We’re starting again with Harnack’s 1911 book called THE DATE OF THE ACTS AND OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS.  He begins by calling on Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918, German biblical scholar) to support his statement that Mark 13 indicates that the book must have been written before 70 AD. I find this interesting because he did not make this statement about Matthew 24.

Harnack goes on to quote Wellhausen as saying that the Gospel of Mark “is comparatively rich in its reference to Jerusalem, while it is comparatively poor in its reference to Galilee.” This is found to be an impediment to believing that the book was “derived from the first disciples…Rather it seems that the narrative in St Mark did not for the most part proceed from the intimate friends of Jesus.” Wellhausen describes the Gospel as having “a somewhat rude popular character,” and he thinks that it got that character traveling by word of mouth “among the common people” over a period of time. Harnack proceeds:

“These are the words of a champion who has delivered us from the tyranny of those feeble and artificial theories which attempt to base either St Mark as a whole or a great part of the gospel upon the testimony of St Peter. Wellhausen has, moreover, shown in his commentary how seldom in the stories of St Mark there is ground for concluding that they are based upon direct tradition. The traditions they record are second-hand and third-hand, though indeed their growth must have been rapid; and these traditions, so multifarious and different in character, clearly show that they are combined from different sources. And yet the sources all lie in the homeland of Palestine, nothing comes from outside, from the Christian Diaspora; still less can one point to the sphere of ‘Gentile’ influence.”

Harnack goes on to further denigrate the author of the Gospel, but then ends by explaining how the Gospel is based on Q, and concluding with “Besides…the questionable use of the title ‘Son of Man,’ the source affords only very little, indeed nothing of importance, that does not belong to first-hand tradition and does not bear the stamp of trustworthiness.”

Truly, I’m finding Harnack to be lacking in trustworthiness. Mark is unquestionably second-hand, but I have no difficulty in reading Mark as a second-hand account from an eyewitness. But, rather than re-inventing the wheel, let’s see what others have made of Mark.

“Mark is noteworthy for its freshness and vigor, and many have seen this as evidence for its originality and so of its priority. But of course freshness and vigor alone do not prove originality. Freshness and vigor may be the end product of a highly sophisticated literary process — the use of art to conceal art .”       [from REDATING MATTHEW, MARK & LUKE: A FRESH ASSAULT ON THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM, by John William Wenham, 1992] 

This quote gets pretty cynical. “[T[he use of art to conceal art” reveals a total lack of faith; and, while one must use more than faith to bring things to light, one’s faith should shine through nonetheless.

The next set of (many) arguments come from James G. Crossley’s 2004 book called THE DATE OF MARK’S GOSPEL: INSIGHT FROM THE LAW IN EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY.  Crossley gets pretty exhaustive in his arguments, so we may have to continue them into the next post.

Crossley starts with the internal evidence of Mark 13.

As we’ve seen previously, there are many modern commentators who view Mark 13, along with Matthew 24 and Luke 21, as proof that the Synoptic Gospels were written around the time of the Jewish-Roman war, 66-70 CE, or actually after this event. Crossley mentions this, but also mentions another theory, one that interprets “Mark 13 in the light of the Caligula crisis, implying a date of c. 40 CE for Mark’s gospel,” but he doesn’t go into detail.

Instead, Crossley looks in detail at the ideas of N. T. Wright on the historicity of Mark 13. He quotes Wright:

“The setting – Jesus sitting on the Mount of Olives, looking across to the Temple Mount the other side of Gethsemane and the Kidron valley — is utterly credible. The timing — during the last week, Jesus having acted out a parable of the Temple’s destruction — is likewise perfect. The content — the making explicit of the warnings of imminent destruction and the promises of vindication — makes excellent sense. The language — apocalyptic metaphor and symbol, to evoke the full resonances of Old Testament prophecy and to invest the coming events with their full theological significance — is both characteristic of Jesus and utterly appropriate to the situation.”

