I don’t know about you, but I’ve often wondered how long it took for the authors of the Gospels to actually write down what they had learned. I’ve also wondered how the “experts” figured out the dating of the Gospels, after all, not one of the four Gospel writers dated his work. 

Well, I’ve just spent almost 3 months trying to find the answers to these questions. I started with the internet and looked at a number of different sites. From that I got a couple of book recommendations, and then from those books was able to locate a few more books that seemed to be commonly referred to on this topic.

In general, I noted down the dates deduced by each source (when they were bold enough to write it down), and then came up with a list of sub-topics that seemed to be used by the scholars to determine the ages of each Gospel. I left out a few super-technical topics that didn’t seem to influence the conclusions much at all. The sub-topic list I came up with is as follows:

• General Parameters
• The Issue of AD 70
• The Internal Evidence of Matthew
• The Internal Evidence of Mark
• The Internal Evidence of Luke (in both the Gospel and in Acts)
• The Evidence of the Synoptic Gospels as a Group
• The Internal Evidence of John
• The Arguments about the Order of the Gospels
• The Internal Evidence of Paul
• The Extant Manuscripts of the Gospels
• The Arguments Regarding Anonymous and Pseudonymous Authors of the Gospels
• The Literary and Language Arguments
• The Evidence from the Early Church Fathers
• The Arguments Regarding the Culture of the Time

For each of these sub-topics, I’ve gathered from 2 to 60+ pages of quotes from 8 books and 12 websites. I originally planned to use quotes to explain things, like I have in my previous posts, but because of the depth and breadth of this topic, I’ve changed my mind. There will be some quoting, but mostly I plan to summarize my findings and provide the references for the ideas referred to.

Not each of the sub-topics will be used to write a separate post. As much as possible, I will combine some of the sub-topics so that we can get back to Revelation as soon as possible. 

This may sound backwards, but I’m going to start today with a review of some of the authors’ conclusions regarding the date ranges for the writing of the Gospels. This will show the ranges of opinion, and give us something to refer to as we move into the arguments.

We’ll start with Adolf Harnack who wrote a book called THE DATE OF THE ACTS AND OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS, which was translated from it’s original German into English, and published in the US in 1911.  In looking at Acts, he concluded that the only way to explain the Book of Acts was that it was an actual and contemporary account of Paul and his travels, and that it ended before the execution of Paul. This would mean that it was completed before 62 AD, the year that most people think Paul was killed. His further conclusion was that Luke’s Gospel was written before Acts, so that Gospel, as well as the Gospel of Mark, would have been completed by around 60 AD.

The book REDATING MATTHEW, MARK & LUKE: A FRESH ASSAULT ON THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM, written by John William Wenham and published in 1992, has a whole list of dates for all the writings and events up to the destruction of Jerusalem. I reproduce it here:

Crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, Pentecost 30

Conversion of Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1-22; Gal. 1:15-17) c. 33

Paul’s first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-30; Gal.1:18-20) c. 35

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW c. 40

Accession of Herod Agrippa I; death of James son of Zebedee; Peter’s imprisonment and escape to Rome (Acts 12:1-17) 42

Death of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:20-23) March 44

Peter goes to Antioch 44

GOSPEL OF MARK c. 45

Famine in Judea (Acts 11:28) 45-48

Barnabas and Paul visit Jerusalem (Acts 11:30; Gal. 2:1) c. 46

Barnabas and Paul evangelize Cyprus and South Galatia (Acts 13:4-14:26) c.47-48

Letter to the Galatians c. 48

Apostolic Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:6-29) c. 49

Paul, Silas and Timothy take the gospel to Macedonia (Acts 16:9-17; 1 Thess. 1:5-2:2) c. 49-50

Paul in Corinth (Acts 18:1-18; 1 Cor. 2:1-5) 50-52

Letters to the Thessalonians 50

Gallio becomes proconsul of Acaia (Acts 18:12) 51

Paul’s hasty visit to Judea and Syria (Acts 18:22) 52

Paul in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-20:1) 52-55

GOSPEL OF LUKE c. 54

First Letter to the Corinthians 55

Paul to Macedonia and Illyricum (Acts 20:1f; Rom. 15:19) 55-56

Second Letter to the Corinthians 56

Paul in Achaia (Corinth) (Acts 20:2f) 56-57

Letter to the Romans 57

Paul’s arrival and arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 21:17-33) 57

