On dating the Gospels late e.g. 120CE

[MrMacSon]

Don't understand something here. Below you have this:

120 Proposed creation of the first Gospel

Who proposed the first Gospel? If Mark was the earliest at 70 (supposedly).

The early date for gMark (which has apparently got early & earlier in the last 100yrs or so) seems to be by assertion based on simply saying 'paleography'.

I don't know of any other suitable explanation. Someone here might.

[neilgodfrey]

I've never heard of anyone arguing for a date of the Gospel of Mark from "paleography" and I don't think anyone else has either.

In the mid-nineteenth century Mark was widely considered the last and latest of the gospels; Bauer had it well into the mid second century.

The simple and main reason that view changed was the increasing acceptance of the arguments indicating that Mark was the earliest of the canonical gospels or certainly the earliest of the synoptics.

The nature of its references to the destruction of the Temple has led many to infer that Mark was written during the time of the Jewish War, just prior to the destruction of the Temple or very soon afterwards.

[Blood]

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 :

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 ?

0-150 other misc pseudepigrapha, usually misattributed to Second Temple Judaism (proto-Christian)

Perhaps you could list a few of these with dates too...

70-100 gMark

How do you date it? Why not 120CE ?

100-150 gMatthew

How about 130 or 140 ?

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.

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


Kapyong

"you don't have Paul and the pseudo-Pauls"

Yes I do. The Apostolikon is the Pauline epistles and pseudo-Paul are the Pastorals which I have in the list.

[Blood]

70-100 gMark

How do you date it? Why not 120CE ?

It could be that late (or later) of course, but I think the mass of subsequent literature is better explained by a pre-100 date for Mark.

150-170 Hebrews
150-170 1 Clement (same author as Hebrews)
150-170 Barnabas

That seems very late.

You've stated that Hebrews must be early since there's little to no awareness of an "historical" Jesus ... but as I demonstrated above, this is not relevant, since only 2 of the 14 supposedly second century epistles mention the historical Jesus, and those are only brief one-line passages paraphrasing the gospels.

[MrMacSon]

"you don't have Paul and the pseudo-Pauls"

Yes I do. The Apostolikon is the Pauline epistles and pseudo-Paul are the Pastorals which I have in the list.

the Apostolikon is the Marcion Canon (of 6(?) Pauline epistles)

[MrMacSon]

I've never heard of anyone arguing for a date of the Gospel of Mark from "paleography" and I don't think anyone else has either.

In the mid-nineteenth century Mark was widely considered the last and latest of the gospels; Bauer had it well into the mid second century.

The simple and main reason that view changed was the increasing acceptance of the arguments indicating that Mark was the earliest of the canonical gospels or certainly the earliest of the synoptics.

The nature of its references to the destruction of the Temple has led many to infer that Mark was written during the time of the Jewish War, just prior to the destruction of the Temple or very soon afterwards.

yes, many infer that, based on what the text says; but no-one seems to provide further proof of that. It seems to allow them to fulfill a chronology-bias based on assertions along the lines that "Mark wrote within 2 generation of Jesus, so it is 'good history' "

[The Crow]

I've never heard of anyone arguing for a date of the Gospel of Mark from "paleography" and I don't think anyone else has either.

In the mid-nineteenth century Mark was widely considered the last and latest of the gospels; Bauer had it well into the mid second century.

The simple and main reason that view changed was the increasing acceptance of the arguments indicating that Mark was the earliest of the canonical gospels or certainly the earliest of the synoptics.

The nature of its references to the destruction of the Temple has led many to infer that Mark was written during the time of the Jewish War, just prior to the destruction of the Temple or very soon afterwards.

The nature of its references to the destruction of the Temple has led many to infer that Mark was written during the time of the Jewish War, just prior to the destruction of the Temple or very soon afterwards.

Hi Neil. Well if thats the case it would put it at 70 right? Also what about the claims in James Crossleys book about the dates being even earlier? He puts a date range of between 30 and 40 CE but the book also challenges the common notion of Clement I and Irenaeus which if I understand what is going on here those two were commonly used to date gMark.

http://books.google.com/books/about/The ... hH_pm_yzQC

Also wasn't Irenaeus the first to quote any gospel around 180 CE?

