The Lecture Tour of Germany, Part III: Marburg

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 11 August 2011 1 Comments
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Question

This is a question I have been asked a number of times and I would love to know the answer.  You often mention that the gospels were written at different times and are able to quote the time line as to which gospel was written first, who copied off whom and approximately when and many other details.

Can you tell me the background behind these insights?  I have had this discussion with several people and they immediately dismiss my assertions, but unfortunately I do not have the further information to continue the debate.  Was this new insight due to biblical study or was some of the original script subject to carbon dating?  I would love to know.

Answer

Dear David,

It would take a book to answer your question in any depth or detail, but let me try to do it briefly just to show you the parameters of the problem. Internal evidence drawn from the gospels themselves has to be combined with what we know about the external history of that region when the various books of the New Testament were written in order to provide the guide lines for their dating.  Mark’s gospel reveals, for example, in chapter 13 and in chapter 9 that it was written after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple since both appear to be referred to in those places.  We know from the study of Roman history that this fall and destruction occurred in 70 CE.  That was the year that the Roman army under a general named Titus destroyed the city and effectively ended the Jewish war. Some elements of the Jewish resistance movement retreated to a fortress named Masada and held out until 73 when that war finally came to an end. So we conclude that Mark has to have been written at some time after 70 CE.

From internal studies of Matthew and Luke we can ascertain that both are dependent on Mark. Matthew copies almost verbatim about 90% of Mark into his gospel; while Luke is a bit less dependent copying almost 50% of Mark into his gospel.  By the time Luke writes, the Gentile movement of the Church is well underway and we see that reflected in Luke’s text as well as in the book of Acts, which Luke wrote as Volume II of his two part work. There is some evidence to suggest that Luke also had Matthew to draw from when he wrote, but that is not universally agreed.  I think he did, but it would take far too long to make that case so I just file it as speculative.  So we make some conclusions based on these data and date Mark after the year 70 but probably no later that 72.  Matthew, who expands Mark in a more traditionally Jewish way, needs time to get Mark, work with Mark and to develop his own rather expansive interpretation of Mark.  So we think that would take some five to ten tears with the latter date more probable than the former because of the slowness of both transportation and communications and thus we date Matthew around the year 82.  Luke, who reveals a deeper separation of the Christians from the synagogue and who is writing for a more dispersed and Gentile-open community reflects a still later date and so we assign his gospel to a range of years between 88 and 92.  I tend to think of Luke’s gospel as coming near the late end of that range.  Only fundamentalists seem to challenge these conclusions and their literal approach to scripture requires that they date the books of the New Testament as early as possible in order to preserve their claim about their literal accuracy.  I have no need to defend that possibility and regard it as simply uninformed. There are no copies of the original texts in existence for us to carbon date.  Indeed we do not have any full manuscripts of New Testament books (we do have a few earlier fragments) that can be dated before the 6th century CE.

I hope this helps to clarify the discussions you are having.  I send my regards to your heroic faith community whom I admire from afar in its ongoing struggle for authenticity and my special greeting and love to your family.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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