Trace for the 'historical' Jesus Christ.

[The Mikado]

Yes. I'm rather on the minimalist end of the historical Jesus question, but mythicism makes no sense and is pointless to argue about.

Even the minimalist stance is rapidly losing ground in New Testament studies - Crossan is the only really serious advocate of it remaining. As Blomberg notes, minimalism “requires the assumption that someone, about a generation removed from the events in question, radically transformed the authentic information about Jesus that was circulating at that time, superimposed a body of material four times as large, fabricated almost entirely out of whole cloth, while the church suffered sufficient collective amnesia to accept the transformation as legitimate.”

The problem is the oldest extant Christian documents are Paul's epistles which were written in the 50s-60s CE, and Paul pretty explicitly had zero interest whatsoever in what kind of person Jesus was. Paul is 100% invested in the whole "belief in Jesus trumps original sin and is the only key to eternal life" element of Christianity and doesn't seem to feel like people who knew Jesus in his lifetime or saw what he did has any special weight.

11 For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12 for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 19 but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. 20 In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22 and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; 23 they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they glorified God because of me.

Paul is making it clear that he got his revelation straight from God and an appearance of post-Resurrection Jesus and that he wasn't taught doctrine from ANY pre-existing Christian, and when he meets Cephas (Peter) and James Brother of Jesus several years in he views himself as fully a doctrinal equal with Jesus' right hand man and his brother despite the fact that Paul had never once met Jesus in the flesh.

It's really unfortunate that our oldest authentic Christian documents like this are from a man who has absolutely zero interest in Jesus' actual ministry, life, or works and no interest in writing about it in these early letters.

[Kingpoleon]

The problem is the oldest extant Christian documents are Paul's epistles which were written in the 50s-60s CE, and Paul pretty explicitly had zero interest whatsoever in what kind of person Jesus was. Paul is 100% invested in the whole "belief in Jesus trumps original sin and is the only key to eternal life" element of Christianity and doesn't seem to feel like people who knew Jesus in his lifetime or saw what he did has any special weight.

11 For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12 for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 19 but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. 20 In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22 and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; 23 they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they glorified God because of me.

Paul is making it clear that he got his revelation straight from God and an appearance of post-Resurrection Jesus and that he wasn't taught doctrine from ANY pre-existing Christian, and when he meets Cephas (Peter) and James Brother of Jesus several years in he views himself as fully a doctrinal equal with Jesus' right hand man and his brother despite the fact that Paul had never once met Jesus in the flesh.

It's really unfortunate that our oldest authentic Christian documents like this are from a man who has absolutely zero interest in Jesus' actual ministry, life, or works and no interest in writing about it in these early letters.

It’s rather unfortunate that actually our oldest Christian document is the Didache from the Council of Jerusalem - see Alan Garrow, Jean-Paul Audet, and Aaron Milanevic.

The Gospels, written between the 60s and the 70s, were certainly written when eyewitnesses were still alive. There’s nothing “unfortunate” about Paul’s writings in any meaningful sense, and indeed, a growing number of scholars today are more supportive of traditional authorship claims for the last three Gospels.

[James Monroe]

The question of the historical existence of Jesus has hit the news with the recent, intriguing lawsuit in Italy by Luigi Cascioli, who is suing a priest, Rev. Enrico Righi, over his published assertion that "Jesus did indeed exist." Such a claim, Cascioli says, is a deception, an "abuse of popular belief," which is against Italian law. The lawsuit refreshingly demands that Righi prove that Jesus existed.

In his defense, Righi and obliging media have trotted out many alleged evidences for Jesus, long ago discounted, yet which continue to pepper the credulous writings of conservative religious authors and scholars.

According to the Associated Press, Righi "cited many known observers, including nonChristian ones, who have written about the existence of Jesus, such as the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, considered by scholars to be the most important non-Christian source on Christ's existence."

Here is the paragraph that currently appears in The Antiquities of the Jews, written by Josephus around 95 C.E.:

"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named for him are not extinct to this day."
If this is the strongest and earliest extra-biblical evidence for the historical Jesus, then the scholarship is on the shakiest grounds. That passage from Josephus has been shown conclusively to be a forgery, and even conservative scholars admit it has been tampered with. But even were it historical, it dates from more than six decades after the supposed death of Jesus.

The Associated Press chose to omit the fact that scholars have largely discounted the Josephus paragaph as a later interpolation. The passage, although widely quoted by believers today, did not show up in the writings of Josephus until centuries after his death, at the beginning of the fourth century. Thoroughly dishonest church historian Eusebius is credited as the real author. The passage is grossly out of context, a clear hint that it was inserted at a later time.

