The Lord Jesus endorsed all the Law, Prophets, and Writings, “the TaNaK,” hence the entirety of our OT.
Interesting that you think you know what Jesus was saying. You’re clearly wrong.
This is patently false. Plenty of Christians do not accept a book, that wasn’t even fully written at Jesus’ time as the Word of God. The only Word of God is Jesus. The Bible is time-conditioned revelation as to the Word of God. It is the word of God. Its method of inspiration is still very much in question.
No one ever said they did or didn’t. I only reject you confusing your own interpretation of what Jesus said, meant and did with what Jesus actually said, meant and did. Your interpretation of Scripture is not Scripture.
Not according to critical scholarship, from conservatives to liberals. There are a few competent outliers (e.g. Crossley) but most arguing for such an early date are usually very conservative evangelical apologists confusing history with theology. A case can be made for Mark in the mid to late 60s (I favor 70-75) but the other two come later.
You don’t know that the gospels were even all written in one shot and not written in stages. You don’t know what actually happened to the Gospels because we have no real manuscript evidence the first few hundred years. There are many signs of secondary material in the record and even evidence of significant editing. The Gospel of John with its double endings and odd orderings is a prime example. Luke adding the infancy narrative in a later edition. The Western text of Acts. Multiple letters of Paul clearly being merged into a single one before the manuscript record (which almost the entire record is based on p46 (a. 200) IIRC. Not to mention we have two direct witnesses to what happened to Mark, Matthew and Luke. Both of them absorbed Mark and made MANY changes to it. The best example of what happened to a gospel within a few decades of its composition. Retained, copied, expanded, altered, excised, corrected and so on. Certainly not treated as some divine, immutable word from heaven.
Demonstrably false since so many experts date it as such and have written extensively about it.
You are confused. Paul had to inch and fight and prove himself all the time. The reference most certainly does speak of later authorship.
The OT canon wasn’t fixed at the time. Jesus most definitely was not referring to your 66 book version of the the Bible since it did not exist. Jesus also rejected parts of the Old Testament as the Gospels clearly show. You need to come up with a more nuanced position that incorporates all the relevant data.
Incorrect. I believe in good exegesis. There are hints and signs but not what many Christians the last 2,000 years have though. It is just after the fact rationalization in most cases that touts the modern Christian punch lines. Hind-casting based on something not actually forecasted.
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I gave you two citations of quotes from Jesus calling scripture “the Word of God.” Read: Mt. 15:6, John 10:35. Your claim that it “is patently false” to say “no one can truly believe in Jesus and not believe that scripture is the Word of God” is patently false.
You’re wrong about scholarship. Many, if not most, Bible scholars believe that the synoptic gospels were written before 70 AD. I’ll put up a list of some of them. Apparently you read narrowly.
Your claim that we don’t have any manuscript evidence of the gospels from the “first few hundred years,” is absurd. We have portions of manuscripts as early as the early 2nd century. We have thousands of manuscript portions and numerous quotes from the NT in other early Christian literature. Rylands Library Papyrus P52 , may be as early as AD 100, discovered in Egypt but likely written in Ephesus.
The Gospel of John doesn’t have a double ending. You’re stating things as fact that are just skeptic’s opinions.
Luke’s infancy narrative is not a later “edition” (sic). You have no evidence whatsoever that it was added later. Again, you’re stating things as facts that are just skeptic’s opinions.
There are no “multiple letters of Paul [that were] clearly … merged into a single one.” You can’t present a shred of evidence for that claim.
That Matthew & Luke likely used Mark testifies that Mark existed first. It doesn’t mean what you claim. If they rejected Mark, obviously they wouldn’t have used it so freely.
Just mindlessly believing the unbelieving scholars who claim that 2nd Peter was written later, not by Peter, is only evidence of whom you’ve chosen to believe. You have zero evidence.
The Lord Jesus affirmed all of the OT (Law, Prophets, Writings) exactly as it exists in the Protestant canon today. He rejected no parts of the OT. He affirmed the Law in the strongest possible terms (Mt. 5:17-19). No one can show where Jesus ever rejected any part of the OT
You don’t believe in “good exegesis.” You’re parroting whatever the unbelievers have told you to say, whatever affirms your pre-conceived ideas (i.e. your faith).
