Who Wrote the Gospels and When?

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Who Wrote the Gospels and When?

Post #1

Post by We_Are_VENOM »

.

I am creating this thread because I believe it deserves its own space. Two wars (debates) were fought on the "Why Do You Really Believe" thread created by POI. The two wars..

1. The universe and cosmology

2. The Authorship and Dating of the New Testament (main focus; the Gospels)

Now, I am all for one conversation leading to another, but it seemed as if the two topics were getting convoluted and there needed to be a place for both topics to thrive.

Let me also point out that history has always been my favorite subject, and even more so as it pertains to my faith (Christianity). So I am always delighted to discuss history, dating, and just in general trying to decipher and unpack events of the past...especially if it involves apologetics.

This thread focuses on #2, as I respond to post #124 from AlexxcJRO...
Last edited by We_Are_VENOM on Fri Jan 14, 2022 12:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Authorship and Dating of the New Testament (main focus; The Gospels)

Post #2

Post by We_Are_VENOM »

alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am
I said: “Even the Catholics admit the anonymity: Catholic Encyclopedia says, "The first four historical books of the New Testament are supplied with titles..., which, however ancient, do not go back to the respective authors of those sacred writings.""
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06655b.htm

They agree that the traditional titles were a later addition.”


You replied: “I already acknowledged that point. Next..”

“The first four historical books of the New Testament are supplied with titles, do not go back to the respective authors of those sacred writings.” means the gospels of Mathew and John were not written by apostles Mathew and John.
Whoaaa. Wait a minute now...

First of all, you have this tendency to keep dropping quotes without actually making a case for what you are maintaining.

Sure, you provide the source links, but again, I can also provide links that are in agreement with my side of things. At the end of the day, we are back to square one, either you believe it, or you don't.

Second..

"...means the Gospel's of Matthew and John were not written by apostles Matthew and John".

Now, how can you, or ANYONE, POSSIBLY know that neither Matthew or John were written by apostles Matthew and John?

We are in agreement that the Gospel's are anonymous, which means that we don't know WHO wrote them and for all we know, maybe the apostles DID write the Gospels of which bears their names.

Now, if you think otherwise, then I'd like to see the evidence for your case, instead of willy nilly quotes from various sources, which does nothing for me anyway.

Third...

Again, my argument isn't based on whether or not they actually WROTE their Gospels (even though I am compelled to believe that Matthew wrote the Gospel which bears his name), but my argument is based on the premise that the Gospels ORIGINATED from either apostles, or friends of the apostles...and originated does not necessarily mean written by...which is a point that I keep stressing.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am If you agree with “The first four historical books of the New Testament are supplied with titles, do not go back to the respective authors of those sacred writings.” then it follows you believe the gospels of Mathew and John were not written by apostles Mathew and John.

Q: So what’s up? :?
Your getting confusing.
My stance is; the first four historical books of the New Testament goes back to the originators of the story, which were apostles Matthew and John.

There is no confusion there...at least not on my end.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am
1.
Q: What sources?
You have not provided anything.
You have only empty claims.
Just saying so not make it so.
Think so?
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Please provide something and don’t bore me with empty claims.
LOL. I'll be glad to. So, in a nut shell, the reason why we (those who argue this stuff) believe that no Gospel can be said to have been written post 70AD is simple.

The Destruction of Jerusalem (and the temple).

The city of Jerusalem (and the temple) was destroyed in 70AD.

Now, why was/is this event so significant? Because Jesus predicted that this would happen, that's why. This prophecy is mentioned in all 3 synoptics..

Mt 24:1-2 "Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

Mk 13:1-2 "As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”
2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

Lk 21:5-6 Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, He said, 6 “These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.”


This was a prophecy...and the argument is simple, if Jesus made a prophecy, and if the Gospel's were written AFTER the prophecy was fulfilled, then the fulfillment of the prophecy would have been mention.

Because after all, whenever Jesus fulfilled a prophecy, it was always pointed out "This happened so that X prophecy was fulfilled".

But not with Jerusalem, because the events did not happen yet....and as important of a city and building that Jerusalem and the temple was to the Jews, this certainly would have been mentioned either in the Gospels, or by Paul.

This is a legitimate case as to why no Gospel could have said to have been written post 70AD.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am 2.
Q: What’s the problem with my sources?
Please explain.
They don't take into account my case.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am
“The degree of verbatim agreement or the sequential agreement in the arrangement of episodes and sayings is so strong that one must posit some kind of literary relationship among the gospels.”
No one is denying that there is some kind of literary relationship among the gospels...at least the synoptics.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am This suggest copycat, plagiarism. + later embellishment-additions(ex: Mathew making Jesus seem more divine).
If anything, it is the Gospel of John which makes Jesus seem more divine. As far as plagiarism is concerned, if you and I are tasked to write a biography of a famous person, lets say, Frank Sinatra....we will eventually get around to telling the same story.

The man only had one life...and it is only a matter of time before some things begin to overlap.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am We have clear evidence of adding (harmonise the text to fit a certain narrative, certain concepts) and embellishment with Mark’s longer ending.
Putting great mistrust in this ancient writings as genuinely relating historical truth.
With all due respect, the appeal to Mark's longer ending is nothing more than a filler talking point with no merit.

With Mark's longer ending, all you have is about 12 additional verses pertaining to Jesus' Resurrection and post-mortem appearances...all of which we acknowledge as a later addition and it isn't even considered in anything related to evidences presented as to who wrote Mark, and when.

So the continual appeal to it is without merit and becoming to be borderline disingenuous.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Its funny how the genuine ending of Mark does not include the appearance of Jesus to either to women or apostles after burial, no ascension to Heaven.
Well, lets take a look at the genuine ending of Mark..

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

So even with the genuine ending, you have..

1. The proclamation that Jesus had risen (Resurrection).

2. The promissory notice that Jesus will be seen (post mortem appearance) at X location.

And besides, you have all of that good stuff with the other 3 Gospels (besides the ascension, which you get in Acts), and you are no closer to accepting the Christian faith...so please.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Also one has the writer of the Matthew gospel writing in third person when referring to Matthew suggesting this is probably not eyewitness testimony.

“Matt. 9:9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,”a he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.” (NIV)
Um, not so fast. The story could have originated (told) by Matthew in first person, but as the story was told and transmitted (by oral tradition followed by in print), then it eventually landed in third person. That is the way it normally goes.

That is one explanation.

The second explanation is (since I do believe Matthew wrote a Gospel) is the fact that due to persecution, Matthew may have wanted to remain anonymous, where he could write the story while protecting himself at the same time.

Proclaiming Jesus could have been a death sentence, just ask Stephen (Acts 7:54-56).
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Q: Do you make the distinction between dating manuscripts(ex: Papyri) Using Spectrometric Methods from dating “the most probable time of when it was written after analysing the available information”?
No consideration needed.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am The 2nd century is the period from 101 (CI) through 200 (CC).

Q: So I don’t understand the whole “post 200 AD”?
The point is; if you have a guy (Papias) talking about authorship of the Gospels, and the guy talking had died by the time 163AD rolled around...then it would logically follow that the copies that date after 200AD cannot be said to be the earliest.

Makes sense?
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am “1Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter”
Paul confirming the oral transmission mechanism. Warning of possible conflicting stories.
LOL. Um, the book of Acts highlights the early preaching of the Gospel. Obviously, this was via oral transmission.

No one is denying that.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Anecdotal personal experiences does not impress me and should not impress anyone.

“Anecdotal evidence is considered the least certain type of scientific information.[14] Researchers may use anecdotal evidence for suggesting new hypotheses, but never as validating evidence.[15]

Anecdotal evidence is often unscientific or pseudoscientific because various forms of cognitive bias may affect the collection or presentation of evidence. For instance, someone who claims to have had an encounter with a supernatural being or alien may present a very vivid story, but this is not falsifiable. This phenomenon can also happen to large groups of people through subjective validation.

