How do we know when the Gospels were written?

Greetings all,Have a look at this table:
iiNet | naked dsl - broadband - adsl - phone - voipIt shows when the earliest Christian writings began to mention the Gospels and their contents.This evidence argues that the Gospels were unknown by CHRISTIANS until early-mid 2nd century.Iasion

Greetings,

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a quick search found me Mark 9:42 quoted in Rome's letter to the Corinthians (1 Clement), which is almost indisputed as a 1st century writing.
  —trurhlover

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Wrong.
1 Clement does NOT quote Mark 9:42.He does NOT use the word "Gospel",
he does NOT mention Mark,
he does NOT cite from any written work at all.What he says is :Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, for he said, "Woe to that man, it were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about, and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones."Note carefully:Clement says : "remember the words..."
That is NOT a quote of a written Gospel, it is merely repeating a SAYING attributed to Jesus.Furthermore, the passage does NOT match the Gospel, it is merely similar, here are the Gospel versions, all different :Mt 18:6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

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Mt 26:24 The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had never been born.

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Mk 9:42 If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone tied around his neck and to be thrown into the sea.

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Lk 17:2 It would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.In other words, all we have is a SAYING attributed to Jesus, which is later found in DIFFERENT forms in the Gospels.That is NOT a clear quote of a Gospel at all.You can see details on 1 Clement here :
iiNet | naked dsl - broadband - adsl - phone - voip
which shows that Clement did NOT quote a written Gospel at all.Iasion

Greetings,

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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.
  —mjfloresta

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Only according to ONE dubious reference.Also, there is nothing about Nero being THREATENED by the Christians, the story goes he needed a scapegoat, that's all.

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That Christianity had already spread so significantly that the Roman empire was threatened by them, is surely a sign of of Jesus' significant impact on the world around him..
  —mjfloresta

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Jesus had NO impact on the world around him at all.
NOT ONE single contemporary writer records Jesus existence.All we have is anonymous and conflicting legends about Jesus from long after the alleged events.Iasion

Greetings,

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You said Justin Martyr and earlier authors didn't quote the Gospels. I showed, with reference to their writings, that they did.
  —truthlover

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Did you notice that Justin does NOT mention the NAMES of the Gospels?
Why is that?Did you notice that the quotes from Justin do NOT always match our current Gospels?
Why is that?Iasion

Greetings,

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It seems to me that someone is making the big mistake of assuming that a quote of Clement should read like our modern English translations. Clement probably had the original Greek, and whoever translated Clement used different English to render it. Obviously the meaning is identical, although the phrasing differs.
  —Faith

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Nonsense.
This has nothing to do with minor issues of word order etc.Clement does NOT quote any Gospel, a quote would say something like
"remember the words of Jesus from our Gospel of Matthew..."
And,
the supposed "quote" as found in Clement is NOT found in G.Matthew.Instead, two different passages from Matthew, eight CHAPTERS away from each other, with similarities to the Clement quote, are re-arranged, modified, and put back together.Then, apologists claim Clement "quoted" this re-hashed conflation of two widely separated passages.What nonsense.In reality of course, the facts are clear :
* Clement did NOT even use the word "Gospel"
* Clement did NOT even mention any Gospel or author, anywhere.
* Clement did NOT even mention any WRITING.Instead we get a SAYING, attributed to Jesus.
This saying is NOT found, as quoted, in Matthew.
It is merely SIMILAR to TWO widely separate passages in G.Matthew.Then, this saying is later found in OTHER DIFFERENT versions in other Gospels - clear evidence it was merely a SAYING, a Chinese-whisper, which grew and changed over the years.As for Gospels dates - the first mention of the Gospels is from early-mid 2nd century, they were still being changed during the 2nd century, and were only finally named late 2nd century.Iasion

Greetings,

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Because Justin spoke ... Latin?
  —Faith

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Hmmm...
You think that translations CHANGE the meaning of words do you?Consider that Justin said Jesus rose on the EIGHTH day!So,
your argument is that "eight" is the Latin translation for "three" in Greek is it?What nonsense.Justin quotes Gospels which are NOT quite like ours and which were NOT yet named.They were still in a state of flux in that period - changes were still being made, such as the change of the words of GOD(!) at the baptism in the Jordan from
"..this day have I begotten thee"
to
"...in thee I am well-pleased".Because the first version (straight from Psalms) smacked of heresy, so it was changed.The Gospels arose long after the time of Jesus, from anonymous hands, of people not living in Jerusalem. They were not finalised and named until late 2nd century.Iasion

Greetings,

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I'm okay with you arguing that Clement MIGHT have been quoting something other than Mark.
  —truthlover

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Hmmm...
I did not say that. I would appreciate if you would read my comments properly.I said Clement repeats SAYINGS of Jesus. He does NOT "quote" the Gospels.

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That's a reasonable enough assertion, but it is simply not true that your link "shows that Clement did NOT quote a written Gospel at all."
  —truthlover

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I think it does, I invite other readers to look.
I offered an argument with facts, you simply replied with an opinion with no facts or argument.

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Clement quoted everything loosely.
  —truthlover

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No he didn't.
You didn't even read my page on Clement did you?I showed that Clement quotes :
* the Tanakh as WRITTEN scripture about 100 times.
* Paul as wise WRITINGS about 100 times.Sometimes he specifically NAMES the Tanakh BOOKS and the BOOKS of Paul he is quoting.So, your claim is wrong - Clement DOES quote, 100s of times from BOOKS of which he NAMES the source.