The following date Matthew as follows:
- Lea & Black (2003): pre-70 AD
- Ehrman (2008): 80-85 AD (radical critic, agnostic)
- Elwell & Yarbrough (2013): pre-70 AD
- Carson (1984): 60s AD
- Morris (1992): 50s-60s AD
- Blomberg (1992): 58-69 AD
- Gundry (1994): 65-67 AD
- Hagner (1998): pre-70 AD (one of the best)
- Nolland (2005): pre-70 AD
- France (2007): pre-70 AD
- Evans (2012): 66-69 AD
Since Mark was probably written earlier, then date Mark accordingly.
Just because someone says something which is the same as something somewhere else doesn’t mean they quoted it. More often than not things are the same because these are a part of the culture. To call it a quote, even “loosely,” you would have to establish who said it first. If you go with such “loose” quoting then how do you know it isn’t the apocryphal text which is doing the “loose” quoting of some other source?
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True in many cases. But some ideas appear that are separate from the OT canon, and has more to do with the common Jewish beliefs contemporary with Jesus, some of which are derived from apocryphal literature. Of course, those may be explained with the idea of divine accommodation as Jesus used those ideas to communicate to the culture he temporally lived in.
I’m not saying we should accept that literature as inspired, but am saying it is not as cut and dryed as some propose, or as would make us comfortable.
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Hello John,
You accuse me of reading narrowly but I have Gundry’s work on Matthew, his commentary on Mark as well as his recent shorter work arguing Matthew presents Peter as a failed disciple who is not redeemed. I have Nolland’s commentary, Hagner’s, France and I have several works by Blomberg and Evans as well. Have you actually read or dialogued with any of these? Or is it argument via a list you got from a website? I do not read narrowly. My library is extensive and balanced. You offered a who’s who list of mostly evangelical leaning scholars (aside from Ehrman who represents the consensus position and is not a Christian) that does not negate my point. Remember Gundry getting thrown out of the evangelical club by Geisler because, GASP, he thought some of the Matthew infancy narrative was not meant to be historical? You offered a very selective and narrow list.
It also looks like you pulled your list from Danny Z’s site. Arguments for a pre-70 CE Dating of Matthew's Gospel — Danny Zacharias
Notice how he studied under Evans and Nolland was his advisor. This is not a consensus of critical scholars but a clustered school of conservative thought that does not represent the mainstream opinion of most NT scholars.
Also, he cites many works which argue for the standard range of 80-100 for Matthew and he also includes a graphic from Allison and Davies great 3-volume commentary which lists a broad spectrum of other scholars on the date. He also writes “This itself is interesting in that the NT introductory textbooks lean more to a late dating, with a majority of the commentaries leaning to an early dating.” When many of these commentaries have conservative leanings and a priori doctrines/beliefs that can’t be violated, this is not very surprising. The NT has always been a safe place to do theology and call it history, to engage in autobiography and call it biography.
Also, its not unbelievers arguing that Matthew dates 80-100. It is countless professing Christians who are also critical NT scholars. Evangelicals tend to point out Ehrman Ehrman Ehrman. I read his works. Some thoughts are good but he is not special. His views carry no extra weight though this is the majority position today. We could of course discuss all the arguments but that would require us not only to read a small contingency of evangelical leaning scholars (what you offer) but a much larger corpus of Biblical criticism (what I read). The best evidence Danny presents is easy to dismiss. Matthew was relaying historical material. He even mentions it. QED. The early date of Matthew largely grasps at straws.
I wasn’t aware Jesus used a capital letter to start the word when he audibly said “Word” of God in Aramaic 2000 years ago. Your interpretation of what Jesus meant is not scripture. Please stop confusing the two.
Complete. We have bits and pieces only. Nothing from
mark until the 4th century! 3 lines from a Gospel doesn’t magically authenticate the whole work, let alone the entire NT. The manuscript evidence is extremely poor the first few hundred years, when the texts would be most fluid.Its easy to see what Mark turned into within a few decades of its composition (Matthew and Luke). It is remarkable it survived at all!
Also p52 can paleographically date anywhere form100-225 (see Nongbri). The old, narrow paleographic datings are dead in the water today. Not to mention it has only parts of 7 lines of John (size of a credit card).
Try Fitzmyer’s commentary Luke-Acts (Anchor). I assure you he is not a skeptic.
It is quite obvious from reading it that is does.
Mark was corrected in parts though yes, they certainly agreed with a large core of material in it. Some of the material they found troubling though and needed to be fixed. Some stuff was ignored, expanded and changed, etc. A synopsis and acceptance of Marcan priority makes this impossible to deny.
