How do we know when the Gospels were written?

Declined wrote:

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Most scholars--probably even fundamentalists--agree that the Gospels were written several decades after the time they purport to cover. But what is the basis for these beliefs? Is it the apparent errors, contradictions, and other inconsistencies; or is it the language the Gospel writers used, frequently alluding to events that happened much later? Is it universally accepted that the Gospels were written near the end of the first century A.D. (or even later), probably after the Pauline and other Epistles were written? (I suppose this should go into the Accuracy/Inerrancy forum, unless there's a better fit somewhere else.)

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OK, first, in reading the whole thread, I’m surprised that we haven’t stated nor discussed the scholarly consensus (which, despite an earlier post, many scholars do agree on most of).First, the dates:
The accepted dates of the writing of the books of the NT are as follows, in chronological order:Around 50’s CE The 7 letters by Paul (Philp, Rom, 1&2Cor, 1thes, gal, phile)65-80 Mark70 to 100 Deutero-paulines (claim to be by Paul, most scholars think they are forgeries, but there is some debate here (Eph, Col, 2thes)80 100 Matthew, Luke, Acts (Luke and acts used to be two volumes of same book)Hebrews (included in Bible because the early church though Paul wrote it, but he didn’t), 1pet, Rev90-110 John90-120 1, 2 & 3 John100-150 Pastoral epistles of 1,2tm and Titus (scholars agree that these are forgeries)120-160 2 Pet (forgery)Much of the logic for why scholars agree on this is in the site mentioned earlier, Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers. I’ve tested the scholar’s reasons, and I find them convincing. What I’ll be discussing here are my reasons for interpreting the evidence the same way they do.I hope, similarly, that anyone who wants to make a claim in this area will at least read about what evidence we have either way. The site above is a good place to start.Scholars also agree that none of the gospels were written by disciples - in fact, none of the gospels even claim to be. The idea that any were disciples is an idea made up by the catholic church long after the writers of the gospels were dead. The fact that the gospels don’t claim that and that we can see when the labels of (matthew, mark, luke & John) were applied based on early church writings are both undisputed by fundamentalists and scholars.Mt and Lk used (and liberally copied word for word sections from) Mk. Jn is so radiacally different on nearly every point that it is clear that John in writing at a different time with a different main point. There is a lot of internal evidence that shows that Jn wasn’t present for the life of Jesus. For example - the synoptics (Mk, Mt, & Lk) describe how Jn was present for the transfiguration. Jn, however, never mentions it - it’s as if it didn’t happen. Jn also has a completely different Jesus (who never tells a parable, who dies on a different day, who never hides who he is, and on and on). All of the gospels appear to be relating hearsay stories, and by the time Jn wrote, the hearsay stories had changed quite a bit.One piece of evidence that none of them are eyewitnesses is the fact that Mk writes as if he were ignorant of Israel and of Jewish customs (obviously he's not a palestinian Jew). Mt and Lk copy so much from Mk that one doubts why an eyewitness would copy so much, word for word, from someone who wasn’t an eyewitness. Most of all, none of they ever claim to be an eyewitness. It’s as if I wrote a fancy story, and then someone later took it and said it was an eyewitness account without my knowledge or consent.There’s plenty more to discuss here, but that’s enough to get us started. Please base points you are making on objective evidence, not on just something someone said. Have a fun day-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Faith wrote:

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What does when they were written down have to do with anything? You think the hundreds of thousands who had witnessed him had just disappeared by the time they were written?

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OK, that doesn’t help your credibility. What evidence do you have that “hundreds of thousands” of people witnessed Jesus’ ministry and were available for interviewing decades later, in an age when the life expectancy was in the 20’s?Jesus made practically no impact on the world of his day as far as we can tell from the evidence. The only mention of Jesus by any non-Christian historian writing in the first century is Josephus, who wrote hundreds of pages of very detailed descriptions of that time period of Israel. In all that, he has only a brief mention of Jesus. We have all kinds of writings from people of the first century - Roman historians, emperors, military officials, tomb incriptions, and on and on. Nothing else, anywhere, even mentions Jesus. If his ministry had any significant impact during his day, that wouldn’t be the case. Can you produce any evidence, from within even as much as 20 years of Jesus’ death, that any more than a few dozen people heard him and even cared what he said?I'm quite familiar with our ancient sources, so please don't make stuff up. Thank you-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Life expectancy-
Yes, as truthlover and yourself mentioned, that included childhood deaths. I didn’t mean to imply that people withered and died at age 25 -we both agree that that is silly. Ageing was the same.
However, the ancient world was harsh. There was no medicine or dentistry to speak of, and a tooth abcess or minor infection was often fatal. People died very often in the prime of their lives for reasons that an over the counter fix would cure today, plus shortages of food or pure water were common.

