Is it really necessary to date the NT that late?

[patrick457]

I am amazed and sometimes amused at those who set late dates for the NT with a smug assurance. usually, they are crypto-atheists masquerading as scholars.

Like the folks who doubt that Shakespeare wrote his plays, or that the Kennsington Rune stone in Minnesota was a fake, created by an illiterate farmer.

You believe the Kensington rune stone is real?

The current trend in academia it seems is to assign earlier dates for the gospels (in light of ancient literature in general I wouldn’t really call a gap of forty to seventy years ‘late’ - on the contrary, that’s already pretty early enough!) Back at the 19th century - before important papyri finds were discovered - there were actually people who seriously claimed that the canonical gospels were 2nd century creations. But then again, it was also the time when folks really liked to say that something is directly derived from something, which could sometimes get outlandish (i.e. ‘Christianity is lifted from Mithraism/Hinduism/Ancient Egyptian religion/etc.’)

 

[steve53]

pleaseconvinceme.com/index/Are_There_Early_Eyewitness_Accounts_of_Jesus

One of the biggest events in the 1st century, on 70 AD the destruction of the Jewish temple. Jesus predicted the temple would be destroyed. No gospel confirms the destruction of the temple and the simplest explanation is that the Gospels were already written

Book of Acts says nothing about the destruction of the temple, persecution of Christians by Nero in 64 AD, martydom of Peter in 65 AD, martydom of Paul in 64 AD, martyrdom of James in 61 AD. Book of Acts is a history of the early Church, Paul is alive at the end of Acts and the fact that the above are not mentioned gives reasonable belief that Book of Acts was written before 64 AD

Gospel of Luke also does not mention the above which gives reason to believe it was written before 64 AD

Clement’s letter which is dated to 95 AD or 96 AD used sections of Matthew’s gospel in 1 Clement 13: 1 - 2 which means Matthew’s gospel was circulating

Jesuit papyrologist Jose O’Callaghan looked at a fragment of papyri called 7Q5 from Cave 7 in Qumran, it is part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He concluded that it was part of Mark’s gospel, Mark 6: 52 - 53 and that papyri was dated 50 AD

I agree with most of your posts, except that the execution of James the Just was probably in A.D. 62.
Acts of the Apostles leaves off in A.D. 63, so it is possible that the word of James’ execution didn’t reach Luke (?) in Rome.
But Acts ends abruptly and no details are given for the years A.D. 62-63 concerning Paul’s activities.

 

[steve53]

You believe the Kensington rune stone is real?

The current trend in academia it seems is to assign earlier dates for the gospels (in light of ancient literature in general I wouldn’t really call a gap of forty to seventy years ‘late’ - on the contrary, that’s already pretty early enough!) Back at the 19th century - before important papyri finds were discovered - there were actually people who seriously claimed that the canonical gospels were 2nd century creations. But then again, it was also the time when folks really liked to say that something is directly derived from something, which could sometimes get outlandish (i.e. ‘Christianity is lifted from Mithraism/Hinduism/Ancient Egyptian religion/etc.’)

Of course it’s real. Who would go to that length to make it? Everyone in that part of the world then was a poor dirt farmer.
But does this belong on this forum? Actually, they do appeal to the Virgin Mary to help them out, so these Norsemen were Catholics.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Patrick457,

Considering just how few characters are contained on some of the fragments - and some even make words! It is beyond my imagination how anyone could make anything like an educated but limited guess.

Thank God we have people who have the talent, knowledge and patience to put this material together.

God bless

I seem to remember that news from earlier this year, but more on that later. In the meantime, let’s talk about the purported fragment of Mark found in Qumran.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/7Q5.jpg/225px-7Q5.jpg

This baby here is the so-called 7Q5, discovered in Cave 7. Like the other finds in that cave, this particular fragment is in Greek. In 1972, Spanish papyrologist Fr. Jose O’Callaghan S.J. identified this particular fragment as a copy of Mark 6:52-53, also identifying another fragment from the same cave (7Q4) as a copy of 1 Timothy 3:16-4:13. A few people like Carsten Peter Thiede (the same person who controversially redated the Magdalen papyrus to the mid 1st century) have came out in support of O’Callaghan, but most others were not convinced.

The main problem, first of all, is the tiny nature of the fragments in question: they have come down to us in a very badly-mutilated state that only a handful of letters can be identified with certainty (the only legible word in 7Q5 is KAI, “and”). Given this, the fragments could be identified with almost anything. The arguments for and against the identification are already summed well enough in Wikipedia. Some other scholars have variously identified 7Q5 with Genesis 46:20, Exodus 36:10-11, Numbers 22:38, 2 Kings 5:13-14, or even Matthew 1:2-3 (!). Callaghan had also attempted to identify some of the other fragments of Cave 7 with various NT books. For instance, 7Q4 was identified with 1 Timothy 3:16; 4:1-3; 7Q6.1 and 2 (these small ones here) is associated with Mark 4:28 and Acts 27:38; 7Q8 is purported to be James 1:23-24.

