Why did no New Testament books mention AD70?

[Ged]

My full question is; which of the New Testament books were written after AD70? Assuming there are several, why did none of them mention the 'earth-shattering' events of AD70? The destruction of the temple by Rome fulfilled one of Jesus' own prophecies (Matt. 24:1-3) and its theological significance was central to Christianity. (John 2:19-22) It would have at least been alluded to, surely.

[Peter Kirby]

According to ECW (my site...), these NT books are placed after AD 65 (marked with asterisk), along with other books of the era:

Gospel of Mark*
Epistle of James*
Egerton Gospel
Gospel of Peter
Fayyum Fragment
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Mara Bar Serapion
2 Thessalonians*
Ephesians*
Gospel of Matthew*
1 Peter*
Epistle of Barnabas
Gospel of Luke*
Acts of the Apostles*
1 Clement
Gospel of the Egyptians
Gospel of the Hebrews
Christian Sibyllines
Revelation*
Gospel of John*
1 John*
2 John*
3 John*
Epistle of Jude*
Flavius Josephus
1 Timothy*
2 Timothy*
Titus*
Apocalypse of Peter
Secret Book of James
Preaching of Peter
Gospel of the Ebionites
Gospel of the Nazoreans
Shepherd of Hermas
2 Peter*

There doesn't appear to be anything special about describing the destruction or not. Josephus clearly does so, but in general, where do we find descriptions of the destruction of the temple in Christian literature outside of the NT? There are some, after several decades, but it's far from consistent.

If it's not something that is often spoken of explicitly outside of the NT, then we might have to rethink the assumption ("surely") of this thread.

Indeed, genre considerations make most of the NT books fairly unlikely to mention it as an event of the past. This is because they are either describing the life/death/resurrection of Jesus (the Gospels) or writing in the names of the apostles. It would break the setting to describe any events of the more recent past, and so these books don't do it, at least in any "provable" or "obvious" way. These considerations regard:

Gospel of Mark*
Gospel of Matthew*
Gospel of Luke*
Gospel of John*
2 Thessalonians*
Ephesians*
1 Timothy*
2 Timothy*
Titus*
1 John*
2 John*
3 John*
1 Peter*
2 Peter*
Epistle of James*
Epistle of Jude*

This leaves two books in the NT where you could possibly make a reasonable argument:

Acts of the Apostles*
Revelation*

And indeed there have been numerous arguments made for dating Acts and Revelation before AD 70 for these kinds of reasons, by a wide array of scholars (famously, Harnack reversed his position on this at one point, in the case of Acts). This is the sane and sensible argument, although it falls short of convincing another wide swath. There is also the blanket argument about the NT made by Robinson, but it is just a very bad argument from silence, like many other such. If it were a good argument, we'd see the entire Nag Hammadi Library dated before AD 70. Is anyone ready for that conclusion?

(There are also various bits in the Gospels, etc. that some have detected as some kind of allusion or other -- I am not ignorant of them, and I assume that the reader either is not or can avail the resources of the internet to find the relevant arguments, so I will not open myself up to an interminable debate over their interpretation by going over them again, as the brief yet provocative OP clearly disagrees with that view. These are not "provable.")

[Stuart]

Luke 21:5-6 and parallels, Mark 13:1-2, Matthew 24:1-2

Me thinks you are trolling here. You know that.

The NT is genre literature, setting events in the reign if Tiberius, and Paul being set in the reign of Claudius. Because of these fictions the destruction of the temple is only alluded to. To speak directly about it would upset the timeline laid out (e.g., Acts 21:6). The book of Hebrews deals with the issue of sacrifice without the Temple. That the temple is destroyed is also hinted at by the emphasis on Hosea 6:6 (Matthew 9:13, 12:7, Mark 12:13) to replace sacrifice. This is a problem faced, especially by "Jewish" or should I say more Torah observant Christians. The issue of sacrifice replacement is present also in Christians offering their own body as a symbolic sacrifice (Romans 12:1, Ephesians 5:2, Philippians 4:18), just as Hebrew 9:23-28 takes up the issue with Christ as the sacrifice for all. None of this would be an issue were the temple not already long destroyed.