Crossley then points out that Wright believes that Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 do not precisely fit the events of 70 AD. He says that, per Wright, they “are full of scriptural allusions, particularly from prophetic literature.” Crossley can’t go along with this, and says:

“…Just because some of the details do not match the fall of Jerusalem does not necessarily mean that Mark 13, nor indeed Matthew 24 and Luke 21, do not reflect events of 66-70 (or the Caligula crisis c. 40 CE). It could be argued with some plausibility that this is a passage originating before 70 which was reworked in light of the fall of Jerusalem thus accounting for discrepancies between the text and historical events…”

He blames the lack of “precise correspondence” on the “apocalyptic language” being used. Then, he goes so far as to question Josephus’ accounts…as in, maybe the Gospels have the true account of 70 AD instead of Josephus. He concludes with a statement indicating that maybe Wright is right after all, it’s just that his arguments don’t really prove anything. This gives me the feeling that Crossley will find no proof, unless someone finds a fragment of parchment with the words “Mark wrote his Gospel before 70 AD” on it. 

True to form, Crossley later states: “for now the important point is that, while a genuine prophecy of Jesus cannot be ruled out, the view that it is from the early church is not without foundation and in fact carries some weight.” You know, lest we might think that we can trust Jesus.

He then goes on to doubt that Jesus ever really intended that the Gospel be brought to the Gentiles; that Mark 13:10 was added to the Gospel later, you know, by the Gentiles; but, “a pre-Markan tradition can hardly be ruled out…”  I will admit that Mark 13:10 seems out of place when you look at the context, but much of Mark 13 seems that way; like Mark was writing almost random statements of Jesus as Peter recalled them.

⁹“But be on your guard; for they will hand you over to the courts…¹⁰And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations. ¹¹And when they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say…¹²And brother will betray brother to death…¹³And you will be hated everywhere…¹⁴Now when you see the Abomination of Desolation…. (Mark 13:10 with context; NASB)

Matthew 24 is less choppy, and in a better order, yet says the same things, including the statement that the Gospel will be preached to all the nations, adding”and then the end will come.” Of course Luke only refers obliquely to it with: “Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”

Crossley concludes the section by stating that Wright didn’t make his case, and that it is more likely that Mark 13 was “a product of the early church,” totally ignoring Matthew 24 and Luke 21. But (!) this is good news, because if we believe that the early church wrote Matthew 13, then we can use that to date Mark’s Gospel! Let’s look further at this twisted logic.

Crossley ends each chapter with a section entitled “Conclusions.” For the chapter on Mark 13, he comes to the following “conclusions”:

“It can be said with some certainty that Mark 13 is a product of the early church and that on the basis of Mark 13 the earliest possible date for the gospel may be c. 40 CE, around the time of the Caligula crisis, but a date in the mid to late thirties cannot be ruled out based on different potentially idolatrous threats to Jerusalem and the Temple prior to Caligula.”

So, when he says “early church,” he really means “early,” as in the Apostles made it up, not the Church Fathers of the second century. He really isn’t saying that the Apostles were reporting what Jesus said, or even meant in Mark 13.  He’s actually saying that the Apostles made it up to suit their own ideas about “developing Christian thought.” 

I’ll address the “Caligula crisis” shortly.

But, again, true to form, he says: 

“However, on the basis of Mark 13 alone there is nothing stopping us dating the gospel after the Caligula crisis in the forties, fifties or most of the sixties, because the perception of a similar threat was consistently present in Judea.”

Here he seems to imply that, while we can be pretty sure the Apostles made up most of Mark 13, it’s possible we don’t really know what they were talking about in particular.

Next Crossley looks at three modern gospel criticisms that are used “to provide an argument of collective weight” for the dating of Mark. He states that the arguments are weak and that many aren’t based on a strong foundation, yet they are accepted by many scholars. Let’s look at his arguments.

The first thing Crossley looks at is “Source Criticism.” This means exactly what it sounds like: a critical evaluation of the source material; in this case, the Gospel of Mark. He starts off by saying that Mark is, of course, the first Gospel written, and that Matthew and Luke both used Mark “and other sources, most notably Q.” 

