What is Reddit's opinion of The Date of Mark's Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity (The Library of New Testament Studies)?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

> while gMark cannot possibly date earlier than c.70 AD

Why do you think this is so? What do you think of Crossley's argument that Mark is actually from the 30s or 40s?

https://www.amazon.com/Date-Marks-Gospel-Christianity-Testament/dp/0567081958

Also see

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42614756?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Yeah, no: James Crossley

The Date of Mark's Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0567081958/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_FZBVPCKH3HD8ZQTMT3K4

John t robinson

Redating the New Testament: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1579105270/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_3FQQZ3VAQ4TYYSB1NRXH

Jonathan Bernier (we did our PhDs together)

Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1540965260/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Y2WPNA5Z95MC1SBQC831

None of these are fundamentalists.

>Most scholars believe that Luke was written after and quotes Mark.

Absolutely right.

>If you insist that the "consensus" should be taken as true, then you should accept that.

Of course I accept the concensus regarding the dating of Mark and Luke, and that's not because it's the concensus, but because the concensus is based on substantiated evidence since Matthew frequently agreed with Mark against Luke and Luke agreed frequently with Mark against Matthew, and Matthew and Luke basically does not agree with each other against Mark. Modern statistical analysis of the Greek fragments that's beyond what we can do just reading has essentially conclusively demonstrated the dating ranges of the three synoptic gospels.

>I personally don't have an opinion on that one way or another; any order of writing would suit me fine,

Well you should change how you approach history because the correct order matters a lot.

>If that is the case, when were Luke's two works written?

The gospel of Luke and Acts was written approximately 82 to 90 CE. Evidence points to a Hellenistic area of composition.

Luke the physician and companion of Paul of course did not write either of these. There are numerous contradictions between whenever authored Luke-Acts and the authentic Paulene letters that modern scholarship doesn't accept the old Catholic tradition that they were written by Paul's actual companion, plus it was written too late. There is textual evidence such as conflicts with Alexandrian manuscript families that suggest revisions happened after 110+ CE. But the majority of the text was probably 82-90 CE.

>Well, Acts ends with Paul in jail in Rome with an uncertain future, so that would seem to be the approximate date -- obviously it couldn't be earlier, but it also is unlikely to have been much later,

No, that is not accurate. Paul of Tarsus died right around 64 CE. The Luke-Acts composition was about 20-26 years later.

>since it kind of leaves the reader hanging

That's not a reason to assume it was written shortly afterward. There is no real evidence that places it before 82 CE and not before 80 CE at the earliest. Most date it around 84-85 CE.

> surely if Luke was aware of what happened to Paul, he would have included it.

So there isn't evidence that substantiates the claim Luke, companion of Paul, wrote Luke-Acts. About all anyone has are the old Catholic fathers using the "we" passages (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–37; 28:1-16), but that is insufficient to substantiate authorship and there are some problems with the rest of the text being in the 3rd person and some issues with the Greek. The substantiated evidence goes the other way, however.

Same way when a Mormon claims the passages in the Book of Mormon that quote Isaiah were taken in the brass plates, this is contradicted by scholarly evidence that shows parts of Isaiah whoted on the book of Mormon were post-exile, thus could not have been written before the sacking of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Thus, biblical scholarship and evidence discredits the claim it could have been taken by Lehi and Nephi to the promised land.

Samw thing here, except it discredits the claim it was written by Luke.

>, that puts Luke in the late 50s or early 60s,

No, you just made that up out of thin air by thinking how it would make sense to you. That's not evidence.

This is just like when a Mormon defends the post-exile parts of Isaiah (usually called deutero-Isaiah) by just claiming they think all of Isaiah was written by the same person since they think it has a cohesive narrative, so it couldn't have been written post-exile. They just make that up out of thin air because that's what makes sense to them. But the evidence contradicts their belief.

Samw thing applies to you.

>and if he quotes Mark as most scholars say, then Mark had to have been written even earlier than that.

No, that is inaccurate for the same reasons.

>Even if the majority of scholars believe something, it doesn't necessarily make it true.

Correct. Only substantiated evidence does. The only reason people claim like wrote Luke is because of the catholic concensus, nto evidence. You only think it was Witten by Luke because of concensus, not substantiated evidence.

