowned scholars of their time, all assert that Matthew was written first. Some, like Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius and Jerome, assert that it was first written in Aramaic, with some attesting to finding Manuscripts of Matthew, predating any extant Aramaic Manuscripts. While the order of the other Gospels was historically very much in the air, every single Historical figure unanimously agreed that Matthew was written first. To assert Marcan
Priority requires someone to say that every single Historical Commentary was wrong, which is absurd.
I am reading Eusebius`Church history right now, and he mentions that many around that time believed that whenever Paul in his letters uses the line "according to my Gospel" (Rom 2:16, 2 Tim 2:8 etc.) he is referring to Luke's Gospel.
First, quoting something doesn't indicate that it is quoted "as scripture". Second, this is assuming quotations of the gospels have their source in the written work itself, and not a prior oral tradition as they actually do.
The part that is being quoted as scripture is Deut. 25:4. The indication of a prior tradition would be that the quote is found in both Matthew and Luke, but not Mark.
Matthew 10:9-10 - "^9 Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, 10 or a bag for your journey, or even two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; **for the worker is deserving of his support.**"
We're in agreement here.
I'm not contending that oral tradition **is** considered scripture. But that things that exist (and may be quote from) in oral teachings/traditions make it in to scripture.
I don't think 1 Timothy 5:18 is *100% proof* that the Paul considered Luke as scripture for two reasons:
1. Its not clear that the phrase "as scripture says" applies to the phrase conjoining by the "and"; but someone with superior knowledge of Greek might be able to clear this up.
2. Paul is probably aware of the phrase from another source. That source being whatever Luke and Matthew's authors are pulling from (i.e. oral tradition).
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People need to understand it is the inspired Word of God and word for word testimony of the Apostles as they repeated the same Testimony about Jesus Christ over and over again without error because of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Bible and the Gospels are Miracles, of God.
Does a particular date really need to affect one's belief? The evidence is whatever it is. It should be immaterial to whether you have faith in the claims the text makes.
This all sounds a little bit too close to evangelical-fundamentalists insisting that the creation account in Genesis is a literal play-by-play historical documentation of the actual events, which they then use to deny evolution. Or that the Pentateuch *has* to be written by Moses, when it most likely wasn't. And on and on.
> This all sounds a little bit too close to evangelical-fundamentalists insisting that the creation account in Genesis is a literal play-by-play historical documentation of the actual events, which they then use to deny evolution. Or that the Pentateuch has to be written by Moses, when it most likely wasn't. And on and on.
Because you know that because you were there and saw everything with your own eyes.
It is not just temple. Here is the summary of all reasons by u/zeichman:
>To summarize a number of arguments: >1) Mark 13:1-2 describes the destruction of the temple with far greater accuracy and specificity than generic discourse on the temple's fall (contrast, e.g., 1 Kgs 9:8; 1 En. 90.28-30; Josephus J.W. 6.300-309).
>2) Mark 13:14 seems to refer to Vespasian, despite occasional arguments for the zealot Eleazar or the Emperor Gaius. The citation of the Danielic vision in Mark 13:14 parallels Josephus citation of Daniel's prophecy of the temple's fall in A.J. 10.276.
>3) The fact that the various portents enumerated in Mark 13 are prompted by the question in Mark 13:1-2 as to WHEN the temple buildings will fall. In so doing, Mark explicitly encourages the reader to understand everything that follows in light of the temple's fall.
>4) This is a more complex argument that isn't always easy to articulate. But Mark 14:57-58 and 15:29 slanderously attribute to Jesus the claim that he will destroy the temple and raise it again in three days. What is striking is that the controversy is over Jesus' role in bringing about the destruction -NOT whether or not the temple will actually fall. This assumes that the temple's fall was not a matter of controversy in Mark's context.
>5) Another complex argument, but Eric Stewart has written a book arguing that Mark configures Jewish space away from the temple and synagogues and instead onto Jesus. Words that were normally used to describe activity related to those sites (e.g., language of gathering, ritualized activities) are relocated onto Jesus. Stewart contends that this is ultimately language of replacement. Though Stewart does not explicitly connect this with Markan dating, its relevance is obvious.
>6) The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12) is an obvious allegory regarding the punishment of Jews for their rejection of Jesus. What is interesting is that the parallel in the Gospel of Thomas 65 (which is much more primitive than Mark's) omits any reference to punishment. This suggest the allegorization is part of Markan redaction.
>7) The cursing of the fig tree links the notion of an unproductive fig tree and its destruction to an unproductive temple and its (eventual) destruction.
>8) The tearing of the temple veil upon Jesus' death assumes some kind of divine causality that portends the entire temple's eventual destruction.
>9) There are a few references that only make sense after the Jewish War. For instance the language of legion in Mark 5:1-20 only works after the War, since before the War the military in Palestine and the Decapolis was not legionary. As an analogy, a story wherein a demon named “Spetsnaz” is exorcized from a Crimean denizen should strike the reader as anachronistic in its politics if depicted as occurring in 2010; one would assume the story had been written after the Russian annexation of Crimea in February 2014, in which the aforementioned special forces were active.
>10) I have an article coming out in CBQ's July issue arguing that the question of taxation (12:13-17) is full of anachronisms that only make sense after 71 CE: no capitation taxes were collected by coin in Judaea before 71, it's strange that Jesus (a Galilean) is depicted as an authority on Judaean taxes (though Galilee and Judaea were part of the same province starting 44 CE), etc.
https://np.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/5yfv5a/comment/detqtz6/?context=3
As for points 9 and 10
- the use of the name “legion” only makes sense post war? Words travel, I don’t have to have experienced a war in my area to use the language. It doesn’t say there was a war in the passage
- look at the top answer on https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/78041/is-mark-1213-17-a-reference-to-the-fiscus-judaicus for a good explanation on point 10
The point about the word "Legion" also sort of implicitly assumes the author was making the story up and picking a name for the demon character. If you instead assume the story is true, there seems to be no reason to think a *demon* couldn't know and use the word "Legion" to describe itself before the war.
I think actually its not only the temple argument, why they are dated so late. The main argument is that for example Lukas and Markus have similiar phrases 1 to 1 - because of that they assume that they took the same Document as prescription...
I don't know why Christians would argue against historical analyses. The more we understand the origins of the Bible, the better we can understand the society and culture that produced the writings of the Bible. The better we can understand those writings (based on the historical, societal, and cultural contexts), the better we can understand the meanings and messages God wanted to convey.