So, I already have a problem with this. Crossley is assuming that the arguments for Markan priority are correct, seemingly because they are more “modern.” His next topic under Source Criticism is looking at Harnack’s arguments, which I’m sure he finds annoying, because as we saw in my last post, Harnack leaned heavily towards Matthean priority. Here is Crossley’s deconstruction of Harnack:

“The strength of Harnack’s arguments should not be underestimated.If we were lacking just the death of Paul in Acts it might be dismissed as being too shameful to include (but cf. Stephen) yet it is not simply the omission of Paul’s death that we face in Acts but other extremely important events, such as allusions to the persecution of Christians under Nero and the war of 66-70. In addition to this it should also be noted that there is no mention of the martyrdom of James in 62, which Robinson suggests would have suited Luke’s purposes because it shows the Jewish authorities killing a Christian against Roman authority (Ant. 20.200).At first sight these seem to be powerful arguments. However, there are counter-arguments.There is no mention of the Caligula crisis so Luke could omit famous events. Paul’s death may not be mentioned explicitly, but there are certainly hints (Acts 20.25, 38). It is also possible of course that Luke’s audience knew what happened to Paul. There may be no mention of James’ martyrdom because Luke is more concerned with Paul in the second half of Acts. The persecutions in Rome may not be mentioned because Luke’s story simply has not got that far chronologically. None of these criticisms are decisive: they simply mean that the arguments in favor of an early date are not demanded by the evidence. There are, however, reasons to believe that Acts assumes knowledge of the Jewish war, and by implication the death of Paul, namely the existence of Lk. 19.41-44 and 21.20.”

Let me counter Crossley’s counter arguments. There is an allusion to “the Caligula crisis,” so-called, in Acts:

¹Now Saul approved of putting Stephen to death. And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem and Samaria, except for the apostles…³But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house; and he would drag away men and women and put them in prison.     (Acts 8:1,3; NASB)

It wasn’t Caligula who led the persecution against the Christians at that time, it was Saul and the Jews. Now, I have seen references online from religious sources that say, or imply, that Caligula led a big persecution against the Christians. I have serious doubts about this. First of all, Acts doesn’t mention Caligula when it mentions the persecution. But beyond this piece of somewhat circular logic, historical accounts do not support it. History tells us that everyone during the reign of Caligula, and then Claudius, saw Christianity as a sect of Judaism; and Judaism was a legal and recognized religion, so no one was purposefully targeting Christians during the reigns of either emperor. 

Caligula was, briefly, a good and well-loved emperor. Then, he fell ill, nearly died, and when he woke up from his coma, he was totally insane…leading to his assassination 4 years into his reign (if you are interested, here is a great article by a neuropsychologist about what likely happened to make Caligula go insane: pmc.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/articles/PMC9231447/ ). In his insanity, Caligula became very sadistic and loved killing people. He wanted to see them die, and he wanted to see them suffer. He wasn’t into having people killed far away in the provinces, though he probably didn’t care if people were killed in the provinces. He was most into killing fellow Romans; it’s said that when he was assassinated by one of his own tribunes, they found a closet with lists of the Romans (including Senators) that he planned to kill by sword, and boxes full of different poisons that he had  planned to use to kill large parts of the Roman population.

Nero was the one people think of when they think of Roman persecution of Christians (in the 60’s). He blamed the fire of Rome on the Christians, probably as a ploy to justify persecuting them. They were thrown to the “lions” (generally, different types of wild beasts rather than just “lions”) or crucified in the Circus of Nero (also called the Circus of Caligula because Caligula started the building of it as a private place to watch chariot races, Claudius finished it, Nero made it public, Peter and Paul are said to have been martyred there). The Coliseum, which is where the movies depict the martyring of Christians, was not built until 80 AD, so Nero didn’t have that option. The Circus of Nero no longer exists; it mostly survived until 1450, when it was destroyed by the construction of the new St. Peter’s Basilica, part of which is over the site. The rest of the site on which it stood is mostly within the present-day Vatican City, and the one remaining architectural piece from the Circus, an obelisk that was originally brought from Egypt for the Circus, is also within Vatican City. (A lot of this information came from wikipedia’s page on the Circus of Nero).

Going back to Crossley’s counter argument, he next mentions the “hints” in Acts regarding Paul’s death. He seems to be “hinting” that Acts was written after Paul’s death, so the “hints” in Acts 20:25,38, and Crossley’s statement that “[i]t is also possible of course that Luke’s audience knew what happened to Paul” seem to be meant to illustrate that possibility.

²⁵”And now behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, will no longer see my face…” ³⁸grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they were accompanying him to the ship.     (Acts 20:25,38; NASB) 

I see these verses as Paul not planning on visiting the churches of Asia again, because he wanted to be out planting new churches. My suspicion is that if it was meant as a clue to Paul’s future death, that there would have been more of them. 