[neilgodfrey]

Hi Neil. Well if thats the case it would put it at 70 right? Also what about the claims in James Crossleys book about the dates being even earlier? He puts a date range of between 30 and 40 CE but the book also challenges the common notion of Clement I and Irenaeus which if I understand what is going on here those two were commonly used to date gMark.

http://books.google.com/books/about/The ... hH_pm_yzQC

Also wasn't Irenaeus the first to quote any gospel around 180 CE?

I was responding to a claim that there appeared to be no argument for dating Mark early (around 70) apart from "saying palaeography". The claim is not without its critics. (I sometimes favour the 70 date, too, but for quite a different reason that has more to do with the context of apocalyptic genre than anything else; I am also prepared to toy with a much later date.)

Crossley's argument, which is essentially Maurice Casey's, has got to be one of the most bizarre shams in academic publishing. I scarcely know where to begin whenever I think of addressing it. For starters its premise is that all Jews were clones of what is really third and fourth century (and even modern day stereotypical) rabbinic Judaism and if you begin with any other assumption you are deep down an anti-semite following the tradition of Nazi "scholarship" about Jesus.

[Kapyong]

Gday Neil,

Thanks for your post(s)

The simple and main reason that view changed was the increasing acceptance of the arguments indicating that Mark was the earliest of the canonical gospels or certainly the earliest of the synoptics.

In my experiment I still have G.Mark as the first, I'm just seeing if and how it fits as late as possible -c120s.

The nature of its references to the destruction of the Temple has led many to infer that Mark was written during the time of the Jewish War, just prior to the destruction of the Temple or very soon afterwards.

This is a big strike against my hypothesis - it does rather seem that G.Mark was written during the time of the Temple destruction. But I wondered if the author was deliberately setting a piece of theological literature in a prior setting. Writing just before Bar Kochba but setting the piece in the 70s - mirroring the destruction of 70 with 135. But Bernard pointed out that Jesus prediction of the soon coming End would make him look like a false messiah written in the 120s - and there are some other issues with the hypothesis.

But for now, I'll continue playing with my experiment by saying that such was the case - that the author wrote in the 120s, and targeted his story in the 70s, to make a point about false messiahs. Or looked at another way - some theological author wrote a story to look that way because he wanted it to , for whatever reason.

If Bauer can date G.Mark late, then by golly I'm following in giant footsteps


Kapyong

[neilgodfrey]

The nature of its references to the destruction of the Temple has led many to infer that Mark was written during the time of the Jewish War, just prior to the destruction of the Temple or very soon afterwards.

This is a big strike against my hypothesis - it does rather seem that G.Mark was written during the time of the Temple destruction. But I wondered if the author was deliberately setting a piece of theological literature in a prior setting. Writing just before Bar Kochba but setting the piece in the 70s - mirroring the destruction of 70 with 135. But Bernard pointed out that Jesus prediction of the soon coming End would make him look like a false messiah written in the 120s - and there are some other issues with the hypothesis.

But for now, I'll continue playing with my experiment by saying that such was the case - that the author wrote in the 120s, and targeted his story in the 70s, to make a point about false messiahs. Or looked at another way - some theological author wrote a story to look that way because he wanted it to , for whatever reason.

If Bauer can date G.Mark late, then by golly I'm following in giant footsteps

If I were going to date it late I'd go for the mid 130s earliest on the strength of the Mark 13 match with the events of Hadrian's time.

I don't buy the mind-reading arguments that claim to know what the author was thinking and what he wanted to avoid. All the imagery in Mark 13 is identical with the imagery in the OT that depicts God coming to save his people and overthrowing enemy powers in the past. God left his Jerusalem temple and set up a spiritual temple in the church. The destruction of 70 was the final judgment on the Jews. Mark is symbolic and parabolic through and through. It is a mistake to select this and that bit as literal in a text like this.

Unfortunately Baur's work on this has never been translated into English. I think we only have LIghtfoot's refutations.