Anecdotal evidence is also frequently misinterpreted via the availability heuristic, which leads to an overestimation of prevalence. Where a cause can be easily linked to an effect, people overestimate the likelihood of the cause having that effect (availability). In particular, vivid, emotionally charged anecdotes seem more plausible, and are given greater weight. A related issue is that it is usually impossible to assess for every piece of anecdotal evidence, the rate of people not reporting that anecdotal evidence in the population.

A common way anecdotal evidence becomes unscientific is through fallacious reasoning such as the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, the human tendency to assume that if one event happens after another, then the first must be the cause of the second. Another fallacy involves inductive reasoning. For instance, if an anecdote illustrates a desired conclusion rather than a logical conclusion, it is considered a faulty or hasty generalization.[16] For example, here is anecdotal evidence presented as proof of a desired conclusion:”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
:approve:
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am I made an error. I thought AD means after death of Christ.
That is what I mean when I say AD.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am If Peter was 30 at the death of Christ(30AD) he would have been in the 60s-70s during 60-70AD.
That is kinda my point.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Q: What’s your evidence Peter was alive in 60-70AD when the Mark gospel was supposed to have originated? Evidence please.
I am just using the general consensus of when the man apparently died...allegedly between 64-65AD.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am If Matthew was 30 at the death of Christ(30AD) he would have been in the 85s-90s during 85-90AD.
Q: What’s your evidence Matthew was alive in 85-90AD when the Matthew’s gospel was supposed to have originated? Evidence please.

If Paul died in the 60-70AD he would have been dead for 15-30 years during 85-90AD when the Luke gospel was supposed to have originated?
Q: What’s your evidence of Paul existence overlapped with Luke’s gospel writer existence? Evidence please.

If John was 25 at the death of Christ(30AD) he would have been in 85s-105s during the 90-110AD.
Q: What’s your evidence John was alive in 85s-105s when the John gospel was supposed to have originated? Evidence please.
Well first of all, you are asking these questions based on a premise that I do not accept...that the Gospels were written between 85-90AD.

I made what I believe to be a compelling, logical case as to why we believe the Gospels were written prior to 70AD...and I simply cannot be convinced otherwise based on the significance of the events that took place in Jerusalem in 70, and the relation that those events have with Judeo-Christian faith-hoods (definitely lack of a better term).
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Q: It is not highly unlikely that all lived very long lives considering the low life-span of people in the first century(exceptionally for the first eyewitness suspects Matthew and John)?
To say that they lived to be between the ages of 60-65 is not a stretch. They may have been the exception to any nonsense "average lifespan of X people during X period of time" data that you or anyone else try to throw at me.

This would be similar to 2,000 years from now...someone saying that X person could not have lived to be 90 in 2022, because the average lifespan of a person was 78 in 2022.

Yet, Betty White just recently passed away at age 99.

So, not buying it.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Sir I asked:
“Q: How old was the Luke when he wrote the gospel? Is Luke the supposed writer of the gospel same as the Luke the supposed friend of Paul? Q: How credible are accounts who attest Luke was friend of Paul?”I said if “Luke”(which may well be Eli ) the supposed writer of the gospel is the same as the Luke the supposed friend of Paul?
It may well be that Eli wrote the gospel and the supposed friend of Paul: Luke was only attributed as the being the writer.

Also its irrelevant for Paul was no eyewitness.
I'm not even entertaining this. This is blatant goalpost moving.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am But lets see:
P. People claimed someone named Luke wrote a gospel.
C1. Therefore someone named Luke wrote a gospel.(non-sequitur)
First of all, if it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke...would you become a Christian?

If the answer is no, then it doesn't matter who wrote Luke.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am It may be that someone wrote a gospel but it does not follow from there being an oral tradition(People claiming someone named Luke wrote a gospel).

P1 Someone named Luke wrote a gospel.
P2. Paul had a friend named Luke.
C2. The “Gospel we have now in the Bible” was written by the friend of Paul Luke.
Non-sequitur.
It may well be that indeed Paul friend wrote something but its not follows that is the same thing as the “Gospel we have now in the Bible”.
Or it may be that Paul's friend who wrong something, and it is the same thing as the "Gospel we have now in the Bible".
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Q: What if the rumor(oral transmission) that someone named Luke wrote a gospel came from writings of Paul(as inspiration) which preceded the Gospel of Luke(conform Raymond E. Brown)?[/size]
What if? But that is not the claim.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am The following is rather weak:
Q: How do you know the bible is true?
A: Christian miracle.
Straw man.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Q: How do you know the miracle happen?
A: Multiple first hand and 2hand testimonials?
Q: How do you know the texts are first hand and 2hand testimonials?
A: Because of early oral tradition and Paul mentioning friends.
Straw man. Paul himself stated that he was a witness to the miracle.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Q: How do you know they are the same persons as the persons writing the gospels?
A: ?
How do we know if any alleged author of an ancient writing is the actual author. So just take that question, and apply it to any author/piece of literature of antiquity, and ask that same question.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Provide something outside your own words to back up this please: “that tradition has Mark, a FRIEND of Peter as being the source of the written Gospel...that in itself gives credibility to the claim that Mark wrote it.” Please provide all the evidence you have connecting apostles with the writers of the gospels outside your own claims.
Please provide evidence for your claims.
Saying so does not make it so.
Looks to me like I already did. I stated that early Church Father, Papias, stated that Mark, a friend of Peter, wrote a Gospel....and early Church traditional has always attributed the Gospel of Mark to Mark, friend of Peter.

That is all I have, and all I need.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Your complaining about my sources and you have not presented anything outside your own words.
Zero. Nada.
Its funny how the religious don’t follow the saying from the bible: “In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you".
Q: What’s the problem with my sources that “8 of them conform Wikipedia were written early 2nd c.”?
Um, your sources are mere claims...the same thing you accused me of. What I am asking is for evidence FOR the claims...which you have not provided.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am I just pointed what sources say on the matter which have studied this much more then you or I.
Right, and I also have sources which have studied this much more than you or I, who agree with me.
alexxcJRO wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:54 am Equating your opinion as on the same ground as external sources(new testament scholars) to you and I is rather comical.

Raymond E. Brown says, in An Introduction to the New Testament, “Parallels have been detected between Mark and Paul's letter to the Romans,” suggesting that the somewhat earlier epistle was a source of some material in the Gospel.
Burton L. Mack says, in Who Wrote the New Testament:
Just as the Greeks would have done, Mark took the many little sayings and stories of Jesus that were available to him from earlier traditions and used them to create a new image of Jesus.

Dennis R. MacDonald even says, in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, that much of the Gospel must have been imaginatively based on Homer’s epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Rhoads, Dewey and Michie say, in Mark as Story, that the Gospel should be read as story, not as history.

At the end of the day that’s what we have subjective ponderings on who wrote what, who inspired from who, who copied who.

Sathya sai baba supposed miracles and testimonies are in better shape because one can probably find the eyewitness alive today.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba
http://saibaba.ws/miracles.htm
With the bible we have possible bogus 2hand or third hand or fourth hand or … testimonials.

Q: Surely this cannot constitute compelling enough for any rational mind? 8-)
Again, you have your sources, and I have mines.
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Re: The Authorship and Dating of the New Testament (main focus; The Gospels)

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Re: The Authorship and Dating of the New Testament (main focus; The Gospels)

Post #4

Post by alexxcJRO »

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm Whoaaa. Wait a minute now...

First of all, you have this tendency to keep dropping quotes without actually making a case for what you are maintaining.

Sure, you provide the source links, but again, I can also provide links that are in agreement with my side of things. At the end of the day, we are back to square one, either you believe it, or you don't.

