10 GOOD HISTORICAL REASONS FOR THE EARLY DATING OF THE GOSPELS:
( Ran across this from someone named Erik Manning:)
What about early dating? Are there any arguments that are in favor of it? Yep, there sure is. There’s a lot of things that are conspicuous by their absence when we look at Acts.
Luke was the first church historian. And Acts is the sequel to his own gospel, which he says he was careful to interview eyewitnesses about. ( Luke 1:1-4) There’s a lot of interesting details we find out about life and (hard) times of the early church.
We read about the martyrdom of James the brother of John. (See Acts 12:1-3) We find out about the martyrdom of Stephen. (See Acts 7:56-60) We hear about the early church persecution of Peter and Paul. We follow Peter in the first half of the book, and then we get up close with Paul in the last half of the book.
There are some big events that are missing from Acts that you’d expect to find from such a thorough storyteller like Luke. We’ll now look at 10 reasons why scholars — even some non-conservative ones — date the Gospels earlier.
1. THE DEATH OF PAUL
At the end of Acts, Paul is under house arrest in Malta while having his own healing revival. Paul’s execution was in 62-64. After being Paul’s biographer for a huge portion of the book, this seems like a huge event for Luke to fail to mention.
Adolf von Harnack was a prominent German NT scholar who changed his mind on the late dating of the Gospels and Acts. His turnabout came precisely because of the ending of Acts and that Paul is still in Rome alive and preaching. Says Harnack: “we are accordingly left with the result: that the concluding verses of the Acts of the Apostles, taken in conjunction with the absence of any reference in the book to the result of the trial of St. Paul and to his martyrdom, make it to the highest degree possible that the work was written at a time when St. Paul’s trial had not yet come to an end.”
The Beheading of Saint Paul by Enrique Simonet, 1887
2. THE DEATH OF PETER
Luke was also up close with Peter in Acts, so it’s also weird that he doesn’t mention Peter’s martyrdom in 65 AD. Again, we see Stephen and James the son of Zebedee’s deaths. Yet he fails to mention the death of the towering figure who preached on Pentecost and was such a pivotal figure in his gospel? It doesn’t add up.
3. THE DEATH OF JAMES THE BROTHER OF JESUS
James was a huge figure in the church of Jerusalem. He looms large in Acts. He’s also Jesus’ brother. We know from the Jewish historian Josephus that James’ martyrdom took place in 62 AD. Josephus thought it was a big enough deal to describe this event, and he was no Christian.
4. THE SEVERE PERSECUTIONS OF NERO
Nero himself was probably to blame for a large fire that broke out in Rome. What’s an emperor to do when his capital city is in flames and it’s his own fault? Blame those weird Christians, of course.
This happened around 64 AD. We can read about it in some detail in Tacitus. It’s a strange thing for Luke not to mention this. Luke mentions the church’s persecution in other places, like Jerusalem, Phillipi, Ephesus and more places. But he doesn’t mention one of the more gruesome persecutions of the time?
5. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE AND THE SECOND COMING
This might be the most convincing proof of them all. The passages in Matthew that describe the destruction of Jerusalem and Jesus’ second coming seemingly leave no time between the two events. Reading Mark and Luke, the interval between the two events is brief. Skeptics like Bertrand Russell and Bart Ehrman have been quick to pounce on this as if Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet.
I’m not here to give a theological explanation, although many have been offered throughout the centuries. The association of the destruction of Jerusalem with the return of Jesus wouldn’t exist if the composition of the Gospels was after the destruction of the Temple. Surely there would’ve been some explanation or indication that the two events were not to stand in so close juxtaposition.
6. LUKE WAS TRUE TO HIS TIMES
Luke has a lot to say about issues of the day that wouldn’t have been relevant after the destruction of Jerusalem. For instance, there was the brouhaha about how to deal with Gentiles now being members of the church. There’s also mention of the division between the Palestinian and Hellenistic Jews. These would not be relevant after Jerusalem’s destruction. Disputes like these are absent in the writings of early church fathers.
7. PAUL QUOTES LUKE AS SCRIPTURE
The letters to Timothy proceeded Paul’s death. Paul writes:
The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,” and “The laborer is worthy of his wages.” ( 1 Tim. 5:17–18)
Paul quotes Deuteronomy alongside Luke. This saying is in Luke 10:7. Scriptures refer to something written down, so this goes beyond oral tradition. This takes for granted that they had familiarity with what scriptures Paul was talking about.