The protestant canon is not correct. The OT was simply not completely set at the time and the NT uses a lot of works not in the canon. Jesus also appealed to extra-Biblical traditions. There also was no New Testament. Jesus nullified the OT practice of divorce, rejected oaths and had a policy of loving your enemies which is flatly at odds with large swathes of the OT. According to Mark he also completely nullified food laws. Notice Matthew and Luke stay as far away from that as possible and don’t reprint it. His followers violated the sabbath and he defended them, etc. There is certainly friction between Jesus and some things in the OT as the Gospel authors present him. Enough to make the claim that Jesus did not view the OT as modern evangelicals do!
Vinnie
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Dr. Hagner was my professor in seminary and wrote letters of references for me for years.
The list is of scholars who date Matthew prior to AD 70, except for Ehrman who still dates it relatively early, thus proving your claims for a late date to be false and your claim that hardly any serious scholars date the synoptics prior to AD 70 as absurd. You have been proven wrong and need to reflect on that fact.
Mt. 15:6, John 10:35 show that your claim that “no one can truly believe in Jesus and not believe that scripture is the Word of God” is patently false. You try to distract from that with disingenuous, irrelevant comments about capitalization.
The manuscript evidence is not extremely poor from the first three centuries. Much of the NT is reproduced in letters from church fathers.
I’m not interested in your appeals to authority. One can find an “authority” saying almost anything. There’s no evidence that Luke’s infancy narrative is a later addition. The other synoptics didn’t “correct” Mark. They used large portions of it, about of it 90% reappearing in Mt. & Lk. If they found Mark so problematic, obviously they wouldn’t reproduced so much of it.
The Protestant canon is correct. If follows exactly the OT that Jesus affirmed: the Law, Prophets & Writings without the apocrypha that He did not affirm or use. Notice how you make a claim about the Protestant canon and then don’t offer a shred of evidence to prove it. The NT does not “use a lot of works not in the canon.” Jesus did not nullify the OT practice of divorce. He interpreted it in a way in keeping with other prominent interpreters of His time. Jesus did not appeal to extra-Biblical traditions. Matthew and Luke don’t stay “as far away as possible” from the teaching that “all foods are cleansed” (Mk 7:19b). They reproduce the surrounding story and the cleansing of all foods is a theme in Luke sequel, Acts.
Your post is replete with demonstrable falsehoods.
Did you acquire your conversational etiquette from him?
Reiterating the purpose of the list was not necessary. Ehrman’s date is not early. 80-100 is standard and a cluster push specifically for putting it near events ca 85. I never suggested otherwise for Matthew. Mark comes ~40 years after events around 30 and the last Gospel about 70. Matthew is in between. I also said there are a few competent outliers but the majority favor 80-100. That is accurate. Those pre-70 dates you posted are by mostly evangelical leaning scholars. You yourself are of the same school! Your cluster does not a consensus make.
That is not manuscript evidence. And also that claim is entirely misleading. You can’t reproduce much of the NT from church fathers writing up to 200C.E. The further we go from 30CE the more data we have. Therein lies the problem. The earliest level is shrouded in mystery. Not to mention, what is the manuscript evidence for the 2d century works you are using? There is no need to overstate the actual textual evidence for the NT.
He nullifies directly what the OT allows. Give a certificate of divorce? Screw that? Don’t divorce!
Jesus nullified this but not divorce? And curious all those early debates the church had over eating practices when Jesus apparently settled the issue definitively from the beginning. Peter has to receive multiple visions convincing him of what Mark, who apparently is based off Petrine teaching, according to some mistaken apologists, already seems to know. The boat is taking on water!
Vinnie
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I documented a number of recognized scholars who date Matthew prior to AD 70. I proved that your earlier claim about hardly any real scholars doing that was false. Even by your own, erroneous, terms, the average dating of Matthew is from 80-100, then Erhman (a biased, anti-Christian propagandist) puts it in the earlier part of that range.
Yes, quotations in letters from church fathers is manuscript evidence.
Repeating your falsehood about Jesus nullifying the OT divorce laws doesn’t make them come true. Jesus’ interpretation of the OT divorce laws was similar to that of Shammai, a widely recognized rabbi. This is a common observation.
I demonstrated that Matthew and Luke did not stay as far away from a story (on what makes one unclean) in Mark; they actually reported the same story. Luke later, in Acts, shows it applies to food laws.
