Late dating of Mark: How far would you go? And what are your arguments?

[Ben C. Smith]

This edition adopts the distinction between his fragments proper, for what we know of his work, and the testimonia, for what we know of his reception. In addition to these, Stephen C. Carlson provides a list of potential citations of Papias, potential uses of Papias, and fragments falsely attributed to Papias. The volume features an extensive introduction treating the most important instances of reception of Papias and his work.
ISBN: 9780198811602

He has been working on this project for years now. Good to see it getting close to publication.

[Stuart]

I of course put the terminus much later than others here. I do not consider any of the four Canonical gospels, nor the Marcionite Gospel (an earlier version of Luke) as the progenitor. They are all derivatives. Here is a brief summary of what I think happened. Necessary before I place a specific date and terminus.

First I do think there is a dependency order among the gospels, as they were written one after the other as correctives from sectarian points of view. If an existing gospel was reasonably close to your sect teachings, and you could explain away elements that didn't quite fit, then you didn't write your own version. Only if you found the existing version(s) you knew as too much at odds with what your sect taught might you undertake the difficult and expensive task of writing and propagating your own version. (No doubt some local versions never got named and were lost to history, due to lack of money to propagate or the sect it sprang from a short lived cul de sac.) The dependency list I have is thus based upon theological corrective and the minimum set of documents each would need to know to be formed.

Matthew depends upon the Marcionite Gospel as well as an early version of the Marcionite Antithesis pairs.
John (first version) depends upon Matthew (hostile to it) and the Marcionite (mostly reverent, but corrective on points)
Luke depends upon the Marcionite Gospel (it's base document), Matthew and also elements from Mark and elements from other such as the lost Ebionite Gospel.

Matthew and Mark used one form (I call "M"") of a proto-Gospel
The Marcionite and Mark used another form of the proto-Gospel (I call "L")
John had a second version written, basically our canonical, which

All the "evangelical" Gospels were in my estimation written within a couple generations of each other, with perhaps as little time as 25 years from the appearance of the Marcionite to the revised versions of Luke and John, and no more than 40 years. Additional bits and harmonization no doubt occurred for a few generations after before the text became frozen. The Marcionite version was frozen by that sects split from the main church, only undergoing minor scribal adjustments after (same for their Pauline collection); the same process as the Catholic text underwent at a later date. The split was political, the theological debate initially secondary.

Likely the prototype Gospel circulated only in Jesus communities for many decades, performed some other role in these communities before being used as a base document for the evangelical Gospels. What that use was we can only guess, as it's not recorded (my WAG it was a religious play), but it must have had a useful purpose to have been easily accepted in evangelical forms when those appeared. The different forms used as base document with variations indicates local differences arose in it's form; this suggests both a significant amount time and distance played a role in the development of variances.

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Based on the above model, we have to look for clues. Unfortunately the formation process described above, where gospels started from a prototype base means that each of them contains the more primitive version of a few stories, while other gospels contain the more primitive versions of other stories or elements. The harmonization layer of all gospels shrouds that still further. It's a swamp to argue order from story primitives, hence all the competing Synoptic order hypothesis.

In general I would argue that the evangelical forms of the Gospels (basically our Canonical) are preoccupied with the debates and church politics of the mid-2nd century. The place setting of first century Palestine for events of Jesus' mission to me appear anachronistic. In Mark the term Rabbi is used to denote Jesus as teacher. But this title as used in Mark is likely 2nd century, only recently introduced. Also only from the 2nd century do we have manuscripts of the LXX show up with "lord" (κύριος) in place of the Tetragrammaton; this form is part of the base layer of the prototype gospel(s) which all our gospels were base, and the gospels we have are after that.

I would have to place the earliest date for Mark is after the Marcionite gospel, which is likely after the split of that sect, sometime in the 140s AD. So say 145-150 AD for early terminus.

Mark promotes Andrew, elevating him to a position alongside Peter, James and John (the three pillars of Galatians). This seems minor, but it's an additive to the story. I do think it hints that Andrew may be the patron saint of the writer's sect, and that could hint at a locale of the western coast of Greece, at the crossroads of Latin and Greek settlements. This however gives us no temporal clue, except that is places Mark in the era of competition between sects who identify with differing patron saints, Paul and John the most prominent, and also Peter and Philip.

For the upper terminus I would put the base of Canonical Luke's writing, as it drew elements from Mark among other sources. I place a high terminus on this version of Luke in the early reign of Commodus, and an low terminus sometime in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, probably the later years. It's complicated why I place it in that say 170-190 AD window, but basically it is sufficiently before w start getting 3rd century Patristic commentary. (Yes I slide the church fathers back a couple generations from where Eusubius places them, and also see the works in their names as similar to the NT letters, using their names as authority by a later collection of writers.) Anyway Mark has to have been in circulation 5-10 years before Luke was written (or the Marcionite gospel revised). That would place it 160-180 AD as the upper window, depending upon when exactly Luke was written.