Second..

"...means the Gospel's of Matthew and John were not written by apostles Matthew and John".

Now, how can you, or ANYONE, POSSIBLY know that neither Matthew or John were written by apostles Matthew and John?

We are in agreement that the Gospel's are anonymous, which means that we don't know WHO wrote them and for all we know, maybe the apostles DID write the Gospels of which bears their names.

Now, if you think otherwise, then I'd like to see the evidence for your case, instead of willy nilly quotes from various sources, which does nothing for me anyway.

Third...

Again, my argument isn't based on whether or not they actually WROTE their Gospels (even though I am compelled to believe that Matthew wrote the Gospel which bears his name), but my argument is based on the premise that the Gospels ORIGINATED from either apostles, or friends of the apostles...and originated does not necessarily mean written by...which is a point that I keep stressing.
My stance is; the first four historical books of the New Testament goes back to the originators of the story, which were apostles Matthew and John.

There is no confusion there...at least not on my end.
Trying to make me claim something(positive claim), to force me into a position is rather comical indeed.
I am not making a claim myself I am saying the Catholics themselves are making the claims.
If you have an issue take it with them.

Q: What this : “The first four historical books of the New Testament are supplied with titles (Euangelion kata Matthaion, Euangelion kata Markon, etc.), which, however ancient, do not go back to the respective authors of those sacred writings. “ means?

Maybe I am not understanding correctly.
Q: If one is saying the titles (“Mathew”, “Mark”, “John”, “Luke”) do not go back to the writers of the gospels does that not mean the writers are not the apostle “Mathew”, “John”?

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm LOL. I'll be glad to. So, in a nut shell, the reason why we (those who argue this stuff) believe that no Gospel can be said to have been written post 70AD is simple.

The Destruction of Jerusalem (and the temple).

The city of Jerusalem (and the temple) was destroyed in 70AD.

Now, why was/is this event so significant? Because Jesus predicted that this would happen, that's why. This prophecy is mentioned in all 3 synoptics..

Mt 24:1-2 "Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

Mk 13:1-2 "As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”
2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

Lk 21:5-6 Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, He said, 6 “These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.”

This was a prophecy...and the argument is simple, if Jesus made a prophecy, and if the Gospel's were written AFTER the prophecy was fulfilled, then the fulfillment of the prophecy would have been mention.

Because after all, whenever Jesus fulfilled a prophecy, it was always pointed out "This happened so that X prophecy was fulfilled".

But not with Jerusalem, because the events did not happen yet....and as important of a city and building that Jerusalem and the temple was to the Jews, this certainly would have been mentioned either in the Gospels, or by Paul.

This is a legitimate case as to why no Gospel could have said to have been written post 70AD.
David Sim professor of Biblical Studies at Australian Catholic University says the lack of mention is because maybe the writer was far from event both in time and location.
Says Matthew used Mark for his “plagiarism” therefore so we need to let at least a few years go by.
Also says The Gospel of Matthew has a developed Christology.

“A further factor is how late we date the Gospel. Most scholars date Matthew to the 80s or 90s, within 25 years of the destruction of Jerusalem, but it might well be the case that the evangelist wrote his work some decades later than this. Such a later dating is more consistent with the common scholarly view that the community represented by Matthew was in conflict with formative Judaism (or prerabbinic Judaism), which developed into an identifiable entity many decades after the Jewish revolt. Based on this dating the war would not have been an event of the recent past, and it would be understandable that Matthew did not focus on it in his Gospel.
Thus the more distance that can be put between the destruction of Jerusalem and the writing of Matthew, either geographical distance or temporal distance (or both), the more easily we can explain why this Christian Jewish author did not refer more concretely to the calamity of the Jewish War.”

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/tools/a ... ew-written


We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm They don't take into account my case.
They take into account the destruction of the temple but have an explanation. See above.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm No one is denying that there is some kind of literary relationship among the gospels...at least the synoptics.

If anything, it is the Gospel of John which makes Jesus seem more divine. As far as plagiarism is concerned, if you and I are tasked to write a biography of a famous person, lets say, Frank Sinatra....we will eventually get around to telling the same story.

The man only had one life...and it is only a matter of time before some things begin to overlap.

As time went by Jesus became more divine as embellishments accumulated over each other.
Scholars think because the degree of verbatim agreement or the sequential agreement in the arrangement of episodes and sayings is so “strong” that Matthew gospel for sure was written after the gospel of Mark. Which could not have happened independent of Mark Gospel.
We do not have independent testimonial with independent sources but interdependence testimonials. Which is more akin to one story which was later rewritten and embellished to look more magical.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm With all due respect, the appeal to Mark's longer ending is nothing more than a filler talking point with no merit.

With Mark's longer ending, all you have is about 12 additional verses pertaining to Jesus' Resurrection and post-mortem appearances...all of which we acknowledge as a later addition and it isn't even considered in anything related to evidences presented as to who wrote Mark, and when.

So the continual appeal to it is without merit and becoming to be borderline disingenuous.
The clear evidence of embellishment give credence to the whole idea that the story progressed from mere banal story to magical happenings.
One example of changing of the gospel is enough to put in question the whole thing.

It may be that in that time was probably a trendy, cool think among Christians to write gospels.

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

So even with the genuine ending, you have..

1. The proclamation that Jesus had risen (Resurrection).

2. The promissory notice that Jesus will be seen (post mortem appearance) at X location.

And besides, you have all of that good stuff with the other 3 Gospels (besides the ascension, which you get in Acts), and you are no closer to accepting the Christian faith...so please.
There is a clear distinction between the belief that Jesus has risen and will be seen at a later date in one gospel and Jesus actual meeting with women, apostles and then the ascension to Heaven in another gospel.
Claims of empty tomb and possible future encounters does not equal actual encounters and other magical deeds sir.
Fatima Analogy:
There is a clear distinction between a man saying: “I believe people saw the sun "dancing", zig-zagging in the sky” and a man saying: “Sun was "dancing", zig-zagging in the sky”.

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm The second explanation is (since I do believe Matthew wrote a Gospel) is the fact that due to persecution, Matthew may have wanted to remain anonymous, where he could write the story while protecting himself at the same time.
But this weakens greatly the whole independent testimonials corroborating the miracle because one has to make several assumptions for which one does not have evidence just so he can later make a case for the miracle being true.
Is more probable that the writer was writing in third person because he was not writing as eyewitness.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm
The point is; if you have a guy (Papias) talking about authorship of the Gospels, and the guy talking had died by the time 163AD rolled around...then it would logically follow that the copies that date after 200AD cannot be said to be the earliest.
Makes sense?
Q: How is this so hard to understand? :?

Early 2d century means between 100-200AD.
If one says 2d early century for an apocryphal gospel as a date that means more closer to the year 100 then 200. Definitely not above 200AD.
If John was maybe written close to 110 that mean early 2d century.
Q: Why was their perspective(2d century apocryphal gospel) not included?
Its funny how desperate you are to avoid this question.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm LOL. Um, the book of Acts highlights the early preaching of the Gospel. Obviously, this was via oral transmission.

No one is denying that.
You said in post #123 “I disagree with the oral traditions bit...no oral traditions pre 70AD.”
Now you say that in Second Thessalonians (c. 51–52 AD) oral traditions were present before 70AD.
Confused again.
Q: Contradicting yourself?

“2 Thessalonians 2:1–2 — New Living Translation (NLT)
1 Now, dear brothers and sisters, let us clarify some things about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we will be gathered to meet him. 2 Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us.

Also important point is that Paul warned of possible conflicting accounts, oral traditions.

Which points to there being a history of quarrel among Christians in respect to certain theology relating Jesus. There being some mutually exclusive claims.