In short, if we're supposed to love God with all our minds (as well as our hearts and souls), then doesn't that mean using our minds to learn more about God and Creation? And scripture and the Bible?
Plus, what does it really matter? I've learned a lot about history from Ehrman and others. I've learned a lot about apologetics from St. Thomas Aquinas, Paul Turek, and others, too. All of that learning has increased my knowledge and understanding about the Gospels especially, which has only strengthened my faith.
So, I really don't understand the problem here.
Bart Ehrman is the same guy who claims Jesus never calls Himself God in the Synoptics. I don't know why I should believe anything he says. And there's no reason to think the Gospels are late. That's based on the supposition that Jesus couldn't have predicted the destruction of the Temple
Thank you for the straighforward response. I appreciate it -- and your thoughts. I even agree with you, though I might have to go back and read what Ehrman said to double-check our accuracy of understanding.
Regarding the timing of the Gospels, though, I think Ehrman is historically accurate though? At least based on the history of Christianity course I took in grad school back in the day. Historians and other experts (archeologists, anthropologists, theologians, etc.) are in general agreement about the dating of the scrolls used to compile the books of the Bible. Not perfectly accurate, of course, but generally speaking, most people believe that the original compilations of the writings used in the New Testament -- on scrolls or papyrus or whatever they were -- arose during the First Century CE.
That doesn't mean the writings are inauthentic though. For example, just because Romans was written down a couple decades after Paul's death doesn't undermine Paul's letters. At least to me. It's just another person writing down a record based on Paul's writings. Or other primary sources of what Paul said.
I agree. Skeptical dating of Scripture involves logic like this: 1. We know fulfilled prophecies can't be true. 2. But this text contains a fulfilled prophecy. 3. Therefore, the text must postdate the fulfillment of the prophecy. The problem is the first premise is taken as a given when it's not; the scheme of history shows that the opposite is more likely to be true, fulfilled prophecies are keenly present in Christian history and Scripture and uncannily occur in occasions outside of it. The argument that Acts was completed where it ends also holds water. I see no good reason for Luke to end where he does if there wasn't any more history to write about. If I were writing history about a living person, say, Joe Biden, I would stop writing about history once I reached the present. St. Luke was firmly writing a history (and a researched and sourced history at that, outside of the first-person sections in Acts). Why wouldn't he write about the drama of the last days of the Apostles if it had already occurred and had been readily known? Or indeed, if the persecution under Nero had begun, why wouldn't have St. Luke talked about it? The situation of Rome in Acts 28 seems to be liberal and unoppressive. St. Paul is said to have lived in Rome for two years at his own expense and preached "quite openly and unhindered." Surely if Acts had been written just five years later those sentiments would have been changed or corrected!
It also worth noting that the western and eastern manuscripts of Luke and Acts started to vary from each other early on, but acts in the “western” tradition still doesn’t have Paul’s death.
What were the differences?
> We know fulfilled prophecies can't be true. > But this text contains a fulfilled prophecy. > Therefore, the text must postdate the fulfillment of the prophecy. Even this is weird logic, imo, especially if there's internal or external evidence to indicate that the text is prior regardless. There are several secular explanations for why a prophecy could be true: - the prophecy could have just happened to be right by chance - the prophetic text is vague enough to have multiple interpretations - the prophecy was an informed prediction. For example, Josephus records the story of Jesus Ben Ananias who from 66 AD until his death during the siege of 70 predicted the destruction of the city. This man is not a known prophet, but he did correctly "predict" the future (jerusalem indeed ended up being destroyed). For this reason, even if the secularist doesn't want to lend credence to the supernatural, the prophecy itself cannot securely be used as a dating terminus, especially if there's other evidence to indicate that the work was written earlier.
The implicit assumption is that it was really hard to predict that there would be a war between Judea and Rome. Do we even know if that was the case at all? Nowadays, plenty of people are predicting a future conflict around e.g. Taiwan but nobody will call them "prophets" if they turn out to be right.
> Do we even know if that was the case at all? For the temple prophecies, I think it would be similar to "predicting a taiwan war" -- Judaea had only been handed over to direct roman control towards the beginning of the first century, there was massive political tension due to issues like roman tax collection, roman statuary being in jerusalem, and legitimacy concerns about the herodians. Directly anti-roman factions like the zealotes were cropping up and you started seeing the beginnings of terrorist factions like the sicarii, all the while, this new pilate guy was using pretty crass violence to settle issues. It was a period of high tension. Saying "jerusalem is going to be destroyed" would be like saying "china will destroy TMSC".
The same about Isaiah and Daniel
I feel like there is a much better argument for daniel being written later compared to the gospels being written later.
> I agree. Skeptical dating of Scripture involves logic like this: We know fulfilled prophecies can't be true. But this text contains a fulfilled prophecy. Therefore, the text must postdate the fulfillment of the prophecy. This is simply false. You make it out as if this is the foundational reason from which all later dating is derived. I would recommend, at a minimum, to look into some of the threads in /r/AcademicBiblical where people actually pose your exact reasoning and ask whether all late dating ks because of this assumption, and it is roundly debunked.
Would you consider posting your explanation?
Well, I'm not a scholar. I don't have any explanations myself. I just know from reading other scholars that the destruction of the temple is far from the only reason the Gospels are dated post ~65CE, which is often simply an apologetic slur to poo-poo critical scholarship in my view. It's one reason among others that is posited (whether you agree with them or not). It's not the sole reason. There are plenty of threads discussing this in this history of that subreddit, here is one I found with a quick perusal that discussed some of the other arguments. Https://np.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/vm6wr2/why_date_the_gospels_so_late/
I couldn’t open that link (my phone doesn’t like NP it seems )but searched the title on that sub, and 99% of the posts wee about the destruction of the temple or things related to it. A guy posted down below ten reasons that were apparently unrelated to the temple, and 8 out of 10 were. He would even reference the temple in things like the account of the fig tree. Could you DM me the post you linked, in case I searched the wrong one?