All scholars agree that Josephus, a Jew who never converted to Christianity, would not have called Jesus "the Christ" or "the truth," so the passage must have been doctored by a later Christian--evidence, by the way, that some early believers were in the habit of altering texts to the advantage of their theological agenda. The phrase "to this day" reveals it was written at a later time. Everyone agrees there was no "tribe of Christians" during the time of Josephus--Christianity did not get off the ground until the second century.

If Jesus were truly important to history, then Josephus should have told us something about him. Yet he is completely silent about the supposed miracles and deeds of Jesus. He nowhere quotes Jesus. He adds nothing to the Gospel narratives and tells us nothing that would not have been known by Christians in either the first or fourth centuries. In all of Josephus' voluminous writings, there is nothing about Jesus or Christianity anywhere outside the tiny paragraph cited so blithely by the Associated Press.

This paragraph mentions that Jesus was foretold by the divine prophets, but Josephus does not tell us who those prophets were or what they said. This is religious propaganda, not history. If Jesus had truly been the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, then Josephus would have been the exact person to confirm it.

And this is the "most important" historical evidence for Jesus!

The other phrase from Josephus that Righi and AP cite concerns James, the so-called "brother of Jesus," and is likewise flimsy. It says that a man named James was stoned to death, which is not mentioned in the bible. Many scholars believe the "brother of Jesus" phrase is a later interpolation, and that Josephus was referring to a different James, possibly the same James that Paul mentions in Acts, who led a sect in Jerusalem. Contradicting Josephus, Hegesippus wrote a history of Christianity in 170 C.E. saying that James, the brother of Jesus, was killed in a riot, not by sentence of a court.

Righi also cited Pliny the Younger, who, in the early second century (112), reported that "Christians were singing a hymn to Christ as to a god." Notice how late this reference is; and notice the absence of the name "Jesus." The passage, if accurate, could have referred to any of the other self-proclaimed "Christs" (messiahs) followed by Jews who thought they had found their anointed one. Pliny's account is not history, since he is only relaying what other people believed. No one doubts that Christianity was in existence by this time. Offering this as proof would be the equivalent of quoting modern Mormons about their beliefs in the historical existence of the Angel Moroni or the miracles of Joseph Smith--doubtless useful for documenting the religious beliefs, but not the actual facts.

Tacitus, another second-century Roman writer who alleged that Christ had been executed by sentence of Pontius Pilate, is likewise cited by Righi. Written some time after 117 C.E., Tacitus' claim is more of the same late, second-hand "history." There is no mention of "Jesus," only "the sect known as Christians" living in Rome being persecuted, and "their founder, one Christus." Tacitus claims no first-hand knowledge of Christianity. No historical evidence exists that Nero persecuted Christians--Nero did persecute Jews, so perhaps Tacitus was confused. There was certainly not a "great crowd" of Christians in Rome around 60 C.E., as Tacitus put it, and, most damning, the term "Christian" was not even in use in the first century. No one in the second century ever quoted this passage of Tacitus. In fact, it appears almost word-for-word in the fourth-century writings of Sulpicius Severus, where it is mixed with other obvious myths. Citing Tacitus, therefore, is highly suspect and adds virtually nothing to the evidence for a historical Jesus.

Such are the straws believers must grasp in order to prop up their myth.

Historians have no evidence of a historic Jesus dating from the early first century, even though many contemporary writers documented the era in great detail. Philo of Alexandria, for example, wrote in depth about early first-century Palestine, naming other self-proclaimed messiahs, yet never once mentioning a man named Jesus. Many other contemporary writers covered that era, yet there is not a single mention of any existence, deeds, or words of a man named Jesus.

Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, in their book The Jesus Mysteries, explain how the myth and legend of Jesus could easily have arisen without a historical founder. The Jesus story was pressed from the same template as other mythical savior-gods who were killed and resurrected, such as Osiris, Dionysus, Mithra, and Attis.

Early Christians agreed that Christianity offered "nothing different" from paganism. Arguing with pagans around 150 C.E., Justin Martyr said: "When we say that the Word [Jesus], who is the first born of God, was produced without sexual union, and that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter (Zeus)." Fourth-century Christian scholar Fermicus, in attempting to establish the uniqueness of Christianity, met at every turn by pagan precedents to the story of Jesus, in exasperation concluded: "The Devil has his Christs!"

The Gospels are not history; they are religious propaganda, contradictory, exaggerated, and mythical. The earliest Christian writings, the letters of Paul, are silent about the man Jesus: Paul, who never met Jesus, fails to mention a single deed or saying of Jesus (except for the ritualistic Last Supper formula), and sometimes contradicts what Jesus supposedly said. To Paul, Jesus was a heavenly disembodied Christ figure, not a man of flesh and blood.