The argument from contrariety, first developed by David Hume in his mid-18th-century Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, notes that the contrary claims of competing religions(in our case competing sects of Christianity) are mutually exclusive and thus cannot all be true. Moreover, the testimonial "evidence"-personal experience for the truth of any one religion-sect (whether understood as testimony for the occurrence of public miracles or private religious experiences) is on an equal footing with the contrary testimonial evidence for any other religion-sect (such that the clash of equally credible testimonies yields a "he said, she said" situation). Since there are a multitude of competing religions-sects, and thus a multitude of (absent anything better than testimony) equally credible yet contrary testimonies, the probability that any given religion is true--and thus that any religion at all is true--is extraordinarily low. Consequently, it is highly probable that all religions are false. Although an argument from contrariety can be combined with an argument from religious confusion to demonstrate the probable nonexistence of God, it does not have to be; an argument from contrariety stands on its own as a strong argument for the falsity of all religions-sects.

So the whole we don’t evidence of them quarreling is simply not truth.

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm Well first of all, you are asking these questions based on a premise that I do not accept...that the Gospels were written between 85-90AD.

I made what I believe to be a compelling, logical case as to why we believe the Gospels were written prior to 70AD...and I simply cannot be convinced otherwise based on the significance of the events that took place in Jerusalem in 70, and the relation that those events have with Judeo-Christian faith-hoods (definitely lack of a better term).

Scholars agree to this dates. To them there is no problem.
Q: Why do think scholars date them as this?
Q: Are you smarter, more knowledgeable then them?

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm To say that they lived to be between the ages of 60-65 is not a stretch. They may have been the exception to any nonsense "average lifespan of X people during X period of time" data that you or anyone else try to throw at me.

This would be similar to 2,000 years from now...someone saying that X person could not have lived to be 90 in 2022, because the average lifespan of a person was 78 in 2022.

Yet, Betty White just recently passed away at age 99.

So, not buying it.
Don’t straw man. In am not saying one person but “It is not highly unlikely that all lived very long lives considering the low life-span of people in the first century?”.
All is unlikely not one is unlikely.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm First of all, if it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke...would you become a Christian?

If the answer is no, then it doesn't matter who wrote Luke.
Irrelevant distractions.
I am afraid the non-sequitur remains.

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm Or it may be that Paul's friend who wrong something, and it is the same thing as the "Gospel we have now in the Bible".
Yes it may be.
But this viewed as the only conclusion is fallacious thinking.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm Straw man.
Straw man. Paul himself stated that he was a witness to the miracle.

Confused again.

Q: So you don’t believe the bible is true because of the Christian miracle?
Q: So you don’t believe the miracle happened because of the supposed first hand and 2hand testimonials?
Q: So you don’t believe the texts are first hand and 2hand testimonials because of oral tradition and Paul mentions?

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm How do we know if any alleged author of an ancient writing is the actual author. So just take that question, and apply it to any author/piece of literature of antiquity, and ask that same question.
Q: But you do?
You go against most consensus of the scholar when it comes to dating of the gospels and other aspects.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm Looks to me like I already did. I stated that early Church Father, Papias, stated that Mark, a friend of Peter, wrote a Gospel....and early Church traditional has always attributed the Gospel of Mark to Mark, friend of Peter.
Q: How to you know the following:” early Church traditional has always attributed the Gospel of Mark to Mark”?
Evidence.
Please show the evidence(the papyrus) that shows that Papias said that.
Don’t just say something. Prove it with external sources and evidence.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm Um, your sources are mere claims...the same thing you accused me of. What I am asking is for evidence FOR the claims...which you have not provided.
Sir I am not just claiming. Lol. Wikipedia is an outside source. The information is reliable.
It has references.
If your saying the source is bad ergo claim. Prove it.
Don’t bore me please.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:16 pm
Right, and I also have sources which have studied this much more than you or I, who agree with me.

Have not provided anything. On the other hand I did.
Again, you have your sources, and I have mines.
Q: What are these sources?
Q: They exist only in your head?
Please present them.
Quotes, names, links. Something.
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Re: Who Wrote the Gospels and When?

Post #5

Post by Miles »

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:15 pm Who Wrote the Gospels and When?

The four were probably written between AD 66 and 110. All were unsigned and therefore considered to be anonymous (the modern names, Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, were appended in the 2nd century), and it's almost a certainty that none were written by eyewitnesses, all having been handed down principally through oral tradition, a highly unreliable means, which is evident by the many contradictory elements among the four stories.

It's the Telephone Game writ large, yet taken as "gospel". ;)


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Re: Who Wrote the Gospels and When?

Post #6

Post by We_Are_VENOM »

Miles wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:50 pm
The four were probably written between AD 66 and 110.
I disagree. No later than 70AD.
Miles wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:50 pm All were unsigned and therefore considered to be anonymous (the modern names, Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, were appended in the 2nd century)
That is when they were officially appended, yes.
Miles wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:50 pm , and it's almost a certainty that none were written by eyewitnesses
Almost a certainty according to you? You?

Well, according to me, it is almost a certainty that the stories originated from either the apostles, or friends of the apostles.
Miles wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:50 pm , all having been handed down principally through oral tradition, a highly unreliable means, which is evident by the many contradictory elements among the four stories.
A false premise only leads to a faulty conclusion, as evident here.
Miles wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:50 pm It's the Telephone Game writ large, yet taken as "gospel". ;)
I disagree.
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Re: The Authorship and Dating of the New Testament (main focus; The Gospels)

Post #7

Post by We_Are_VENOM »

alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am
Trying to make me claim something(positive claim), to force me into a position is rather comical indeed.
I am not making a claim myself I am saying the Catholics themselves are making the claims.
If you have an issue take it with them.
?
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Q: What this : “The first four historical books of the New Testament are supplied with titles (Euangelion kata Matthaion, Euangelion kata Markon, etc.), which, however ancient, do not go back to the respective authors of those sacred writings. “ means?

Maybe I am not understanding correctly.
Q: If one is saying the titles (“Mathew”, “Mark”, “John”, “Luke”) do not go back to the writers of the gospels does that not mean the writers are not the apostle “Mathew”, “John”?
It depends. If by "writers", you mean the literal writers of the books, then no it doesn't. By if by "writers" you mean it loosely as the originators of the story, then yes.

From what I can see, looking at the evidence, I am compelled to believe that..

1. Matthew, apostle of Jesus, wrote the Gospel of Matthew.

2. Mark, friend of Peter, wrote the Gospel of Mark.

3. Luke, friend of Paul, wrote the Gospel of Luke.

4. John, apostle of Jesus, is of whom the Gospel of John originated from, with perhaps an inspired disciple of John authoring the book...at the very least.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am David Sim professor of Biblical Studies at Australian Catholic University says the lack of mention is because maybe the writer was far from event both in time and location.
A very weak postulation indeed.

Being far-removed from the time and location didn't stop the writer from knowing about Jesus, obviously...but it stopped him from knowing about the destruction of the most holy city in the land?

Makes no sense.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Says Matthew used Mark for his “plagiarism” therefore so we need to let at least a few years go by.
I agree. Perhaps maybe 5-7 years.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Also says The Gospel of Matthew has a developed Christology.
Point?
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am “A further factor is how late we date the Gospel. Most scholars date Matthew to the 80s or 90s, within 25 years of the destruction of Jerusalem, but it might well be the case that the evangelist wrote his work some decades later than this. Such a later dating is more consistent with the common scholarly view that the community represented by Matthew was in conflict with formative Judaism (or prerabbinic Judaism), which developed into an identifiable entity many decades after the Jewish revolt. Based on this dating the war would not have been an event of the recent past, and it would be understandable that Matthew did not focus on it in his Gospel.
Thus the more distance that can be put between the destruction of Jerusalem and the writing of Matthew, either geographical distance or temporal distance (or both), the more easily we can explain why this Christian Jewish author did not refer more concretely to the calamity of the Jewish War.”