Recently, three people (Gerhard-Wilhelm Nebe, Emile Puech, and Ernest A. Muro) have made a far more convincing case that seven of the texts from Cave 7 actually contain text from the book of Enoch (7Q4.1, 7Q8, 7Q12, 7Q14 = 1 Enoch 103.3-8, 12; 7Q4.2 = 98:11? 105:1?; 7Q11 = 100:12; 7Q13 = 103.15).

http://wiki.scu.edu/live/wiki71b/images/8/89/7qGk-all-n.jpg

http://digilander.libero.it/sabato/images/theparts.jpg

http://digilander.libero.it/sabato/images/ensemble.jpg

 

[tqualey]

Hi, DaddyGirl,

Kindly provide a reference for the statement you have just made.

Of the 4 Evangelists - little is actually known about their degree of literacy. But, here is something that is just a guess on my part …

Matthew was a tax collector. I would think that Rome would not have given him this position if he were literate. Besides don’t you think the Romans would have taken better care of their tax money?

Mark’s literacy is unknown.

Luke is assumed to have been a physician - and, this would have probably required a goodly amount of literacy

John was a fisherman. This profession may not require a lot of literacy - but, this does not mean he was illeterate. My guess is that he (and his father) would want to get a fair price for their fish - but, that is just a guess.

Now, besides this bit of guess work on my part - I think the Holy Spirit would have given them each the gift of literacy considering the task they had at hand. This would not require a miracle - just parents who wanted their sons to be able to get along in the world of commerce.

Many of the ancient peoples were fluent and literate in more than one language - this was more of a survival skill rather then anything else. By essentially saying that these 4 men were illeterate, I think you seriously bring criticism where there is no basis.

This has been my opinion - but one I am happy to ‘put on the record’…

God bless

God bless

That would be difficult, considering the original gospels were written in literary Greek…and those four disciples were illiterate/semi-literate and Aramaic-speaking.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Minichibi,

A lot has to do with what one is expecting from the Bible. The idea that this is the Word of God - written in the words of men - and that the Word in without error - may not be enough! None of the pictures of Christ and the Apostles show the 12 or even some of the 12 with writing instruments taking down every word spoken by Christ like reporters at a press conference.

St. John ‘warns’ us that not everything is written down - in fact he does not think all the books could hold all that Christ said and did. Now, that is a powerful statement - and, there is no reason to doubt it.

The entire idea of inspiration is that God - the Author of the Bible - used human writers to accomplish the task He had set. Writing today - and the standards of today - are quite different from the 1st Century. If Matthew put two or three events in Christ’s life in the same section (they didn’t have chapter and veses back then) but, in reality these events really did happen at different times - would you think this invalidates the Word of God?

God bless
minichibi;100h48826:

Well, I have no problem with accepting a late redaction date itself, what I don’t like is the hypothesis used to assign a late date to the text, e.g.: Christ is made to say things he didn’t really say but that it was borrowed / inspired by what someone else said or did, including Josephus and another person named Jesus, the so called “advanced Christology” that in fact undermines the truth in our belief.
Even the Catholics seem to admit Jesus was made to say / do things he never said/did by admitting the late date hypothesis…

 

[_Abyssinia]

That would be difficult, considering the original gospels were written in literary Greek…and those four disciples were illiterate/semi-literate and Aramaic-speaking.

Matthew was Galilean tax collector and the job entailed him coping, collecting and recording infomation, probably in multiple langauges (Source page 115 of* Misquoting Truth* by Timothy Luke Jones)

Papyri from Egypt shows tax collectors wrote registered and receipts for citizens. Tax collectors were known to carry wooden tablets called pinakes were they used bone, metal or styluses to etch notes, some of which were rqertrten on papyrys and translated

Timothy Luke Jones describes the likely skills an ancient world physician would have

“… a physician would seem to have possessed, at the very least, the capacity to read the summaries of medical knowledge that flourished in the first century. What’s more, papyri from Egypt prove that ancient physicians and their scribes frequently wrote reports for law-enforcement officials regarding suspicious injuries and possible causes of death, as well as statements for slave masters certifying the health of slaves. So- if indeed Luke was a physician, as the letter to the Colossians suggests-it’s unlikely that he was “illiterate” or “uneducated.” And many physicians were capable of pulling together various eyewitness accounts into a coherent report, just as the preface of Luke’s Gospel implies that the author has done”

