New Testament Dates

[christyG]

I wasn't completely sure where to put this, but decided here was most appropriate......

What dates do you (collective) believe the various books of the NT were written? When I began this journey stopping off at preterism first, I was told that all of the later dates of the writings of the NT books and the gospels that many scholars believe to be true are in fact not true. It seems to serve the ideology of preterism best to give early dates to the writings of all of the NT books or else their warnings of "the end:eek: " would not make sense.

I wanted to know what you all thought and if any of you had looked into it further?

Christy

[Paige]

Christy,

I know of a book by John A.T. Robinson that really goes into this topic in depth. It is called, "Redating the New Testament", if I remember it correctly. I've heard that it is quite good, but haven't had a chance to read it yet myself.

From what I've studied, the internal evidence is pretty strong for an early date on Rev. I also think I've heard it said that all the Apostles (escept for John) were martyrd by 70, so it makes sense to date their writings early. Maybe someone else can confirm this?

Paige

[Lou]

Is there any real evidence that John made it passed AD70?


Jerry Bernard has an article on the dates of Paul’s epistles. “The Dates of Paul’s Letters” at>

http://www.jerrybernard.com/index2.htm



The fact that no biblical writer says anything about the destruction of Jerusalem as being a past event speaks loudly that they were all written before AD70.

[ozark]

Christy,

Here is a little article I did a while back on the early date of the book of Revelation. It is interesting how the scholarly opinions about the date for Revelation change according to which view is in vogue. When the more positive Postmillenialism was popular, the scholars overwhelmingly favored the early date. When Premillenialism came into power, they switched to the later date. Hmmm.

http://www.newjerusalemcommunity.net/?c=44&a=1056

[jlv]

Christy,


When I began this journey stopping off at preterism first, I was told that all of the later dates of the writings of the NT books and the gospels that many scholars believe to be true are in fact not true. It seems to serve the ideology of preterism best to give early dates to the writings of all of the NT books or else their warnings of "the end:eek: " would not make sense.

The postition of the people who established the Canon of the New Testament was that all of these books were written before the death of Paul. The Aramaic church didn't accept The Revelation in their Canon because they were not sure of when it was written.

No place in Scripture discusses a past destruction of Herod's Temple. Most books outright claim that the Temple is standing. The Revelation claims to have been written during Nero's persecution of the Church (AD 64-68). The Gospel of John claims to have been written after Peter's death, but before the destruction of the Temple. Paul mention's Luke's Gospel in one of his letters. Peter mentions Paul's letters in one of his letters.

Because numerous books predict the destruction of Herod's Temple, unbelieving moderns have claimed late dates for them. Dispensationalists often accept these late dates as gospel and have invented a future Temple so these prophecies can be fulfilled. Instead, these late dates should be challenged. Church history and internal evidence dictates an early writing.

Lou,

The dating for Romans on your link makes no sense. Nero assumed power at the death of Claudius in AD 54. Peter made a several month long visit to Rome sometime before the death of Claudius. Paul's discussion of spiritual gifts (especially vs 1:11) makes no sense unless it was written before Peter's visit.

JL

[christyG]

I have only researched this briefly, but it seems that dating the gospels is arbitrary at best. I see the point of the absense of mention of the destruction of the temple, but I am wondering how important this destruction would have been for the early Christian movement? :eek: Please don't cut my head off and I do not mean to be killing anyone's sacred cow...just asking:o .
Are their early writings of Christianity that mention the destruction? I tried to do a search to find some, but could not. Josephus mentions the destruction, but he is not writing from a Christian perspective.

And to introduce a "Part 2" if I may.....What are your thoughts about who wrote the gospels? Do you believe the apostles themselves wrote them or are the writings we have now something that someone actually recorded later? I am thinking of the many variances in common accounts of events as pointing to a 2nd or 3rd party recording, but I could be wrong.

Christy

[Paige]

Christy,

No head biting here, lol...The thing that pops into my mind about how important the destruction of Jerusalem and temple for the early christians is this:

The first converts to christianity were in fact Israelites (Acts 2). These Hebrew christians bore the brunt of the persecutionj from the Jews and the Judaizers. When Jesus talks in the Gospels about being hated for His name, and being cast out of families, He's speaking primarily about the treatment that His own "people" would receive from the rest of there fellow countrymen who rejected Christ.

Any Jewish convert to Christianity would receive very harsh treatment, and also be scoffed at for following "the Way". The temple would have been used as a prop by those very people to show them that indeed, nothing had changed...All was the same as it ever had been. This is one of the reasons I believe it would have been a very important detail for the Apostles to include had they lived to see it.

Hope this helps to answer part one of your post. I'm not sure about part 2. I've always accepted Matthew for Matthew, Luke for Luke, Mark for Mark, and John for John. (IOW, I haven't really dug that far into it :) .)

