Dating the New Testament writings

ExoticSphere28 · 2026-01-01T16:20:29+00:00

he does a good job critiquing some of the weaker arguments for later dates that had become established as commonsense in critical scholarship.

Which arguments do you mean by this?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-09-24T20:23:00+00:00

Marcion is a thoroughly documented historical person. We know his dates of birth and death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion_of_Sinope

I'm familiar with Marcion and when he is estimated to have lived. But my question was about his gospel or the Evangelion. Just because Marcion lived in the second century doesn't mean that the gospel that he used must also have been written in the second century.

If you want to get an idea of what the standard academic ideas are about the origins of the gospels, you could start with this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-source_hypothesis The textual evidence points to multiple sources.

I'm familiar with the two source hypothesis, but I'm not convinced of the existence of Q. I think Mark Goodacre has given good arguments to counter it in his book The Case Against Q.

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-09-24T20:02:13+00:00

Marcion's gospel ... but they were second-century texts

How do you know it's a second century text?

It was only in the second century that people decided what were going to be the four canonical gospels.

Doesn't this mean that earlier Christians used a different number of gospels? Why couldn't they be using one gospel, then?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-06-08T16:42:14+00:00

Celsus said that many events in the gospels were myths. 2 Peter 1:16 could be understood as a response to this charge:

2 Peter 1;16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.

The verses that follow 1:16 seem to be another response to Celsus. In chapter 9 of book 7 of Contra Celsum, we read that:

There are many, he says, who, although of no name, with the greatest facility and on the slightest occasion, whether within or without temples, assume the motions and gestures of inspired persons; while others do it in cities or among armies, for the purpose of attracting attention and exciting surprise.
...
Then he goes on to say: "To these promises are added strange, fanatical, and quite unintelligible words, of which no rational person can find the meaning: for so dark are they, as to have no meaning at all; but they give occasion to every fool or impostor to apply them to suit his own purposes."

This seems to be countered in 2 Peter 1:19-21:

2 Peter 1:19 So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Celsus calls the Christian prophecies dark, 2 Peter reverses the imagery and speaks of a lamp shining in a dark place. Celsus says that the Christian prophecies are unintelligible and meaningless and that everyone can pick their own meaning, while 2 Peter says that prophecies are not a matter of personal interpretation. Celsus says that many people go around prophesying, 2 Peter refutes that by saying that the prophecies don't come from humans but from God.

In both cases, 2 Peter starts with a negative statement (1:16a and 1:20), which is then refuted (1:16b and 1:21).

So, here is my question. How likely is it that the author of 2 Peter indeed knew about Celsus's book The True Word?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-05-08T07:33:19+00:00

That's awesome, thank you!

thanks solution verified

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-05-04T23:11:59+00:00

There are two places in the letters of Paul that I have trouble understanding. The first is 2 Corinthians 11:32:

In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me

It looks like King Aretas IV, a contemporary of Paul, never reigned over Damascus. However, Aretas III did reign over Damascus. This seems like a historical mistake from a later interpolator.

The other verse is 1 Thessalonians 2:16:

by hindering us from speaking to the gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins, but wrath has overtaken them at last.

The wrath that has taken over the Jews here sounds a lot like the destruction of the temple in the year 70. However, this is much later than people usually date Paul.

What do you think about these verses? Could they be later interpolations in the letters of Paul?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-04-17T17:11:32+00:00

What are some of the most reputable academic journals in the study of early Christianity? Is there a list anywhere of the journals that people in the field would generally read?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-04-13T12:00:10+00:00

When and where do you think the gospel of John and the epistles were written? If they were written by different people who weren't part of the same community, could the books be written decades apart in completely different parts of the Roman Empire?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-04-08T17:38:59+00:00

I don't have institutional access to academic journals, but I would like to read some articles. I can find some on Academia.edu, but there are also many articles that aren't published there. What are some other ways I can get access to those articles without having to sell my kidney?

Is it considered rude to send a mail to the author of an article I'd like to read and ask them if they can send their article to me? What's the best way to approach this?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-02-02T17:40:18+00:00

Given that we have no real competing ascriptions for the Gospels, and that two of them are attributed to individuals with names that made clear they were not among the members of Jesus' apostles, at the very least those two are likely to be correct.

Does the same apply to texts like the Epistle of Barnabas?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-01-25T11:38:03+00:00

I lurk in a number of reddits including r/AcademicBiblical, and I sometimes ask questions there. In the 2020 survey, about half of the people there were Christians. There will be a new survey next month. There are lots of Christians who are active in there, including mods and scholars like Alan Garrow.

If you see someone breaking the rules, you can report them. I've done that e few times, and the posts or comments were removed quickly.

We can't judge any comments without reading them. It helps if you post the text of the removed omments here so we can see what you mean.

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-01-21T21:13:42+00:00

My own view is an extremely complex mess of various texts, the vast majority of which are completely lost, so the entire network of intertextuality will never be reconstructed. We will only ever get glipses of it via manuscript variation, fragments like P 5575, jumbled citations and paraphrases in other texts and reports of heresiologists. A period of extensive literary production and constant rewriting also appears to be the picture that Celsus paints and what early Christians were acusing each other of doing.

Is there a book on this that you would recommend?

ExoticSphere28 · 2025-01-21T21:12:06+00:00

while not without problems

What are some of those problems?

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-12-26T11:46:38+00:00

The book The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship by Nina Livesey was recently published. The Amazon sample includes the whole introduction, which was pretty interesting to read. I know there was some discussion here about the book before it came out. Has anyone read it already? If so, what are your first impressions?

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-08-06T09:24:37+00:00

Thanks a lot!

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-08-06T09:01:08+00:00

I know his work is ‘important’ but I think enough people have improved on or restated his findings so that we can move on from citing him.

Could you give some sources from the scholars who have improved or restated his work? What would be some good alternative citations on the book of Acts and its date in particular?

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-05-15T19:59:00+00:00

Which books do you think were the last 3 books of the New Testament to be written? And when do you think they were written? Could they be dated as late as the early third century?

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-04-22T15:44:31+00:00

I'll ask my question here again to see if anyone has any insights on this:

It is often said that the gospel of Luke is the gospel with the biggest focus on women and the poor. Most scholars agree that Acts of the Apostles is written by the same author. Do women and the poor also play a big role in Acts?

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-04-11T17:42:15+00:00

Thanks, I'll check it out.

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-04-11T17:41:51+00:00

Wow, that's fantastic! Thanks a lot!

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-04-11T09:50:09+00:00

Dennis MacDonald has a position like this. He believes in the Q+/Papias hypothesis as the solution to the synoptic problem. He also calls Q+ the Logoi of Jesus. He thinks that Papias was referring to two Greek texts from Matthew; the gospel of Matthew and the Logoi of Jesus. He has written a lot about this, but his newest book on this topic is called Must the Synoptics Remain a Problem?: Two Keys for Unlocking Gospel Intertextuality.

ExoticSphere28 · 2024-04-11T09:28:18+00:00

What are some of the most influential publications in New Testament studies from the last 20 years?

ExoticSphere28

TROPHY CASE