(Source page 115)

Timothy Luke Jones and I paraphrase says that it may be true that John and Mark were illiterate

But it is not known for sure. Both could have employeed scribes to write Mark and John’s oral accounts into documents that have been passed down. Consider that Paul could write Greek - Philemon 1:19 - 21, Galations 6:11) but he employed scribes to write Paul’s letters (1 Peter 5:12, Romans 16:22). In the 1st century AD scirbe professionals would write down messages into multiple languages including Greek and Aramaic. These professionals existed in Judea, Galilee, Rome, Ephesus etc. Poor and wealthy people employed scribes,

Was Matthew’s Gospel first written in Aramaic or Hebrew?

Around 180 Irenaeus of Lyons wrote that

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. (Against Heresies 3:1:1)

Fifty years earlier Papias, bishop of Hieropolis in Asia Minor, wrote, “Matthew compiled the sayings [of the Lord] in the Aramaic language, and everyone translated them as well as he could” (Explanation of the Sayings of the Lord [cited by Eusebius in *History of the Church

3:39]).

Sometime after 244 the Scripture scholar Origen wrote, “Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism and published in the Hebrew language” (Commentaries on Matthew [cited by Eusebius in *History of the Church 6:25]).

Eusebius himself declared that “Matthew had begun by preaching to the Hebrews, and when he made up his mind to go to others too, he committed his own Gospel to writing in his native tongue [Aramaic], so that for those with whom he was no longer present the gap left by his departure was filled by what he wrote” (History of the Church 3:24 [inter 300-325]).

Some modern scholars argue the original gospels were in Aramaic and later translated to Greek

 

[patrick457]

That would be difficult, considering the original gospels were written in literary Greek…and those four disciples were illiterate/semi-literate and Aramaic-speaking.

How do you know that? Matthew and John may be native, Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jews, but we can’t say the same about Mark or Luke. And have you read the Greek? The quality and style of writing really varies per gospel, ranging from the gritty colloquialisms of Mark to Luke’s polished delivery to the poetic style of John.

 

[Erich]

Some modern scholars argue the original gospels were in Aramaic and later translated to Greek

Chapter 14 of Dennis Barton’s The Authors of the Gospels has this to say:

In recent years two Frenchmen have thrown more light on this question. Jean Carmignac, a specialist in Greek and Hebrew, spent eleven years from 1943 translating ‘The Book of Chronicles’. Then from 1954-63 he was engaged in translating ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls’ from Qumran. Although his work was mainly concerned with the Old Testament, he noticed connections with the New.

In 1963 he attempted to translate one of the Greek Gospels back into the form of Hebrew used at Qumran. Carmignac was ‘absolutely dumbfounded’ to find how easy it proved to be. Realising his translation would meet with ferocious criticism, he searched in the old monastic libraries of Europe to see if the translation had been attempted previously. At the same time he hoped to correct and improve his own work. Although lacking the time to make a thorough search, he soon found sixty translations of Gospels or portions of them. Some were by Rabbis who had become Christians and others by those wishing to dispute with Christians.

Carmignac was aging and had not published his scholarly findings. So his friends persuaded him to write a small book for the general public. This appeared in 1987. He not only asserted that Matthew’s Gospel was the first to be written, but that it was in Hebrew.

According to him, the order of composition was a Hebrew Matthew followed by a Greek Luke, and then by a Greek Mark. In order to conform to Markan priority, he presumed there must have been an earlier Hebrew version of Mark, which Mark later translated. If we ignore this presumption, his work dovetails with the Clementine tradition of Matthew-Luke-Mark. He dated Greek Mark as before 70 AD, so Matthew and Luke at an earlier date.

In 1953 Claude Tresmontant, a French Hebrew scholar, published a book dedicated to Hebrew thought. He then worked for years to produce a Hebrew-Greek dictionary. As he did this he was overwhelmed by how easy it was to back-translate the Gospels into Hebrew.

In his 1980 ‘Le Christ Hebreu’ [In English -1989], he explained in detail the Hebrew basis of the Gospels. He formed the opinion that Matthew in both Hebrew and Greek could be dated as being written soon after the Resurrection. Luke between 40-60 AD, and Mark 50-60 AD.

((CTH 324)).While not confirming the Clementine order, this pointed to its likely possibility. Tresmontant detected a Hebrew substructure to Mark’s Gospel. At first sight this could conflict with the normally accepted view that Mark recorded Peter speaking in Greek. But, if over 90% of the talks by Peter consisted of quotes from Matthew and Luke, the Hebrew substructure of these quotations would automatically show in Mark’s Gospel. The additions made by Peter would also have a strong Semitic tone because Peter was a native Aramaic speaker.