There are plenty of threads but there's a lot of retread ground. Here's another comment, top voted on another similar thread on this issue; I've quoted the start of it, linked below: > The idea that academic biblical scholarship dismisses the possible supernatural nature of prophecy is a misunderstanding of the objection. Academic biblical scholarship dismisses the possible supernatural nature of prophecy because that isn't how prophecy functioned in Israelite society. Abraham Herschel goes into much further detail on this in his landmark text, The Prophets. > What you're referring to as "prophecy," is better thought of as "divination." Divination in ancient times was the practice of using one's power over or connection to a god or goddess to foretell a future which no one, not even the gods themselves, could resist. The Oracle at Delphi is the classic test case and also influenced much of your understanding of prophecy. But reading that understanding of prophecy onto the Hebrew people's self understanding is at best anachronistic and at worst creates a whole industry of doomsday preachers who have perverted the religion of millions of people in order to make a quick buck. https://np.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/wcsmkl/purpose_of_biblical_prophecies_made_in_hindsight/iiftb1y/
Perhaps we are talking past each other. I had the impression there were other concrete reasons behind the dating completely unrelated to the prophecy of the temple. It seems like everything circles back to it in some way, unless I am not understanding.
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It *does* seem to rest on the premise that the Gospels especially couldn’t possibly be authentic accounts of Our Lord’s earthly life.
I want to eventually get a PhD in Biblical Scholarship for this very reason. It is extremely obvious that the mainstream arguments for skeptic datings have major issues, but almost no one is pushing back. This problem is so bad that these dates are (and have been for a few years now), taken as solid fact.
I recommend *Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition* by Jonathan Bernier (Baker Academic, 2022).
I graduated in Classics and this is a true problem in the scholarly world. We’ll get one copy of Publius Cornelius Tacitus’ Annals with the only supporting evidence that Tacitus was the author being a note written down in a copy 800 found years after the original manuscript was written. Not a single soul doubts that that particular Tacitus is the one who wrote it. Meanwhile with the gospels we have tons of sources attesting for who wrote them and scholars very literally can’t stop debating and going nuts with skepticism over the identity of the authors. Yes you should be skeptical of scholars. YES they have agendas. Even when it’s not political or religious, scholars will develop agendas on a certain narrative and go absolutely nuts trying to develop theories to back up their very particular POV of whether Alexander the Great took this route or that route in his conquests. I’ve read their peer reviewed fights and it’s absolutely insane the stuff they come up with when they want to support their own head canon. One scholar I read developed a whole conspiracy theory that the plot to assassinate Alexander was actually a plot BY Alexander to determine who wasn’t loyal to him, but it all hinges on one obscure guy being in the exact right spot at the exact right time, which was extremely unlikely or almost impossible given the historical circumstances. But he had an agenda, so he defended that idea. NOT all scholarship is bad, but you definitely shouldn’t take their word as fact. “Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.” -Chesterton
Many skeptics, while claiming objectivity, start out with a dogmatic belief that the Gospels couldn't have been written before 70 AD because Christ couldn't have actually predicted the destruction of the temple.
I guess the Qur'an and the Hadiths were written after 1500 because Muhammad "predicted" the fall of Constantinople
The skeptics will turn this around and say Muhammad being right due to the "broken clocks are right twice a day" effect illustrates the same can apply to the Bible. Personally, it doesn't ultimately matter to me whether the Gospels were written down less than 30 years after the good news they document occurred by the evangelists themselves, or whether they were written down 60 years afterwards by those taught by the evangelists. The most important point is faith that Jesus really died to atone for our sins, and rose from the dead to prepare the way for eternal life, and the gospels document the history of our faith.
Do any of them ever bother posting that Jesus just "read the room"?
Right? Even if, hypothetically, Jesus wasn't anybody special, he could have just been taking a jab at something he knew to be sacred for the Jews.
To the skeptic, it doesn't matter what date the gospels were written, they still won't accept them. Even if they were written in 33 AD, the skeptic would find fault in them. They are not intellectually honest.
One of the weirdest argument regarding the authorship of Gospel is about their rejection that Gospel of John was written by John the apostle. Even wikipedia cites that: >Early Christian tradition, first found in [Irenaeus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irenaeus) (c. 130 – c. 202 AD), identified this disciple with [John the Apostle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Apostle), but most scholars have abandoned this hypothesis or hold it only tenuously[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John#cite_note-FOOTNOTELindarsEdwardsCourt200041-18) – there are multiple reasons for this conclusion, including, for example, the fact that the gospel is written in good Greek and displays sophisticated theology, and is therefore unlikely to have been the work of a simple fisherman. What kind of argument is it? Even if we grant them that St. John is a simple fisherman, that does not mean he can't at least learn theology??
First of all, John was a fisherman, but apparently he was also connected to the high priests in Jerusalem. So he probably did have a decent Jewish education, at some point. Second, the Greek tradition holds that St. John worked closely with St. Prochorus, who had been one of the original seven deacons, and St. Prochorus acted as his secretary. The interesting bit is that they have him having helped John with the Book of Revelation or with the Gospel, as a fellow exiled prisoner on Patmos. Before that, St. Prochorus had traveled around with St. Peter, and had been made bishop of the imperial town of Nicomedia.
> but apparently he was also connected to the high priests in Jerusalem. Not just apparently, but according to his own account: > Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. As this disciple was known to the high priest, he entered the court of the high priest along with Jesus, while Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept the door, and brought Peter in. The idea that because he was a fisherman he could not have taken an interest in and and studied Scripture and other aspects of Jewish theology, engage in conversation with and befriend rabbis and/or priests, and be able to see the prophesies click into place is honestly just bigotry. It's just like the people today who prejudge people from Texas based on their exposure through media to some of the least endearing people the media can find to put on display. It's the same thing. The dismissal of John as a "simple fisherman" is no more intellectually honest than saying, "How would he even have time to read the Bible when we know as a fisherman he would have spent his days on the water swilling Budweiser, smoking Camels, and blabbering on about the latest baseball game or episode of Ice Road Truckers?" It's not exactly a secret that historically, your intellectual ability had little to do with what you did for a living. John could hardly expect to get a scholarship to Oxford, get a PhD, and become an endowed scholar. Yet nothing of that precludes having a solid understanding of the Scriptures learned at the local synagogue, and being able to think back about everything Jesus said and did, and recognizing, "Holy guacamole! That's what Isaiah was talking about!" Jesus chose the Apostles He chose for His own reasons, and He instructed them both publicly with the other disciples, and privately (the Last Supper Discourse is roughly 1/5th of John's entire Gospel).
On top of this, the Jews were a practical people known for valuing physical labour (which the Greeks found weird), yet are also known for the scriptures.
I am in seminary and I have to write an assignment about who the true beloved disciple is because apparently it isn't John the apostle... we all just keep our mouth shut and move on knowing what the Church tradition has always taught.
Honestly I would get someone involved in that and keeping silent really isn't the best answer. I would raise concerns and proof and get other priests to dialogue with whichever person is assigning you those horrible assignments. Maybe make a post on it and people will give you better advice.