> this atheist believes that Mark was written somewhere around the late 30s into the early 40s (https://www.amazon.com/The-Date-Marks-Gospel-Christianity/dp/0567081958)

I have never heard of this person, but their status as an atheist isn't relevant. There are atheists that think Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist which is an idiotic position as there is good evidence that substantiated the existence of rabbi Jesus of Nazareth.

The issue is substantiated evidence. Some atheist professor or anti-religious zealot or Mormon or whatever can claim all sorts of false things.

The issue is evidence.

The dating of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) has evidence that places the composition of like around 70 CE and Matthew and Luke around 82-90 CE.

>so it's not just believing scholars who come to that conclusion. I

Correct. Which is why believing whoever that author is would be really stupid. The correct method is substantiating evidence.

>I haven't read that work so I don't know what all evidence he brings,

Shocker...

>but there is an intriguing argument that "the longer ending of Mark" was added well after Mark wrote and disseminated his gospel, and that he intentionally left it hanging so that the Christian eyewitnesses to the resurrection and ascension could give their own personal testimonies of what they had seen afterwards.

There is nothing that substantiates this but in fact there is evidence contradicting this hypothesis because Mark is written with an understanding of the failure of the first Jewish revolt and the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, so the earliest would be 66 CE using substantiated evidence. There are reasons to think it was a few years later which is why 70 CE is where most of us land when using evidence to date the composition.

You sound like this Mormon professor I was talking to that claimed there was an interesting hypothesis about the composition of the book of Isaiah being written by one person because it contained several uses of hebraiams like repetitive resumptions. This hypothesis is discredited by the evidence that substantiates parts would have been written with a knowledge of post-exile Jews... So the hypothesis fails because of evidence.

Same thing applies to you.

>"...that he was BURIED". Now you just sound pedantic.

You specified tomb, not me, and I just pointed out your quote doesn't say tomb.

But The issue is that the evidence doesn't substantiate the claim. I'm aware the biblical texts that claims he was buried in a tomb. The evidence contradicts this claim, however. Same way I'm aware the Book of Mormon claims to have been written by American dwelling Israelites, but the evidence contradicts the claim.

>Agreed that Paul wasn't a witness, since that's what he said.

Yep.

>He uses the rabbinical formula 'I passed on what I received", which means he had gotten that statement from someone prior to giving it to the Corinthians

Exactly right. And you know what worked we use for that?

Hearsay.

> when he first was among them in Acts `18-19, which Wikipedia dates to 50-52 A.D. (not that I necessarily consider them authoritative; just that it's a secular source and likely not too badly biased in this particular).

Whatever you read in Wikipedia isn't accurate then as the evidence places Acts around 90 CE and even the most stretched evidence puts it at 80 CE, but there are some issues that contradict claims that it could have been this early. Older, less competent people have said acts was composed in 65ish CE, but we now have evidence that contradicts these claims. I have no idea what someone could possibly present to suggest 50 CE is accurate. You probably don't know this because you aren't in the business of historical textual criticism and education, but text within Luke-Acts looks back on the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, as does Mark, so that claim of 50 CE is discredited. It likely comes from a concensus of people before the science of textual history was developed by religious - mostly catholic - scholars and clergy.

>Five hundred eyewitnesses are evidence, btw.

Nope, that is false. That is 500 claims. And besides, you don't have 500.

You have one.

You have one person making a hearsay claim that there are 500 other people who made the claim.

We have exactly zero of those 500 eyewitness claims. We don't know their names, can't cross examine them, can't check for contradictory eyewitness statements, can't check their backgrounds extensively, we can't even substantiate what their exact claim was, much less substantiate the claim itself.

All we have is Paul claiming there are 500 people that claim this.

You have been tricked into thinking 500 eyewitnesses exist by Wallace and his ilk in the same way Mormons have been tricked by Dr Dan Peterson that we have 11 written eyewitness signatures as to the authenticity and existence of the gold plates. His claim is false, as we actually have one writer signing the names of 11 different people.

And 500 claims doesn't substantiate their claims. We have something like 182 written claims about angels visiting and validating the temple dedication in Kirtland. That doesn't substantiate the claim.

I'm going to bed. I'll address the rest of this later.