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/tools/a ... ew-written[/size]
The reasoning you provided as to why all Gospels FAIL to mention the destruction of Jerusalem is very weak, and laughable.

Obviously, the author(s) knew about the temple in Jerusalem, so why wouldn't they know about the destruction of not only the temple, but the entire city?

Makes no sense.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am They take into account the destruction of the temple but have an explanation. See above.
Yeah, ok.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am As time went by Jesus became more divine as embellishments accumulated over each other.
That is actually a good argument. The problem is, Paul confirms Jesus' divinity multiple times in his epistles, and his epistles predates the Gospels

Nice try, though.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Scholars think because the degree of verbatim agreement or the sequential agreement in the arrangement of episodes and sayings is so “strong” that Matthew gospel for sure was written after the gospel of Mark. Which could not have happened independent of Mark Gospel.
We do not have independent testimonial with independent sources but interdependence testimonials. Which is more akin to one story which was later rewritten and embellished to look more magical.
Again, Matthew has 12 more chapters than Mark...so you can only ride that "Matthew copied from Mark" train for so long.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am
The clear evidence of embellishment give credence to the whole idea that the story progressed from mere banal story to magical happenings.
Magical happenings? Jesus was healing and doing all sorts of amazing things in Mark...so the magic was happening well before Mark 16.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am One example of changing of the gospel is enough to put in question the whole thing.
That is your opinion. My opinion; you don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am It may be that in that time was probably a trendy, cool think among Christians to write gospels.
LOL!!
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am There is a clear distinction between the belief that Jesus has risen and will be seen at a later date in one gospel and Jesus actual meeting with women, apostles and then the ascension to Heaven in another gospel.
Claims of empty tomb and possible future encounters does not equal actual encounters and other magical deeds sir.
That is why you have the other Gospels to fill in those blanks, where it does equal actual encounters and other magical deeds, sir.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Fatima Analogy:
There is a clear distinction between a man saying: “I believe people saw the sun "dancing", zig-zagging in the sky” and a man saying: “Sun was "dancing", zig-zagging in the sky”.
Notice that the word "believe" is not found in context as it pertains to this particular subject we are discussing.

Therefore, false equivalency.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am But this weakens greatly the whole independent testimonials corroborating the miracle because one has to make several assumptions for which one does not have evidence just so he can later make a case for the miracle being true.
I find it hilarious that you have the nerve to make this point, when you are the guy who, just above, claimed that the reason the destruction of Jerusalem isn't mentioned in either Gospel is because perhaps the author didn't know about such an event, because he lived X amount of years after the fact in a far away land.

At least I have history on my side as it pertains to Christian persecutions (and executions) during that time period. What reasons do you have for such an assumption, besides the fact that the goal is obviously to put on a skeptic hat and cast as much doubt on the validity of the Gospels that you possibly can?
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Is more probable that the writer was writing in third person because he was not writing as eyewitness.
The information contained in the story can only COME from an eyewitness...from someone who was actually there to know what Jesus said and did...otherwise, how would you know? And by "you", I mean the person who the story originated from.

Makes no sense.

alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Q: How is this so hard to understand? :?

Early 2d century means between 100-200AD.
So, 199AD is early 2nd century? LOL.

And btw, 200AD would be the 3rd century, not the second century.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am If one says 2d early century for an apocryphal gospel as a date that means more closer to the year 100 then 200. Definitely not above 200AD.
If John was maybe written close to 110 that mean early 2d century.
If I am not mistaken, either you or POI stated that the earliest full Gospel we have comes at or after 200AD, and I only pointed out that this cannot be true, considering we have an early church father mentioning a Gospel prior to 163AD.

Understand?
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Q: Why was their perspective(2d century apocryphal gospel) not included?
Its funny how desperate you are to avoid this question.
Avoid? I could have swore that I already stated that those apocrypha books were obviously not from eyewitnesses and were therefore not viewed as inspired and/or athoratitive.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am You said in post #123 “I disagree with the oral traditions bit...no oral traditions pre 70AD.”
Now you say that in Second Thessalonians (c. 51–52 AD) oral traditions were present before 70AD.
Confused again.
Q: Contradicting yourself?
A: No.

I don't call what Paul and the first century Christians were doing (preaching, evangelizing) tradition. The word "tradition" isn't a one size fit all definition, and it depends on the context that it is used in.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am “2 Thessalonians 2:1–2 — New Living Translation (NLT)
1 Now, dear brothers and sisters, let us clarify some things about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we will be gathered to meet him. 2 Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us.

Also important point is that Paul warned of possible conflicting accounts, oral traditions.
That is my point, the word "tradition" has no place there. That is not what Paul said, that is what YOU said.

If a person said "I received a spiritual vision/revelation/letter" (example Paul gave), this doesn't strike me as something to be labeled as an "oral tradition". Not even in the slightest bit.

So, I stand by what I said.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Which points to there being a history of quarrel among Christians in respect to certain theology relating Jesus. There being some mutually exclusive claims.
Umm, you've just proved my point, because a post or so back, you tried to argue me down about how Paul couldn't have been everywhere to dispel all false teachers (and religions).

And my response was; true, but the ones that were brought to his attention, he DID dispel them.

Yet, here you are, providing a scripture which proves my point...that when something false was brought to his ATTENTION, he dispelled it.

So thank you for proving my point.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am The argument from contrariety, first developed by David Hume in his mid-18th-century Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, notes that the contrary claims of competing religions(in our case competing sects of Christianity) are mutually exclusive and thus cannot all be true. Moreover, the testimonial "evidence"-personal experience for the truth of any one religion-sect (whether understood as testimony for the occurrence of public miracles or private religious experiences) is on an equal footing with the contrary testimonial evidence for any other religion-sect (such that the clash of equally credible testimonies yields a "he said, she said" situation). Since there are a multitude of competing religions-sects, and thus a multitude of (absent anything better than testimony) equally credible yet contrary testimonies, the probability that any given religion is true--and thus that any religion at all is true--is extraordinarily low. Consequently, it is highly probable that all religions are false. Although an argument from contrariety can be combined with an argument from religious confusion to demonstrate the probable nonexistence of God, it does not have to be; an argument from contrariety stands on its own as a strong argument for the falsity of all religions-sects.

So the whole we don’t evidence of them quarreling is simply not truth.
First of all, I did NOT say we don't/didn't have Christians quarreling about the Gospel.

What I said was, we don't have a history of the early church quarreling about the authorship of the Gospels.

Gotcha moment; FAILED.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Scholars agree to this dates. To them there is no problem.
Sure, some scholars agree to those dates...but do ALL scholars agree to those dates? The answer is NO.

And do those that DON'T agree to those dates, to them, there IS a problem.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Q: Why do think scholars date them as this?
Obviously, the less credible the Gospels can be said to be, the better for them.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Q: Are you smarter, more knowledgeable then them?
Maybe, maybe not. Are they more knowledgeable than the scholars who gives a pre-70s AD date?
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Don’t straw man. In am not saying one person but “It is not highly unlikely that all lived very long lives considering the low life-span of people in the first century?”.
All is unlikely not one is unlikely.
And when did I say/imply that they "all lived very long lives"? When did I say that? Answer; I didn't.

I clearly stated that there were exceptions then like there is today...and those in question were the exception.

Nice straw manning.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am
Irrelevant distractions.
I am afraid the non-sequitur remains.
It is relevant to me. Can you answer the simple yes or no question?
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Yes it may be.
But this viewed as the only conclusion is fallacious thinking.
Fallacy such as?
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Confused again.