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There weren't Bibles available at local bookstores back then. He might well have been quoting a written Gospel.
  —truthlover

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What?
He DOES quote from Tanakh and Paul as WRITINGS.But, when it comes to the Gospels, all we get is a couple of SAYINGS which are NOT quite like the bible. This is clear evidence he is not quoting a Gospel.A quote would be like
"remember the words of Jesus written in the Gospel of Matthew..."If Clement knew any Gospels, he would have quoted them endlessly, like later writers do. Instead we get merely 2 or 3 conflicting SAYINGS of Jesus which do NOT match the Gospels.

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I'm okay with your asserting that.
  —truthlover

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I showed it is reasonable conclusion with facts and argument. You just ignored my argument entirely - e.g. you totally ignored the fact that the passage supposedly from Matthew is found in two places EIGHT chapters apart. And the words don't evern match properly.

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...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.
  —truthlover

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What the?
You jumped from 185 straight to 1st century without ANY argument at all. Pure wishful thinking. NT scholars do NOT agree with your faithful claims.Iasion

Greetings,

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I did notice these things, and my guess is that there was no reason to mention the names of the Gospels,
  —truthlover

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He DOES mention the names of the books -
He says they are the "memoirs of the apostles".
He also says thay are "called "Gospels"
He also calls the Gospels of Mark the "memoirs of Peter".
This is clear and present evidence that the books he quotes were not yet named for the four evangelists.Anyway - this idea that someone would not "need" to mention the evangelists.Hello?
These people were the founding fathers of your religion. Later Christians name them endlessly, with even LESS "need", because they are hugely important authorities for Christians. Later writers have less "need" but mention the names repeatedly, but somehow the earliest writers (who obviously had the most "need") failed to.It's obvious - these early writers had never heard of the names of the Gospels. It is becoming a consensus that the Gospels were only finally named by Irenaeus c. 185. Before that, they were anonymous.

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and that Justin was quoting from memory.
  —truthlover

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Why?
Did Justin LOSE these famous books?

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That is what is normally assumed when quotes are not given word for word accurately, which is what is normal for that time.
  —truthlover

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Nonsense.
You are assuming your conclusion.
The evidence shows that Justin had variant Gospels, un-named.

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Your point, I assume, is that the Gospels Justin mentioned might be different from our four.
  —truthlover

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I said that the Gospels Justin quotes do NOT match ours exactly. That is what the facts shows.

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That seems extremely unlikely, given that a 60-year-old Irenaeus, who lived in Gaul, but hailed from Smyrna and interacted often with Roman bishops (where Justin was from), knew about the four Gospels by name and spoke as though it had always been like that.
  —truthlover

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Irenaeus is the first to name the Gospels.
He does NOT claim it had "always been like that" at all.
His reason for there being four Gospels is because their are four winds, four cherubs etc.

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You can argue that Justin doesn't give the names, so his reference doesn't prove it's the same four.
  —truthlover

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You misunderstood. I said the Gospels Justin quotes from are NOT EXACTLY like ours - the quotes he gives do NOT always match our Gospels exactly. I did NOT claim he had a different 4.

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True enough, but it does prove that there was more than one Gospel in his time, written down, that he assumed to be by the apostles.
  —truthlover

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Um, we already know there were DOZENS of Gospels by this time. Didn't you know that?

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Irenaeus' age makes him a relatively contemporary reference to Justin, and he does give the names. He only wrote 30 years later,
  —truthlover

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Irenaeus NAMES the Evangelists, Justin does NOT name them.
Yet you really think Irenaeus's naming them proves that 30 years before, Justin (who did NOT name them) knew their names, even though he did NOT ever mention them.Why do you think that?

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and in Irenaeus time the references to the Gospels and their having been around a long time are universal.
  —truthlover

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Please cite your evidence for that.What about Aristides who claims the Gospel had only been preached a short time in the period 139-161 ?Iasion

Greetings,

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I can see someone asserting this. Stating it like it's fact and that the Gospels were still changing in his time is a large presumption.
  —truthlover

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The facts are clear - Justin's words do NOT match our modern Bibles. For instance, at the Jordan, Justin says a "fire was kindled" :And then, when Jesus had gone to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and when He had stepped into the water, a fire was kindled in the JordanThis is not found in any Gospel.Justin's writings are full of such oddities which do NOT match our modern Gospels at all.

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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?
  —truthlover

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Yes.
The original reading "this day have I begotten thee" is found in :
* Justin (Dial., 88),
* Clement of Alexandria (Paed., I, 25, 2),
* Origen (Comm. on John),
* Methodius (Symp. 9),
* Lactantius (Div. Inst. IV, 15),
* Augustine (Enchiridion 49),
* Faustus,
* Tyconius,
* Hilary,
* Juvencus.In addition, this form also appears to be the one known to
* the authors of the Gospel According to the Hebrews,
* the Gospel According to the Ebionites (as qtd. by Epiphanius),
* the Didascalia (93:26),and several of the later apocryphal Acts, such as
* the Martyrdom of Peter and Paul (par 1)
* The Acts of Peter and Paul (par 29).As leading expert Bart Ehrman notes, "among sources of the second and third centuries, it is virtually the only reading to be found; down to the sixth century it occurs in witnesses as far flung as Asia Minor, Palestine, Alexandria, North Africa, Rome, Gaul, and Spain".This change to the NT is well-known by scholars. But of course, few believers are even AWARE of it.IasionP.S
Pardon me about the "eighth" day, whoops, that one was from memory.Edited by Iasion, : No reason given.

Greetings,

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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:
  —equinox

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Thanks.
Yes, that is the standard work for this issue.
Recommended.Iasion

Greetings,

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P52 is a good example, reliably dated to 120-130,
  —equinox

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Pardon me.
I don't agree there.P52 is variously dated :
* 2nd C.
* early 2nd C.
* mid-late 2nd C.The latest dating, by Schmidt IIRC, is 170 +/- 25.But I agree that apologists date this as EARLY as possible and then claim it proves G.John existed then (which it does not.)Iasion