Re: CHAT dating the Gospels (was: Languages in Gibson's Passion)

Ray Brown wrote:
>
> Joe wrote:
>
> > Ph. D. wrote:
> >
> >> Of course, the gospels were not written down until
> >> sixty to one hundred years after the fact, so it's even
> >> possible that Pilate ordered the text written and the
> >> story became changed to say that Pilate actually
> >> wrote it (or even that there was no text at all and that
> >> it's an embellishment to the story).
> >
> > I'm curious how you came by this, or researchers did, or whatever.
>
> So am I - Ph.D.'s dates are rather later than those normally given. We
> know that Luke was a contemporary of Paul; indeed, Luke is mentioned in
> some of Paul's letters, and some parts of the 'Acts of the Apostles' seem
> to incorporate a 1st person diary kept by Luke. So to put him, at least,
> 60 to 100 years after the crucifixion not as far as I can see in
> accordance with the evidence we have. All the authorities I've come across
> generally put Luke's Gospel as somewhere between 70 to 80 CE, i.e. about
> 40 to 50 years later.
First, let me admit my mistake. The gospels were written between 60 CE
and 100 CE, not sixty to one hundred years after the fact. I was failing to
take Jesus' age at the time of the crucifixion into account.


>  <snip>
>
> Only John's is given a later dating, from the end of 1st cent or the early
> years of the 2nd, i.e. somewhere about 70 years after the crucifixion.
> I've never seen it put as late as 100 years. The ancient tradition was
> that the 'Beloved Disciple' was John, son of Zebedee & that he was the
> author of the Gospel. But it would seem odd for him to refer to himself, I
> think, as 'the disciple whom Jesus loved'. Also the Gospel does show signs
> of editing; on the other hand it also shows a fairly intimate knowledge of
> the Holy Land and Jewish customs. The likely scenario, it seems to me, is
> that the Apostle John is essentially the author, but that it was published
> posthumously by a follower/followers of John. Anyway, as I say, the Gospel
> is usually dated at somwhere about 100 CE.
I make no claim to being a Biblical scholar. All I know about this is what
I've read in various publications. It seems that every time I read an
article
(by an academic), it mentions that the gospels were written between 60
and 100 CE, and at least once I recall reading that this was determined
by linguistic analysis.

I'm not arguing that the events didn't happen exactly as described in the
gospels. All I'm saying is that if they were passed on by word of mouth
from an eye witness to others to others, mistakes and changes may
have occurred along the way. Imagine if we had no written accounts
of the television game show scandals in the 1950s. The stories were
simply handed down from person to person. Then today we decided
to write them down. How accurate do you think they would be? People
forget, and sometimes they have an agenda to promote. These gospel
stories would have been told to all new converts, so who knows how
they may have changed by the time someone decided to write them
down?

I recently read somewhere, in a discussion of the Gibson film, that the
Bible makes Pilate seem reluctant to execute Jesus, while in reality
Pilate was ruthless and eliminated anyone who gave any hint of
being a political threat to Rome. The writer's opinion was that the
writer of that gospel account (writing soon after the destruction of
Jerusalem) was trying to put the blame on the Jews rather than on
Rome. That's what I mean by an agenda to promote.

Again, I make no claim to be a Biblical scholar. I'm just making
some observations. I may very well be totally wrong.

--Ph. D.