So the NT does speak of it, and does take up the issues caused by it. But it is necessarily oblique because the literature is a period piece, with a fixed setting in time prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. But its a distant memory. Other issues have come to the fore.

All the NT books were written after. Of course conservative scholarship gives special predictive ability to the texts and so says the letters of Paul were written before, and the Gospels shortly after. Peter gives you a good list. (This is a view I do not subscribe to, I see them all much later, dealing with issues in the post Bar Kokhba era).

[Ged]

There doesn't appear to be anything special about describing the destruction or not. Josephus clearly does so, but in general, where do we find descriptions of the destruction of the temple in Christian literature outside of the NT? There are some, after several decades, but it's far from consistent.

Are there any Roman records of the Jewish wars apart from Josephus? Also, I seem to recall a statement by Clement. Ill see if I can find it.

I see you place the 4 main gospels after AD 65? I find it difficult to understand how they could have written their accounts without reference to, or at least blithely toward these events.

[Ged]

... To speak directly about it would upset the timeline laid out (e.g., Acts 21:6) ...

Did you mean to write 21:6? Also, when do you date Acts? Are you saying that Acts was a fictional timeline written in the Bar Kokhba period?

[spin]

I find it difficult to understand how they could have written their accounts without reference to, or at least blithely toward these events.

The rending of the temple curtain is a symbol of the disinheritance of the Jews, the overthrow of the priestly religion, the opening up of the cultus to all, not just the Jews (or the priests into the temple), but that requires the loss of the temple and the fall of Jerusalem. It is a highly significant symbol.

If that for some reason doesn't communicate that the writers knew about the war, the parable of the wicked tenants (Mk 12:1-12) also demonstrated the same things, the wicked tenants being the Jews and the vineyard with its tower that was theirs to cultivate was given over to others and the wicked tenants were destroyed. The parable is closed with a quote, "the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone...", which points to the vaticinium ex eventu in 13:1-2 about the destruction of the temple, "not one stone".

[Peter Kirby]

There doesn't appear to be anything special about describing the destruction or not. Josephus clearly does so, but in general, where do we find descriptions of the destruction of the temple in Christian literature outside of the NT? There are some, after several decades, but it's far from consistent.

Are there any Roman records of the Jewish wars apart from Josephus? Also, I seem to recall a statement by Clement. Ill see if I can find it.

We get this statement in the Epistle of Barnabas, which is the main one I had in mind with "some ... but it's far from consistent."

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/barnabas.html

In 16:3-4, the Epistle of Barnabas says: "Furthermore he says again, 'Lo, they who destroyed this temple shall themselves build it.' That is happening now. For owing to the war it was destroyed by the enemy; at present even the servants of the enemy will build it up again." This clearly places Barnabas after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. But it also places Barnabas before the Bar Kochba revolt in 132 CE, after which there could have been no hope that the Romans would help to rebuild the temple. This shows that the document comes from the period between these two revolts.

That makes it something like 1/16 on that list, among the Christian books outside the NT. That's not a high enough rate to think much of this argument.

I see you place the 4 main gospels after AD 65? I find it difficult to understand how they could have written their accounts without reference to, or at least blithely toward these events.

You've found this argument somewhere before, and by this time, you've gotten comfortable with it to the point that you find the situation "difficult to understand." This is subjective. You aren't asking this question regarding the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Philip. So it is both subjective and selectively applied. If that's all there is to it, it should be rejected.

You can look for explanations, but there usually is not proof for a possible explanation. If you are satisfied with possible explanations without proof, then you aren't trying very hard to find them. Stuart and spin already offered one, which you could also find discussed in plenty of books. If the explanation is merely a plausible one and if your explanation is also merely a plausible one, there is no advantage to assuming your explanation is correct, and there is no good argument here.

You also have no proof for your explanation, obviously, and it is the structure of your argument that it is an argument reaching to an explanation. You have no proof that the Gospels were written before AD 70. So your explanation is just as unproven and without evidence as any other that can be offered. At least one other unproven (but plausible) explanation can be offered. So the argument is invalid.