James, son of Zebedee, was beheaded in 44 AD, the first of the Apostles to die. Crossley says there is “no mention of James’ martyrdom” in Acts. I beg to differ.

¹Now about that time Herod the King laid hands on some who belonged to the church, to do them harm. ²And he had James the brother of John executed with a sword. ³When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter as well…     (Acts 12:1-3; NASB)

Crossley concedes that “[n]one of these criticisms are decisive: they simply mean that the arguments in favor of an early date are not demanded by the evidence.” In other words, he is saying that neither he nor Harnack can show definitively that Luke might have been leaving out big events from Acts. But he’s used untruths and innuendos to make his point, so I think Harnack won this debate.

Crossley turns next to a W. C. Allen. This name took some doing to find as he is not a famous writer or theologian at all. The web has multiple people with this moniker; Wikipedia has a page with a list of people with this name, but none match this person. I was finally able to track him down through his book, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK, published in 1915. I had to learn a new way of searching in Internet Archive to do it, which is going to make future searching much easier (yay!). Anyway, the book has a small section on the dating of Mark, and includes the quotes used by Crossley. This is an obscure part of an obscure book published in London, by an obscure author who was born in 1867 (with an unknown date of death). He says about Matthew:

“It is generally dated somewhere about 75 A.D., the main argument being its use of St. Mark. But the evidence of the Gospel itself suggests an earlier date. It is clearly the work of a hellenist Christian who believed in Christ as the Messiah of the Jews. He regarded the disciples of Christ as still under the obligations of the Mosaic Law, and believed that the Messiah was soon to reappear on the clouds of heaven to inaugurate the Kingdom of the Heavens. All this points to Antioch at or about the period of the great controversy with regard to the admission of Gentiles into the Church. The ideas just mentioned are not merely sporadic in the First Gospel. They do not appear as archaic survivals in isolated sayings. They permeate the whole book, and are clearly representative of the mind of the evangelist and of the Christianity of his period.”

This author’s ideas on Matthew are so foreign to me that Crossley’s description of it, including multiple pull-quotes from this passage, left me totally confused as to exactly what this fellow’s point was.

Not only is Allen reading a different Matthew than I am, I don’t recall a “great controversy” regarding the “admission of Gentiles into the Church.” There was, of course, a controversy regarding the Gentile Christians having to follow the Torah laws, but not to their admission; but maybe I’ve missed it, so let’s look deeper. Jesus did seem to hold Gentiles off for a period of time; the idea being that He was to give the Jews the first chance at joining the Kingdom, but the plan was always to invite in the Gentiles:

Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’”     (Isaiah 49:6; NASB)

There is an idea currently that Luke was Jewish; for centuries before this, Luke was considered a Gentile. If Samaritans were considered Gentiles, then Jesus Himself invited them into the “Church.” Otherwise, Gentiles were being welcomed in readily at least after Stephen’s death. And, let me just say, there was no “Church” at that time. Argh.

Crossley’s point in bringing up Allen was that A) Allen believed in Markan priority, B) that Markan priority leads to the idea that Mark must have been written earlier than 50 AD, which is when Allen thinks Matthew was written,  and C) that Allen then hints at Mark being written before the “great controversy” in Antioch. Crossley states, “This is a useful argument which deserves to be developed.” He then says that Allen’s “dating of Matthew is probably wrong – Matthew appears to have some knowledge of the Jewish war;” that it “will be argued in Chapter 5 that such controversies were already present in the forties;” and he ignores the fact that the “controversy” (about the Gentile Christians following Torah) began in Antioch around 44 AD, when Peter came to Antioch. 

Of course, I don’t agree with his point on Matthew having knowledge of the Jewish war.

¹¹But when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; ¹²for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. ¹³And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.     (Galatians 2:11-13; NKJV) 

The next of the modern criticisms listed by Crossley, is looking at Paul as an influence of Mark, which, of course, puts Mark into the second half of the first century. Crossley goes to the work of Benjamin W. Bacon (1860-1932, American theologian) entitled STUDIES IN MATTHEW. Looking at Bacon’s work, it’s clear that he acknowledges the tradition of Matthean priority, but bows to the “modern” idea of Markan priority. He is also very big on the Q, P, etc. sources that became necessary to support Markan priority.