I understand some critics say Paul didn’t write 1 Timothy. But I’d humbly argue that they are incorrect in their assessment. The main reasons to reject Pauline authorship are thin, as I cover here:
Erik Manning's answer to Did Paul write the Pastoral Epistles? Why or why not?
8. JEWISH PERSECUTION
If Matt 23:34 is reflecting current Jewish persecution of Christians by the synagogue, the verse implies an authority to punish that Jewish leaders did not likely have after the temple destruction.
9. PATRISTIC EVIDENCE
Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp. Polycarp was a student of John. Therefore Irenaeus was in a position to know about the composition of the Gospels. In his book Against Heresies, he writes: “Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church.” (3.1)
That’s interesting. The internal evidence we have for the early dating of the Gospels now matches the external dating.
10. WHO WAS THE UNNAMED DISCIPLE WHO WAS “FAMOUS IN THE GOSPEL?”
2 Corinthians 8:18-19 speaks of a famous unnamed disciple that several church fathers (Origen, Jerome) and some commentators believe is referring to Luke.
“We have sent along with him the brother whose fame in the things of the gospel has spread through all the churches and not only this, but he has also been appointed by the churches to travel with us in this gracious work…”
The commentator Barnes observes “…Luke was the companion and intimate friend of Paul and attended him in his travels. From Acts 16:10-11, where Luke uses the term “we,” it appears that he was with Paul when he first went into Macedonia, and from Acts 16:15 it is clear that he went with Paul to Philippi. From Acts 17:1, where Luke alters his style and uses the term “they,” it is evident that he did not accompany Paul and Silas when they went to Thessalonica, but either remained at Philippi or departed to some other place.
He did not join them again until they went to Troas on the way to Jerusalem; Acts 20:5. In what manner Luke spent the interval is not known…it seems probable that Luke is the person referred to by the phrase “whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches.” This would be more likely to be applied to one who had written a gospel, or a life of the Redeemer that had been extensively circulated, than to any other person.“
While this is admittedly speculative, it does make sense of Paul quoting Luke’s gospel.
In a previous answer, I give three other reasons why Matthew’s Gospel is early as an added bonus: Erik Manning's answer to Is 2 Thessalonians a forgery as Bart Ehrman claims?
WE CAN DATE THE GOSPELS EARLY
NT scholar EP Sanders writes that “there is no material in Mark which must be dated after 70.” If that’s true of Mark, it’s true of Matthew and Luke as well. And if Acts was written before Paul’s death, that means the Gospel of Luke was written when Paul was still alive and kicking. We’ve seen that Paul quotes Luke as scripture. And history tells us Paul died in 62 AD.
There are also several indicators that Matthew’s Gospel was written before 70 AD as well. If both Gospel writers used Mark as a source, then Mark has to be dated even earlier than 62 AD. That means this alleged time-gap has been greatly shortened 40-60 years to 20-30 years. If Paul refers to Luke in 2 Corinthians, then his Gospel was being circulated before 55 AD.
Furthermore, if Paul quotes Luke’s Gospel as scripture, and Paul has met with Peter and James — who were living eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus — then it’s not difficult to imagine the other apostles were aware of the written Gospels as well. They could have policed and addressed necessary correctives if they were inaccurate, and they also could have been sources for the Gospels. We know that the church father Papias (125-130 AD) tells us that Mark’s Gospel was based on Peter’s preaching.
The bottom line is there are good reasons to think the gospels are written early.
Chris Lee
I would also add, there are reasons to even date John early:
The temple was destroyed, a lot of people killed, and a fire that spread over much of the city, especially around the Temple. John used specific references like Fish Gate, Sheep Gate, Pool of Siloam, Pool of Bethesda, Solomon’s Porch or Colonnade, etc.
Writing about specific places, it would be odd to refer to them if the places were destroyed or no longer there/were replaced.
For instance, as I live in Boston, references to the “Leather District” would put this roughly a hundred year window (1883–1983) and much after 1983, we really don’t refer to this area as “the Leather District.” Nor do we make Leather goods these days…
If I made reference to “the Combat Zone” in Boston, that would be about a 30–40 year window (1960’s-around 2000). It’s been eliminated now. I remember passing by when I visited in 1989, and by the 2000’s, it was eliminated. |