[davidbrainerd]

"for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." 1 Thes 2:16. Obvious reference to 70 AD. Interpolation or not. I'd say interpolation of mention of 70 AD into a forgery that's trying to sound pre-70 by not mentioning 70. I bet the first forger would be mad at the 2nd if they ever met.

Also, if Jesus was really prophecying, he would have known better than to say "not one stone will be left upon another" as would someone who was familiar with Jerusalem after the destruction. Clearly the prophecy is made up by someone after 70 AD who is not familiar with Jerusalem first hand but just read Josephus or heard stories by word of mouth of 70 AD. Apologetic tactics exist, like saying the Wailing Wall is really the wall of the temple of Jupiter, etc. But the remaining underground stone structures of the temple belie that, don't thry? Not one stone left upon another is such a bad hyperbole that the gospel writers ought to have known not to make it that obvious.

[Stuart]

I find it difficult to understand how they could have written their accounts without reference to, or at least blithely toward these events.

The rending of the temple curtain is a symbol of the disinheritance of the Jews, the overthrow of the priestly religion, the opening up of the cultus to all, not just the Jews (or the priests into the temple), but that requires the loss of the temple and the fall of Jerusalem. It is a highly significant symbol.

If that for some reason doesn't communicate that the writers knew about the war, the parable of the wicked tenants (Mk 12:1-12) also demonstrated the same things, the wicked tenants being the Jews and the vineyard with its tower that was theirs to cultivate was given over to others and the wicked tenants were destroyed. The parable is closed with a quote, "the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone...", which points to the vaticinium ex eventu in 13:1-2 about the destruction of the temple, "not one stone".

The Wicked Tenants could more probably be placed after Bar Kokhba. After the Jewish revolt Jerusalem was torn down, and many enslaved. But the countryside was left alone. Archeology shows thriving Jewish communities throughout Judea into the first half of the 2nd century. They are gone in the second half and replaced by gentile communities. Those are the new tenants working the imperial estates. There were still Jews working the estates until the Bar Kokhba revolt.

[Charles Wilson]

My full question is; which of the New Testament books were written after AD70? Assuming there are several, why did none of them mention the 'earth-shattering' events of AD70? The destruction of the temple by Rome fulfilled one of Jesus' own prophecies (Matt. 24:1-3) and its theological significance was central to Christianity. (John 2:19-22) It would have at least been alluded to, surely.

Start with Acts, since you get Level 1 Symbolism that wears its Symbolism on its sleeve. BTW, Tacitus is ALL OVER the Book of Acts.

Acts 3 introduces the 12th Legion. The 12th is crippled and beat up.
Acts 5 tells of Sapphira and Annanias, ciphers for Messilina and her lover, Silius. Big Joke: "Hark, the feet of those that have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out."

Tacitus, Annals, Book 11 "at the bottom":

"Evodus, one of the freedmen, was appointed to watch and complete the affair. Hurrying on before with all speed to the gardens, he found Messalina stretched upon the ground, while by her side sat Lepida, her mother, who, though estranged from her daughter in prosperity, was now melted to pity by her inevitable doom..."

Acts 6 is extremely important. The character "Stephen Martyr" is a cipher for Frugi Piso, the 4 day Emperor. There is an important trail to follow. This is the introduction of the Template of Paul, a man named Mucianus. He gets into it with Vespasian and it takes Titus to act as a mediator between the 2 to mend things up. This Scene is the Vision on the Road to Damascus.

One last moment:

Acts 9: 33 - 35 (RSV):

[33] There he found a man named Aene'as, who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed.
[34] And Peter said to him, "Aene'as, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed." And immediately he rose.
[35] And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

The Time Marker here is 70 AD. The 12th Legion (again) is being showcased. What happened 8 years prior to 70 with the 12th Legion? The Parthians humiliated them so bad that they would not leave their tents to defend themselves. They lost their Standards and not even the General Corbulo could do much (BTW, this also is from Annals. Verification that this History was not forged.)

On and on and on and on... The Destruction of the Temple is certainly found in the NT. Acts is the Story of the 12th Legion and especially Mucianus.

CW