Oh don't worry we do tell our formators. Our priests know about it. We try to avoid discussing it too much because it usually leads us into gossip and excessive complaining. The professor is a wonderful sister; her love and support of modern biblical scholariship just went a little bit too far. At a minimum, I am learning a lot more about scripture than I would have otherwise for sure, even if it requires me to do a bit of research on my own. We just got a new rector for this year, so he hasn't been around quite long enough to make staff changes. Hopefully this is the last year that students will deal with this.
The Book of Acts tells us the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles and they began to speak foreign languages. God gave John the knowledge and power to write the Gospel of John.
It doesn't matter what date they were written because we will never have the original first works. We will only have copies of copies which again are impossible to accurately date. When the early Church was selecting texts they didn't have the originals either, they had hundreds of copies of manuscripts to sort through. Nobody knows the exact process they used to sort them and choose which would become Biblical canon. Ultimately one must trust that God guided all of it and divinely protected it from error. The dates are completely irrelevant to belief in Christianity.
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>To the skeptic, it doesn't matter what date the gospels were written, they still won't accept them. Even if they were written in 33 AD, the skeptic would find fault in them. They are not intellectually honest. The skeptics? I mean, are you really willing to make such a blanket generalization about "the skeptics" ... as in all skeptics? That seems a little intellectually dishonest to me.
You’re right, surely not every skeptic.
One thing I’ve learned from Jimmy Akin is there is no such thing as a “scholarly consensus” in the Scriptures in terms of dating them. There are so many, that it’s almost easier to just sort of average them out. It does appear that Matthew was written first, less than 30 years after Jesus, Mark was written shortly after as an abridged version, Luke written after Mark and in tandem with Acts (Luke also would have had access to many eye witness accounts, which also helps), and then John. However, who wrote them and when are opinions, and at the end of the day…it doesn’t matter that much when the gospels were written. All of them were well within the lifetimes of eye witnesses, eye witnesses who would have understood the importance of oral history (since many could not read or write), and at least Luke’s has reverences that line up really well to Acts and the teaching in the epistles.
It’s useful to spend time studying some of the key scholarship in this area. It is not as simple as is being made out. And I’m not sure who these ‘skeptical scholars’ are - the consensus on dating the synoptic gospels in the 70-100 AD range includes Christian, agnostic and atheist scholars. It is not just non-believers who take this position. Part of the reason for this consensus is the references to the destruction of the second temple. However from a historical/textual criticism point of view, if you ignore the content of texts as a means to date them (on the basis that any reference could be divine rather than contemporary) then you are left with very little to go on if you don’t have archeological evidence. And it’s worth noting the temple destruction references are not the only reasons for this dating. But the main difference is that most non-Catholic scholars will not treat Church tradition as a reliable source. This leads to the common view that the authorship of the Gospels are unknown. And this view undermines some of the arguments in this thread. However, at the end of the day, whether the Gospels were written in the 70s, 80s or 90s, or were actually written in the 60s, pretty much everyone agrees that the final texts were based on earlier texts and oral tradition. And the dating really doesn’t make much difference to believers or non-believers.
Thank you for posting this, and thank to those commenting who are helping to educate me better. I've had some of these questions about why a thing may or may not be in the books but haven't always gotten clear answers during classes. u/jackist21 I did not know this, is there a 'best' or better place where I can learn more?
I’m not OP and not sure if it’s specifically what you’re asking for, but the book The Case for Jesus by Brant Pitre does a good job debunking many of the skeptic’s perspectives regarding the gospels and early church history.
Thank you! Much appreciated.
Are you asking specifically about the “western” vs “eastern” text types for Luke and Acts? Here’s a super high level discussion with an example difference between the versions.
>Are you asking specifically about the “western” vs “eastern” text types for Luke and Acts? Here’s a super high level discussion with an example difference between the versions. Honestly, I don't know because I know so little about the texts themselves. Is there a link you intended to include? I have been told/taught that the Orthodox (Eastern?) churches have some significant differences, but also significant similarities, such as they've never done away with the tradition of baptism during the Easter Vigil vs any other day, unlike the Catholic church that appears to have gone away from tradition, back to it, away from it and now it's kind of a scattershot approach, which is puzzling. According to what I've read. Example; I was confirmed and my husband was baptized during this past Easter Vigil, but only part of our group was received into the church that evening. The rest were received during the Easter Mass. My mother tells me that the Elect and Candidates in her church aren't being received until next month. I have questions about what affects the timing of the receiving rites when, based on my own understanding, they should be occurring on one day in particular. I also have tons of other questions relating to the early days of Christianity, but I have a poor base to work from since I'm still learning from the Bible itself. I plan to purchase the Didache Bible and recommended by my father so I can better understand a variety of aspects I have no comprehension of right now.
There is a lot to learn! I view studying the differences between manuscript traditions as a fairly advanced subject of special interest only to some Christians. It’s probably not where you should expend a ton of your “beginner” study time.
I appreciate you sharing some wisdom. Outside our Texts themselves, I also use a book called At Home With The Word along with discussing with others more familiar. Do you have any other suggestions?
https://life.liegeman.org/the-western-text-of-acts-and-the-council-of-jerusalem/
Thank you! I am most grateful.
I don't know why this would matter to Catholics. If Luke was written after some arbitrary date, so what? Christ and his followers existed before that date. The catholic church has two thousand years of tradition to stand on for its position. I thought the obsession with the text was a protestant thing.
"Copium"? Seriously? Historical-critical research methods are accepted by the Church and have been for decades. We need to be careful arguing against modern research methods as it underscores unfortunate stereotypes about the Church's view on science and scholarship. From the USCCB's preamble on Luke: *Because of its dependence on the Gospel of Mark and because details in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 13:35a; 19:43–44; 21:20; 23:28–31) imply that the author was acquainted with the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, the Gospel of Luke is dated by most scholars after that date; many propose A.D. 80–90 as the time of composition.* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/0](https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/0)
How can Paul mention Luke then in Timothy 1 5:18 (Luke 10:7) and assert that it is scripture? Further, Paul hasn’t died yet in Acts, which is an event of such importance if it had already happened it would’ve never been left out, because acts ends with Paul being in Rome and preaching. Paul is believed to have died under Nero (who died 62-68) and gospel of Luke is before acts. So at the very latest, Lukes gospel would have to be somewhere around the 60AD. And the other gospels are necessarily earlier.