Q: So you don’t believe the bible is true because of the Christian miracle?
Q: So you don’t believe the miracle happened because of the supposed first hand and 2hand testimonials?
Q: So you don’t believe the texts are first hand and 2hand testimonials because of oral tradition and Paul mentions?
This is a red herring. You stated that there were no eyewitnesses...and Paul stated that he was an eyewitness. Period.
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Q: But you do?
You go against most consensus of the scholar when it comes to dating of the gospels and other aspects.
Um, I asked you to provide a CASE as to why the dating of the Gospels should be as you see fit. What is the case? I provided mines, now what is yours.

All you've done is regurgitate X scholar, and the case isn't even presented in what you give. Now, what is the case?

If you can't make a case for your position, then you are relying on a fallacious argument from authority....which is, fallacious. :D
alexxcJRO wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am Q: How to you know the following:” early Church traditional has always attributed the Gospel of Mark to Mark”?
Evidence.
Please show the evidence(the papyrus) that shows that Papias said that.
Don’t just say something. Prove it with external sources and evidence.
I will, once you provide/present the case which supports your position that the Gospel's were written no earlier than 85AD.

You have no problem copy/pasting information that I could care less about, now about providing information that I am actually requesting.
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Re: Who Wrote the Gospels and When?

Post #8

Post by Miles »

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:56 pm
Miles wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:50 pm
The four were probably written between AD 66 and 110.
I disagree. No later than 70AD.

While there's a bit of difference of opinion, all the sources I visited put the latest date at least at A.D. 100. Five examples::

"The Gospels were written between the dates c. 70 CE and c. 100 CE."
source

". . . Suggested dates for the writing of the Gospel of Matthew range from as early as A.D. 40 to as late as A.D. 140. "
source

"The four canonical gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—were all composed within the Roman Empire between 70 and 110 CE (± five to ten years)"
source

"When were the Canonical Gospels written? Christian apologists and most lay Christians assume on the basis of 4th century Church teaching that the gospels were written by the Evangelists c. 50-65 AD, but the scholarly consensus is that they are the work of unknown Christians and were composed c. 68-110 AD."
source

"The various dates most widely held as possible writing dates of the Gospel are between A.D. 40 – 140."
source

Miles wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:50 pm , and it's almost a certainty that none were written by eyewitnesses
Almost a certainty according to you? You?
Yes. Me. Me. If you simply take the earliest dates from the five examples I gave above, they average out at 57.6 AD. Now, assuming that the age of the writers of the gospels were at least 20 years old, that means they were likely to be at least 77 years old when they wrote their stories, which is extremely unlikely because the average age expectancy at the time was only 30-35 years. Point being, it's almost a certainty that none were written by eyewitnesses because at the time of all the Jesus events they would not have been born yet.

Well, according to me, it is almost a certainty that the stories originated from either the apostles, or friends of the apostles.
Which, like I said, the stories would have had to been passed down, and almost certainly orally.


Miles wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:50 pm , all having been handed down principally through oral tradition, a highly unreliable means, which is evident by the many contradictory elements among the four stories.
A false premise only leads to a faulty conclusion, as evident here.
Then I leave it to you to substantiate this claim. What is false about my "premise"? "Prove" that eyewitness accounts of that time were not handed down "principally through oral tradition," AND that such a process is reliable, AND that there are not many contradictory elements among the four stories.


.

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Re: The Authorship and Dating of the New Testament (main focus; The Gospels)

Post #9

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Re: The Authorship and Dating of the New Testament (main focus; The Gospels)

Post #10

Post by alexxcJRO »

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am It depends. If by "writers", you mean the literal writers of the books, then no it doesn't. By if by "writers" you mean it loosely as the originators of the story, then yes.

From what I can see, looking at the evidence, I am compelled to believe that..

1. Matthew, apostle of Jesus, wrote the Gospel of Matthew.

2. Mark, friend of Peter, wrote the Gospel of Mark.

3. Luke, friend of Paul, wrote the Gospel of Luke.

4. John, apostle of Jesus, is of whom the Gospel of John originated from, with perhaps an inspired disciple of John authoring the book...at the very least.

We are talking about what “respective authors of those sacred writings” means.
What the Catholics are saying.
Please don’t go off point.
Q: Are you doing this on purpose or you cannot keep being on point?
Q: How does “authors of those sacred writings” not mean literal writers of the books? :?

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am A very weak postulation indeed.

Being far-removed from the time and location didn't stop the writer from knowing about Jesus, obviously...but it stopped him from knowing about the destruction of the most holy city in the land?

Makes no sense.
The reasoning you provided as to why all Gospels FAIL to mention the destruction of Jerusalem is very weak, and laughable.

Obviously, the author(s) knew about the temple in Jerusalem, so why wouldn't they know about the destruction of not only the temple, but the entire city?

Makes no sense.
Straw man.
Never the new testament scholar says “stopped from knowing”. Please read again.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am alexxcJRO wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:23 am
Also says The Gospel of Matthew has a developed Christology.
Point?
"Gospel of Matthew has a developed Christology, which suggests a late date towards the end of the first century".
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am That is actually a good argument. The problem is, Paul confirms Jesus' divinity multiple times in his epistles, and his epistles predates the Gospels

Nice try, though.
Non-sequitur.
It does not follow from the fact that Paul believed Jesus was divine that therefore there was no contrary belief among Christians(that Jesus was not divine).
As Paul mentions himself there were other opinions contrary to himself.
Examination of the letters of Paul does not prove that the entire early Church believed in the divinity of Jesus.
Saying it proves its fallacious.
The embellishment doesn’t disappear though which proves the mechanism of altering the stories. Which brings into question the whole “story remained intact” which is my real point not your straw-man concoction.

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Again, Matthew has 12 more chapters than Mark...so you can only ride that "Matthew copied from Mark" train for so long.
Q: What logic is that? :?
Q: If I plagiarized someone work and added something have I not copied therefore because there is something extra? 😊
Every plagiarism has something extra to the copied work.
The extra stuff does not disprove the plagiarism.
The fact remains: you don’t have independent testimonial with independent sources but interdependence testimonials no matter how many times you nod in disbelief.

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Magical happenings? Jesus was healing and doing all sorts of amazing things in Mark...so the magic was happening well before Mark 16.
“Mathew” is more magical then “Mark. “Mark works” is more magical probably then the previous orally told story.
I never said story originated down with writer of “Mark”.

I just pointed out the mechanism of embellishment: you have an empty tomb and claims of resurrection and then you have actual encounters and ascension.
And therefore this mechanism may have been at work before. Ergo the whole from banal story to super magical story.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am That is your opinion. My opinion; you don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
There are many suspicious things: writers writing in third person; Mark added final part; the embellishment of Matthew; Paul mentions quarrel with other Christians in respect to theology; no papyrus, manuscripts of the gospels dating before the first half of the 2nd century, the apocryphal gospels.

When someone its emotionally attached to something or someone they come with rationalisations because of cognitive dissonance.
If I say to someone her/his loved spouse lied about something and off course cognitive dissonance come into place and by cognitive reduction they devalue and discard conflicting knowledge.
One time its enough. When trust is broken is broken.

When one is proven to be a liar one cannot trust that someone fully again.
Let alone base ones entire life on that person truthfulness which your basically doing.


We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Notice that the word "believe" is not found in context as it pertains to this particular subject we are discussing.

Therefore, false equivalency.
Sir the guy in tomb said "Jesus has risen." Therefore he believed.
There is a difference between saying “Jesus has risen”(I saw his empty tomb and concluded he has risen”) and having actual encounters with Jesus.

Q: How is that not clear?

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am I find it hilarious that you have the nerve to make this point, when you are the guy who, just above, claimed that the reason the destruction of Jerusalem isn't mentioned in either Gospel is because perhaps the author didn't know about such an event, because he lived X amount of years after the fact in a far away land.
Don’t straw man.
I never claimed such a thing. That the author did not know or that is what really happened.
Please read again from the link I send.
Mentioning there may be other possibility, explanation its not claiming that possibility, explanation it’s the real thing.
Suggestion of a possibility its not akin to saying “ that has happened”.

