Dating the synoptic gospels of the New Testament

[toejam]

I agree that we can't say with any degree of confidence what Jesus did or did not say when it comes to specifics. But I think we can come to some basic view of the kind of things he probably said - i.e. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that he was probably a parabolist who spoke of the coming 'Kingdom of God' etc.

[neilgodfrey]

I agree that we can't say with any degree of confidence what Jesus did or did not say when it comes to specifics. But I think we can come to some basic view of the kind of things he probably said - i.e. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that he was probably a parabolist who spoke of the coming 'Kingdom of God' etc.

To make these assessments requires us to begin with a certain conception of what Jesus was like, who he was and what he stood for and what he accomplished. How can we begin with such a view unless we first accept that he probably said or did certain things? In other words, we are in a circular trap.

[arnoldo]

What rapture? What evidence is there that they ever waited for a rapture?

See 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 and 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17for some examples of an alleged expectation of the parousia in the pseudo pauline writings. Also, see James 5:7;1 John 2:28 just to name a few.

[Andrew]

Parousia does not equal rapture, though the quote from 1 Thessalonians does describe what sounds like the rapture. I don't think it needs to be interpreted literally though.

[steve43]

Rapture is apparently an inflammatory word.

Second Coming covers it, I think.

[Andrew]

Yes, or parousia. The word "rapture" denotes a specific type of parousia.

[Adam]

What date would you assign to the synoptic gospels? Perhaps that's best discussed in another part of the forum.

My website estimates that they date between 70 and 130...

Do you have a break down of what you would consider to be the genuine sayings of Jesus? Would you include Matthew 21-25 as genuine sayings?

I'm Lost,n tym, 8:
Why do you pick such a difficult slab of chapters from the most disparate of all the gospels?

That selection includes lots of purely Matthean (M) sayings, most notably the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, beloved of Pelagian (and some Arminian) theologians to prove that virtue pays and evil in punished; Mt 25:31-46. Same applies to both preceding parables in Matthew 25. It's as if (and may well be) that the final editor fitted this late material in just before launching in to the Passion Narrative chapters 26 and 27. (But did he also insert Mt 21:28-31, 45-46 and 23:1-12, 14-24, 26-32?) Contrast this with Mt 20:1-16 with its anti-Pelagian "death-bed conversion" motif--is it from a different editor's "Matthean" additions?

At the other extreme is Mt 21:1-17, 23-27; 22:15-46; 24:1-25, 29-36. It is all shared Synoptic material, the Triple-Tradition (though by my view supported MacDonald's Q+, it is what I say is from the Grundschrift). By a broader view of "Matthean" there is also Mt 21:17-22 that is later material added conjointly to Mark (Mk 11:12-14, 20-24) and Matthew.
That still leaves the large hunk usually called simply Q that is shared with Luke only. However, it comprises at least two layers. I used to follow Boismard (and Benoit) in seeing Matthew as copying in Mt 23:33-24:51 from wherever comparable verses were scattered in at least five locations in the near-final edition of Luke (Lk 3:7; 11:49-51; 13:34-35; 21:5-33; 12:42-46; and17:26-27, 34-35, 37) . I now see these as the final Q stratum identifiable by such exact Greek correspondence between Matthew and Luke.
To further complicate matters, there is some of the original Q independently translated from Aramaic scattered in these chapters as well. See Mt 21:31b-43; 22:1-14; 23:13,25 and perhaps some of the elements of the first two parables in Matthew 25 that are not attributable to independent oral or written Aramaic tradition (though in the latter case would be yet another strand in what Maurice Casey calls "Chaotic Q ".
Edited to add:
As for dating, the earliest of Q layers could have been written in Aramaic taken (by Matthew himself, like as not) down while Jesus was preaching. I strongly contend for a written Aramaic Q for most of the looser parallels among the three Synoptics, but if these were late insertions (in these Mt chapters 21 to 25) on the line of Casey's Chaotic Q I would not rule out oral tradition. The bulk of "Q" passages here are quite exact, so that they came into Matthew and Luke from Greek allows (or demands?) a later date, maybe the '50's. The Triple Tradition passages in Matthew 26 and 27 include much from the Passion Diary I contend that John Mark wrote immediately, but the specifics are better seen in the S and G that Howard Teeple extracted from John 18 to 19. The Triple Tradition I list above is from later date, but I am sympathetic to the arguments of Casey and James Crossley that the Little Apocalypse gelled around the Caligula Crisis sometime during his reign as Caesar from 37 to 41 A. D. In Matthew 24 we find a particular propensity to intensify whatever Jesus said in this regard to apply end-time prophecy to immediate liberation from the Roman yoke. Though it is obvious Jesus spoke on this subject, he was not an apocalyptic prophet. Even his hot-head disciples don't quote Jesus as speaking on the matter to the crowds nor even in secret until immediately before he was crucified.

The second (or third, depending on whether we follow Kloppenborg's dubious separation or Casey's chaotic version) layer o Q material that comes to us from a Greek translation does not necessarily have to be late. These portions could have been written up in Greek originally or could have been translated from Aramaic to Greek with only this latter document known to the evangelists. Using style instead of presupposed ideological contrasts (as per Kloppenborg and the whole Jesus Seminar crowd), I don't find that much difference between Q1 and Q2 (or Q3, etc.) Yet I'm willing to concede that the more purely obviously early "Q" sayings do tend to support a Historical Jesus who is more like a Cynic philosopher (and Franciscan monk) than like any Caesaropapist (or certainly not Byzantine Orthodox) state religion.
M and its perhaps identical secondary Marcan layer could well be later, from the '60's, let's say, with the Gospel of Matthew written in that decade.

[Metacrock]

What date would you assign to the synoptic gospels? Perhaps that's best discussed in another part of the forum.

My website estimates that they date between 70 and 130, roughly.

Maybe a thread under Christian Texts and History?

I can move this discussion there.

70 and 130 is a pretty board spread. We can do a lot better than that. No offense. I respect your research a lot. I think that's too wide a spread. We can put in the first century that's pretty certain.

One thing that always bothers me is these synoptic don't give any trace of the temple being recently destroyed. If the temple was destroyed their world would be upside down. That would be like writing in post nuclear apocalypse and talking about a happy peaceful world of the time just before as though noting happened. That is except for the "prophetic" expectation of 70. Then the skeptic can't accept pre 70, just rule it out regardless of any evidence. that's a totally ideolgoical necessity.

I am a counter skeptic. I'm skeptical of skeptics. I tend to feel that any ideological necessity must be rejected on principle. If you can't accept pre 70 because it would imply supernatural knowledge, then you are probably letting your biases rule our thinking even if they have a good basis in empiricism.

[perseusomega9]

I never understand that in any other document we expect that prophecy is after the fact but in the case of the gospels we're being horribly biased if we don't give supernaturalism a chance.

[Metacrock]

I never understand that in any other document we expect that prophecy is after the fact but in the case of the gospels we're being horribly biased if we don't give supernaturalism a chance.

To pin one's argument on a prophesy is ciruclar reasoning. the fulfillment is the thing being argued. But to pin your doubt on the automatic assumtion that no prophesy could ever be true is just a circular. Even if we exclude such evidence form the rules of historiography, as indeed I agree we must, we can't base anything on the assumption that "this dare not be true." We have to at least be open to the possibility or we are just committing the same fallacy in reverse.

When and If (big if as we used to say) it comes time to make good on a supernatural calim then we have to talk about rules change. We have to say "this is not historiography but something else."

consult Jurgen Moltmann Theoloyg of Hope on rules change. His concept of Not historical but history making.