The New Testament - When was it written?

Great Debates
1

Hello.

Before launching into my question, which will most certainly create a debate, let me tell you a little about where I am coming from. I was raised in a good [stern voice] God fearing Christian home [/stern voice], and until very recently, held quite steadfastly to those beliefs. However, I’ve developled this troublesome little crisis of faith, and I am now at the place where I no longer believe all that I was raised to believe, just because I’ve been told it’s true.

In short, I now seek proof.

Here’s where I’d like to start: The authorship of the New Testament, specifically the timeliness of the writings.
I was looking at this website, which states (in part)

I have searched the Secular Web and The Freethought Zone and while I can find much information and opinion :wink: as to why I should not trust the Bible, I cannot find anything that answers this question: Assuming the Bible was written by contemporaries of Jesus, and was completed by the end of the first century, doesn’t that make the latest authors impossibly old? Even if an apostle was only twenty years old at Jesus’ death, he would be nearly 90 years old in 100 A.D. Are we to believe that first-century Jews lived longer than most modern Americans? And even if they did, why would they wait so long to write their experiences down? Surely just a few years after Jesus’ ascension into heaven would have been a great time to write the Gospels, while they were fresh in your mind!

[sigh] Or am I missing something?

Any information relating to this would be greatly appreciated, as well as links to relevant sites. Oh, and before you mention it, yes, I searched prior threads here on the SDMB, but the search function only goes back 30 days, and I could (again) find much related information, but nothing that specifically addresses this OP.

Thanks.

2

What makes these questions diffcult to answer is that any authority you consult is going to have a philosophical outlook to defend, or an axe to grind. This inevitably colors your opinion. Of course, you have to make some assumptions and have a stand or you wouldn’t even be asking the question.

The usual answer is that the letters of Paul are the earliest extant parts of the NT, and that they were written circa the 50s. The Gospels are held to date from the 60s to the 90s. Look in the Pelican Bible Commentaries, or the Anchor Bible, or Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, or whatever commentary you want.

Heathenish types hold that they were written later – closer to the 90s into the 110s century. They certainly can’t date from later than that, because works from the early 100s begin to quote them. (Look up the writings called “The Apostolic Fathers”)

A good reference on this viewpoint is G.A. Wells’ books “The Jesus of the Early Christians”, “Did Jesus Exist” and “The Historical Evidence for Jesus”. As the titles indicate, Wells doesn’t think Christ even existed. Even if you don’t agree with his ideas, he does a good job of citing the relevant literature and authorities, and his stuff is heavily footnoted.
Most scholars think Mark was written first. Luke and Matthew drew on Mark and a lost document called “Q”, which is thought to resemble the extant “Gospel of Thomas”. John came last. If you believe this, then there’s no need to believe that Jesus’ actual followers wrote any of it. In fact, the preamble to Luke indicates that he is NOT a direct disciple, and is using other written sources.

If you are a believer, then Mark is a disciple, often thought to be John Mark. Luke is the physician of that name referred to in the epistles of Paul. Matthew may be a disciple, and John is the superannuated “beloved” disciple who wrote his gospel in exile on the isle of Patmos. Wells discusses all of this in DJE.

3

Ninety or even a hundred was not an impossible age for an ancient man to attain. Bear in mind, when you hear that the average human lifespan during such-and-such a time was, say, forty, it’s primarily because deaths of infants and children were so common. If you reached adulthood you could expect to live a reasonably long life.

4

Good question. Archeology can only tell us so much – the Bible can only be dated to as old a date as the oldest copy found, and even then perhaps only roughly. There is also doubt as to whether all the letters attributed to Paul were written by Paul, which “James” wrote that letter, when Jesus was cruxified exactly, when Peter and Paul were cruxified, and when the St. John who wrote Revelations (who, again, might not be the same guy who wrote the Gospel of John) died in prison after writing probably the last canonical text.

So, when in doubt use some common sense. Most of the text was probably written within 30 years of Jesus’s death.

5

Er… but aren’t two of those commentaries based on the third? All from the past century? Where do they draw their conclusions?

6

Not exactly. There is (within Christian literature, notably the Patristics (Cal’s Apostolic Fathers)), commentary on the Scripture. By knowing the dates of various Patristic authors and viewing their comments, we can ascribe dates to a lot of the works without necessarily having a crumbing piece of parchment or papyrus to carbon-date.

For example, the letters to Timothy and to Titus are often dated very late in the first century. One argument notes that they don’t “sound” like Paul. People favoring a Pauline authorship ascribe the “foreign voice” to a weary, prison-bound, aged Paul dictating to an amanuensis (secretary) who wrote them in his own style. However, a stronger argument regarding a later, non-Pauline author is that the theology in the letters is very much directed against a version of Gnosticism that was not present in the Church at the time Pauil was probably executed by Nero, but was present between 95 and 110. (We know of the growth of Gnosticism through the Patristics and through some Gnostic writings.)