There is serious doubt that Jesus ever existed. It is impossible to prove he was a historical figure. It is much more plausible to consider the Jesus character to be the result of myth-making, a human process that is indeed historically documented.

Debunking the historical Jesus myth

[If my soul was made of stone]

Debunking the historical Jesus myth

No way that the "Freedom From Religion Foundation" could possibly have an axe to grind, nope!

I'm not a Christian, nor will I ever be, but even I know that the whole Christ-myth theory was pushed by cranks and has essentially no scholarly acceptance, and that New Atheism is an intellectually vacant and vapid path. Give it a rest.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

I do like you literally haven’t responded to any of the people pointing out that your OP is terrible.

[The Mikado]

The problem is the oldest extant Christian documents are Paul's epistles which were written in the 50s-60s CE, and Paul pretty explicitly had zero interest whatsoever in what kind of person Jesus was. Paul is 100% invested in the whole "belief in Jesus trumps original sin and is the only key to eternal life" element of Christianity and doesn't seem to feel like people who knew Jesus in his lifetime or saw what he did has any special weight.

11 For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12 for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 19 but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. 20 In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22 and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; 23 they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they glorified God because of me.

Paul is making it clear that he got his revelation straight from God and an appearance of post-Resurrection Jesus and that he wasn't taught doctrine from ANY pre-existing Christian, and when he meets Cephas (Peter) and James Brother of Jesus several years in he views himself as fully a doctrinal equal with Jesus' right hand man and his brother despite the fact that Paul had never once met Jesus in the flesh.

It's really unfortunate that our oldest authentic Christian documents like this are from a man who has absolutely zero interest in Jesus' actual ministry, life, or works and no interest in writing about it in these early letters.

It’s rather unfortunate that actually our oldest Christian document is the Didache from the Council of Jerusalem - see Alan Garrow, Jean-Paul Audet, and Aaron Milanevic.

The Gospels, written between the 60s and the 70s, were certainly written when eyewitnesses were still alive. There’s nothing “unfortunate” about Paul’s writings in any meaningful sense, and indeed, a growing number of scholars today are more supportive of traditional authorship claims for the last three Gospels.

Re: the Didache, it'd fit in exactly with my point if you accept the super early date that you're arguing for (rather than the late 1st/early 2nd century date): the Didache never once mentions any detail about the life of Jesus at all, as it's not its focus, so it falls into the same category as Paul's letters do in not telling us anything about what the earliest Christians would've thought of Jesus' life. The Didache is in the same category as Paul as not caring about anything relating to Jesus the person and only him as Jesus Christ the Son of God who is also God, and is all about instructions on how to set up a Church. You seemed to be ignoring my point about how it's an issue that that's what all the earliest Christian documents focus on.

As for your claim that the Synoptic Gospels were written in the 60s and 70s, that's an example where you really, really need to provide links for such a ballsy claim.

[John Dule]

New Atheism is an intellectually vacant and vapid path.

- Pagan anarcho-primitivist

[If my soul was made of stone]

New Atheism is an intellectually vacant and vapid path.

- Pagan anarcho-primitivist

And? Both of those philosophies have intellectual traditions, even if less expansive than many others.

[James Monroe]

Debunking the historical Jesus myth

No way that the "Freedom From Religion Foundation" could possibly have an axe to grind, nope!

I'm not a Christian, nor will I ever be, but even I know that the whole Christ-myth theory was pushed by cranks and has essentially no scholarly acceptance, and that New Atheism is an intellectually vacant and vapid path. Give it a rest.

Writers who have studied the history of religion such as Richard Carrier have claimed it was likely Christ was just another mythical creation to propagate a newly organized religion. It's a debated issue that might lean towards a apologist point of view, it does not disclosed the other side of the debate who feel that Jesus was just as much of a fabrication as anything in the Old or New Testament.

The New Atheist movement has done a tremendous accomplishment in pushing reason and logic to the forefront of society. Look at the many discovers Richard Dawkins has found in the field of Biology, as well establishing the word meme to the popular consciousness of the contemporary zeitgeist. Brush off what you think about his religion views, Dawkins has been a good champion of science promotion for millions around the world and is helping to keep Charles Darwin name in good company. The late Christopher Hitchens was occasional belligerent and fall on the wrong side of history as with the case of the Iraq War. What he didn't fail was his highly intellectual manner in discussing the oppression religion has on society, in rhetoric that harkens back to the great Bertrand Russell. They have help cultivate a great image of the rationalistic "Bridghts" who refused to back down on tired old superstitions on the level of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. I applaud them for their intellect insight and feel graceful for pushing for a more scientific ideology.