 

[farpinho]

Not directly related to the topic, but interesting to mention. There are evidences that point that the Magnificat wasn’t composed by Luke, but rather it was composed in Hebrew or Aramaic and then translated into Greek by Luke.

 

[stevekehl]

For the moment, how about chapter 14 of Peter Flint and James C. VanderKam’s The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus and Christianity? Also VanderKam’s The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, Fr. Joseph Fitzmyer S.J.'s The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins (p. 24) and Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (p. 16), and Emanuel Tov’s Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible and Qumran: Collected Essays (pp. 347-350).

Thanks for the sources, I’ll check them out. Since you seem to be pretty immersed in this subject, have your heard about the recent discovery of 7 or 8 papyri, one of which is believed to be a first century fragment of Mark? Is this a DSS fragment or a new one? Anyway, an article is supposed to be published about them next year.

 

[stevekehl]

Not directly related to the topic, but interesting to mention. There are evidences that point that the Magnificat wasn’t composed by Luke, but rather it was composed in Hebrew or Aramaic and then translated into Greek by Luke.

Of course it wasn’t composed by Luke. It was composed by the Holy Spirit speaking through the Virgin Mary. It seems logical that the early Jerusalem church would have written this down, after all, Mary was a member. Luke would have then included it in his history.

 

[patrick457]

Thanks for the sources, I’ll check them out. Since you seem to be pretty immersed in this subject, have your heard about the recent discovery of 7 or 8 papyri, one of which is believed to be a first century fragment of Mark? Is this a DSS fragment or a new one? Anyway, an article is supposed to be published about them next year.

Farpinho linked to an article earlier. Reports still seem quite vague about the fragments’ origin, but I don’t think it’s from Qumran. I think it’s a bit of an interesting news, but as with any other report in the media about Christianity I’m taking it with a grain of salt. I mean this year we had to deal with the overly-hyped “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” and that one turned out to be most likely a modern fake. I’m not saying that these fragments are, but I’m waiting until they actually publish them.

 

[farpinho]

Farpinho linked to an article earlier. Reports still seem quite vague about the fragments’ origin, but I don’t think it’s from Qumran. I think it’s a bit of an interesting news, but as with any other report in the media about Christianity I’m taking it with a grain of salt. I mean this year we had to deal with the overly-hyped “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” and that one turned out to be most likely a modern fake. I’m not saying that these fragments are, but I’m waiting until they actually publish them.

Well, let’s wait and see… I’m still with my expectations low about this, but we can always hope for something out of the blue

 

[patrick457]

Well, let’s wait and see… I’m still with my expectations low about this, but we can always hope for something out of the blue

After some searching, I found this and (to balance things) this. Also, there’s apparently a picture circulating in the web purporting to be this fragment, but almost everyone seems to think it to be a hoax. Ben Witherington gives his comments on the contents of the so-called Green Collection (the fragment of Mark belongs to this collection, apparently).

 

[farpinho]

The problem with these papyri is that we know nothing about how they were found, especially when they aren’t found in a scientific dig or something of the sort the probability for it being fabricated is huge.

After some searching, I found this and (to balance things) this. Also, there’s apparently a picture circulating in the web purporting to be this fragment, but almost everyone seems to think it to be a hoax. Ben Witherington gives his comments on the contents of the so-called Green Collection (the fragment of Mark belongs to this collection, apparently).

 

[farpinho]

Actually… these news appear to be a way to promote book selling…

 

[patrick457]

The problem with these papyri is that we know nothing about how they were found, especially when they aren’t found in a scientific dig or something of the sort the probability for it being fabricated is huge.

There’s some sort of dilemma here: because of unprovenanced artifacts’ obscure origins and their lack of context they are oftentimes ignored (because of the possibility that they are fake / gotten through questionable means), but at the same time you can’t just easily dispose of them.

 

[patrick457]

Actually… these news appear to be a way to promote book selling…

The only thing that popped in my head was, how exactly is the Great Isaiah Scroll related to the topic of the book in question? The ‘normal’ Isaiah in the pages of a cheap paperback Bible not good enough?

 

[farpinho]

There’s some sort of dilemma here: because of unprovenanced artifacts’ obscure origins and their lack of context they are oftentimes ignored (because of the possibility that they are fake / gotten through questionable means), but at the same time you can’t just easily dispose of them.

Very true! There’s also that risk. You might as well underestimate genuine artifact just because it’s found out of context.