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

On Thursday, March 11, 2004, at 11:01 PM, Matthew Kehrt wrote:

> Rather offtopic:
>
> The standard argument that the gospels were written after 70 A.D. is that
> they (especially Matthew) contain very accurate prophecies of the
> destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, which  took place in that year.
It seems to me a stretch of the imagination to call Matthew 24 a very
accurate prophecy of the actual destruction of 70 CE.
"Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened,
the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will fall from the sky and
the powers of heaven will be shaken.....etc"

I don't recall any record of these phenomena following the Roman capture &
destruction of Jerusalem. The whole chapter is couched in Jewish
apocalyptic language and any astute person reading the 'signs of the time'
  could've foreseen trouble ahead.

> The argument is that these prophecies were put in after the fact to
> demonstrate Jesus' position as a prophet.  The counterargument, of
> course, is that Jesus really did make these prophecies, and they are
> accurate because he really was the Son of God.
A third argument is that Chapter 24 is not such a prophecy. It's true that
some verses can, with hindsight, be related to the capture of Jerusalem,
but some of the chapter clearly relates to the return of the Messiah and
'the last days'. The Chapter has be called 'the little apocalypse'; and
'the third argument' is that Jesus, realizing that the activities of the
Jewish zealots would sooner or later bring about a clash with Rome and
that things would turn very nasty, especially in Jerusalem, was using
traditional Jewish apocalyptic language to warn his followers and give
them the hope that if they stood firm God would see them through.

But even if you take the 'interpolated prophecy' view, it merely puts
Matthew & Luke after 70; it has no bearing on the dates of Mark or John.
Nor does it mean that no Gospels were written before 90 CE and that was
the position being questioned:

Djoi ayan:
>> I'm curious how you came by this, or researchers did, or whatever.  We
>> have no manuscripts earlier than 60-100 years after the fact, but I
>> can't see how we'd know when they were written, if we have no
>> manuscripts.
>
>
>
Ray
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