On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

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Kapyong
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On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

Post by Kapyong »

Gday all,

Rather than de-rail the thread on Carrier's OHJ, I thought this subject might benefit from a thread of its own.

The external record suggest a late arrival of the Gospels. Here is my expanded chronology including many documents that help to show the evolution of the Gospel :

50s-70s Sayings and Stories of a celestial Jesus are created from (from 'visions' and the Tanakh)
50s - Paul : 1Thess., 1&2 Cor., Gal., Rom., Phill., Phil. - no historical detail
60-70 Hebrews, mentions some Jesus Stories
80s - Colossians, 1 John, James - no historical details
80-90 Clement, knows two sayings of Jesus
90s - Eph., 2 Thess., 1 Peter - no historical detail
90-100 Didache, knows the Lord's prayer
100s Jude - says very little about Jesus
100-110 Barnabas, knows a few stories about Jesus
120 Proposed creation of the first Gospel
120s 2&3 John, Preaching of Peter, Quadratus - knows some Jesus stories
110-130 Ignatius, knows some stories of Jesus
130s? Papias' clues of written Gospels come from Eusebius
135? Apocalypse of Peter knows Mark/Matthew
140s? Marcion's version of Luke
140s Epistles of the Apostles talks about writing Gospels
138-161 Aristides mentions an un-named singular Gospel that is 'recently preached'
150s Justin mentions memoirs called Gospels - no names of authors
140-160 Ptolemy knows G.John by text
150-200 Acts of Peter knows a written Gospel
170 Heracleon knows G.John by text
170-200 The Treatise on the Resurrection knows a written Gospel
170s The diaTessaron has four (un-named?) Gospels
180s Irenaeus quotes four Gospels by name


This suggest several stages :
1. Visions and revelation about Jesus (50-70)
2. Stories and Sayings of Jesus circulate, some are written down (80-110)
3. Gospels first created around 120 CE
4. First clues to Gospels around 130-140
5. Cites to Gospels 140-170
6. Gospels numbered then named by 180
7. Explosion of Gospel citations from 180 on

As to why the internal datings suggest otherwise, I wonder whether we have an example of a piece of theological literature from a sect that believes in God acting in History and writing a tract that is set in an earlier period. In other words, G.Mark was written in Bar Kochba times but was deliberately set in the Temple's Fall timeline.


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Re: On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

Post by Kapyong »

Gday MrMacSon,
MrMacSon wrote:Hi Kapyong;
1. What texts or evidence points to "50s-70s Sayings and Stories of a celestial Jesus are created (from 'visions' and the Tanakh)"?
I am thinking about Paul and Hebrews - both have stories about a Jesus Christ that can arguably be placed in the heavens, as Carrier and Doherty claim, although there are plenty to argue against that.

Paul says his gospel about Jesus Christ came from 1) revelation of the Holy Spirit and b) his new reading of the scriptures; not from any man.
MrMacSon wrote:2. Are the early references to Jesus per se, or a similar name; or Chrit (or a variation of Christ, such as 'Chrestus'?)
When I first analysed all the texts for the word Jesus, Christ etc. for my table, I found from the very beginning that the name 'Jesus Christ' and 'Jesus' and 'Christ' were all used with a similar frequency, there was no pattern to the that data - so would you believe I took that column out of my table :)

I completely ignored the Christus / Chrestus problem - but there is a normalising affect that replaces Chrestus with Christus whenever it is found in the right Context. The Latin 'Chrestus' is usually translated into 'Christ' if the context is right; and I did my searching in English.

What it did show is that the name 'Jesus Christ' (whether Christus or Chrestus) was known from the very beginnings of the Christian era. Unlike the stories and titles and sayings about him which show a pattern of growth however.


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Re: On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

Post by MrMacSon »

Kapyong wrote:The external record suggest a late arrival of the Gospels. Here is my expanded chronology including many documents that help to show the evolution of the Gospel :
  • 50s-70s Sayings and Stories of a celestial Jesus are created from (from 'visions' and the Tanakh)
    50s - Paul : 1Thess., 1&2 Cor., Gal., Rom., Phill., Phil. - no historical detail
Kapyong wrote:I am thinking about Paul and Hebrews - both have stories about a Jesus Christ that can arguably be placed in the heavens, as Carrier and Doherty claim, although there are plenty to argue against that.

