How mainstream is the claim that the 4 Canonical Gospels were Written during the 2nd Century CE?

[maryhelena]

I ask because I am curious.

I am aware, furthermore, that even if an idea is not mainstream, it can be accorded varying levels of respect - as with mythicism versus, for example, theories about the canonical gospels rejecting Q.

I am also aware that even ideas dismissed as fringe have differing degrees of credibility. So, mythicism, itself a fringe idea, has the extremely fringe claim that Christianity was invented around 325 CE, and the less fringe ideas of Dr. Carrier and Doherty (which at least accept standard chronology).

So, where does a 2nd century CE dating for the Canonical gospels fit into this continuum?

I think many (most?) of us feel a second century, or at least very late 1st century, origin of at least Luke and Matthew, and probably John, Mark, and Marcion to be the most likely scenario.

My own reasoning for this goes along the lines of the inclusion of John the Baptist in the Gospel stories. Unless the Gospel writers knew independently of this JtB, which I feel unlikely, they then would be reliant on the account (if not a later interpolation) of him in Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus published in the 90's of the 1st century. No other source, that we know of, outside of the Gospel stories, exists for this character.

If one brings the Slavonic Josephus into the debate then an earlier dating for the baptizer figure is possible. The baptizer figure of Slavonic Josephus was a active in the time of Archelaus - 4 b.c. to 6 c.e. (giving him a 30 year age around that time would have him around 70 in the Antiquities story). If the Slavonic Josephus story is based upon an earlier version of War - then, no need for the gospel writers to wait for the Antiquities baptizer story post 90 c.e.

An interesting question arises re Slavonic Josephus timeline for it's baptizer figure. If it's dating was once relevant for it's baptizer figure - why would this earlier dating be, as it were, sidelined or ignored in Antiquities ? One reason could be that the gospel of Luke required that it's Jesus and John figures be contemporaries. Both mothers being with child simultaneously. (albeit the baptizer figure a few months older).

Just a wild thought.....or the possibility of another link between the Josephan writer and the Lukan writer.....

[mlinssen]

If one brings the Slavonic Josephus into the debate then an earlier dating for the baptizer figure is possible. The baptizer figure of Slavonic Josephus was a active in the time of Archelaus - 4 b.c. to 6 c.e. (giving him a 30 year age around that time would have him around 70 in the Antiquities story). If the Slavonic Josephus story is based upon an earlier version of War - then, no need for the gospel writers to wait for the Antiquities baptizer story post 90 c.e.

An interesting question arises re Slavonic Josephus timeline for it's baptizer figure. If it's dating was once relevant for it's baptizer figure - why would this earlier dating be, as it were, sidelined or ignored in Antiquities ? One reason could be that the gospel of Luke required that it's Jesus and John figures be contemporaries. Both mothers being with child simultaneously. (albeit the baptizer figure a few months older).

Just a wild thought.....or the possibility of another link between the Josephan writer and the Lukan writer.....

Using a text from 1463 to antedate a literary character from 1st CE to 0 CE? By all means

Just a question given your "reading" of Cassius Dio's "crucifixion": have you verified Slavonic Josephus with your own eyes? Word for word?
And has it occurred to you that it would be convenient to compose this Slavonic Josephus in order to circumvent this dating issue?

[Paul the Uncertain]

I think Mark and Matthew are first century, but Luke-Acts and John I think are second century.

Taking the Kirby date ranges at ECW as indicators of the mainstream, that position would be well within tolerances.

Mark 65-80
Matthew 80-100
Luke 80-130
Acts 80-130
John 90-120

On a point arising, Carrier sets aside the dating of the Gospels because he sets aside the Gospels themselves, proclaiming them to be a wash, neither for nor against historicity. This decision partly reflects, I think, his having used an index based on the Gospels (the Carrier-Rank-Raglan scores he computes for Jesus and other figures). To use the Gospels further would have required a tedious analysis of conditional probabilities to avoid "double counting" the same evidence. (The decision to set aside the Gospels opens up other issues remote from the concerns of this thread.)

Thus, I am in agreement with Giuseppe that acceptance of the mainstream dating isn't essential for a Doherty-style theory of Christian origins. Further, some points Chris made in their paper last year in Am. J. Biblical Theology suggest that later timing would offer better support for that kind of mythicism (against received extrabiblical sources which are consistent with mainstream estimates).

[Sinouhe]

There is some good evidence for dating Mark in the late first century or second century.

The silence of the church fathers is a good one.

Mark using the jewish war (Josephus 74 AD) + Satyricon (Petronius late first century) is another good one.

[ABuddhist]

I think Mark and Matthew are first century, but Luke-Acts and John I think are second century.

That seems reasonable to me, honestly.

[rgprice]

The idea that the Gospels were written in the 2nd century is not mainstream at all. I used to be an advocate for the idea that the Gospels were all first century myself. Indeed in Deciphering the Gospels I argue that the Gospel of Mark was written around 75 CE.

But I don't think that anymore. I think certainly the canonical forms of all the Gospels were produced after the mid second century. I could accept the possibility that some form of Gospel that resembled the canonical Gospels could have been produced in the late first century, but I'm increasingly doubtful. I think rather that the earliest recognizable Gospel most likely was produced in the early second century. I think its possible that something looking more like Vision of Isaiah could have originated in the late first century.