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Certainly hundreds of thousands at least HEARD Jesus, and MANY of them would have lived long enough to correct any lies that were circulating. Even if only a few hundred survived a few decades there would have been plenty of witnesses to keep the stories straight.

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How would we know how many seriously heard him (not counting passers-by who don’t really care who’s talking about what)? There is decent evidence that at least a few followers after his death remembered enough to tell stories, but no evidence that there were even hundreds who listened to and remembered his stories. It was a little unfair for me to ask “Can you produce any evidence, from within even as much as 20 years of Jesus’ death, that any more than a few dozen people heard him and even cared what he said?”, because I already know the answer - there isn’t any.Think of how stories work. A small group of people know and are enthused about what they’ve heard. They tell their friends. Their friends repeat the stories to their spouses. Their spouses tell the stories to their cousins. Their cousins tell the stories to their business associates. The business associates travel to another city and tell someone there. There people there tell their wives, the . . ..Because Christianity grew exponentially, the people telling the stories couldn’t have been eyewitnesses after the first couple steps of storytelling. This is especially true since it’s known that Christianity grew mostly in places outside the original context. For instance, Jesus was a Palestinian jew, yet Christianity grew most among Hellenic people (gentiles) outside of Palestine. Look at the situation described above, of people telling stories. That’s the game of telephone, remember it? Stories change. Add to that the fact that this isn’t just telephone in some livingroom at a kid’s birthday party, but is being played over decades, with people from different cultures, who speak different languages, living miles apart, who mostly can’t read and write, in an age without newspapers nor mass media.Besides, if, centuries later, so many people have different stories about Jesus, who do you believe? Everyone will claim theirs are reliable, and go back to eyewitnesses, or even that they are an eyewitness. The conflicts between the many different types of Christianity early on show this, before the Catholic church won the battles over what Christianity would be. The Gnostics, Ebionites, Donatists Marcionites, Thomasines, Sybellians, proto-orthodox, Montanists, Docetists, and so many others all claimed to have the true Christian teaching.This history, as well as the world today show what happens to stories overnight. Remember high school, when rumors would get going, even about events that happened with plenty of witnesses? Or think of today’s court of law. Why do we even have Juries? Why not just ask an eyewitness? Because an eyewitness, even if available (which the gospels case doesn’t appear to be true), is unreliable. There have been all kinds of studies in modern times showing that eyewitnesses regularly remember important details wrong, all the while “remembering” it vividly and easily. They also incorporate later outside influences into their memories, and it looks seamless to them.

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Jesus made practically no impact on the world of his day as far as we can tell from the evidence.

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If you ignore the Bible and the early Christian writings you could think that, since the heathen didn't pay much attention to Christianity until it had picked up numbers and influence over the first few centuries. But Jesus' impact was enormous if you look at the converts He gathered in one by one through the evangelism of His apostles, and the impact they eventually had on the world.

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Right - we agree that later on, Christianity had incredible impact. But I wasn’t saying that Christianity didn’t had impact over the centuries - that’s obvious. I said that Jesus had no impact on the world of his day as far as we can tell.
And I’m not ignoring the Bible. I’m just taking into account when and how and by whom with what biases it was written.

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The only mention of Jesus by any non-Christian historian writing in the first century is Josephus, who wrote hundreds of pages of very detailed descriptions of that time period of Israel. In all that, he has only a brief mention of Jesus. We have all kinds of writings from people of the first century - Roman historians, emperors, military officials, tomb incriptions, and on and on. Nothing else, anywhere, even mentions Jesus.

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I keep forgetting the two Roman historians who are always referenced as mentioning Him. I'll go and look them up and add them to this after I post it, but I know Tacitus is one. But perhaps you want a direct mention of Him personally rather than His influence through His witnesses? Why would that make a difference if so? Anyway, I'll see what I can dig up. [/quote] You are thinking of Tacitus and Suetonius, as you mention (Pliny the younger is a third). All are in the second century, nearly 100 years after jesus, and all only mention that there are Christians in existence, not anything about what Jesus said.