[Alben Barkley]

Arguing against the historicity of Jesus is Alex Jones or QAnon level fringe lunacy. Just give it up. And forget for a second that we do have pretty decent evidence that he existed outside the Gospels in the form of writings by Josephus and Tacitus. Just use some common sense and ask yourself which is more likely: That there was some guy named Jesus/Yeshua who preached around Israel in ancient times, was executed by the Romans for causing trouble at the temple, and developed a cult following that intensified after his death, or that his whole life was some bizarrely specific, elaborate fabrication by unknown people who decided to make up a fake martyr in a conspiracy to form a religion that at first nobody had any particular reason to believe would be successful?

And which religion is more likely to be successful, one made up completely out of thin air or one built by the disciples of a real martyr that the first believers had actually encountered? Who are people more likely to risk persecution including death to follow, a real man (mythologized in death though he might have been) or some figment of the imagination no one had heard of before he was pulled completely out of thin air?

There is as much evidence that he was real as there is of, say, Socrates. If you doubt it and the historical consensus, there is honestly very little of ancient history that you shouldn’t be skeptical of. Sources from that era are patchy and far from perfect across the board. Even the Gospels and Paul’s writings (which predate them, suggesting that he expected his audience to already know about and believe in the historicity of Jesus, BEFORE it was deemed necessary to write accounts of his life) can’t be totally written off as historical documents; there are others we depend on that come from biased, unreliable sources and which contain legends, myths, and implausible tales mixed in with more credible historical accounts.

None of this is to imply that the tales of miracles or resurrection in the Gospels are true, or even that the teachings ascribed to Jesus all necessarily came directly from him, or that all the details of his life that happen to fit understandings of Jewish messianic prophecies of the time are true. That’s a matter of faith and spirituality. But credible historians all believe he existed in some form for good reasons.

[Kingpoleon]

Re: the Didache, it'd fit in exactly with my point if you accept the super early date that you're arguing for (rather than the late 1st/early 2nd century date): the Didache never once mentions any detail about the life of Jesus at all, as it's not its focus, so it falls into the same category as Paul's letters do in not telling us anything about what the earliest Christians would've thought of Jesus' life. The Didache is in the same category as Paul as not caring about anything relating to Jesus the person and only him as Jesus Christ the Son of God who is also God, and is all about instructions on how to set up a Church. You seemed to be ignoring my point about how it's an issue that that's what all the earliest Christian documents focus on.

As for your claim that the Synoptic Gospels were written in the 60s and 70s, that's an example where you really, really need to provide links for such a ballsy claim.

You seem almost purposefully unaware of New Testament studies. Craig Keener has written at length as to why exactly the Gospels were written within a couple decades or contemporaneously with Paul’s letters - because when over a hundred disciples & eyewitnesses were alive & preaching & mostly uneducated, there was little point to writing this down.

“Most scholars today date all the Gospels to between the 50s and 90s, with those later dates looking less and less likely.” - Tom Holland

“I definitively date the Gospel of Mark to the 40s, with the other Gospels likely following in the following decade or two.” - James Crossley, acolyte of the famous scholar Maurice Casey

“Very few scholars believe any of the Gospels were written after the end of the 1st century.” - Raymond Brown

These datings for the Gospels are compelling and important. By comparison, our oldest extant source on Alexander the Great stems from 300 years after his death, coming from a part of the world where he was literally worshipped as a god. “The Gospels are perhaps the best documented books in history, with four full collections of them being available within four centuries of their writings; our earliest full collection of Plato dates from over a millennium after he first wrote.” - Bruce Metzger

[Statilius the Epicurean]

The problem is the oldest extant Christian documents are Paul's epistles which were written in the 50s-60s CE, and Paul pretty explicitly had zero interest whatsoever in what kind of person Jesus was. Paul is 100% invested in the whole "belief in Jesus trumps original sin and is the only key to eternal life" element of Christianity and doesn't seem to feel like people who knew Jesus in his lifetime or saw what he did has any special weight.

11 For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12 for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 19 but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. 20 In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22 and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; 23 they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they glorified God because of me.

Paul is making it clear that he got his revelation straight from God and an appearance of post-Resurrection Jesus and that he wasn't taught doctrine from ANY pre-existing Christian, and when he meets Cephas (Peter) and James Brother of Jesus several years in he views himself as fully a doctrinal equal with Jesus' right hand man and his brother despite the fact that Paul had never once met Jesus in the flesh.

It's really unfortunate that our oldest authentic Christian documents like this are from a man who has absolutely zero interest in Jesus' actual ministry, life, or works and no interest in writing about it in these early letters.