Paul says his gospel about Jesus Christ came from 1) revelation of the Holy Spirit and b) his new reading of the scriptures; not from any man.
Are you relying on 'internal' "evidence" when you say
  • "50s - Paul : 1Thess., 1&2 Cor., Gal., Rom., Phill., Phil. - no historical detail"
  • Paul and Hebrews - both have stories about a Jesus Christ; and
  • Paul says his gospel about Jesus Christ came from ??
Do we have external evidence for those dates?
.
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Re: On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

Post by Blood »

I'm thinking of an evolution more like this:

0-100 Sayings and Stories of a celestial Jesus are created from (from 'visions' and the Tanakh) but none make it into gospels. No "Q".
0-100 Ascension of Isaiah (proto-Christian)
0-100 Wisdom of Solomon (proto-Christian)
0-125 2 Maccabees (proto-Christian)
0-150 Testaments of the Patriarchs (proto-Christian)
0-150 other misc pseudepigrapha, usually misattributed to Second Temple Judaism (proto-Christian)
70-100 gMark
70-100 Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, aka Revelation
100-150 gMatthew
c 125 Apostolikon of Marcionites
c 125 Euangelion of Marcionites
125-150 gLuke + Acts, written to refute Marcionism, incorporate more data from Josephus, bring Catholic patron Peter in line with Paul, and give origin myth to Catholic sect
125-170 catholic recension of Apostolikon (catholics mistakenly believe these are authentic epistles)
150-170 gJohn
150-170 Pastoral epistles
150-170 Hebrews
150-170 1 & 2 Peter
150-170 1-3 John
150-170 Jude
150-170 1 Clement (same author as Hebrews)
150-170 Barnabas
150-170 first "New Testament" compiled by Catholics
150-170 Acts of Paul, Acts of Pilate, etc.
150-170 Ignatian Epistles

The lack of a mention of a "historical Jesus" in the Apostolikon is a red herring. It has nothing to do with a supposedly "early" date pre-gospels.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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LXX, G.Mark and 1 Clement 'The people this'

Post by Kapyong »

Gday,

I'm answering this one here as it relates to the dating of the Gospels.

Firstly, here is the background English version of the Greek argument, as best I can translate being a non Greek speaker:

LXX has : "The people this ..."
Mark has "This the people", along with "This blah..." many times
Clement has "This the people".
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: But in the Gospel of Mark, you can see that Mark particularly emphasized the word "οὗτος". Mark used the word "οὗτος" 12 times.
With you so far - he likes "οὗτος" ("this").
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: At no point, the word has only its “normal” meaning. It is only at key points.
Sorry, I don't get this - what is the normal meaning? "this"?
Then what is the abnormal meaning ?
'At no point' but also 'at key points'.
I just don't understand you here.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: So it would be obvious that Mark changed the wording of Isaiah 29:13 in a way that the word "οὗτος" [this] is at the beginning and before "ὁ λαὸς" [the people] and is particularly highlighted.
So Mark, who liked using the word "οὗτος" ("this"), changed the LXX words "ὁ λαὸς οὗτος" ("The people this") into "Οὗτος ὁ λαὸς" ("This the people").
But it should have been obvious to a reader that the word order had been changed from the LXX.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Clement quoted Mark naively.
So, Clement didn't notice the word swap from the LXX to the G.Mark and simply copied the 'incorrect' word order from G.Mark.


Is that your argument ?


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Re: On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

Post by Blood »

Ephesians - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
Colossians - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
2 Thessalonians - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
1 Timothy - one reference (6:13 "Christ Jesus who in his testimony before Pilate made the good confession")
2 Timothy - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
Titus - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
Hebrews - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
James - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
1 Peter - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
2 Peter - 1:18 reference to transfiguration ("we heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the mountain")
1 John - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
2 John - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
3 John - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.
Jude - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus.

Out of 14 second century epistles (7 being supposedly first century), there are only two brief mentions of episodes from the life of Jesus, and none of them mention his ministry or teachings.

1 Clement - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus. But two quotes from Jesus from Gospels.
2 Clement - no reference to the earthly teaching or events in the life of Jesus. But several quotes from Jesus from Gospels.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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Re: On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

Post by Kapyong »

Gday Blood,

Thanks for your chronology, it's interesting, if somewhat different to mine. I note you don't have Paul and the pseudo-Pauls on it, perhaps you could slot them in.

Here are some comments :
Blood wrote:0-100 Sayings and Stories of a celestial Jesus are created (from 'visions' and the Tanakh) but none make it into gospels. No "Q".
0-100 Ascension of Isaiah (proto-Christian)
0-100 Wisdom of Solomon (proto-Christian)
0-125 2 Maccabees (proto-Christian)
0-150 Testaments of the Patriarchs (proto-Christian)
Good sources, but pretty wide ranges, I tried to pin mine down to the decade, can you tighten these up a little maybe ?
Blood wrote:0-150 other misc pseudepigrapha, usually misattributed to Second Temple Judaism (proto-Christian)
Perhaps you could list a few of these with dates too...
Blood wrote:70-100 gMark
How do you date it? Why not 120CE ?
Blood wrote:100-150 gMatthew
How about 130 or 140 ?
Blood wrote:125-170 catholic recension of Apostolikon (catholics mistakenly believe these are authentic epistles)
Interesting theory - perhaps you could expand on why you think this is so.
Blood wrote:150-170 Hebrews
150-170 1 Clement (same author as Hebrews)
150-170 Barnabas
That seems very late.