I think we can reasonably trim a few years on each side, and say the most likely range for Mark to have been written was 150-165 AD. But you cannot rule out completely a bit later, say around 170 AD. The exact dating I think comes down more to the urgency, i.e., motive, for having to write the gospel. There was certainly concern that Andrew was not given the same stature of John, Peter and Paul (though not mentioned in the Gospels) which points to a date after a few gospels were circulating, and the battle of patron saints was raging. But when exactly this occurred is not clear, except that it's in the 2nd century.

[perseusomega9]

It seems to me the best (and only real case) for dating Mark around 70 CE is the imminence of his apocalypse which Matt and Luke go to great pains to correct. I'm just not sure that's enough to hang your hat on.

[Giuseppe]

It seems to me the best (and only real case) for dating Mark around 70 CE is the imminence of his apocalypse which Matt and Luke go to great pains to correct. I'm just not sure that's enough to hang your hat on.

Note that in Mark 13, the "abomination of desolation" doesn't mark the end, but it marks only the start of end.

[perseusomega9]

yes and jesus is supposed to return in 3.5 years from that point

[davidmartin]

I would have to place the earliest date for Mark is after the Marcionite gospel, which is likely after the split of that sect, sometime in the 140s AD. So say 145-150 AD for early terminus.

But are we sure of the dates for Marcion?
What does 'sure' mean? I have no idea, but how sure are we?

The Shephard of Hermas seems unaware of his doctrine or Paul's teaching, he is post Shephard?

[hakeem]

I would have to place the earliest date for Mark is after the Marcionite gospel, which is likely after the split of that sect, sometime in the 140s AD. So say 145-150 AD for early terminus.

But are we sure of the dates for Marcion?
What does 'sure' mean? I have no idea, but how sure are we?

The Shephard of Hermas seems unaware of his doctrine or Paul's teaching, he is post Shephard?

Are we sure of the dates for Paul and the Shephard of Hermas?

[Bernard Muller]

About "rabbi" in gMark
In this gospel, Jesus is called "rabbi" ('ῥαββί') and "rabboni" (ῥαββονί') in 4 verses, 9:5, 10:51, 11:21 & 14:45.
In this gospel, Jesus is called "teacher" ('διδάσκαλος') in 12 verses, 4:38, 5:35. 9:17, 9:38, 10:17, 10:20, 10:35, 12:14, 12:10, 12:32, 13:1 & 14:14.

From that, it looks to me "rabbi" in gMark has not the same meaning than "teacher". And the RSV translation of "rabbi" as "master" could be correct.

Cordially, Bernard

[davidmartin]

I would have to place the earliest date for Mark is after the Marcionite gospel, which is likely after the split of that sect, sometime in the 140s AD. So say 145-150 AD for early terminus.

But are we sure of the dates for Marcion?
What does 'sure' mean? I have no idea, but how sure are we?

The Shephard of Hermas seems unaware of his doctrine or Paul's teaching, he is post Shephard?

Are we sure of the dates for Paul and the Shephard of Hermas?

Shepherd is from Rome about 100AD or so
It seems to know certain commands of Jesus but doesn't mention a gospel
It seems to be aware of Paul but doesn't mention his letters
It doesn't seem to make much use of Hebrew scripture

It's a kind of early orthodox style Christianity that appears to have been swept away by developments that came later. So it has to be earlier than say 150AD if the church father writings we know are from then but really about 125AD is about the very latest it could be, cause it shows signs of an extended period of writing, but it makes more sense for it to be a few decades earlier and may have roots in late 1st century
So it's prior to Marcion and Paul's re-emergence and the heavy use of Hebrew prophets which is all c 90-125 i recon

[rgprice]

Shepherd is from Rome about 100AD or so
It seems to know certain commands of Jesus but doesn't mention a gospel
It seems to be aware of Paul but doesn't mention his letters
It doesn't seem to make much use of Hebrew scripture

It's a kind of early orthodox style Christianity that appears to have been swept away by developments that came later. So it has to be earlier than say 150AD if the church father writings we know are from then but really about 125AD is about the very latest it could be, cause it shows signs of an extended period of writing, but it makes more sense for it to be a few decades earlier and may have roots in late 1st century
So it's prior to Marcion and Paul's re-emergence and the heavy use of Hebrew prophets which is all c 90-125 i recon

How does Shepard show knowledge of Jesus or Paul?

I'd assume that Shepard is part of the basis of early Roman Christianity as well. I'd agree with 100 to 140.

I used to like to date Mark to around 75-85, which I think it still possible, but more likely I guess Mark is around 85-110. I think Marcion's Gospel is derivative from Mark. Matthew and Luke are both reactions to Marcion's Gospel that use Mark in part because they see it as pre-Marcionite. So I'd put Matthew and Canonical Luke as around 130-150. John I think either was a Gnostic Gospel that was later adapted by someone else, or is some kind of semi-Gnostic Gospel that, while stating that Jesus "is flesh" (contra Marcion) still holds to a number of other Gnostic/Marcionite type ideas. As far as I know, John could be derived from Marcion's Gospel. I'm not sure what parallels in John require that it knew of other Gospels besides Marcion's, but I guess it can be dated in its almost final form (not including the final chapter) around 120-140.

I still view Mark as the very first Gospel, from which everything else derived.