1. When were the Gospel narratives written?

If these named authors did indeed write the Gospel accounts, when did they write them? Is it possible that they wrote the Gospel narratives hundreds of years after Christ? Is there time enough between the date that they wrote these narratives and the life of Jesus so that the writers would be able to develop legends regarding Him?

In order for a legend to be developed, there must be a sufficient gap in time between when the author is recording the narrative and the occurrence of the alleged events that he is describing. The corrective influences of the eyewitnesses and the common knowledge of the people living close to the time of the actual events acts as a defense against false information. It is safe to say that all of the books of the New Testament were written before A.D. 100 with all of the four Gospels written before A.D. 70-90. This puts the date of the composition of the Gospel record to be within 40-60 years of the death and resurrection of Christ (A.D. 30-33).

How do we know this?

1. There are three early church fathers who we know wrote letters in which they quoted passages from books of the New Testament. These men are Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Polycarp and we know that they wrote their letters between A.D. 95-110. In order for them to quote from these New Testament books, the books would have to be in existence. Clement of Rome (A.D.unknown-97) quoted passages from Matthew, Mark, Luke and I Corinthians all of which are key books dealing with the Gospel and the resurrection accounts. (He quoted from 11 N.T. books in total). Ignatius (A.D. 70-117) quoted passages from Matthew , Mark , Luke, John, Acts and I Corinthians. (He quoted from 24 N.T. books in total). Polycarp (A.D.69-155) quoted passages from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts and I Corinthians. (He quoted from 18 N.T. books in total).

The fact that these books were quoted by known individuals within a definite time period (A.D. 95-110) points to the fact that these New Testament books were already in existence at that time.

2. The Jewish temple in Jerusalem was the center piece of the Jewish Faith in the first century. However, the temple was destroyed by the Roman Emperor Titus in A.D. 70 along with the siege of the city of Jerusalem and the killing of thousands of Jews. The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) all record Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple but they do not mention or allude to the fact of this event actually taking place. They cover so many things in detail regarding the temple and the Jewish nation, why not mention this obvious and very important fact? A good case can be made that the reason they do not mention it is because it had not yet taken place. This places the composition of these Gospels accounts before the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.

Bishop John A.T. Robinson was a very liberal (atheist) Bible scholar who wrote a very influential book Redating the New Testament in which he proposed that all four Gospels were written between A.D. 40-65 based largely the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the omission of any narrative regarding this event in the Gospel records.There was a significant impact that the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of so many of the Jewish people had on both the life of Israel as a nation and the early church. The Roman-Jewish war took place over a period of time – 66-70 A.D. and it consummated in the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the temple.

This war had monumental effects for both Christians and Jews living in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. Eusebius states –“But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a town of Perea called Pella.” – Ecclesiastical History 3.5.

3. The Jewish Christians abandoned the city and the church at Jerusalem no longer existed.The war was not just limited to Jerusalem but was fought throughout the areas of Israel and Galilee. However, the key to the Jewish revolt was the walled city of Jerusalem and in A.D.70 , the Roman emperor Titus besieged the city. Many of the Jewish citizens that remained in the city were forced to flee because of the lack of food and in their escape were captured by the Romans. They were then crucified facing the city walls in an attempt by the Romans to demoralize those still inside defending the city. Josephus states that at one point, 500 people per day were being crucified outside of the city walls of Jerusalem. – Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 5.11.1

After the complete destruction of Jerusalem, the remaining Jews were not allowed to rebuild the city and it remained un-inhabited. The Roman Emperor Hadrian rebuilt the city of Jerusalem after crushing the Jewish revolt of Bar Kokhba in A.D.135. He rebuilt the city as a Roman city and named it Aelia Capitolina.Based on this understanding of the significance of this war and the destruction that it caused, to not have mentioned this war or the destruction of Jerusalem in the Gospel accounts makes no sense if they were in written after A.D.70.

Imagine someone describing the current status of living in the city of New York. If the author referred to the twin towers as still being in existence and other buildings that were destroyed in 2001 as still being present, and then made no mention of the terrible events of September 11, 2001, what would we think? We would rightly assume that the author wrote this description of New York before September 11, 2001.The Gospel writers speak of Israel and Jerusalem as still being in existence at the time of their writings. For example, John wrote regarding the presence of certain locations in Jerusalem and used the present tense verb “is”.

In John 5:2 – “Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes.”He indicates that at the time of his writing the sheep gate pool was still present. How could that be true if he wrote the Gospel after A.D.70? Jerusalem was completely destroyed as noted by the 1st century Jewish historian, Josephus. The accounts of Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, would certainly have mentioned some aspect of the A.D.70 destruction of the city if the writers were writing after the fact, but there is none. Why? Because they wrote the Gospels before A.D. 70. (See Matthew 24:1,2 ; Mark13:1,2; Luke 21:5,6), 3

Another area of support that indicates the early authorship of the Gospels is found in the book of Acts. The author of the book of Acts (Luke) demonstrates with exacting detail numerous events, buildings, geography, cities, cultural expressions… He mentions the martyrdoms of Stephen and of the apostle James and records many of Peter’s sermon and activities. He also covers in detail Paul’s conversion, imprisonments, journeys, perils…. And yet at the end of the book of Acts, he does not mention either Peter’s or Paul’s deaths. Solid church history confirms that Peter and Paul both suffered deaths as martyrs in Rome between A.D. 66-67. Why would Luke cover so many seemingly less important matters but not provide the reader with the deaths of two key figures in the book of Acts? We also know from the Jewish historian Josephus that James, the half brother of Jesus, who according to the book of Acts, was the key leader and pastor of the church in Jerusalem, was killed as a martyr in A.D. 62 and yet again, his death is not mentioned in the book of Acts. Why? Because the book of Acts was written before these events occurred.