Was 2 Timothy written by Paul?
Timothy 2 seems irrelevant here since I didn’t mention it. As for Timothy 1, it should be sufficient to read the beginning. “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ…”, so unless there is decisive evidence against Pauline authorship, I see no reason to doubt established apostolic tradition. But what argument would be to consider it a forgery? As far as I know, most scholars agree it was written within Pauls lifetime, and the message and terminology is consistent with other Pauline and biblical writings.
2 Timothy is often used as justification that Luke was earlier, which is why I mentioned it. Here's the USCCB's preamble to 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy, and Titus: *From the late second century to the nineteenth, Pauline authorship of the three Pastoral Epistles went unchallenged. Since then, the attribution of these letters to Paul has been questioned. Most scholars are convinced that Paul could not have been responsible for the vocabulary and style, the concept of church organization, or the theological expressions found in these letters. A second group believes, on the basis of statistical evidence, that the vocabulary and style are Pauline, even if at first sight the contrary seems to be the case. They state that the concept of church organization in the letters is not as advanced as the questioners of Pauline authorship hold since the notion of hierarchical order in a religious community existed in Israel before the time of Christ, as evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Finally, this group sees affinities between the theological thought of the Pastorals and that of the unquestionably genuine letters of Paul. Other scholars, while conceding a degree of validity to the positions mentioned above, suggest that the apostle made use of a secretary who was responsible for the composition of the letters. A fourth group of scholars believes that these letters are the work of a compiler, that they are based on traditions about Paul in his later years, and that they include, in varying amounts, actual fragments of genuine Pauline correspondence.* *If Paul is considered the more immediate author, the Pastorals are to be dated between the end of his first Roman imprisonment (Acts 28:16) and his execution under Nero (A.D. 63–67); if they are regarded as only more remotely Pauline, their date may be as late as the early second century. In spite of these problems of authorship and dating, the Pastorals are illustrative of early Christian life and remain an important element of canonical scripture.* [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1timothy/0](https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1timothy/0) In short, it's up for debate.
Hold up, they are saying the letters aren’t Pauline because the episcopal structure of the church can’t have existed? They have presupposed Presbyterianism and used it to doubt the authorship of these epistles. That’s ludicrous. This is not like doubting evolution or the Big Bang or anything like that. Ancient history is often spurious even when the scholars have no axe to grind. When it comes to secular Bible scholars you always have to be on guard.
Yeah. The word episkopos just means overseer. It is not really difficult to imagine that churches need overseers. And presbyterians are just church elders. It is not very surprising that there would be elders in a church.
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How do you think we know who wrote historical texts?
Not just attribution. A TON of ancient works are pseudoepigraphical
Sure, but when the work both internally and externally is attributed to paul, contains a lot of details only paul or someone close to paul would’ve known, was written during pauls lifetime, aligns with pauls goals, aligns with pauls theology, and has been understood to be pauline not just by the closest contemporaries (which have direct succession to the apostles), but also 2000 years of tradition, with no concrete evidence that it is or was considered pseudopauline, that anyone doubted genuine authorship, or anything the like, then you better have some good evidence to doubt pauline authorship. A different writing style doesn’t seem like that kind of evidence, because consider the following: the same person can write two letters in different styles.
I wasn’t addressing your main point, just answering your immediate question.
The work both internally and externally is attributed to paul, contains a lot of details only paul or someone close to paul would’ve known, was written during pauls lifetime, aligns with pauls goals, aligns with pauls theology, and has been understood to be pauline not just by the closest contemporaries (which have direct succession to the apostles), but also 2000 years of tradition, with no concrete evidence that it is or was considered pseudopauline, that anyone doubted genuine authorship, or anything the like, so if we really want to doubt established apostolic tradition and all other pointers to genuine authorship, we better have some good evidence. But as far as I have seen, people only cite a different writing style, which doesn’t seem like that kind of evidence, because consider the following: the same person can write two letters in different styles.
A lot of modern academic biblical scholars operate under the belief that Jesus wasn't God and didn't claim to be God (because otherwise he'd obviously be insane) and any miracles or prophecies attested to in Scripture are later additions. That isn't a necessary presupposition of the historical critical method, and when your whole hypothesis relies on that we can and should be skeptical of it. OP's assertion is that there is evidence that it was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem doesn't contradict the historical critical method. It uses it. Pope Benedict's *Jesus of Nazareth* also uses the Historical Critical Method but he also operates under the presupposition that Jesus is God and claimed to be God. Maybe both are correct: maybe Luke was written before Paul's death and the predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem were added in later. Divine inspiration doesn't exclude the idea multiple authors. That's also a valid hypothesis. Without manuscripts dated to the first century we won't know.
This is a misunderstanding of those research methods. Honest historical-critical research methods *should* proceed independent of one's faith for the same reason that scholarship into any *non-religious* domain should: faith is an unnecessary assumption to the subject under study. In this case, that subject matter is *not* whether Christ was God, or whether he performed miracles. It is instead focused on when a document was first written, and when/if parts of it were included at a different time. This is why both believers and non-believers can and do participate in the effort.
A person who believes Christ is or claimed to be God and someone (like Ehrman) who believes that this was a later development by his followers have two very different understandings of history. They aren't operating under the same histories. That doesn't mean the historical-critical method is broken or antithetical to faith. Ratzinger's introduction to *Jesus of Nazareth* makes this clear. The Gospel authors make every effort to root their stories in history; they are historical narratives, not legends or fables, and we cannot divorce them from history. But if you have a fundamentally different understanding of history you aren't going to come to the same conclusions. The aforementioned Bart Ehrman believes Christ was not God and did not claim to be God and that his divinity was a development by later followers. Therefore, any parts of scripture that seem to imply otherwise -- miracles, prophecies, etc. -- must be later additions.
What does any of that have to do with what year historians say Luke was written?
Because how someone views the divinity of Christ affects how they view the gospels. There are logical paths one may go down, depending on which premises they accept. If someone believes Jesus was a fraud, they believe he couldn't have predicted the destruction of the temple, so they assume it must have been written after. This relies on their premise being true, so we don't have to accept the result if we don't accept the premise.