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I counted thirty thousand converts from among the Jews alone from the mentions in Acts, using a pretty stringent standard. The Book of Acts only deals with the evangelism of a few of the apostles, principally Peter and Paul, and we can probably fairly assume it only records a portion of their converts too. Then, if you multiply their effect by all the other apostles, plus the converts themselves who continued to spread the word, you come up with a few hundred thousand in the first century in no time at all.

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Acts isn’t relevant for a number of reasons. First, it’s written by anonymously. Second, it’s written specifically to make more Christians, so of course it’s going to have glowing stories. Third, it’s written over a half century after Jesus died - that’s like me writing about the Malcolm X based on what stories I could get today from people who say they’ve seen him. So it is well outside the 20 years I mentioned, and late enough for it's accuracy to be questioned. Fourth, it’s known to be inaccurate repeatedly. It disagrees with Paul about things that we have in his own letters, and even contradicts itself. There are a lot of reasons scholars (most of whom are believing Christians) know better than to just naively read acts at face value, any more than they just beleive everything they hear in negative campaign ads at face value.

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whether the heathen powers had gotten around to noticing it or not.

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Hmmm. I’ll not comment on “heathen powers”.

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{EDIT: Forgot to draw the conclusion about the reports of Jesus from this. The point is that with so many spreading the word and so many hearing it from many sources, there would have been plenty of opportunity for any false stories to get corrected before, during and after they were set in writing.}

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As before, history and our daily lives show that the opposite is the most likely situation. When people tell stories about something for years, then later on people take those stories and write them down, then the stories are changed. We have hard evidence of this just by comparing the gospel stories, which disagree on many points, in spite of the fact that they are just a the small subset of the different gospels and stories that were available which were consistent with Catholic belief.

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Less than thirty years after Jesus' death, Nero (the supreme ruler of the empire that ruled over the known world at the time) was threatened enough by the Christians to have them brutally persecuted.

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The multiple errors in mj’s statement have been corrected by legend, above (except the 30 years after jesus died around 29-33 CE.). MJ, when a Christian like you says things so false, it doesn’t help the credibility of Christians nor of Christianity in general. If I were you I'd apologize to Faith and and other Christians.Note- this is a reply also to Faith and to MJTake care all-Edited by Equinox, : added some blank lines for readability, and reply note at end.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Yep. I noticed that and edited it to mention that it was actually a reply to Faith and MJ in the last line of the post. Have a fun day-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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truthlover wrote:

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Do you have any references suggesting the Gospel was changed from "this day I have begotten thee?" at Christ's baptism. Who are you saying quoted it that way or what manuscript are you saying has it that way?

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I can supply a way to find out about this and other similar changes in excruciating detail. Many of them are carefully laid out and discussed in the book “the Orthodox corruption of Scripture”, available here: shortened link
It’s by a world renowned bible scholar who refers to the manuscripts by name, and often shows the greek. It helps to be able to read greek, but I found that even without knowing greek it was quite accessible, and not so long as to be daunting. One thing I learned is that the KJV preserves the largest number of known changes compared to the newer bible translations, which are based on older manuscripts.The one discussed here (“today I have begotten you”) is discussed, along with the evidence for and against it, and the different possible ways to look at the evidence. Many, many others are discussed. Dozens of them are quite well supported by the evidence, while more than that are only poorly supported by the evidence. The Author is clear in which appear well supported and which don’t (he doesn’t try to make one that’s poorly supported seem likely).Also - quotes have been done carefully or sloppily by people throughout history. I don't think that the standard was to use sloppy quotes in the time period we are discussing. For instance, the DSS, which are a little older, contain tons of very careful instances of quoting the OT while discussing the scripture. To pass the sloppyness of some church fathers/gospel writers off as "the norm for the time" seems like a stretch.Enjoy!-Edited by AdminJar, : No reason given.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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truthlover wrote:

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It's hard to push anything back much later than that, though, because Irenaeus knows of the four Gospels, and while he wrote in AD 185, he was in his 60's at the time, and combined with Justin's knowledge of "the memoirs of the apostles, known as the Gospels" there's really not any doubt they were all written in the early first century AT THE LATEST.

