rationalskepticism.org

Mike S wrote:

Moonwatcher wrote:
Interesting. I did a check on Wikipedia of the various dates attributed by scholars to the four gospels and the range was as follows:

Mark: c. 68–73,[33] c. 65–70.[34]
Matthew: c. 70–100,[33] c. 80–85.[34]
Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85,[33] c. 80–85.[34]
John: c. 90–100,[34] c. 90–110,[35] The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

Obviously, the earliest dates are literalist believer dates. For instance, anything dated before AD 70 is preposterous.

That there are no mentions of these gospels prior to 175 is a significant piece of evidence and, in your case, I have a suspicion the opinion comes from someone not driven by agenda.

What are your thoughts as to why so many scholars, secular included, accept the earlier dates? Tradition? Linguistic evidence in choice of words, etc., matching earlier times?

The explanation for the various gospels and the inclusion of Paul who presents a different take on Jesus may well be explained by placating hugely different views of what the religion was.

What are my thoughts as to why so many scholars accept the early dates? A question that’s repeatedly crossed my mind for some years now!

I’d love to put the question directly to Doherty, Erhman or Carrier: “Without a shred of supporting evidence - in fact with all of the available evidence pointing to a much later date, and with no mention by any writer whatsoever, friendly or foe, prior to say 175 AD - why do you still assert that the canonical gospels were produced some time in the first century, or shortly thereafter? On what exactly do you base such a conclusion?”

In fact, there’s scarcely any doubt that the four gospels were introduced into general circulation through the agency of Irenaeus in Gaul, Clement in Alexandria, and Tertullian in Northern Africa, and who concurrently laid the foundations for eventual Roman Catholic Supremacy.

In his third book against Heresies, written around 190 AD or so, Irenaeus already saw fit to express the opinion that every church ought to agree with the Church of Rome; Tertullian was in full agreement therewith, those of Clement were somewhat less explicit.

I think that most of the mainstream authors do not wish to be seen as too extreme, too far out of step with either their colleagues or the work of the majority of preceding scholars, other than perhaps having already committed themselves to the orthodox dates/pattern previously.

Imagine yourself as one of the mentioned writers: you’ve published various books and given a number of lectures, both predicated on the generally-accepted gospel dates (and you may even have a website narrating Christianity’s development along the same lines). I doubt you’d be too impressed if someone then came along and turned the whole apple-cart upside down!


Dangerous words mentioning Marcionism, RealityRules, especially in connection with Paul: we’ll be here forever!