Paige

[jlv]

Christy,

The early church attests that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote there respective gospels.

The early church claimed Matthew wrote his in Aramaic, then either he or a scribe translated it to Greek. A former neighbor of mine had a scrap of Matthew's Gospel that was pulled from the ruins of a town destroyed by Vespasian in AD 66-68. The original being in Aramaic is consistent with the word-plays and puns found in the Aramaic text. Matthew's gospel predicts the destruction of Jerusalem and it was in wide circulation in Israel before the destruction occurred.

The early Greek speaking church claimed Mark wrote his gospel in Rome in Greek because Peter could not speak or write Greek and the people of Rome wanted Peter's stories about Jesus written down. They claimed Mark had a copy of a now lost earlier document by Matthew, "The sayings of Jesus," which was written in Aramaic. The early Aramaic church claimed Mark was first written in Aramaic. The content of Mark points to Greek being the original.

The early Greek speaking church claimed Luke wrote his gospel in Rome while Paul was awaiting trial before Nero. Acts claims to have been written after Luke but while Paul was awaiting trial. The early Greek church claims this was before Nero's persecution, that Paul was aquitted, and later rearrested. The Acts and Paul's letters seem consistent with that. The early Greek church also claimed Luke had a copy of Mark's Gospel and something by Matthew, either the Aramaic Gospel or The Sayings. The Aramaic church claimed Luke was first written in Aramiac, but this is not consistent with the language.

The church claimed John had copies of the other three gospels and endorsed them all. He wrote his gospel either on Patmos or in Ephesus. The Aramaic church claimed the original was in Aramaic. The Greek church made no claim on the original language. Aramaic makes the most sense from the text, especially when compared to The Revelation. Except for Irenaus, the early church all agreed Nero put John on Patmos and that he left Patmos in AD 68 to go to Ephesus.

JL

[ozark]

Christy,

I think quite a few of the early writings mention the destruction of Jerusalem. Sam Frost's book called "Misplaced Hope" is very good on this subject.

[christyG]

Thank you all for the replies!

JLV, if you don't mind me asking...where are you getting your information? I would like to look into this a little bit further. The early greek church would be who?

One thing that comes to mind if your senario is true is that if the authors did all have access to each other's writings then why the descrepancies in areas of like events? One that comes to mind is the varying accounts of Peter's denial and whom he spoke with when denying knowing Jesus. Another would be the varying accounts of the empty tomb. You could say that these are minor, but (IMHO) it seems that the variances would not be there if they were written by the close group of disciples and if they had access to each other's writings.

Also have any of you heard of the idea of the Q gospel? Most everything that I have read says that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke later and that Matthew and Luke both draw from an even earlier layer of writing being labeled "Q" as a line of similar sayings attributed to Jesus.

christy

[Truthseeker]

Hello Dear Sis Christy,

I think one thing that, at least for me, that prefers the internal evidence of dating rather than external--is the Theme and Purpose of God's Plan. This Theme and Purpose runs from the beginning (from Gen 1 where a "seed" is promised) throughout the Bible til the very last chapter of Rev. It harmonizes in such a beautiful way throughout thousands of years of history up to the First Century, through so many different authors who lived in so many different times and stations--I can't help but be awed by that.

The thing I look at is the message. If, let's say, the writings of the Gospels didn't come for a few hundred years after the fact, it really doesn't matter. What matters is the message. Is the message in the Gospels consistent with the Theme of Scripture from the OT? If so, then they were written and recorded for future generations--as fulfilled prophecy that would continue to show that Jesus was who he claimed to be. Those living in the first and second century times were eye-witnesses, or at the very least, received a witness from eye-witnesses, so a written record (other than OT prophecies) wasn't needed except for future generations.

Just speaking for myself, I don't see what difference it makes when certain books of the bible were "written." Nobody can really possibly know how to date something except by examining a certain COPY of it. We know, for instance, that the letters of Paul were distributed out to the congregations. The letters of Peter verify that. One can look at the oldest "copy" of one of Paul's letters--but what about the original one, written by his own (or his secretary's) hand?

I've looked at Old writings--like the Gospel of Thomas, for instance (which gets a lot of hype). Much of it isn't even there--it hasn't been fully preserved. The Dead Sea Scrolls, however, revealed that errors in copying of the Scriptures we have in our own Bibles were very minimal. God promises (in Scripture) that His Word will endure--that it will bring about all He Wills to accomplish--and that it won't come back to Him without results. There have been campaigns to stamp out the Bible--the Dark Ages is just one example of that--yet it was preserved. Today, thousands of years later, we are so very blessed to be able to read our own copy whenever we choose, in our own language.