I'll add to this excellent post that the deeper issue here is that, for Paul, ascribing any theological value to the historical Jesus was a direct threat to his apostleship. He did not know Jesus during his ministry as the disciples did, so deemphasising it in favour of the cosmic symbolism of the crucifixion and resurrection was the only way he could claim to have apostolic authority - others may have had more knowledge about what Jesus taught but Paul understood the cosmic secret of Christ's sacrifice, and that was what was important. To base his teaching on Jesus said x would be to open himself up to attacks from e.g. the "super-apostles" of 2 Corinthians 11:5 spreading an opposed gospel and disputing his, or from Peter and the Jerusalem church in the incident at Antioch.

What's tantalising here is that our first gospel Mark is a vicious and sustained attack on anyone who might have used a personal connection to Jesus' ministry as a basis for their authority (against Paul or anyone else in the early Christian movement). The family of Jesus think he's insane; the disciples are incompetents who fail to understand anything and flee after the arrest; Peter, the leader of the early Chruch, is rebuked as "Satan" by Jesus for failing to understand the suffering Messiah, and at the end denies Christ three times! And the book ends with the disciples not even knowing Jesus has been resurrected. Mark's central concern is with explaining the theology of the Passion, later redactors of Mark i.e. Matthew and Luke have to fill out this rather bare bones narrative with Jesus actually teaching stuff like the Sermon on the Mount.

[The Mikado]

“Very few scholars believe any of the Gospels were written after the end of the 2nd century.” - Raymond Brown

This might be the biggest straw man quote I've ever seen. I have never seen anyone even try to claim any of the Gospels date past the first decade of the 2nd century (putting John in the 100-110 range).

That said, the quote you pulled about Mark is borderline insane. The Gospels had to have been written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 because the Gospels have Jesus predicting the Temple's destruction in order to give him prophetic credibility. This wouldn't work if the Gospels were written BEFORE the Temple was destroyed because then it's an actual prediction and not something the authors are using to bolster the credibility of the text. I'm very open to Mark being written in the 70s, with Matthew and Luke in the late 1st century drawing on Mark, but moving Mark to before the destruction of the Temple makes no sense.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

We have evidence that other breakaway Jewish sects predicted the destruction of the existing temple that had been corrupted (in their view) and its replacement by something new. What's radically unexplainable about Christianity isn't a prediction of the destruction of the temple, but what was supposed to replace it. So no, Mark doesn't have to be a post facto prophecy and thus written after 70 CE. Obviously, if the prediction had failed, it would have made it unlikely that Christianity would have prospered in the 2nd century. But the fact the prediction succeeded is one reason the Christian sect of Judaism prospered.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I agree that the prediction of the Temple's destruction isn't on its own conclusive due to it being a recurring motif in Jewish religion. More convincing is that it is in conjunction with Mark's Latinisms around military and fiscal matters that heavily suggest the author was writing under the Roman occupation following the Roman-Jewish War: the exorcism of the Gerasene demons into pigs, who say their name is "Legion", is probably a reference to the Legio X Fretensis that was stationed in Jerusalem after 70 AD and had a boar standard that offended Jews; and the "render unto Caesar" pericope likely is a commentary on the debate around the fiscus Judaicus that was paid in denarii to the Emperor as in Mark, a newly-levied tax paid in coin that wasn't in wide circulation in Judea until after the war.

[Kingpoleon]

This might be the biggest straw man quote I've ever seen. I have never seen anyone even try to claim any of the Gospels date past the first decade of the 2nd century (putting John in the 100-110 range).

That said, the quote you pulled about Mark is borderline insane. The Gospels had to have been written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 because the Gospels have Jesus predicting the Temple's destruction in order to give him prophetic credibility. This wouldn't work if the Gospels were written BEFORE the Temple was destroyed because then it's an actual prediction and not something the authors are using to bolster the credibility of the text. I'm very open to Mark being written in the 70s, with Matthew and Luke in the late 1st century drawing on Mark, but moving Mark to before the destruction of the Temple makes no sense.

Crossley’s early dating of Mark comes from two primary reasons: first, Mark seems almost certainly unfamiliar with the death of James the Great. Secondly, he says that Mark has a lower Christology than the Pauline epistles, and suggests the other Gospels do too. If he is correct, this would make it very unlikely that any were written any major amount of time after Paul.

Mark Goodacre has suggested Luke was based off of Matthew, and a growing number of scholars date Luke-Acts to the early 60s to account for its unfamiliarity with the deaths of Peter, Paul, and James. Needless to say, the Farrer or Wilke hypotheses change the dating argument around a great deal.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Crossley’s early dating of Mark comes from two primary reasons: first, Mark seems almost certainly unfamiliar with the death of James the Great. Secondly, he says that Mark has a lower Christology than the Pauline epistles, and suggests the other Gospels do too. If he is correct, this would make it very unlikely that any were written any major amount of time after Paul.