Mark 7:19b (“thus He cleansed all foods”) doesn’t purport to be a quote of Jesus (obviously, it refers to Him in the third person) but an interpretation of what He said. That Mt. and Lk don’t contain that interpretation is in no way a contradiction. So, yes, Peter had to be taught the meaning of Mk 7:19b. Indeed, since Mark is likely the recollections of Peter who is the source of the interpretation: “thus He cleansed all foods.”
Ah! Now that is a very different matter!
As I have said many many times. Science does not deal in proofs.
Since its basic methodology is inductive, science is about what is reasonable to believe because of the evidence. If a procedure gives the same result a thousand times then given no reason to believe otherwise, it is only reasonable to expect the procedure will give the same result under the same conditions the next time as well.
So I can see that perhaps glossed over this difference and is what you are referring to with your talk of science doing probabilities not truth. BUT I object to the use of the word “probability” not for something which cannot be calculated according to probability theory, but rather for pseudoscientific rhetoric which amounts to no more than what somebody believes to be likely or unlikely. So no don’t agree with equating the above use of “reasonable” with probability since I don’t think such a thing can actually be calculated.
Calculated probability is quite different from the inductive conclusion because it can provide an expectation that a procedure will eventually give a different result if you repeat it enough times.
Just making sure of what you meant
The answer to questions 1 and 2 is that time is relative. Science has done a remarkable job of estimating time from our perspective looking back, but of course we weren’t there to actually witness creation. So I suggest that just like a man on a very fast near light speed space ship can return to earth and find a millennium has past, we might witness creation sitting next to God if that were possible and see it pass in 6 days. The spiritual point of the Bible is that God did it. Ironically I just read Hawking’s posthumous book and he claims the universe was created from nothing, which is what Christians believe. The difference is that he suggests it happened by itself and we say God did it. Which one do you think makes more sense?
Adam and Eve have very similar DNA to apes but that does not mean that they were the children or descendants of apes. It remains unknown at this point how a new species makes a step change but of course Christians believe God did it. I believe that science will show a process as to how this can happen but of course God created the process. Even more importantly man and woman were imbedded with a conscience to do good or bad. There was a first man and woman given this gift of free will and they chose not to follow God but themselves instead. And so we now have the mess we are in and find that Christ as God became man to bail us out.
I hope you find this helpful but stand ready for debate on these important questions.
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Are you familiar with Gerald Schroeder’s relativity days? It’s similar to your suggestion and kind of fun, but I don’t know that it’s necessarily a sound argument, especially in light of an ANE take on interpreting Genesis 1.
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I hear what you are saying. I just think that the arguments over six days gets very divisive and so suggest that the question of time it took is irrelevant be cause time is not a constant.
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Schroeder says 6 24-hour days = 13.8 Ga, depending on where you’re sitting.
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1.1 Do you believe the Bible as the Word of God?
Yes
1.2 If so, how long do you think are the days in Genesis 1? Why?
The ‘Day’ used in this passage or Youm י֥וֹם was translated differently in other passages.
Different translations of Youm.
Because modern science says the Age of the Universe is 13.8 billion years, I’d stick to the scientific consensus.
- How old is the earth? How old is life on earth? What are your reasons for believing
those ages?
4.5 billions years; 3.5 billions years.
Carbon dating, Geological evidences, comparison with new formation of other solar systems and its planets that are now observable by Hubble.
- Did man and apes share a common ancestor? What are your reasons for believing
that they do or don’t share a common ancestor?
Yes, genetic evidences and the genome sequencing suggest there are 98% similarity between human DNA and Chimpanzee’s and Bonobo’s. Combined with entropy analysis, there is a zero chance that the correlations are independent - it would take more than the age of universe for the two arise from independent process. There must be a shared process that explains it.
But, the catch is: as many Young Earth Creationists pointed out: we have yet to find the Common Ancestor. The haven’t been able to identify this common ancestor.
- Were Adam and Eve real people? What are your reasons for believing they are or aren’t real people?
I believe they were.
Yet, human evolved from previous species.
Because the Bible says so and Christ said so.
There is no scientific evidence about literal Adam and Eve, especially Eve who were taken from Adam’s ribs.
(Schroeder does the math.)
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The issue here is: even the Sun and the Stars were created on the 4th day.
It is possible that the days did overlap.
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