Similarly, Revelation is often dated traditionally to the period of Nero. (There are several references that make him a possible choice, including one variant of the numerology for “the number of the beast is six hundred sixty and six.”)

However, Revelation is addressed to the Church in Asia Minor (where Nero did not pursue a heavy persecution and Domitian did). One of the cities to which it is addressed is mentioned for its wealth, but the city was nearly leveled by an earthquake in the late 60s and only regained its wealth by the mid-90s–the period of Domitian’s persecution.

None of these points are absolutes. However, with a careful reading of both the internal texts and comparisons to Patristic references as matched against actual history, we can get a fairly decent view of the dating of most of the books. (We can also fight over the criteria for dating, as in the case of Paul’s pastoral letters, but we are still within a fairly narrow range of years. I have never seen a reputable scholar come up with a date of 35 for Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians or 150 for John’s Gospel.)

7

Just a Point of Information, Mars Horizon: look at the top of the pull-down list for the “any date” option if you want a comprehensive SDMB search. It’s easy to miss since “last 30 days” is listed last.

8

Assuming, like most do, that “John”, was indeed written by (or more likely dictated by) the Apostle John, he could have very well have been the author.

St. John was known to be alive during the persecutions of the Emperor Domitian (AD81>96), as he retired to the isle of Patmos. After Domitians death he returned to Ephesus, and died during the reign of Trajan, (ad 98>117). Assuming he was some 18>20 years old when he was an Apostle with JC during the crucifxion, then he would have been some 90 years old when the Gospel was written. So, John was still alive about the time when we think “John” was written.

Oxford accepts Mark as the 1st Gospel, written in about 70AD, but admits to the possiblity that Matthew was actually the 1st written. There is evidence, that both Matthew & mark drew from a book we call “Q”, which was the actual sayings & words of JC, and very likely written down while JC was alive.

9

Daniel, is that known from primary evidence, or only tradition?

10

Stories of John’s later life are based on statements by Irenaeus (who lived in Lyon and died around 180) and Polycrates who was active around 190-200 and was a bishop of Ephesus.

I have no idea whether their knowledge was as reliable as that of an educated man regarding Teddy Roosevelt, today, or whether it was only as reliable as the “man on the street’s” knowledge of TR.

11

My mother, the atheist-Jewish religious historian, always told me it was written eighty years after Christ’s death.

12

Go to http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_cs.htm for both liberal and conservative views on the authorship of the New Testament. No non-fundamentalist scholar believes that the entire NT was written prior to 100 CE. That is pure bunk. Likewise, very few scholars believe that Paul wrote all the epistles attributed to him, that any of the general epistles were written by the traditional authors, or that the disciples wrote the gospels. Here’s what E.P. Sanders has to say on the matter:

(From “The Historical Figure of Jesus”)

Sanders is a very conservative Bible scholar. A review on the back cover of this book mentions its value in “confut[ing] irritating skeptics.”

Only 7 (maybe 8) of the Pauline epistles are legit. The rest date to decades after his death.

2nd Peter is probably as late as 150 CE.

Once again, the fundies are full of crap. What a surprise.

13

Mullaney:

I’m afraid I don’t understand your comment:

Er… but aren’t two of those commentaries based on the third? All from the past century? Where do they draw their conclusions?

Are you aying that the Pelican commentaries are derived from the Anchor Bible commentaries? Or that Asimov took his from theirs? I’m not clear on what you mean, but think Pelican and Anchor certainy didn’t steal from each other.

If you want an explanation of why people think that certain parts of the NT date to crtain ages, read the commentaries themselves. If they don’t tell you why, then they’ll direct you to the sources they use that do.

Virtually all arguments are based on some assumptions, though. There is no indisputabe proof for any of the proposed ages. The Apostolic Fathers cite above date from the second century, so their citations only prove that the NT works they cite come from before about 110. The Oxyrhynchus papyrus and the Nag Hammadi library are also second century. So people argue ags from the presumed time between the death of Jesus and Paul’s conversion, between Paul’s conversion and his writings. They argue about whether the author of Mark knew of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and whether Matthew and Luke did, as well. As you might expect, this sort of ating is pretty indefinit and nebulous. There’s little in the way of extra-Biblical corroboration. we can date the reigns of Herod and Pontius Pilate from Josephus and inscriptions. But even the association of these historical characters with the life of Jesus can be argued – look at G.A. Wells. And one fellow ha even written a book arguing that Jesus lived crca 100 B.C. !

14

Well, that’s an obviously false statement. Unless everyone in 170 AD was a Christian. So I guess what they meant was “By 170 A.D. there was almost complete agreement among Christians that the 27 books we now have in our New Testament were inspired, breathed out by God.”
And what is a Chrsitian? Someone that agrees with the canon. Circular logic.

A minimal amount of historical research shows this statement to be false. There were serious disagreements about what was in the canon, and virtually every council ended with at least one group being declared heretics.