Mark Goodacre has suggested Luke was based off of Matthew, and a growing number of scholars date Luke-Acts to the early 60s to account for its unfamiliarity with the deaths of Peter, Paul, and James. Needless to say, the Farrer or Wilke hypotheses change the dating argument around a great deal.

1) Why on earth would Mark be expected to mention the death of James the Great? 2) I think the idea that there was a linear progression of Christology from low to high is a tempting one, but is probably a bit too neat. If there was such a development it certainly wasn't chronologically uniform.

Re Luke-Acts in the 60s because it doesn't mention the martyrdom of Paul, this is missing that the author of Acts had an extremely good reason to omit it: Paul was killed by the Roman state. Ending Acts with the Romans martyring apostles would completely contradict the political message of the author that Paul is a good loyal Roman citizen, the Christians are a peaceable bunch in harmony with secular authorities, and it's only the Jews who persecute them. If anything this omission is an argument for a rather late date for Acts.

[Kingpoleon]

1) Why on earth would Mark be expected to mention the death of James the Great? 2) I think the idea that there was a linear progression of Christology from low to high is a tempting one, but is probably a bit too neat. If there was such a development it certainly wasn't chronologically uniform.

Re Luke-Acts in the 60s because it doesn't mention the martyrdom of Paul, this is missing that the author of Acts had an extremely good reason to omit it: Paul was killed by the Roman state. Ending Acts with the Romans martyring apostles would completely contradict the political message of the author that Paul is a good loyal Roman citizen, the Christians are a peaceable bunch in harmony with secular authorities, and it's only the Jews who persecute them. If anything this omission is an argument for a rather late date for Acts.

Mark seems to suggest, according to Crossley, that James the Great was still leader of the church based upon his importance in Mark relative to the other three Gospels. Ehrman remains the only major scholar advocating that transition, but in order for it to be sensible it’s pretty difficult to date the Gospels after the Pauline epistles.

This is somewhat at odds with scholarship in the last 2-3 decades. First of all, a growing number of scholars believe Luke was himself Jewish, something discussed in Lukan Authorship of Hebrews. This is also suggested in Old Testament Conceptual Metaphors and the Christology of Luke’s Gospel by Gregory Lanier; Luke the Priest… by Rick Strelan; and Charismatic Theology of St. Luke: Trajectories From The Old Testament To Luke-Acts by Roger Stronstad, though the latter most is not strictly a historical study. If we hold to traditional authorship - though I’m not compelled necessarily that Luke was indeed the author - then this may be at odds with Colossians, or it may indicate that he was a Hellenized Jew. See some decidedly conservative views here and there. The latter doesn’t claim Luke was Jewish, but the evidence it cites suggests it.

Reasons for an early rating of Luke:

1. It ends before Paul’s trial before the emperor.
2. Luke-Acts suggests no knowledge of the executions of James, brother of Jesus, Peter, or Paul.
3. It is unfamiliar with the burning of Rome and the subsequent persecution of Christians by Nero.
4. It seems to indicate nothing about the Roman-Jewish Wars from 66-70.
5. John the Baptist speaks favorably of Roman soldiers, which only Luke mentions. (Luke 3:14)
6. The favorable account of the Centurion;
7. The favorable account of Cornelius the Centurion;
8. The centurion and Roman commander help Paul repeatedly in Acts 21-23;
9. The centurion guarding Paul on the ship is portrayed favorably;
10. Paul is treated with deference due to his Roman citizenship, 16:37-38, 22:25-28.
11. In Acts 12, 15, and 21, the leadership of James, brother of Jesus, is taken for granted - Peter and Paul are almost certainly not in charge when the author is writing.
12. James was executed in 62 AD by the Jewish High Priest. If Luke were writing against the Jews, it’s odd that he would leave this out.
13. It seems Paul visited Ephesus again - it’s odd of Luke to leave the two statements that Paul would not do so in Acts 20:25-38 without comment.
14. Acts shows no textual knowledge of the Pauline epistles, which spread soon after they were written.
15. If Luke copied Mark, it is odd that he didn’t highlight the destruction of the Temple in the way Mark seems to.