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I largely agree - the Irenaeus evidence seems pretty solid, and while I don't think Justin shows evidence of the gospels in final form, it does show that something was going around that would evolve into our four gospels. I think this shows an easily missed point about dating the gospels - it seems very likely that they started in one form, and were each changed a little over time. So which date is THE date of writing? When the first parts were written that eventually ended up in, say, G. John (probably 90s CE) or when the most recent additions that we preserve were written (for G. John, chap 8 was probably written in the middle ages). Same for the last chaper of mark - its well known to be a later redaction.Based on that spread of dates, I'm not surprised when fundamentalists claim the earliest date (referring the earliest start) as the date of the whole thing. P52 is a good example, reliably dated to 120-130, I've heard fundamentalists use it's existence to claim that the whole gospel of John was done before that time, even though P52 is a tiny scrap with only a few sentences on it.Have a fun day-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
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Thanks for the info. There are some question marks with Josephus. There are two places where Josephus mentions Jesus. One of them clearly is embedding in a long and well known Christian forgery. The debate is whether or not both are complete forgeries, or if any little fragment of either goes back to Josephus. As I understand it, we don't have extrememly ancient MSS.However, if we do, and your information that they don't contain the passages at all is correct, then Josephus indeed fails to support the idea that Jesus existed, and our only extrabiblical source about Jesus from the whole first century would be gone.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
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Faith wrote

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Oh well, if you're going to discount the Book of Acts and all the other things Christians rely on, and bring up the rumor game we all played in grade school as if it never occurred to us, there's no discussing anything with you. Have a good day..

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It’s not that I discount it, it’s that I treat it the same way I treat any other claim, be that the magna carta, the DSS, the Odyssey, the Qu’ran, a campaign commercial, you name it. All are subject to logical testing based on the evidence. I don’t mollycoddle one source just because my parents told me to (though they did tell me to, I was raised Christian).What alternative is there? Why not just accept everything hook, line and sinker? After all, it’s easier to just believe Acts hook, line and sinker than to evaluate it. Because then I’m living in a fantasy world, with no solid footing in reality. Or, as Jefferson put it:

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Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

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-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822.Have a good weekend-

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It's also found that way in the Gospel to the Hebrews (is that still extant??),

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Apparently not, it appears the original gosel was about the size of Mt, but now only a few quoted lines are available.Gospel of the HebrewsI remember that most the data suggest that was the original form, but don't have book with me.

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Well, I'm just speaking from experience. I've read the first three volumes of the Ante-Nicene Fathers set all the way through and most of the first two volumes I've read at least twice. Even for Paul's letters and especially Hebrews in the Bible, you better not be hoping for word for word quotes, even from the LXX. Matthew's Gospel conflates two prophecies, one not from Jeremiah and the other a stretch, and attributes them to Jeremiah.

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It is common enough to have affected me as I read both the NT and the fathers

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Yeah. It may be an early-Christian subcultural thing that was not the case in wider society, since all the writings you mention are from that subculture.have a fun weekend, I won't be back until monday-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
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Welcome, Vacate-You wrote:

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Its true however, and since I am told often that it is infallible I am quite shocked that anyone would literaly remove passages from the bible.

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It's shocking that you've been lied to, but understand that the people who told you that the Bible was infallible are only repeating what they too were told, by people they trusted. Don't be too hard on them.As Archer pointed out, the outright changing of the Bible is not some new practice. It's been going on for centuries, and started well before the "Bible" even existed as a collected book. The KJV preserves more errors and deliberate alterations than the modern versions, though all contain extensive changes by the early Christian community. You really need to find out how the Bible was made to understand this.A good place to start is with a short course from a reputable scholar on the history of the Bible. It's only $20 on tape, and I've listened to it on my commute to work. You can order it here: http://www.teach12.com...If you want the details on dozens of examples of early changes (most of which are in the KJV in their changed form), then read the book I referenced earlier, "the Orthodox Corruption of Scripture".Again, welcome, and have a fun day-EquinoxEdited by AdminAsgara, : fixed long url