Q: Do you make the distinction? Or do you want me to spell it to you again?

Also it was the Christian scholar suggesting the idea not me.
The scholar also does not says the author did not know.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am The information contained in the story can only COME from an eyewitness...from someone who was actually there to know what Jesus said and did...otherwise, how would you know? And by "you", I mean the person who the story originated from.
Q: How is this refuting that is more probable that when someone writes in third person about a guy name Matthew he is not that guy Matthew but just a person putting a oral tradition on written text?

“Matt. 9:9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,”a he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.” (NIV)

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am So, 199AD is early 2nd century? LOL.

And btw, 200AD would be the 3rd century, not the second century.
If I am not mistaken, either you or POI stated that the earliest full Gospel we have comes at or after 200AD, and I only pointed out that this cannot be true, considering we have an early church father mentioning a Gospel prior to 163AD.

Understand?
This is ridiculous. :))

Sir I said there are early second century apocryphal gospel close to the dating of John.
You said and I quote: “Because they were not considered inspired and were actually written centuries later and could not have possibly been derived from apostles or friends of the apostles.”
I contested the whole were “actually written centuries later” by pointing that there are decades later then John(possible 110AD- meaning early 2d century ) being dated as 2d early century old.

Q: Why was their perspective(early 2d century apocryphal gospel) not included if John (possible 110AD- meaning early 2d century ) was? Why did they were not to inspired? How did they choose the maximum point by which one gospel is eligible and one not?

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am A: No.

I don't call what Paul and the first century Christians were doing (preaching, evangelizing) tradition. The word "tradition" isn't a one size fit all definition, and it depends on the context that it is used in.
That is my point, the word "tradition" has no place there. That is not what Paul said, that is what YOU said.

If a person said "I received a spiritual vision/revelation/letter" (example Paul gave), this doesn't strike me as something to be labeled as an "oral tradition". Not even in the slightest bit.

So, I stand by what I said.

I said: “while the oral traditions continued to circulate.”
You said: “I disagree with the oral traditions bit...no oral traditions pre 70AD.”

At a later date you said: “the book of Acts highlights the early preaching of the Gospel. Obviously, this was via oral transmission.

“1Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter”


In one time you say there no oral circulation and then you say there is oral circulation. Ergo contradiction. 8-)


We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Umm, you've just proved my point, because a post or so back, you tried to argue me down about how Paul couldn't have been everywhere to dispel all false teachers (and religions).

And my response was; true, but the ones that were brought to his attention, he DID dispel them.

Yet, here you are, providing a scripture which proves my point...that when something false was brought to his ATTENTION, he dispelled it.

So thank you for proving my point.
First of all, I did NOT say we don't/didn't have Christians quarreling about the Gospel.

What I said was, we don't have a history of the early church quarreling about the authorship of the Gospels.

Gotcha moment; FAILED.

1. The argument from contrariety does not go away with the above.

I am sorry.
What you said above does not make away with the point of there being mutually exclusive claims, being an oral tradition which contradicts Paul belief/theology/doctrine; with people claiming to have had their own personal spiritual experience same as Paul.

The argument from contrariety, first developed by David Hume in his mid-18th-century Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, notes that the contrary claims of competing religions(in our case competing sects of Christianity) are mutually exclusive and thus cannot all be true. Moreover, the testimonial "evidence"-personal experience for the truth of any one religion-sect (whether understood as testimony for the occurrence of public miracles or private religious experiences) is on an equal footing with the contrary testimonial evidence for any other religion-sect (such that the clash of equally credible testimonies yields a "he said, she said" situation). Since there are a multitude of competing religions-sects, and thus a multitude of (absent anything better than testimony) equally credible yet contrary testimonies, the probability that any given religion is true--and thus that any religion at all is true--is extraordinarily low. Consequently, it is highly probable that all religions are false. Although an argument from contrariety can be combined with an argument from religious confusion to demonstrate the probable nonexistence of God, it does not have to be; an argument from contrariety stands on its own as a strong argument for the falsity of all religions-sects.

So we have Paul personal anecdotal, experience, theology versus other sect personal anecdotal, experience, theology.

2.Also again pressing this important point.
Anecdotal personal experiences does not impress me and should not impress anyone.

“Anecdotal evidence is considered the least certain type of scientific information.[14] Researchers may use anecdotal evidence for suggesting new hypotheses, but never as validating evidence.[15]

Anecdotal evidence is often unscientific or pseudoscientific because various forms of cognitive bias may affect the collection or presentation of evidence. For instance, someone who claims to have had an encounter with a supernatural being or alien may present a very vivid story, but this is not falsifiable. This phenomenon can also happen to large groups of people through subjective validation.

Anecdotal evidence is also frequently misinterpreted via the availability heuristic, which leads to an overestimation of prevalence. Where a cause can be easily linked to an effect, people overestimate the likelihood of the cause having that effect (availability). In particular, vivid, emotionally charged anecdotes seem more plausible, and are given greater weight. A related issue is that it is usually impossible to assess for every piece of anecdotal evidence, the rate of people not reporting that anecdotal evidence in the population.

A common way anecdotal evidence becomes unscientific is through fallacious reasoning such as the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, the human tendency to assume that if one event happens after another, then the first must be the cause of the second. Another fallacy involves inductive reasoning. For instance, if an anecdote illustrates a desired conclusion rather than a logical conclusion, it is considered a faulty or hasty generalization.[16] For example, here is anecdotal evidence presented as proof of a desired conclusion:”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Sure, some scholars agree to those dates...but do ALL scholars agree to those dates? The answer is NO.

And do those that DON'T agree to those dates, to them, there IS a problem.

I never said all scholars.
The info I provided said most scholars.
Wiki says the following: “Like the rest of the New Testament, the four gospels were written in Greek.[30] The Gospel of Mark probably dates from c. AD 66–70,[3] Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90,[4] and John AD 90–110.[5] Despite the traditional ascriptions, all four are anonymous and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses.[6] A few conservative scholars defend the traditional ascriptions or attributions, but for a variety of reasons the majority of scholars have abandoned this view or hold it only tenuously.[31]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel

So most scholars agree and a few conservative scholars don’t.