Dating the other Gospels from there is fairly important, although I remain skeptical that Matthew or Luke had a copy of Q/Mark in front of them. It is odd to me that, if they did, Luke chose to scatter around pieces of Q that Matthew centralized. In my own view, Mark had perhaps only one source, which Luke had access to, too, while Luke seems to have at least 3-4 separate sources. I suspect Matthew and John were written within a decade or so after Luke in response to theological disagreements and Luke’s comparative lack of theology. I find it doubtful that these Gospels arose decades after Luke, as virtually every ancient writer - with the exception of Origen - seems to have responded fairly quickly to his contemporaries.

Of course, a stricter version of Q, Wilke, or Farrer would make the dating somewhat different.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I strongly doubt that Q was a singular source text. Rather, Q represents the sayings attributed to Jesus that circulated orally through the early church. The idea that an authoritative and consistent tradition requires written sources, especially early in the church, when there would've been little chance for divergence, is unlikely.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Mark seems to suggest, according to Crossley, that James the Great was still leader of the church based upon his importance in Mark relative to the other three Gospels.

So just a guess, and still no reason why Mark would have been expected to mention a death that happened years after his narrative ends.

I don't know what to do with these arguments from omission. Maybe Mark was written in 33AD because it omits the post-resurrection appearance to the disciples?  

Reasons for an early rating of Luke:

1. It ends before Paul’s trial before the emperor.
2. Luke-Acts suggests no knowledge of the executions of James, brother of Jesus, Peter, or Paul.
3. It is unfamiliar with the burning of Rome and the subsequent persecution of Christians by Nero.
4. It seems to indicate nothing about the Roman-Jewish Wars from 66-70.
5. John the Baptist speaks favorably of Roman soldiers, which only Luke mentions. (Luke 3:14)
6. The favorable account of the Centurion;
7. The favorable account of Cornelius the Centurion;
8. The centurion and Roman commander help Paul repeatedly in Acts 21-23;
9. The centurion guarding Paul on the ship is portrayed favorably;
10. Paul is treated with deference due to his Roman citizenship, 16:37-38, 22:25-28.
11. In Acts 12, 15, and 21, the leadership of James, brother of Jesus, is taken for granted - Peter and Paul are almost certainly not in charge when the author is writing.
12. James was executed in 62 AD by the Jewish High Priest. If Luke were writing against the Jews, it’s odd that he would leave this out.
13. It seems Paul visited Ephesus again - it’s odd of Luke to leave the two statements that Paul would not do so in Acts 20:25-38 without comment.
14. Acts shows no textual knowledge of the Pauline epistles, which spread soon after they were written.
15. If Luke copied Mark, it is odd that he didn’t highlight the destruction of the Temple in the way Mark seems to.

All this is saying is that the author of Acts was highly pro-Roman, which in fact argues for a later date. That Acts elides the Roman state persecuting Christians does not mean that it was written before anything like that happened, but that the author is trying to convert gentiles who would not respond favourably to an insurrectionist Jewish sect. It's only mysterious if you expect the author to have written as a modern Christian would have.

Dating the other Gospels from there is fairly important, although I remain skeptical that Matthew or Luke had a copy of Q/Mark in front of them.

We know they did from editorial fatigue. Luke and Matthew copying Mark in front of them occasionally get tired and forget the edits they are making and slip back into the language of Mark they are copying resulting in inconsistencies.

It is odd to me that, if they did, Luke chose to scatter around pieces of Q that Matthew centralized.

If Luke was copying from Q, he may have simply inserted Q material into his text in order. That would not be odd. This is in fact only a problem for the Farrer hypothesis that Luke used Matthew, because then Luke must have deliberately cut up the Sermon on the Mount and scattered the material around his gospel.

I suspect Matthew and John were written within a decade or so after Luke in response to theological disagreements and Luke’s comparative lack of theology. I find it doubtful that these Gospels arose decades after Luke, as virtually every ancient writer - with the exception of Origen - seems to have responded fairly quickly to his contemporaries.

Not really, considering non-canonical gospels responding to canonical texts continued to be written well into the second and third (and fourth) centuries.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I strongly doubt that Q was a singular source text. Rather, Q represents the sayings attributed to Jesus that circulated orally through the early church. The idea that an authoritative and consistent tradition requires written sources, especially early in the church, when there would've been little chance for divergence, is unlikely.

Q is a written source as Luke and Matthew manage to copy it verbatim throughout. It would be impossible for their wording to be so exact if they were working from merely similar oral sources. Furthermore the relative sequence of the sayings is often in agreement, which is again impossible to explain if Matthew and Luke were writing down similar oral traditions.  