But certainly canonical Luke, Matthew and John all post-date Marcion -- not just Marcion's Gospel, but Marcion's ministry.

Was there any story describing a ministry and execution of "Jesus Christ" in the first century? I highly doubt it.

And while I've long thought that the Pauline letters must have pre-dated the destruction of the Temple since they don't mention the fact, I'm increasingly doubtful of that as well. What I do know is that Pauline letters proceeded any recognizable Gospel story.

What gets me is the fact that we don't really hear anything about Paul until after Marcion. I think the dating of so many Christian works is highly problematic, because its all suppositional, based on assumptions about when Jesus lived and how long after his death or after Paul's death certain works were produced. So whether we are talking about Barnabas or 1 Clement, etc., they are all dated based on assumptions about the timeframe of Paul's ministry and the death of Peter, etc., etc., which are all based on assumptions derived from the Gospels placing the death of Jesus during the reign of Pilate, etc. So really none of the dating has much merit.

So, knowing that none of this dating really has much merit, we have to ask the question: Why don't we really hear anything about any of this until the mid-second century? Could it really be the case that Paul had a ministry around 50-65 CE, yet we hear nothing about him until the second century?

[Giuseppe]

So, knowing that none of this dating really has much merit, we have to ask the question: Why don't we really hear anything about any of this until the mid-second century? Could it really be the case that Paul had a ministry around 50-65 CE, yet we hear nothing about him until the second century?

even if the dating has not much merit, as you have perfectly explained, however I wonder if from the dating of the fictitious Jesus under Pilate, worked by the author of the first gospel, we may infer something about the dating of Paul and the other apostles.

At moment, the implication "the early apostles lived under Pilate" therefore "Jesus had to be fixed under Pilate, too", appears to be plausible.

If this implication could be done, beyond the knowledge of Paul as being one among the early apostles, then I think that the default position about Paul is that he was too thiny to be relevant, by that time, so the onus probandi is on the shoulders of the deniers of the authenticity of all the epistles to prove that Paul postdates the year 70 CE.

So, my point is that, if the first evangelist shares with the current epistles the certainty about the fact that "something of extraordinary" happened with the preaching of the early apostles, and accordingly he identified this "something of extraordinary" with the invented life of a Jesus on the earth, then a minimal plausible inference is that at least the preaching of the early apostles can be dated with a relative degree of certainty under Pilate.

ADDENDA: Obviously, the Parable of the Lamp is sufficient to explain that the first evangelist shares with the previous author(s?) of the epistles the idea that the original enthusiasm of the early apostles started in the time given by the fable to Jesus, i.e. under Pilate.

[ABuddhist]

So, my point is that, if the first evangelist shares with the current epistles the certainty about the fact that "something of extraordinary" happened with the preaching of the early apostles, and accordingly he identified this "something of extraordinary" with the invented life of a Jesus on the earth, then a minimal plausible inference is that at least the preaching of the early apostles can be dated with a relative degree of certainty under Pilate.

In all honesty, this is why I agree with the mainstream claims that Paul was active during the 1st century CE - and that applies even if one accept (as I do not) that Jesus was mythical.

[Giuseppe]

....Continuing my post above:

Matthew 11:12 gives an important chronological clue related to my point above:

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence, and the violent have been seizing it by force

I follow eagerly the mythicist William Benjamin Smith when he wrote that this logion addresses polemically the Parable of the Lamp. Said otherwise, the logion of Matthew 11:12 assumes that the "violent" who "have been seizing the kingdom by force" are the same early enthusiast Christian propagandists, for the first time in the History devoted to convert the gentiles as never before then. So the enthusiasm of their preaching of the kingdom of god is seen as a "violence" by the Judaizer who wrote Matthew 11:12, probably because he connected that "violence" with the radical deviations in an anti-demiurgist sense, too much obvious when Jesus is preached among gentiles.

The corollary is that the author of the logion gives a terminus post quem for that enthusiast early preaching among gentiles: the "days of John the Baptist".

Which gives us: Pilate. (assuming the authenticity of the Baptist passage in Josephus).

[Giuseppe]

So, my point is that, if the first evangelist shares with the current epistles the certainty about the fact that "something of extraordinary" happened with the preaching of the early apostles, and accordingly he identified this "something of extraordinary" with the invented life of a Jesus on the earth, then a minimal plausible inference is that at least the preaching of the early apostles can be dated with a relative degree of certainty under Pilate.

In all honesty, this is why I agree with the mainstream claims that Paul was active during the 1st century CE - and that applies even if one accept (as I do not) that Jesus was mythical.

Note however (see my important post above) an intrinsic difference I have with historicists on this point: for me the dating of Jesus under Pilate gives us a clue about when precisely the explicit preaching of the kingdom of god started, via open and aggressive propaganda, among gentiles.
This is not equivalent to conclude that the early preaching of the kingdom addressed to only Jews started also under Pilate: the secret cult of the god Jesus, in exclusively Jewish circles, could be started even much time (years? centuries? millennia?) before Pilate.

ADDENDA: the Parable of the Lamp says us when the Lamp was put the first time above everything in the room. It doesn't reveal how much time the Lamp has been left under the bed.