Paul detained at Caesarea (Acts 23:23-26); 1 Timothy, Titus 57-59

Paul sets sail for Italy (Acts 27:1f) 59

Paul arrives in Rome (Acts 28:14-16) 60

Philippians, 2 Timothy (cf. 1:17) c. 60-61

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (cf. Acts 28:30) 62

Great fire of Rome   July 64

Neronian persecution of Roman Christians c. 64-67

Death of Peter and Paul c. 67

Outbreak of Jewish War 66

Destruction of Jerusalem 70

You can see that Wenham agrees with Harnack regarding the Book of Acts, but moves the Gospel of Luke up to 54 AD. You will also notice that Matthew is listed first, and then Mark. There will more about that later on.

A 2004 book entitled THE DATE OF MARK’S GOSPEL: INSIGHT FROM THE LAW IN EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY, written by James G. Crossley makes the brief statement: “A date for Mark between the mid to late thirties and mid-forties…” Crossley sees Mark as the first book, and is providing an even earlier date than Wenham did.

Jonathan Bernier’s book, RETHINKING THE DATES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, published in 2022, brings us a table listing the 3 basic date ranges for the main books of the New Testament:

BOOK	LOWER	MIDDLE (MAJORITY)	HIGHER
MATTHEW	50	70-75	130
MARK	45	65-73	80
LUKE	60	80-95	110
JOHN	65	80-110	140
ACTS	62	80-95	130
REVELATION	68	93-96	150

The first website, evidenceunseen.com/theology/scripture/historicity-of-the-nt/evidence-for-an-early-dating-of-the-four-gospels/, lists the opinion of “the majority of NT scholars” as endorsing Mark (AD 60-75), Matthew (AD 65-85), Luke (AD 65-95), and John (AD 75-100).             

The website stellarhousepublishing.com/gospel-dates/ says:

“The currently accepted dates are as follows, from the earlier by conservative, believing scholars to the latest by liberal and sometimes secular scholars: Matthew 37 to 100 AD/CE; Mark: 40 to 73 AD/CE; Luke: 50 to 100 AD/CE; John: 65 to 100 AD/CE.”

I find the comment about who is likely to believe in an earlier date vs a later date very interesting. One would think that it would be based on the evidence itself, rather than on a person’s approach to the evidence. But, we will see that much of the evidence is deduced, and that type of evidence is often wide open to interpretation.

The Catholic site stpaulcenter.com/when-the-gospels-written/leans towards the late side of the dating: Mark ~ 70-75; Matthew: ~75; Luke ~80-90; and John ~90-100. They also put Mark first.

But then there is the Catholic site catholic.com/magazine/online-deition/when-were-the-gospels-writtenthat admits that “there is ground to favor an early dating of the Gospels.” They also say that “when we strip away the biases of modern scholars, who…may be a little too eager to make a case against Christianity” that John could be AD 59-65, Luke at 59, Matthew at 65, and Mark at 55. They further suggest that, while the “early” dates may not be true, we need “to prepare ourselves to critically assess…any of the assumptions of mainstream scholarship…” Also, notice that we are starting to see the opinion that Luke is before Matthew.

https://aclayjar.net/2021/06/about-gospels/ gives us a table:

	Errant Skeptics	Redating the New Testament
Matthew	49-90	c. 40-60+
Mark	45-73	c. 45-60
Luke	53-85	-57-60+
John	70-95	-40-65+
Acts	62-90	-57-62+

The website bethinking.org/bible/the-dating-of-the-new-testament quotes A. T. Robinson’s book REDATING THE NEW TESTAMENT to say that Matthew is placed at 40 to 60, Mark at 45-60, Luke at before 57 to after 60, and John at 40-65. They then point out something that we will be seeing more about: that these dates mean that they were all composed within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses of the events, which “would place the reliability of the New Testaments beyond reasonable doubt.”

So let’s put this all together. Here are all the possible dates we’ve seen so far:

Matthew: 35-45, 40-42, 40-60+, 49-90, 50, 60-75, 65, 70-75, 37-100,130

Mark: 40-73, 45, 45-60, 45-73, 55, 60-62, 65-73, 65-85, 70-75, 80

Luke: 53-85, 54,55, 57-60+, 59, 60, 65-95, 65-100, 80-95, 110

John: 40-65+, 45, 59-65, 65, 70-95, 75-100, 80-110, 90-100, 140

This boils down to Matthew: 35-130, Mark: 40-80, John: 40-140, and Luke: 53-110. Pretty interesting. I did, in my reading, see some who think that John was actually written before Luke, and we will probably touch on that again. If, indeed, the Gospel dates are 80, 110, 130, and 140, then only one of them may have been written by an eyewitness, and the rest by another generation entirely. This can explain why stellarhousepublishing.com attributed the later dates to “liberal” and “secular” writers: they are not seeing the Gospels as coming directly from those who knew Jesus (or perhaps even those who knew those who knew Jesus). 