I think the main argument against the Preterit point of view is that John's letters were written post-70AD. This cannot be true. The oldest copy may be post 70, but what he writes about is definitely pre-70. The internal evidence is clear, that the coming of the Lord was to come quickly. If it came post 70--then it came at some other date during John's lifetime, and still cannot possibly be a future event. Much love--rhonda

[Barry]

Very interesting insights.
Rhonda, you seem to be able to weigh the info and see the larger picture.

Either the whole of the info that we have rings the same bell or there is conflicting or divers information.
You seem to have clued into the fact that all the New Testament writers (must be) are saying the same thing.
As obvious as that may seem to some it is IMHO one of the major obstacles IMHO.
JMO, Barry

[jlv]

Christy,


JLV, if you don't mind me asking...where are you getting your information? I would like to look into this a little bit further. The early greek church would be who?

Start by reading Eusebius, History of the Church. I like the Penguin edition. Eusebius collects a lot of stuff together. It is a very interesting read. For the Aramaic stuff, search for Aramaic and Peshitta. By early Greek Church, I mean the pre-Nicea Greek-speaking church, what became the Eastern (or Greek) Orthodox.



One thing that comes to mind if your senario is true is that if the authors did all have access to each other's writings then why the descrepancies in areas of like events? One that comes to mind is the varying accounts of Peter's denial and whom he spoke with when denying knowing Jesus. Another would be the varying accounts of the empty tomb. You could say that these are minor, but (IMHO) it seems that the variances would not be there if they were written by the close group of disciples and if they had access to each other's writings.

Whether they had access or not, don't those descrepancies cause you to question the Fundamentalist doctrine of inerrancy? Matthew and John gave eye-witness testimony. Mark wrote Peter's testimony. Luke produced an amicus curiae brief for Paul's trial. He collected everything he could, then put it together for assisting Nero's court.


Also have any of you heard of the idea of the Q gospel? Most everything that I have read says that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke later and that Matthew and Luke both draw from an even earlier layer of writing being labeled "Q" as a line of similar sayings attributed to Jesus.

The Q gospel hypothesis comes from unbelievers within the 19th century Lutheran Church. They take early church claims that Matthew wrote "The Sayings of Jesus" as true but deny everything else. They then claim that the gospels were forgeries written around the time of Nicea.

JL

[christyG]

Hi all, and I would again like to thank those who have been dialoguing with me!:)
Just a couple of thoughts: Rhonda said:
think the main argument against the Preterit point of view is that John's letters were written post-70AD. This cannot be true. The oldest copy may be post 70, but what he writes about is definitely pre-70. The internal evidence is clear, that the coming of the Lord was to come quickly. If it came post 70--then it came at some other date during John's lifetime, and still cannot possibly be a future event. I do understand that many who argue against Preterism use the late datings of the NT writings to uphold their argument, maybe especially so the dispensationalists. Honestly I have been looking more into this subject not because I doubt the claims of preterism and wish to return to the dogma of dispensationalism, but it's just that I do not want to be pigeon-holed again. I want to continue to grow and free my mind into considering all possibilities.
And on another note: I did a search for the term "the coming of the Lord" and found that it is used in the NIV once in 1Thess 4:15 and 3 times in KJV -- 1 Thess 4:15, James 5:7 and 5:8. This phrase is not used in the Young's Literal Translation -- which uses presence of the Lord in all of the above instances. I do feel that presence more acurately makes the point. Right now it is my thought that the intention was not to depict a presence that was not available to humanity prior to this time, but rather an awakening of the spirit to the presence----if that makes any sense to anyone:o .
Also jlv---I intend to look into Eusebius a little further, but found an interesting intro to him here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebius_of_Caesarea
I also found some more information about the Q gospel here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-document. I searched through some other sites, but could not find anyplace that connects the idea of the Q gospel to "unbelievers".
Just to add that I obviously do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, it seems to be plain that there are discrepancies -- but the descrepancies in no way belittle the Bible in my eyes. They confirm for me that the Bible is a human record of Christianity's religious heritage. It might be necesarry to say that this also does not make the Bible "ungodly" in my eyes. I can see God through the words of the religion and the culture that is the heritage of Christianity, the heritage of my faith. Thus exact dating and authorship are not important to the formation of my faith, but getting a better understanding of such concepts assists me as I try to paint that "bigger picture."

Christy

[Amie]

Makes perfect sense to me Christy.


..I do not want to be pigeon-holed again. I want to continue to grow and free my mind into considering all possibilities.

That's what freedom's all about!

I have nothing of substance to add to this conversation, lol! I'm just enjoying the honest exploration :)

Amie

[Lou]

Setting a date that the New Testament books became in the form we have today is not that important. What is told in the Gospels would been circulating shortly after Pentecost.
Since Paul makes little or no reference to them in his letters they must have been well known by that time. If the life and ministry of Jesus were unknown Paul’s teaching would have been incoherent. I believe that what was in the Gospels may have been told before it was compiled into a book.
:2cents: