A random prophet sharing a random prophecy with a random church? Sounds cool to me.
That’s not too surprising. It can be difficult to take a dispassionate view of something that is so strongly tied to one’s own emotions. I’m not the type of atheist who has any interest in beating the heads of Christians with scholarly works on Christianity. Quite the opposite.
Traditionally, the gospel accounts are closer in proximity to Jesus than any other documents. There are no other documents that have the same provenance. Unless some new archaeological find contains the direct writings of the one of the disciples the gospels are as close as we get. Acts would probably fit in here as well. This is why the cannon has not expanded, at least from my understanding. This would probably make Revelations the black sheep of the NT family (without getting into the questions related to some of the letters traditionally credited to Paul).
Out of curiosity, why is that?
note: There are no wrong answers here, I am genuinely interested the views that Christians hold. Not looking for debate or “point scoring”.
I was under the impression that Paul’s true letters were the oldest, then Mark, then the rest of the Gospels, probably Matthew then Luke and lastly John. Of course, you said traditionally, and tradition and actual scholarly findings often vary.
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That’s what I was taught in my New Testament class at university.
Indeed. The NT cannon, Nicene Creed, and modern Christianity are products of that early tradition so I tend to lean on tradition the most. I leave it to Christians to figure out how to treat modern and classical biblical scholarship.
True though a few scholars think they can reconstruct layers in GThomas and date one early. But yes, the canonical Gospels represent our best and earliest shot at learning about the historical Jesus.
Acts calls two of them unlettered. Most of them were probably illiterate and many in the early church couldn’t read, It’s hard to imagine Peter the Aramaic speaking Jewish fisherman writing in high Greek that would take decades to learn and master. Though 1 Peter claims it was written through Silvanus as it would have to be whether genuine or not— as everyone probably knew Peter couldn’t write in Greek at the time.
Paul and the early church expected the end to be very soon. Many scholars feel it wasn’t until that end really didn’t come and most of the first followers were gone or dying that Gospel texts started being written.
The fourfold Gospel is not in doubt canon-wise. Books like 2 Peter (written ca 125 CE) and Revelation are a concern as well as some of the Pastorals. There are also books many wanted included. Shepherd of Hermas comes to mind: The church fathers were not unanimous by any stretch on our current cannon but pretty close. Nor do they show themselves to always possess good information. Hebrews made it (and the pastorals) because they incorrectly believed Paul wrote them. Matthew and John are most likely not written by their namesakes, Matthew was not the first Godpel written and it was not written originally in Aramaic. That doesn’t mean this is not the canon God wanted. In Christian theology His will always seems to get done in the end regardless of what his followers do.
Correct though Luke may date later than John. Luke acts dates 75-125Ce given it probably alludes to Paul’s death and most likely was written after the temple was destroyed. It is very hard to narrow a date further. Basically you accept 75-100 of you think the we passages in Acts are about its author. If you don’t the whole range is open.
Most scholars also don’t care too much about the dates. A text written in the 90s by an again disciple could be a far better historical source than a second or third hand gospel from the 70s. Most scholars based their thoughts on the Gosples based on internal analysis.
Because I’m more interested in debating atheism
This question is still banging around in my head, so some further thoughts. This is all based on my very limited understanding of the history of Judaism, so any corrections or criticisms are appreciated.
The replacement of Temple Judaism with Rabbinic Judaism seems to be the major motivating factor for closing the Tanakh cannon, but it I do wonder if the Tanakh would have been continually added to if Temple Judaism and an intact nation of Israel had survived into the present day. Obviously, the Torah would not be added to, but what of the Nevi’im and Ketuvim? Just a thought.
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It is a great book, really a written down sermon.
It does include one of the 9 or so obvious errors that I have found in the canon.
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Please share that, or PM me as I would love to look at it
That is a very early date for 2 Peter. No church leaders mentioned it before about 200 AD.
That is a very late date for Acts and Luke, given that the destruction of Jerusalem is not mentioned.
Will do in a pm
Seems to me a very odd stance. Many atheists are ex-Christians or have studied the Bible and found it insufficient for faith. The science v faith debate is primarily centred around the interpretations or understanding of Genesis. Understanding and debating what atheists see in scripture is the only way to answer their questions or charges
Richard
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It’s not a “late” date. It is the moderate date espoused by the scholarly consensus. Though I think most would fall in the 80-110 range. Late would be 150. Early is pre-70. Even if Luke did not allude to the temple destruction there is no reason to necessarily date it before it. A Gentile author writing to Gentiles 40 years later and a generation or two removed from the event has no need to mention this event in specific detail. But that he does and details line up may indicate Luke expects his audience to know this was fulfilled. But Christians 1000 miles away won’t necessarily care about a Jewish building being destroyed 50 years later. Not as much as Jews who saw the Temple as God’s dwelling place on earth. For ther Christians, , they just took it to believe that we are the new temple. It’s for the same reasons a lot of scholars date Mark post 70 because the second half of the Gospel spends so much time on the temple. It’s clear that Mark is largely writing for Gentiles. He writes in Greek and explains Jewish customs and Aramaic phrases. Why any Gentile would care about the temple before it’s destroyed or long after is a valid question to ask. That is why Mark is usually dated just before or after. Mark is seen by some as a response to Flavian propaganda.
The truth is for Luke-Acts that we really don’t have a lot of information. It dates somewhere between Mark and Marcion. Polycarp my allude to a few things in Acts. But there is hardly much more to narrow it down.
Also don’t forget Luke claims “many had already written before him” so we must suppose at least 2 gospels are already written if not 3 or more. Luke admits to being a second generation follower of Jesus… Many had written and he is investigating carefully what he feels are apostolic teachings that were handed on. I suppose you could get I’ll argue for a date in the 60s with this information but I think it fits best 75-125. The we passages would make 75-100 the most probable if accepted. The text of Luke was very fluid in the 2d century as well. The other problem is some serious scholars (Mason, Pervo [the pedophile] etc. find Josephus to have been dependent upon Josephus (a work in the early 90s) which puts his writing ca. 100. Though I did just read a scholarly journal article that claims Josephus’s description of Jesus may have known of something like the Emmaus narrative! Not much I’d iron clad here.
The temple is not iron clad in Luke but I see some of the detail as ex eventu. The no stone left stands in in the way of this but is explicable. This of course does not mean the HJ did not predict the temple’s eventual destruction. There is little reason to think he could not or would not. But some of the details line up to the point where it seems our canonical authors are writing after the fact. I also see Acts knows of Paul’s death and for me, Mark writes 70-75 since the Temple is so important to the second half of his gospel. The event is near and dear. Though a small minority of scholars place it near the Caligula event.
I agree that there is not much external information about when the gospels were written. Much depends on the interpretation of the texts and do we believe what the writer tells.
For example, when Luke tells about the journeys of Paul in the form “we went”, you either believe that Luke was participating to the journey, or that he just copied the text of someone who was there. If the date of the writing is estimated early, it is easy to believe that Luke participated to the journey. If the date is much after the events, then the interpretation is that Luke must have copied the text of someone else. In both cases, we have to admit that it is an interpretation because we do not have hard facts. Maybe the Luke in the letters of Paul give a hint, supporting a relatively early date for the Acts but even that depends on the interpretation of who is the Luke that Paul was mentioning, was it Luke the author of Acts or someone else?
If the date of the Acts is relatively early and at least 2 gospels had been written before Luke wrote, that would support an early date for the earlier gospels, or at least for early versions of the gospels. This makes the dating a web where one estimation affects the dating of the other writings.
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It’s not that I don’t care what atheists think. Christopher Hitchens book was important for me.
The thing is, while it’s one thing to talk about the Bible with atheists, and to read what they say about it, I have absolutely zero interest in arguing about it with someone who doesn’t believe God exists in the first place. For me, I would rather debate atheism.
It’s fine that others see it differently, and I hope it works for them.
Don’t forget this either:
Luke traveled with Paul. And Paul was there at the stoning of Stephen. So Luke and Paul were contemporaries and this required his writings to be early.
The passage you quote does recognize that records of the life of Jesus were written very early.
It’s one thing to lay out the flaws in atheism, à la Marcelo Gleiser and others, but isn’t it another to continue to attempt to edify a resolute and committed sadducean denialist?
Why? Christian’s believe John lived and wrote in his 90s? Why does the narrative change when it’s a view point we might not like? Doesn’t Luke join Paul in the 50s? If Luke was 30 then there is no issue with him writing in the 90s. Do we know Luke knew Paul in the 30s and Luke was a grown man already?
This of course assumes a specific authorship and interpretation of the we passages. I already said if the “we passages” are genuine Luke writes 75-100. Nothing of this requires “early writings” since we have no idea how old Luke was when he traveled with Paul in the 50s. A broad range is all we can be certain of.
Define very early because it reeks of apologetical exuberance. Luke using Mark and hearing or knowing of other gospels written in the 70s or 80s is very consistent with authorship 90-125. Most scholars think Luke did not use Matthew which means we may have lost several very early gospels which may or may not have agreed with those that survive:
Many would not consider a full generation or two after the events to be very early even if the surviving corpus for Jesus is far better than the vast majority of most other people who lived at the time who we know virtually nothing about.
There are several moving parts to all theories on dating and authorship but it’s my opinion that we should steel man those we disagree with and not fall victim to confirmation bias and overestimate what we know.
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Didn’t you say you know of hundreds or thousands of errors in the Bible and that someone could not rationally believe the Bible is without error?
I get that you have strong opinions against some books being included in the canon, but is there any book you see as being without error?
Sproul once made a clever point about how infallible writers require greater epistemic weight than merely inerrant authors.