The book of Acts was a companion book to the Gospel of Luke. Acts was written by Luke some time after he wrote the Gospel of Luke. ( See Luke 1:1-3; Acts 1:1-3). This puts the authorship of the Gospel of Luke before A.D. 62. Almost all New Testament scholars believe that the Gospels of Matthew and Mark were written before the Gospel of Luke based on numerous lines of evidence. If this is true, this then puts the date of these two Gospel accounts before A.D. 62.The early composition of the Gospel of Luke may also have been provided by the apostle Paul’s reference to a passage in Luke’s Gospel as written “scripture”.

He quotes Luke’s quotation of Jesus in Luke 10:7 – “The laborer is worthy of his wages.” In order for Paul to quote Luke, the Gospel of Luke would have to be in existence. The authorship of I Timothy by Paul is considered to be very strong. If Paul was martyred in A.D. 66-67, and if Paul is quoting from Luke’s Gospel, then the composition of Luke would by necessity be prior to this.

4. The Gospel of John is regarded by most scholars to be the last Gospel narrative written and based on internal and external evidences, it is dated between 80-90 A.D. A fragment of this Gospel (John 18:31-33 and 18:37,38) referred to as the John Rylands papyrus manuscript (P52), was found in Egypt and it is at present, the oldest manuscript of any of the New Testament manuscripts. This fragment is dated 100-135 A.D. Because it was located in Egypt,(John’s Gospel was written in Ephesus) it would have taken a considerable amount of time to have circulated to that part of the world (Egypt) from its place of composition (Ephesus in Asia Minor). This is an additional confirmation that all of the New Testament documents were written in the first century.

5. The writers use linguistic features and dealt with issues that were not a part or relevant to the second century church. If the Gospel writers were really people living in the second century, they would have been tempted to deal with issues that were pressing for the church at that time. For instance, circumcision, eating food offered to idols, the structure of church authority and the relationship of the believer to law and grace. These issues are not dealt with in the Gospels and if the authors were living in the second century and were creating the Gospel (as Bible critics affirm), then why did they not provide answers from Jesus regarding these issues? The composition of the parables was not a part of the second century church culture nor the use of terms such as “the Son of Man” or “the kingdom of God”.

Historian and philosopher J.P. Moreland provides additional distinctive features of Jesus’ words as recorded in the Gospel-“Other recognizable characteristics and terms are found in Jesus’ words and hardly anywhere else. Jesus’ use of the words “amen” and “abba” is unique. There are sixty four instances of threefold sayings (e.g., “ask, seek, knock”) in Jesus’ words and His use of questions is unique. Jesus uses the passive in contexts where He refers to God (e.g., “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father” Matthew 11:27) and His employment of the phrases “how much more”, “which of you”, and “disciple” is not duplicated by Paul, Peter or the other writers. Aramaisms (phases transliterated, rather than translated into Greek from Aramaic) have sometimes been retained; even when they are not, there is often parallelism, assonance and alliteration when the Greek is put back into Aramaic. This makes sense if these sayings reflect the actual words of Jesus ( He taught in Aramaic as well as Greek), but the church from 50 on was predominately Greek-speaking. Finally, Jesus’ use of parables was unique.” –Scaling the Secular City, J.P. Moreland, page 145.

These features found in the Gospel accounts fit into the early first century, but are not to be found by later writers or church fathers. This points to the composition of the Gospels to be first century in origin.

6. There is further evidence for the early authorship of the Gospels that can be studied by reading the material in the books listed at the end of this presentation. This information is mentioned here only as foundational evidence for the early composition of the Gospel records.So if we have the synoptic Gospels written by A.D. 62 and the crucifixion and resurrection events taking place in A.D. 33, we have a time gap between the eyewitness authorship of the Gospel narratives and the historical events that they describe to be a period of less than 30 years. By all the known standards dealing with the development of legendary narrative, there is not enough time for legends and myths regarding Christ to have developed. It takes at least 70 years for legendary material to be created under all of the right circumstances.

The biographies of Alexander the Great were written over 400 after his death and yet no scholar would consider these narratives legendary. The Gospel records were written within 30 to a maximum of 60 years after Christ and were written while many eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus Christ were still alive and could correct any false testimony regarding Him.Oxford classical historian Sherwin-White (1911-1983) has demonstrated that legends require a significant time gap of at least two generations. If the Gospels are legendary, they would require an accumulation rate that does not fit with what we understand regarding the development of legends.

He states regarding the historicity of the book of Acts-“For Acts, the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming…. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in matters of detail, must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.” -Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, 1192, pages 188-191.The highly respected, liberal Biblical archaeologist, William F. Albright (1891-1971) examined thoroughly the evidences for the authorship of the New Testament documents and wrote-“We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80.” – William F. Albright, Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands, 1956 , page 136.

The New Testament documents do not have the characteristics required to be considered legendary. The gap in time between the composition of the Gospel narratives and the events that they record are so close that any opportunity for legends to develop is unreasonable. The proposed theories that the Gospels were written by the second century church for the express purpose of creating a framework for faith does not stand under the weight of evidence. Both the external and internal evidences point to the eyewitness first century authorship of the Gospel records.