Crossley reports that Bacon saw “Pauline influence in Mk 4.1-34, particularly in outsiders lacking understanding.” This would be too big a quote to add here, but I will remind you that Mark 4:1-34 is when Jesus teaches the parables of the Sower, the Light Under the Basket, the Growing Seed, and the Mustard Seed, and then explains the Sower to His disciples. Bacon is focused on specific statements made in this part of Mark:

¹⁰But when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable. ¹¹And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, ¹²so that ‘Seeing they may see and not perceive, And hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn, And their sins be forgiven them.’” …³³And with many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it. ³⁴But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples.     (Mark 4:10-12,33,34; NASB)

Bacon compares this to Romans 9-11, which is again, too long a passage to quote here in full, but where Paul says:

¹⁵For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” …¹⁸Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and who He wills He hardens…²⁵As He says also in Hosea: “I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved. ²⁶And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.” …²⁹And as Isaiah said before: “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We would have become like Sodom, And we would have been made like Gomorrah.” …³³As it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”    (Romans 9:15,18,25,26,29,33; NASB)

⁷So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.     (Romans 10:17; NASB)

⁷What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. ⁸Just as it is written: “God has given them a spirit of stupor; Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, To this very day.” …¹¹I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. ¹²Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! …¹⁹You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” ²⁰Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. ²¹For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either…²⁸Concerning the gospel they are enemies for you sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. ²⁹For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. ³⁰For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, ³¹even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. ³²For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.     (Romans 11:7,8,11,12,19-21,28-32; NASB)

Crossley counters Bacon’s argument with the fact that Paul’s ideas here are far more developed and complex than what Mark quotes Jesus as saying, so that Paul could have easily taken the idea from Mark rather than the other way around. Crossley goes on to say:

“It should be clear that the view of the elect group who understand the mystery is only a very general parallel. Given both that the Jewish literature of the time has plenty of references to an elect group having the true meaning and that the Christian movement faced rejection and persecution from the very beginning…it is no great surprise that a general theme of in-group understanding occurs in two different Christian texts. It may well be that it is a simple coincidence that the same biblical text occurs in both Mark and Paul. Alternatively, it was certainly a useful text to use for both writers and one may have copied the other. Even if this were the case we are not in a position to say who was the first writer to use Isaiah 6.9 on the basis of Mk 4.1-20 and Rom. 9-11 alone. It is hardly inconceivable that Paul developed an earlier Christian tradition to suit his present needs, just as he clearly did elsewhere (e.g. 1 Cor. 7.10-16).” 

⁹And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ ¹⁰Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.” ¹¹Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered: “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate, ¹²The Lord has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. ¹³Yet a tenth will be in it, And will return and be for consuming, As a terebinth tree or as an oak, Whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump.”     (Isaiah 6:9-13; NASB)

[I included more than the 6:9 of Isaiah, so that you can see (or be reminded) that this was still in effect when Jesus and Paul were speaking, as well as it is now]

¹⁰Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. ¹¹But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.     (1 Corinthians 7:10,11; NASB)

[I quoted fewer verses for this one because I believe that these two verses make clear what Crossley was referring to.]

Crossley continues with other examples of Bacon’s, and others, thoughts on how Mark relied on Paul. They are in a similar vein, so I don’t feel the need to go over them in detail. Suffice it to say that the ideas explored included: that Jesus came to serve not to be served, the abandoning of the food laws, the world-wide mission to spread the Gospel, the language used for the Last Supper, the Christology used by both authors, eschatological predictions, the title “Son of God” and a few other words and phrases employed by both Mark and Paul.

For myself, I’m agreeing that these are well-known ideas in both Judaism and early Christianity. Yes, they may have come to Paul’s attention through the Gospels, but Paul was very well read in Judaism, and understood well that Jesus was the Messiah, and all that that meant. Jesus hinted at the ideas brought up by Bacon and others, to men who had varying degrees of understanding of them. Paul understood these ideas deeply, as he had far more education than the Apostles [who were mostly literate, but probably had varied education levels], and probably far more than most of the disciples in general. Paul was tasked to explain these things in greater detail to a wider audience.

We will stop here for today. We have a lot more arguments to go through from Crossley, so we will pick it up again next time.