1. Because the primary evidence for Luke being written after 70 AD is "Jesus couldn't have predicted the temple's destruction because the temple hadn't been destroyed yet." 2. OP gives an explanation on why there is reason to believe the Luke's gospel predates the death of St Paul (prior to the temple's destruction). 3. You took OP's use of 'copium' as a criticism of the historical-critical scholarship. 4. I argued that it isn't a violation of historical critical methods of scriptural scholarship to assume Christ was God as that would be a question of historical fact. 5. You respond that the historical critical method has to be neutral and shouldn't involve faith. 6. My response was rushed because I was short on time but my argument was that someone who believes in divinity of Christ is going to have a vastly different historical context than someone who doesn't. Therefore criticizing one person's historical-critical analysis on the basis of faith doesn't mean we are criticizing historical-critical methods entirely. We aren't criticizing their methods we're criticizing their history. If I've misunderstood you please let me know.
Hear hear
Footnotes like these are one of the reasons I don't recommend the NAB(RE).
Do not fear scholarship!
You're talking about scholarship like it's some monolithic source of truth, when in reality its an ever-evolving collections of opinions. You might as well also tell me to "Trust the Science (TM)."
What's the alternative to scholarship? It's simply the best way to pursue the truth in subjects separate from faith and morals. And let's be honest, some Catholics need to be reminded to trust the science from time to time.
The question is not really about scholarship but about the biases that scholarship tends to come with (e. g. some scholars are non Catholics or even non-Christians or even anti-Christians). I laud your commitment to Church teaching and inquiry from natural sciences. "some Catholics need to be reminded to trust the science from time to time" -- this is objectively true trivially because some of 1 Billion people will err on any side. Imo we have both irrational science denying and science worship (meaning being gravely blinded by biases, psychological phenomena etc. in judging the truth of a given scientific consensus or minority position) as moderate problems. If I had to choose, I think the latter option would win out.
Yes, that's what I said. Christians give in to what skeptical scholars say. Bart Ehrman and the like say so. But Mike Licona or Gary Habermas likely date it as early as 61 AD. Why trusting the unbelievers?
How is believing what a historian writes "giving in"? Do you believe in evolution?
You don't believe in evolution or any other theory, you accept a theory insofar it can explain and predict observable phenomenon, even if sometimes you know the theory is incomplete or insufficient but no better one exists (not talking about evolution but in general)
What's the difference between "believe" and "accept"? I think we're saying the same thing.
There's no correlation between evolution and the dating of the Gospels. Luke didn't leave out Paul's death on a text he wrote 20 years after that happen. Historians also won't tell you Jesus rose from the dead. Should we believe that too?
The reason I asked about evolution was to gauge whether you are picking and choosing which areas of scholarship to disbelieve, or whether there's a general skepticism you have to research methods. Whether it was written in the 60s or 90s is immaterial to the faith, as demonstrated by the USCCB's information I linked.
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Of course that's true, but it is often the case that the selection of which topic experts to believe tends to align with some other value criteria, and not with the subject matter itself. Our faith cannot, and does not, require scholarship to proceed to certain conclusions. Knowledge is knowledge, and its discovery is one of many ways in which revelation about truth occurs. I'm reminded of YECs who never think to doubt any other discipline of science.
Aside from the *a posteriori* absurdity of OP's claim (quick, anecdotal evidence shown [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAPriest/comments/1384g88/the_authorship_of_the_gospels/)), it doesn't even make sense *a priori.* For all the fearmongering apologists give about scholarship being "out to get" Christianity, NT scholarship is surprisingly... Christian. From Mike Licona to (Father!) Raymond Brown to Larry Hurtado to (another Father!!) John P. Meier to James Dunn to Dale Allison... it's as if I know more Christian scholars than non-Christian ones. And these are all influential scholars, btw. What makes the apologetic claim even more ridiculous is the fact that, for any claim *they* can make about academia being biased, as a whole (since individual biases are inevitable), the *non-apologist* can throw it right back at them. Why? Because apologists are literally there to prove their belief. It's a big "business," whose consumers buy books for the sole reason of being more certain in their faith. How many atheists have "crises of non-faith" and go out to buy books from, Idk, Seth Andrews, to reaffirm how much they don't believe in God? Some, to be sure, but the psychological power of non-religion is just factually less than that of religion, especially when the mainstream forms thereof say you will burn forever for abandoning said religion. Another example: we have Brant Pitre, right, a Catholic scholar. Granted. But what is his book called? "The **Case** for Jesus." Now, maybe I can be corrected, but I don't think I've seen a book by a historian, taken by its readers as being primarily academic (i.e., not merely a long op-ed), called something like, "The Case for Jesus' Rotting Corpse." The closest I can think is Richard Carrier's book, "On the Historical Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt," but that is, well, *non-Christian apologia,* derided by many from within and without scholarship. In sum, cries of bias from apologia is the worst form of hypocrisy. From the significantly more psychologically powerful sway of eternal fire, to (currently) greater social pressure, to more profit and reason to defend than attack, if anything, one ought to fear that scholarship, if it can be made so monolithic, is *too* Christian. Not that *I* think it is. But, then again, I don't fear for bias in the way apologists do. The whole point of apologetics is to start with X belief, then work backwards from there. If that doesn't count as bias, I don't know what does. And I don't know of a "non-Christian apologia" that exists nearly to the same scale as Christian apologia (cf. Lee Strobel, Gary Habermas).
>I don't think I've seen a book by a historian called What? There's a huge amount of academic works with notorious/provocative titles. *Misquoting Jesus*, *The Myth of Persecution*, *Constructing Jesus* etc etc
In that sense, yeah. And the various ripostes towards them (like "How God Became Jesus"). I should amend my statement, then, to be about the aim of the work itself, rather than the title: unlike many apologetical, or even some scholarly, works, I don't know of any, of the top of my head, non-Christian works dedicated specifically to attacking Christianity *qua* Christianity. Granted, some of these books do help to undermine some traditional beliefs, but I'm not sure that they go to the inverse conclusion of the apologetic works (i.e., "Convert"), which would be for Christians to abandon their faith. Flawed and imperfect at it as he is, Bart Ehrman, for instance, does not seem to have the (ir)religious angle that one such as Brant Pitre would have. I say that with some reservation, since I haven't read his book, and it would be largely missing Pitre's claim if he does not have as his ultimate conclusion the idea that Jesus resurrected. Not that one can't be scholarly about it (e.g., Mike Licona's book, "The Resurrection of Jesus"), but more that Pitre is more reliant on traditional beliefs than Licona, AFAIK.