CalMeacham

That argument is of only limited validity. It is possible that these quotes were part of general Christian folklore, and were incorporated into the Gospels, making it appear that the Gospels preceded the other works.

scratch1300

Not impossible, no. But it still strains one’s credulity.
While there are some that don’t consider Catholics to be “real” Christians, the more reasonable members of this board may be interested to know that according to my Bible, the authorship for none of the Gospels is known. The introductions are full of statement like “The author of this Gospel, whom we shall refer to as ‘Luke’ out of tradition, is also believed to have written Acts” (emphasis mine, and this is a paraphrase). This is the New Americam Bible, a translation widely accepted by Catholics.

MHO is that the New Testament was, for all intents and purposes, unwritten until the Council of Nicaea. While the books that now appear may have been written earlier, that is irrelevant. As everyone who has been involved in the publishing industry knows, it is the editor’s views that really matter in the end.

15

Opus1, thanks for the link! Looks like I have some reading to do…

jumblemind, if it was a snake it would have bit me! Thanks for pointing that out.

Cal, regarding your statement:

Well… riiighhht! That’s the barrier I keep running into. I suppose the best approach is to become familiar with all the evidence and all the opinions, then decide for yourself. As an old friend once said (I think his name was Kosh), :wink: “Understanding is a three-edged sword. Your side, Their side, and the Truth”

I’ll get back to you in about 10 years once I’ve figured it out…

16

Tom~ noted:

You wouldn’t be forgetting anybody here, wouldja?
-Polycarp

[/quote]

Exclusive to and original with me, but a theory I feel has quite a lot of validity, is the Not-Q-But-M version of the origin of the Gospels.

Luke as much as tells us (Luke 1:1-4) that he was using whatever documents he could get, presumably including Matthew and Mark. He very much follows Mark’s “outline of Jesus’s ministry” as does Matthew. But his account of when Jesus said what differs greatly from Matthew’s.

Now when we turn to the earliest source to discuss who wrote what when, we find Papias saying that “Matthew was first, and wrote down in Aramaic the logia of Jesus, though not in order.” A logion appears to be a “saying” or “oracle” – it is derived from but not equal to logos, “word” (pl. logoi.) Yet the Gospel of Matthew is in Greek, is not a collection of sayings, and includes over 90% of Mark, in some cases in precisely the same wording. And it seems ludicrous that Mark, with Peter’s reminiscences at his beck and call (more from Papias), would produce an abridgement of Matthew that leaves out the teachings.

So what happened? Matthew put together a collection, in Aramaic, of “What I Remember of Jesus’s Teachings.” Call this “M.” This had limited circulation. Mark put together the first “Life of Jesus,” working largely from Peter’s reminiscences. It caught on and circulated widely. Somebody, probably in Antioch, took Matthew’s collection of Jesus’s teachings and fit them into the frame story of Mark’s gospel, in Greek, mostly in five large groups based on content (the first being the Sermon on the Mount, which the language used to introduce it makes clear was not a single historical Jesus sermon, but a typical teaching. (“And when he sat down on the hillside, he would teach them like this:”) This composite piece caught on and replaced the original M collection, which was completely included in it in an easier-to-read form. Meanwhile Luke had a copy of M and inserted the stories, sometimes with different emphases, where his researches indicated they really had been taught. (Luke practiced the best historiography known to the first century; he’s quite explicit, given the language of the time, in his dedication to Theophilus, that he was trying to get the story right.)

17

Related to the WHEN question is the WHO question.

Although the gospels are attributed to Apostles, it is almost certain they were not written by those apostles, but by the second generation (taking a generation to be around 25 to 30 years in those days.)

What are probably the oldest texts are by Paul, who did not know the pre-crucifixtion Jesus.

The first disciples, remember, thought that Jesus’ return was imminent: there was no need to write down the stories and sayings and ideas Jesus preached, since he would be back in person any day now. The stories were thus passed on orally. As time went on and there was no Return, the generation who knew Jesus first-hand began to die out, and the stories were then written down by the second or third generations of believers. If Jesus died around 30 AD, then Paul (the earliest writer) was writting about 20 - 25 years later. The three synoptic gospels were probably written after 70 AD, and they were almost certain NOT written by 90-year old eye-witnesses, but by a much younger generation remembering and combining the oral versions they had heard… or possibly using a source document (“Q”), now lost.

18

I’m not forgetting anyone, but I may be ignorant of a passage of which you are aware.
Polycarp has been associated with John through numerous passages by Irenaeus, but I am not aware of any direct statement by Polycarp that describes John’s later life or death (other than through comments by Irenaeus). Even the references by Irenaeus tend to be little more than “Polycarp studied under John.” Since the question was regarding sources of information about John, I’m not sure what information we have from Polycarp.

What have I missed?

19

(Channeling MacLaughlin)
Well, that settles it. The New Testament was written in 105 AD! BYE BYEEE!
(MacLaughlin group closing theme)

20

To jmullaney:

Read the two quotes more closely. CalMeacham says that only certain texts were written prior to 110 CE. I agree with this. The church fathers do not quote things like 2nd Peter. Most of the canon was written before 110, just not all of it.