Let’s continue on to cover the General Parameters topic. What we will see here are general statements that can be taken into account when attempting to date the Gospels (or the New Testament in general). This is a good place to use quotes.

“…the New Testament documents can be understood as the written expression of the authoritative, foundational, and eyewitness tradition delivered by an apostle of Jesus Christ. While some have argued that a book must have been written directly by an apostle to be considered ‘apostolic,’…apostolicity was less about apostolic authorship and more about whether a document was considered to bear authoritative apostolic tradition… apostolic tradition did not have to be written down by an apostle to be authoritative. The apostles were quite willing to employ the help of key followers ‘with the skills and gifts necessary for preserving the tradition.’ Not only was this done to aid the transmission of oral tradition…but apparently the apostles followed this same pattern when transmitting that tradition in written form (e.g., they used Mark and Luke).

“Thus, even if a document was not written directly by an apostle, there would have been good reasons to think it bore authoritative tradition if (1) it was written during the apostolic age (and thus was composed at a time when the apostles were overseeing the transmission of their tradition), and (2) it was written by someone who got his information directly from an apostle. This appears to be the case with the book of Hebrews, which does not claim to be written by an apostle, but comes from the apostolic time period and does claim to bear a message ‘attested to us by those who heard’ (Heb. 2:3) — a clear indication that its message came directly from the apostles…

how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard     (Hebrews 2:3; NASB)

“If the New Testament was the written embodiment of apostolic tradition, then it is not difficult to see why early Christians would have regarded these texts as authoritative from a very early point…the historical evidence suggests that the traditions were seen as authoritative before they were written down (owing to their apostolic connections). For this reason, a written New Testament was not something the church formally ‘decided’ to have at some later date, but was instead the natural outworking of the redemptive-historical function of the apostles. As Dunn observes, ‘The de facto canon of Jesus and Paul, gospel and epistle, was already functioning with effect within the first thirty years of Christianity’s existence’”.   [from CANON REVISITED_ESTABLISHING THE ORIGINS AND AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS, by Michael J. Kruger, 2012]   

This quote provides a nice discussion on what “apostolic” means. It also alludes to a point that comes up with some frequency: that the gospel material spent time as an oral tradition.

We know, of course, that Jesus didn’t write down His thoughts, He spoke them. In that sense, I can agree that the material started out as an oral tradition. I can agree that it remained an oral tradition for the first few years while the Apostles taught (verbally). In reading the Early Church Fathers however, it’s made clear that the people started asking for written material early on, and some of the Apostles obliged them by either writing it down themselves (Matthew and John), or enlisting/allowing others to write it down (Mark and Luke). I’m suspicious that commentators who talk about, or allude to, long oral histories, are really using this as an excuse to either put the dating of the Gospels at a later time, and/or to take the writing of the Gospels right out of the Apostles hands. I think this will come into focus by the time we finish.

“There are two dates that define the range of any writing, namely the ‘upper limit’ and the ‘lower limit.’  The upper limit is the date after which a text could not have been written (i.e., the latest possible date of composition). The lower limit is the date before which a text could not have been written (i.e., the earliest possible date). To establish a practical date range scholars look to internal evidence (the content within the text itself), as well as external sources. For our purposes, external evidence is comprised of any probative evidence gathered from sources outside the gospel texts, such as the mention of the gospels or citations to them by other writers. External evidence could also include other relevant historical details germane to identifying the composition date.” [from bibleoutsidethebox.blog/2017/07/24/when-were-the-gospels-written-and-how-can-we-know/]

Just a basic identification of parameters and how they are set (in theory).

“There are those who will argue that the gospels were written long after Jesus’ death. And that they did not actually come into their finished form until the 4th century. That they were the product of much editing and revision over the preceding centuries.  And those are generally the same folks who will claim that the gospels are filled with contradictions and inconsistencies.  