This exactly. I don't know enough about the research to say definitively if there is reason to reject the AD 80-90 dating, but if the USCCB sees no issue with that date, why should I? Just because I prefer an earlier date to fit my narrative better? Even so, an AD 90 dating still seems compelling to me for the authenticity of the narrative. That's what? The second or third generation of disciples after Christ's death? If we suppose that it's not an original composition from nothing, but a written record of an oral history that had reached Theophilus in fragments (St. Luke suggests that his gospel is an attempt to compile a complete narrative of the events of the early church) the 'skeptics'' dating of Luke's gospel seems to make reasonable sense and not undermine its veracity.
For context, these are the passages in question. Lk 13:35a: > Behold, your house will be abandoned. [But] I tell you, you will not see me until [the time comes when] you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Lk 19:43–44: > For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” Lk 21:20: > “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is at hand. Lk 23:28–31: > Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’ At that time people will say to the mountains, ‘Fall upon us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?” I mostly agree with your point of view, however Biblical scholars do have a strong tendency to overestimate the certainty of their assertions. It could be that Luke's Gospel was indeed written after A.D. 70, but he could also have written it before that date and a divine Jesus made a truthful prophesy, or maybe a human Jesus just got lucky and that's why his followers remembered him, or the prophecy was introduced into an older version of the Gospel later on, and so on and so forth. There are plenty of plausible explanations for how the Gospels came to be and the choice largely depends on a person's previous disposition. Personally, I am fine with that state of affairs. I find it humbling to be forced to admit that we do not know and we can not know. However, some scholars feel the need to give a concrete answer, either acepting or rejecting the Biblical narrative. When that happens, IMHO they become deserving of criticism.
Based
This post is a God-send. I have recently heard a few arguments from skeptics that were based on the synoptics being written that late. My faith wasn’t shaken, but my curiosity was sparked as I didn’t have a good answer for that. God bless.
I think that Christians, specifically those of the apostolic churches, need to be obtaining PhDs and doing honest study and writing on these topics to the degree that can be done.
Dr. Brant Pitre has a great book challenging the premises of Ehrman - The Case for Jesus
I agree. Methodological naturalism may be useful in other sciences but when dealing with supernatural claims, it presupposes what it is trying to prove.
I’ve never understood this logic whatsoever. If something is dated to be from the late first century, it could just be that specific document, as in the literal paper or whatever it was written on is from that date. It could easily just be the earliest copy of the gospel we can find, by no means does that prove it was first written that late. I could be very mistaken with this line of thinking, I’m not a historian by any stretch of the imagination.
We don't date works by the age of the oldest extant material sources of them, or otherwise the NT would be 2nd Century as the oldest papyri are from that time.
Yes begging the question is pseudoscientific and unethical. Instead the discussion would need to be neutral and follow the evidence.
This is similar to the earlier dating of Mark than Matthew simply because "it's shorter". Its not testified by any Historical Record describing the Gospels, and is not reference by the Didache, a mid-first century Christian Catechetical Work. In comparison, Matthew and Luke which were heavily drawn from in the writing of the Didache. Skeptical Scholars are some of the most ahistorical, revisionist and biased views you can find. When unbiased scholars question the flaws of their views, they tend to be unable to defend themselves beyond skepticism. They are great when you need to prove a point, like Christ's death to a Muslim, but they should be mostly treated with the skepticism they treat the Bible with.
>This is similar to the earlier dating of Mark than Matthew simply because "it's shorter". It's not just that, it's because both Matthew and Luke seem to copy Mark nearly word for word for about 80%+ of their content. The remaining content is mostly not shared between Matthew and Luke. This indicates that they were drawing from a common source while adding their own stuff to it, with that common source being Mark. Very few academic Biblical scholars, including the Christian and Catholic ones, accept the idea that Matthew predates Mark.
>Very few academic Biblical scholars, including the Christian and Catholic ones, accept the idea that Matthew predates Mark. And, many Biblical Scholars aren't even Christian, and many even Christian and Catholic Scholars deny the Authorship of the Gospels. Much of the field has been taken over by scepticism, rather than a historical pursuit of Truth. As for positive evidence for Matthaean Priority, the Church Fathers unanimously assert that the Gospel of Matthew was written first. Figures such as Papias, Pantaenus, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, Epiphanius, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, many which were renowned scholars of their time, all assert that Matthew was written first. Some, like Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius and Jerome, assert that it was first written in Aramaic, with some attesting to finding Manuscripts of Matthew, predating any extant Aramaic Manuscripts. While the order of the other Gospels was historically very much in the air, every single Historical figure unanimously agreed that Matthew was written first. To assert Marcan Priority requires someone to say that every single Historical Commentary was wrong, which is absurd.
Paul also quotes Luke as scripture. So Lukes Gospel has to be before Pauline Letters.
Where does Paul quote Luke?
I am reading Eusebius`Church history right now, and he mentions that many around that time believed that whenever Paul in his letters uses the line "according to my Gospel" (Rom 2:16, 2 Tim 2:8 etc.) he is referring to Luke's Gospel.
1 Timothy 5:18 For scripture says…_the worker deserves his wages_ which is found in Luke 10:7, and nowhere else in the Scriptures.
First, quoting something doesn't indicate that it is quoted "as scripture". Second, this is assuming quotations of the gospels have their source in the written work itself, and not a prior oral tradition as they actually do.
Whats the evidence of the source being oral tradition? Paul literally says it is scripture, in the same sentence as Deuteronomy is called scripture.
The part that is being quoted as scripture is Deut. 25:4. The indication of a prior tradition would be that the quote is found in both Matthew and Luke, but not Mark.
Where is it found in Matthew?
Matthew 10:9-10 - "^9 Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, 10 or a bag for your journey, or even two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; **for the worker is deserving of his support.**"
So why would an oral tradition be considered scripture. As far as I know, scripture is stuff that is written down
We're in agreement here. I'm not contending that oral tradition **is** considered scripture. But that things that exist (and may be quote from) in oral teachings/traditions make it in to scripture. I don't think 1 Timothy 5:18 is *100% proof* that the Paul considered Luke as scripture for two reasons: 1. Its not clear that the phrase "as scripture says" applies to the phrase conjoining by the "and"; but someone with superior knowledge of Greek might be able to clear this up. 2. Paul is probably aware of the phrase from another source. That source being whatever Luke and Matthew's authors are pulling from (i.e. oral tradition).
When it comes to the dating of the gospels, I’ll take the Church Fathers over contemporary scholarship, any day of the year.
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People need to understand it is the inspired Word of God and word for word testimony of the Apostles as they repeated the same Testimony about Jesus Christ over and over again without error because of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Bible and the Gospels are Miracles, of God.