I note you spread the dates of the Gospels out a lot, but still have G.Mark at 70-100, I'm trying to be the devil's advocate and place the Gospels as late as the evidence will allow.

How about this as a compromise between your dates and mine :

100s Revelation
120s G.Mark
c 125 Apostolikon of Marcionites
c 125 Euangelion of Marcionites
130 G.Luke - Acts
140s G.Matthew
150 G.John



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On dating Paul's letters

Post by Kapyong »

Gday,
MrMacSon wrote: Are you relying on 'internal' "evidence" when you say
  • "50s - Paul : 1Thess., 1&2 Cor., Gal., Rom., Phill., Phil. - no historical detail"
  • Paul and Hebrews - both have stories about a Jesus Christ; and
  • Paul says his gospel about Jesus Christ came from ??
Do we have external evidence for those dates?
For the dating of Paul's Authentic Seven I simply relied on the consensus - essentially it's all internal clues and conjecture. I thought Aretas IV was a good clue, but now I'm not so sure about that.

Paul could be somewhat later than we imagine, but not too much.

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Re: On dating Paul's letters

Post by MrMacSon »

Kapyong wrote: For the dating of Paul's Authentic Seven I simply relied on the consensus - essentially it's all internal clues and conjecture.
Cheers.

A traditional, Christian biblical-scholar consensus?

"Internal clues"asserted on unexplained or poorly-explained paleography?
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Re: On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

Post by Stephan Huller »

But there are difficulties here which should be noted. First of all, the Roman records (and various marginalized 'heretical' references) place the crucifixion to 21 CE. The Marcionites said that Paul wrote both the gospel and the apostle. Is it really likely that Paul (whoever he was) had a vision about a thing named 'Jesus' who lived a century earlier and who warned of the destruction of the temple forty nine to fifty years after the crucifixion? How did the earliest Christians account for the silence about this historical event (not historical figure) a century earlier? Then there is the question of Simon Magus. There seems to be this Paul doppelganger who appeared after the crucifixion and challenged the authority of Peter. How and why did this scenario arise? Let's suppose that Simon Magus is an entirely fictitious creation, he seems to be connected with heretical readings and interpretations associated with the Pauline tradition. Note that in the Pseudo-Clementines he emphasizes the superiority of 'visions' over actually seeing Jesus (as Peter claimed). Let's suppose that Simon is completely fictitious. Why would someone have invented a Pauline doppelganger dated to the apostolic period who cites the words and sayings of Paul in the apostolic period.

It is also worth noting that orthodox sources (De Recta in Deum Fide) emphasize that the Marcionites said that the gospels were not written by apostles but also that Matthew and John were historical individuals who just happened not to have written the texts ascribed to them. I don't know how much of this tradition we can trust but it has to be said that any appeal to Marcionitism in support of the 'gospel was created in the second century CE' doctrine is doomed to fail (and for this reason I can't understand why my friend Hermann Detering continues to accept it).

Let's consider Eznik's report of Jesus going to the underworld and his subsequent legal debate with the Jewish god FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY THE SENDING OF PAUL. It is simply untenable that Eznik's Marcionites could have meant 'Paul was sent a century after Jesus.' I can only find the paraphrase in the later Armenian summary of Eznik in Robert Grant but it will do for now:
Then Jesus descended the second time in the form of his deity to the Lord of creatures and entered into judgment with him on account of his death. And when the Lord of the world saw the deity of Jesus he knew that there was another God besides himself. And Jesus said to him, ‘I have a lawsuit with you, and let none judge between us, save the law, which you did write.’ (i.e. the Law of Moses) And when they set the Law in the midst, Jesus said to him: ‘Did you not write in your law that he who shall kill, shall die, and that he who sheds the innocent man’s blood, they shall shed his blood?’ And the Lord answered ‘Yes, I wrote it.’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Now give yourself into my hands, that I may kill you…as you have killed me… And when the Lord of creatures saw that Jesus had overcome him and he was speechless, because of his own Law he was condemned…then casting himself down in supplication, he begged Jesus, saying, ‘Because I have sinned and killed you unwittingly…it is granted you in return for that offense to take all, who will believe in you, where you will.’

“Then Jesus, leaving him, took and seized Paul, and revealed to him the purchase price and sent him to preach that we are purchased with a purchase price, and that everyone, who believed in Jesus, has been sold by the just to the Good.” (Robert M. Grant, Gnosticism, Harper & Bros., NY, 1961, pg. 103f.)
I am afraid this theory doesn't work. The fact that no early sources survive shouldn't lead to the classic mountainman error that we date the tradition to the earliest surviving exemplars. Think about it in another way. How much of the Qumran sect would we have known about if it wasn't for the recent archaeological discovery? There were countless traditions buried under the sands of time. It's stupid to see the gap between our earliest witnesses and 21 CE and assume that the gap 'needs to be filled' in some way.

Shit happens.
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