“But is that not really a contradiction in itself?  Think about it; if the gospels were edited for 200 to 300 years before reaching their final state, wouldn’t it seem like all of the inconsistencies and contradictions would have been edited out?  I know I would have at least done something about the genealogies of Jesus presented in Matthew and Luke.

“If, on the other hand, the gospels were written early, what would you expect to see? It could be that they would have been edited through the years. And if so, they should be consistent in all of their details. But they are not. This would indicate that little, if any, editing occurred. And it really would not be strange to see multiple accounts of Jesus’ ministry. Each with different focuses, with events in different orders and inconsistency in the numbers of people in some events.”  [from https://aclayjar.net/2021/06/about-gospels/]

Great point. I would also ask that if there was a lot of editing, wouldn’t we be finding a number of quite different versions of each Gospel? Right now, the only quite different version I’ve heard of is of Mark…there is an ending that appears to have been tacked on when one compares the modern versions to the earliest Greek version available. Mark, apparently, originally ended at 16:8. Shouldn’t there be a lot more of that?

“‘It’s important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous.’ …The substantiation for this early, first-century range of dates, both conservative and liberal, is internal only, as there is no external evidence, whether historical or archaeological, for the existence of any gospels at that time…Moreover, even the latest of the accepted gospel dates are not based on evidence from the historical, literary or archaeological record, and over the centuries a more “radical” school of thought has placed the creation or emergence of the canonical gospels as we have them at a much later date, more towards the end of the second century.” [from stellarhousepublishing.com/gospel-dates/]

It’s amazing to me that so many scholars cannot accept anything in the Bible as historical evidence. There are more extant copies of the Bible from ancient times (with very little variation) than any other ancient text, yet Josephus receives more confidence than the Bible as an historical text. As for archaeology, I know of no case where archaeology has proved some point of the Bible incorrect, it’s always just the opposite.

The “radical” school of thought mentioned above suggests a pulling away from the Gospels as we know them, as well as a pulling away from Jesus Himself. As I mentioned earlier, these late dates put the Gospels at least one generation (and probably two) away from the eyewitnesses, suggesting that they aren’t, perhaps, as vital to the faith as our elders proclaimed. After all, think of all the changes and errors that could have crept in before they were written down. This line of thinking leads to the next quote.

“When the New Testament was written is a significant issue, as one assembles the overall argument for Christianity. Confidence in the historical accuracy of these documents depends partly on whether they were written by eyewitnesses and contemporaries to the events described, as the Bible claims. Negative critical scholars strengthen their own views as they separate the actual events from the writings by as much time as possible. For this reason radical scholars argue for late first century, and if possible second century, dates for the autographs [original manuscripts]. By these dates they argue that the New Testament documents, especially the Gospels, contain mythology. The writers created the events contained, rather than reported them…

“There is a growing acceptance of earlier New Testament dates, even among some liberal scholars…William F. Albright wrote, ‘We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about AD 80, two full generations before the date between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today.’ (Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands, 136). Elsewhere Albright said, ‘In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and eighties of the first century (very probably sometime between about AD 50 and 75)’ (‘Towards a More Conservative View,’ 3).

“This scholar went so far as to affirm that the evidence from the Qumran community show that the concepts, terminology, and mind set of the Gospel of John is probably first century (‘Recent Discoveries in Palestine’). ‘Thanks to the Qumran discoveries, the New Testament proves to be in fact what it was formerlybelieved to be: the teaching of Christ and his immediate followers between cir. 25 and cir. 80 AD’ (From Stone Age to Christianity, 23).”   [from bethinking.org/bible/the-dating-of-the-new-testament]

This is a full-throated argument against the “radical” scholars, with a general basis in archaeology even. But there is one thing I wish to point out…did you catch it? That every book of the New Testament “was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and eighties of the first century”? There have been increasing hints in the reading that Luke was not a Greek as we’ve been told all our lives, but that he was actually a Jew. That is an interesting idea.

“If authored by the traditional authors, each Gospel must have been completed within their lifetime (no later than 100AD). In addition, these works were already being cited in other works (such as 1 Clement) before the end of the first century, clearly proving their existence prior to the end of the first century.” [from compellingtruth.org/when-gospels-written.html]

Here’s the “literary” evidence the “radical” scholars were saying doesn’t exist. If 1 Clement was citing the Gospels before the end of the first century, then of course they were not only written, but disseminated by then.

That’s it for today. Next time we will take up the question of whether the Gospels were talking about or influenced by 70 AD.