Hi Nasr-I'm quite familiar with all the changes to the Bible and the messy process by which we got it. You may be interested in the short course I mentioned in my previous post. It's quick and well worth the price - less than what a half a tank of gasoline costs.Thanks for the succinct list. I've mentioned some of those, and having a nice list like that will be convenient when talking with people who have been fooled into thinking the Bible is the perfect and infallible word of God. I've also found it useful to point out that the endings of Mk, Jn, and Jn 8 were added to the Bible, as is noted in modern translations. Jn 8 may have been added as late as 1000 CE.Have a fun day--Equinox

Hey Nasr, you gave me a good list, I'll return the favor.You showed how the verses (individual passages) are changed from Bible to Bible. I'll raise that one level higher to show that the books in the Bible aren't infallible. There has been a huge amount of disagreement over which books go in, and which don't. Most of that is before Nicea, of course, but some exists today, as seen by the different Bibles between the Catholics and Protestants.List of different books excluded/included in "the" Bible:Tobit (accepted by Catholics, but not Protestants)
Judith (accepted by Catholics, but not Protestants)
Wisdom of Solomon (in Muratorian Canon, accepted by Catholics, but not Protestants)
Ecclesiasticus (accepted by Catholics, but not Protestants)
Baruch (accepted by Catholics, but not Protestants)
1 Maccabees (accepted by Catholics, but not Protestants)
2 Maccabees (accepted by Catholics, but not Protestants)
1 Enoch (accepted by Tertullian)
*Philemon (not accepted by Irenaeus)
*Hebrews (not accepted by Muratorian Canon, nor Irenaeus)
*James (not accepted by Muratorian Canon, nor Irenaeus, opposed by Luther)
*1 Peter (not accepted by Muratorian Canon)
*2 Peter (see above)
*2 John (not accepted by Irenaeus)
*3 John (not accepted by Irenaeus)
*Jude (not accepted by Irenaeus)
Shepard of Hermas (accepted by Clement of Alexandria, plus it's in our oldest Bibles - Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus)
*Revelation (Eusebius expressed doubt, nearly excluded from Bible at Nicea)
Apocalypse of Peter (accepted by Muratorian Canon)
Epistle of Barnabas (accepted by Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, plus it's in our oldest Bibles - Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus)
Gospel according to the Hebrews (accepted by Clement of Alexandria)
Gospel according to the Egyptians (accepted by Clement of Alexandria)Enjoy-EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : Added * to books in KJV, for those who don't know them by name.Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.

Archer wrote:

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I'd be tempted to graft it into John's Last Supper scene.

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Just for clarity, you mean the last meal before he was arrested, not "the passover meal where he does the Eucharist stuff like 'this bread is my body'", since no such scene exists in John. John doesn't have a Eucharist, and the meal is not the passover, since in John Jesus is killed before the passover, while in the synoptics, Jesus is killed after the passover.

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The seams on the graft would still show (don't they always?)

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Not to those who are not looking, or those who are actively ignoring them, which covers most Christians in the world (though of course not all).have a fun day--Jon

Woah, Nasr, relax.Yep, there's a lot to talk about, but be aware that with me you are preaching to the choir (that's an American phrase that means "spending a lot of effor to convince someone who is already convinced"). Trying to get me to see error in the Bible is like trying to get the Pope to become Catholic.Plus, on this thread, all that detail is a bit off topic.Your energy in this area is sorely needed somewhere else, not here. Check out Errancy Wiki. You may be able to help, since there are so many Bible verse pages that don't have anything written about them yet. Enjoy!

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
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Jesus Powell wrote:

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What do you base this claim off of? It looks like nonsense to me.

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Now Jesus, this list is objectively testable, much of it by simply opening a Bible. Simply take your Protestant Bible and check for yourself - does it have 1 Maccabees? Check a Catholic or Orthodox Bible. For the others, you can read the writings of Irenaeus, Clement, etc, as well as I can. Plus, Christians the world over, both Protestant and Catholic, agree with this data. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can check Bibles and historical documents (many available online at NEW ADVENT: Home) yourself. Some Bibles are available at BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages..Calling it “nonsense” is like saying that it’s “nonsense” that dictionaries have words in them - it only makes you look silly, and based on your name, doesn’t help the reputation of Christians overall.P. S. Thanks Anastasia- Equinox
P. P. S. Hmmmm.... the name "Jesusfighter" makes me think of some dude going around, looking for Jesuses to beat up, or maybe attacking pictures of Jesus, since those are more common than Jesus......Edited by Equinox, : added Jesusattacker musings