These are all the references.
Citations[edit]
1. ^ Jump up to:a b Cross & Livingstone 2005, p. 697.
2. ^ Alexander 2006, p. 16.
3. ^ Jump up to:a b Perkins 1998, p. 241.
4. ^ Jump up to:a b Reddish 2011, pp. 108, 144.
5. ^ Jump up to:a b Lincoln 2005, p. 18.
6. ^ Jump up to:a b Reddish 2011, pp. 13, 42.
7. ^ Jump up to:a b Goodacre 2001, p. 56.
8. ^ Jump up to:a b Boring 2006, pp. 13–14.
9. ^ Jump up to:a b Levine 2009, p. 6.
10. ^ Jump up to:a b Burge 2014, p. 309.
11. ^ Jump up to:a b Tuckett 2000, p. 523.
12. ^ Jump up to:a b Reddish 2011, pp. 21–22.
13. ^ Jump up to:a b Sanders 1995, pp. 4–5.
14. ^ Petersen 2010, p. 51.
15. ^ Jump up to:a b c Culpepper 1999, p. 66.
16. ^ Woodhead 2004, p. 4.
17. ^ Thompson 2006, p. 183.
18. ^ Scholz 2009, p. 192.
19. ^ Burkett 2002, p. 158.
20. ^ Parker 1997, p. 125.
21. ^ Telford 1999, p. 149.
22. ^ Beaton 2005, pp. 117, 123.
23. ^ Morris 1986, p. 114.
24. ^ Aune 1987, p. 59.
25. ^ Johnson 2010a, p. 48.
26. ^ Jump up to:a b Burkett 2002, p. 217.
27. ^ Anderson 2011, p. 52.
28. ^ Burkett 2002, p. 214.
29. ^ Honoré 1986, pp. 95–147.
30. ^ Porter 2006, p. 185.
31. ^ Lindars, Edwards & Court 2000, p. 41.
32. ^ Reddish 2011, p. 17.
33. ^ Burkett 2002, pp. 124–125.
34. ^ Martens 2004, p. 100.
35. ^ Goodacre 2001, p. 1.
36. ^ Perkins 2012, p. [page needed].
37. ^ Aune 1987, pp. 243–245.
38. ^ Allen 2013, pp. 43–44.
39. ^ Edwards 2002, p. 403.
40. ^ Beaton 2005, p. 122.
41. ^ Lieu 2005, p. 175.
42. ^ Allen 2013, p. 45.
43. ^ Lincoln 2004, p. 133.
44. ^ Dunn 2005, p. 174.
45. ^ Keith & Le Donne 2012, p. [page needed].
46. ^ Reddish 2011, p. 22.
47. ^ Ehrman 2005a, pp. 7, 52.
48. ^ Ehrman 2005a, p. 69.
49. ^ Ehrman 1996, pp. 75–76.
50. ^ Theissen & Merz 1998, pp. 36–37.
51. ^ Lincoln 2005, p. 26.
52. ^ Fant & Reddish 2008, p. 415.
53. ^ Ehrman 2005a, p. 34.
54. ^ Ehrman 2005a, p. 35.
55. ^ Aune 2003, pp. 199–200.
56. ^ Ehrman & Plese 2011, p. passim.
57. ^ Pagels 1989, p. xx.
58. ^ Ehrman 2005b, pp. xi–xii.
59. ^ Bernhard 2006, p. 2.
60. ^ Jump up to:a b Cross & Livingstone 2005, "Gospel of St. Peter".
61. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Cross & Livingstone 2005, "Gospel of Thomas".
62. ^ Casey 2010, p. [page needed].
63. ^ Meier 1991, p. [page needed].
64. ^ Funk, Hoover & Jesus Seminar 1993, "The Gospel of Thomas".
65. ^ Metzger 2003, p. 117.
66. ^ Gamble 1985, pp. 30–35.
67. ^ Achtemeier 1985, p. [page needed].
68. ^ Wiegers 1995.
Bibliography[edit]
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We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Obviously, the less credible the Gospels can be said to be, the better for them.
Q: Why is it better for them ?
Q: What has François Bovon, Brown Raymond, James R. Edwards, Ehrman Bart D, Bruce M. have to gain?

"Raymond Edward Brown was an American Catholic priest, a member of the Sulpician Fathers and a prominent biblical scholar. He was regarded as a specialist concerning the hypothetical "Johannine community", which he speculated contributed to the authorship of the Gospel of John, and he also wrote influential studies on the birth and death of Jesus. Brown was professor emeritus at Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York where he taught for 29 years. He was the first Catholic professor to gain tenure there, where he earned a reputation as a superior lecturer.[1 "

"François Bovon was a Swiss biblical scholar and historian of early Christianity. He was the Frothingham Professor Emeritus of the History of Religion at Harvard Divinity School."

"Bruce Manning Metzger was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the American Bible Society and United Bible Societies. He was a scholar of Greek, New Testament, and New Testament textual criticism, and wrote prolifically on these subjects. Metzger was one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the 20th century.[1][2][3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Bovon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_M._Metzger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_E._Brown

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Maybe, maybe not. Are they more knowledgeable than the scholars who gives a pre-70s AD date?
Can you show them please.
I am waiting.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am And when did I say/imply that they "all lived very long lives"? When did I say that? Answer; I didn't.

I clearly stated that there were exceptions then like there is today...and those in question were the exception.

Nice straw manning.


You said:”This would be similar to 2,000 years from now...someone saying that X person could not have lived to be 90 in 2022, because the average lifespan of a person was 78 in 2022.”
Key words: “someone saying that X person”. Ergo straw man.
X person not X persons.

Also life expectancy/ average lifespan of a person(78) is not the same as 2000 years before.
Also the use of the word “could” its wrong(another straw man) for I said unlikely not impossible sir.
First century life expectancy/ average lifespan of a person was far lower then today because of hard life was, lack of the medicine technology we have today, lack of knowledge of germs, viruses and a myriad of other things.
The argument is not that they could not lived 60-90, 80-100 but that is highly unlikely they all did considering the time. Plus with that whole persecution going on. Therefore making even more unlikely of all of them living very long lives.

“In 2016, Gazzaniga published her research on more than 2,000 ancient Roman skeletons, all working-class people who were buried in common graves. The average age of death was 30, and that wasn’t a mere statistical quirk: a high number of the skeletons were around that age. Many showed the effects of trauma from hard labour, as well as diseases we would associate with later ages, like arthritis.”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2018 ... -longevity
“The average person born in 1960, the earliest year the United Nations began keeping global data, could expect to live to 52.5 years of age. Today, the average is 72. In the UK, where records have been kept longer, this trend is even greater. In 1841, a baby girl was expected to live to just 42 years of age, a boy to 40. In 2016, a baby girl could expect to reach 83; a boy, 79.”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2018 ... -longevity

“In his paper “Demography and Roman Society,” classics and history professor Tim. G. Parkin used ancient tombstone epigraphs to estimate the life expectancy of the average Roman citizen. The figure he came up with: 25 years.”
https://learn.age-up.com/blog/a-brief-h ... longevity/

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am It is relevant to me. Can you answer the simple yes or no question?
Its irrelevant to the argument. The non-sequitur stays.

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Fallacy such as?
Non-sequitur.

We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am
This is a red herring. You stated that there were no eyewitnesses...and Paul stated that he was an eyewitness. Period.
The miracle in that QA list is the resurrection of Christ.
Q: How was Paul an eyewitnesses ?
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am Um, I asked you to provide a CASE as to why the dating of the Gospels should be as you see fit. What is the case? I provided mines, now what is yours.

All you've done is regurgitate X scholar, and the case isn't even presented in what you give. Now, what is the case?

If you can't make a case for your position, then you are relying on a fallacious argument from authority....which is, fallacious.
I never claimed I was right because most consensus of the scholar points to a certain way.
My argument is that is most likely that the consensus of the scholars points to the truth.
Most likely leaves room for doubt.
I admit the consensus maybe be wrong.
Q: Do you admit that maybe the consensus may be right and you wrong?
Can you please provide evidence of such a scholar that support your hypothesis.
I am waiting. 8-)
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am I will, once you provide/present the case which supports your position that the Gospel's were written no earlier than 85AD.

See the point above about Wikipedia and Wikipedia links references from above.
We_Are_VENOM wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:11 am 2. You have no problem copy/pasting information that I could care less about, now about providing information that I am actually requesting.
Sir don’t bore with irrelevant nonsense and distractions.
You made two claims: “ Papias, stated that Mark, a friend of Peter, wrote a Gospel....and early Church traditional has always attributed the Gospel of Mark to Mark, friend of Peter.” please provide the evidence.
Please copy paste the evidence, texts with links that show that such a thing exists(the papyrus, manuscripts analysis exists) that shows that Papias, stated that Mark, a friend of Peter, wrote a Gospel and that “Church traditional has always attributed the Gospel of Mark to Mark”.
As per forum rules: ”Support your assertions/arguments with evidence. Do not persist in making a claim without supporting it. All unsupported claims can be challenged for supporting evidence. “
I am waiting. 8-)
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
"God is a insignificant nobody. He is so unimportant that no one would even know he exists if evolution had not made possible for animals capable of abstract thought to exist and invent him"
"Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer."

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