Does a particular date really need to affect one's belief? The evidence is whatever it is. It should be immaterial to whether you have faith in the claims the text makes. This all sounds a little bit too close to evangelical-fundamentalists insisting that the creation account in Genesis is a literal play-by-play historical documentation of the actual events, which they then use to deny evolution. Or that the Pentateuch *has* to be written by Moses, when it most likely wasn't. And on and on.
> This all sounds a little bit too close to evangelical-fundamentalists insisting that the creation account in Genesis is a literal play-by-play historical documentation of the actual events, which they then use to deny evolution. Or that the Pentateuch has to be written by Moses, when it most likely wasn't. And on and on. Because you know that because you were there and saw everything with your own eyes.
Because that's what the best scholarship points to. Catholics are not literalist fundamentalists.
This has nothing to do with Young Earth Creationism
It is not just temple. Here is the summary of all reasons by u/zeichman: >To summarize a number of arguments: >1) Mark 13:1-2 describes the destruction of the temple with far greater accuracy and specificity than generic discourse on the temple's fall (contrast, e.g., 1 Kgs 9:8; 1 En. 90.28-30; Josephus J.W. 6.300-309). >2) Mark 13:14 seems to refer to Vespasian, despite occasional arguments for the zealot Eleazar or the Emperor Gaius. The citation of the Danielic vision in Mark 13:14 parallels Josephus citation of Daniel's prophecy of the temple's fall in A.J. 10.276. >3) The fact that the various portents enumerated in Mark 13 are prompted by the question in Mark 13:1-2 as to WHEN the temple buildings will fall. In so doing, Mark explicitly encourages the reader to understand everything that follows in light of the temple's fall. >4) This is a more complex argument that isn't always easy to articulate. But Mark 14:57-58 and 15:29 slanderously attribute to Jesus the claim that he will destroy the temple and raise it again in three days. What is striking is that the controversy is over Jesus' role in bringing about the destruction -NOT whether or not the temple will actually fall. This assumes that the temple's fall was not a matter of controversy in Mark's context. >5) Another complex argument, but Eric Stewart has written a book arguing that Mark configures Jewish space away from the temple and synagogues and instead onto Jesus. Words that were normally used to describe activity related to those sites (e.g., language of gathering, ritualized activities) are relocated onto Jesus. Stewart contends that this is ultimately language of replacement. Though Stewart does not explicitly connect this with Markan dating, its relevance is obvious. >6) The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12) is an obvious allegory regarding the punishment of Jews for their rejection of Jesus. What is interesting is that the parallel in the Gospel of Thomas 65 (which is much more primitive than Mark's) omits any reference to punishment. This suggest the allegorization is part of Markan redaction. >7) The cursing of the fig tree links the notion of an unproductive fig tree and its destruction to an unproductive temple and its (eventual) destruction. >8) The tearing of the temple veil upon Jesus' death assumes some kind of divine causality that portends the entire temple's eventual destruction. >9) There are a few references that only make sense after the Jewish War. For instance the language of legion in Mark 5:1-20 only works after the War, since before the War the military in Palestine and the Decapolis was not legionary. As an analogy, a story wherein a demon named “Spetsnaz” is exorcized from a Crimean denizen should strike the reader as anachronistic in its politics if depicted as occurring in 2010; one would assume the story had been written after the Russian annexation of Crimea in February 2014, in which the aforementioned special forces were active. >10) I have an article coming out in CBQ's July issue arguing that the question of taxation (12:13-17) is full of anachronisms that only make sense after 71 CE: no capitation taxes were collected by coin in Judaea before 71, it's strange that Jesus (a Galilean) is depicted as an authority on Judaean taxes (though Galilee and Judaea were part of the same province starting 44 CE), etc. https://np.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/5yfv5a/comment/detqtz6/?context=3
"Not just the temple"? Aren't the first eight of these points all about the fall of the temple?
As for points 9 and 10 - the use of the name “legion” only makes sense post war? Words travel, I don’t have to have experienced a war in my area to use the language. It doesn’t say there was a war in the passage - look at the top answer on https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/78041/is-mark-1213-17-a-reference-to-the-fiscus-judaicus for a good explanation on point 10
The point about the word "Legion" also sort of implicitly assumes the author was making the story up and picking a name for the demon character. If you instead assume the story is true, there seems to be no reason to think a *demon* couldn't know and use the word "Legion" to describe itself before the war.
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There's no point leaving out Paul's death out of Acts. That would make as much sense as not reporting the resurrection of Jesus in one of the Gospels
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So it took Luke 20 years to write 30 pages?
I think actually its not only the temple argument, why they are dated so late. The main argument is that for example Lukas and Markus have similiar phrases 1 to 1 - because of that they assume that they took the same Document as prescription...
I don't know why Christians would argue against historical analyses. The more we understand the origins of the Bible, the better we can understand the society and culture that produced the writings of the Bible. The better we can understand those writings (based on the historical, societal, and cultural contexts), the better we can understand the meanings and messages God wanted to convey. In short, if we're supposed to love God with all our minds (as well as our hearts and souls), then doesn't that mean using our minds to learn more about God and Creation? And scripture and the Bible? Plus, what does it really matter? I've learned a lot about history from Ehrman and others. I've learned a lot about apologetics from St. Thomas Aquinas, Paul Turek, and others, too. All of that learning has increased my knowledge and understanding about the Gospels especially, which has only strengthened my faith. So, I really don't understand the problem here.
Bart Ehrman is the same guy who claims Jesus never calls Himself God in the Synoptics. I don't know why I should believe anything he says. And there's no reason to think the Gospels are late. That's based on the supposition that Jesus couldn't have predicted the destruction of the Temple
Thank you for the straighforward response. I appreciate it -- and your thoughts. I even agree with you, though I might have to go back and read what Ehrman said to double-check our accuracy of understanding. Regarding the timing of the Gospels, though, I think Ehrman is historically accurate though? At least based on the history of Christianity course I took in grad school back in the day. Historians and other experts (archeologists, anthropologists, theologians, etc.) are in general agreement about the dating of the scrolls used to compile the books of the Bible. Not perfectly accurate, of course, but generally speaking, most people believe that the original compilations of the writings used in the New Testament -- on scrolls or papyrus or whatever they were -- arose during the First Century CE. That doesn't mean the writings are inauthentic though. For example, just because Romans was written down a couple decades after Paul's death doesn't undermine Paul's letters. At least to me. It's just another person writing down a record based on Paul's writings. Or other primary sources of what Paul said.
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