Also, if one thinks the Q sayings are early, then Matthew and Luke have used the exact same translation into Greek from Aramaic. Not that I think Q has many Aramaisms, but as an aside.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The issue here would seem to be that people who are not trained historians are often not aware quite how rare surviving documentation of anything is before the Middle Ages,* or how increasingly parlous and incomplete primary sources become the further back into Antiquity we travel. We do not, for instance, know how Cyrus the Great, one of the most important figures in the Ancient Near East, died: there are multiple conflicting accounts and none of them are particularly credible. There are significant gaps in the biographies of most leading politicians of the Roman Republic and of many Roman Emperors and even the military history of the Empire is patchier than often assumed. This being true, why would we expect to find endless surviving contemporary documentation on the life of an itinerant Galilean Rabbi who was of only strictly local importance during his brief career?

Of course we actually have a lot more than we would expect, because of the existence of the New Testament which is as useful and reliable an historical source as anything else written during the period - and if you think otherwise then you clearly have no knowledge of or experience with Classical texts! Exactly how contemporary, for instance, the Gospels are is uncertain (thus the interesting discursive digression in this thread), but by the standards of Classical texts they would all count as being roughly contemporary. No, they are not objective accounts and were not written to be: they all (not just John) aim towards a truth beyond that of the day-to-day. But objective accounts, as we would understand the concept, did not exist at the time and a primary source does not have to be 'objective', or to aim for objectivity, in order to be of use. Our principle source for the Battle of Cannae almost certainly tells a series of outrageous lies in order to protect the reputation of the family of the author's patron. It is nevertheless an essential document, the essential document, in understanding what happened and why.

Sometimes the most important facts can be so obvious that they are easy to overlook. This is the case with regards to Jesus as depicted in the Gospels. We are all doubtless familiar with the rhetorical style of Jesus as shown in Matthew, Mark and Luke, a rhetorical style that has been immensely influential on the development of Christian polemic and also on that of later European literary traditions. Because it is foundational to our cultural world we miss that at the time it was distinctive, that it represents a clear attempt to depict a style of speaking that Jesus was remembered as deploying one that, as some historians of Christianity and scholars of the texts have noted, the well-educated Greek-speaker Luke was clearly embarrassed about but felt the need to show anyway. Isn't that just fascinating? That faint outline of something so tangible... whatever your religious views, this is the sort of thing that ought to give anyone with a serious interest in the idea of the past a little thrill.

In any event that Jesus existed does not 'prove' Christianity and no serious Christian would argue else! As such it is really very silly to base any rejection of Christianity on the 'refutation' of the existence of Jesus, and would be even were that task not patently futile. I am not an atheist, but if I were I would find arguments of this sort very dispiriting.

_{*In fact there are no surviving copies of Classical texts made before the Carolingian Renaissance of the 8th and 9th centuries! All of the famous Histories and Geographies and works of literature that we rely on today to understand that world are only accessible to us now because, oh dear, religious institutions in the Middle Ages saw themselves as the rightful inheritors of that civilisation and the guardian of its legacy and thus regarded those texts as worthy of preservation.}

[Georg Ebner]

“Very few scholars believe any of the Gospels were written after the end of the 2nd century.” - Raymond Brown

This might be the biggest straw man quote I've ever seen. I have never seen anyone even try to claim any of the Gospels date past the first decade of the 2nd century (putting John in the 100-110 range).

Here in Germany/Austria I have nearly never seen anyone even try to claim John date before the first decade of the 2nd century (putting John mostly in the 110-130 range)...

[H. Ross Peron]

“Very few scholars believe any of the Gospels were written after the end of the 2nd century.” - Raymond Brown

This might be the biggest straw man quote I've ever seen. I have never seen anyone even try to claim any of the Gospels date past the first decade of the 2nd century (putting John in the 100-110 range).

Here in Germany/Austria I have nearly never seen anyone even try to claim John date before the first decade of the 2nd century (putting John mostly in the 110-130 range)...

Reminds me of the claims of the Radical Criticism school (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_criticism) which denied not just the historicity of Jesus but that of Paul and all of his epistles as well.

[Georg Ebner]

“Very few scholars believe any of the Gospels were written after the end of the 2nd century.” - Raymond Brown

This might be the biggest straw man quote I've ever seen. I have never seen anyone even try to claim any of the Gospels date past the first decade of the 2nd century (putting John in the 100-110 range).

Here in Germany/Austria I have nearly never seen anyone even try to claim John date before the first decade of the 2nd century (putting John mostly in the 110-130 range)...

Reminds me of the claims of the Radical Criticism school (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_criticism) which denied not just the historicity of Jesus but that of Paul and all of his epistles as well.

So far only few go*, But John 90-130 (and rather after 110) is standard at public centraleuropean universities.

*Albeit a joke here goes: Theologian 1: "They have found the grave of Joseph, Mary and Jesus!" Theologian 2: "Damn, then he was really existing."