Most scholars believe that Luke was written after and quotes Mark. If you insist that the "consensus" should be taken as true, then you should accept that. (I personally don't have an opinion on that one way or another; any order of writing would suit me fine, but Luke's gospel does mention other written accounts, so Mark's gospel could be one of them.)

If that is the case, when were Luke's two works written? Well, Acts ends with Paul in jail in Rome with an uncertain future, so that would seem to be the approximate date -- obviously it couldn't be earlier, but it also is unlikely to have been much later, since it kind of leaves the reader hanging, and surely if Luke was aware of what happened to Paul, he would have included it. So, that puts Luke in the late 50s or early 60s, and if he quotes Mark as most scholars say, then Mark had to have been written even earlier than that.

Even if the majority of scholars believe something, it doesn't necessarily make it true. Even this atheist believes that Mark was written somewhere around the late 30s into the early 40s (https://www.amazon.com/The-Date-Marks-Gospel-Christianity/dp/0567081958), so it's not just believing scholars who come to that conclusion. I haven't read that work so I don't know what all evidence he brings, but there is an intriguing argument that "the longer ending of Mark" was added well after Mark wrote and disseminated his gospel, and that he intentionally left it hanging so that the Christian eyewitnesses to the resurrection and ascension could give their own personal testimonies of what they had seen afterwards.

>Corinthians isn't written by a witness of any of it, it's by Paul of Tarsus. Also, it doesn't mention a tomb. Also, there's no evidence to substantiate Paul's claim.

"...that he was BURIED". Now you just sound pedantic.

Agreed that Paul wasn't a witness, since that's what he said. He uses the rabbinical formula 'I passed on what I received", which means he had gotten that statement from someone prior to giving it to the Corinthians -- not just in his letter, but when he first was among them in Acts `18-19, which Wikipedia dates to 50-52 A.D. (not that I necessarily consider them authoritative; just that it's a secular source and likely not too badly biased in this particular). Five hundred eyewitnesses are evidence, btw.

​

>"how do you account for Christianity at all? Presumably you disagree with the account of the early church in Acts. What do you think happened between Jesus's death and A.D. 70? What do you think they taught? How do you think Christianity grew during that time?"
>
>Ah, so this is a common deflection technique apologists employ where they try to change the subject to a bunch of new questions rather than address the topic

No, not at all. The claim being made is that Jesus's disciples didn't teach that he had risen from the dead until about 40 years after the crucifixion. The Bible says that the claim that Jesus rose from the dead is a central tenet of the religion. If Christians weren't going around teaching that, what *did* they teach that made the Jews so mad at them and made the Gentiles mostly mock them, but some Jews and Gentiles did believe in the Christian message. What was the message? -- that Jesus was a nice guy who taught good morals? We're supposed to believe that the Jews got mad at that, and the Greeks likewise mocked it?

It's about accounting for all of the evidence. I have plenty of evidence, but you dismiss the Bible (unjustly, I might add). You agree that Christianity grew between the time of Jesus's death and around A.D. 70, and I presume you agree that Christians were often persecuted during that time, so what were they teaching that would be reason for them to be persecuted? And have you ever considered what would have had to have happened for all these thousands of Christians who were converted between 30-70 to one message, to suddenly have their leaders say, "Um, yeah, y'know that Jesus guy we told you about? Yeah, he actually wasn't just a good teacher but he actually rose from the dead! Weird nobody ever told us that before...." That's ridiculous, and has zero evidence to support it.

This is a huge question. With respect to gospel dates, you find support for early and late dating across the spectrum. It's not hard to point to traditionally minded scholarship making cases for early dates, but here's a new monograph making a case for an early date for Acts. It's not hard to point to what is seen as more critical scholarship as advocating later dates, but here's a classic for Acts (to be balanced). Herder to find is a critical scholar who holds to an early date for Acts, but Harnack is the classic example. A conservative advocating a late date? F. C. Burkitt would probably be a good example of a conservative British scholar who dated Acts into the second century (data in the first link above). Dates for Acts tend to bear a relationship (admittedly, it can be constructed in numerous ways) with gospel dates, if one sees gLuke as being completed earlier than Acts, and Mark before Luke, etc.

This can be done for gospels too. For example, critical consensus on Mark is to date it ~70's, but the late Maurice Casey, and his former student and scholar James Crossley (definitely critical scholars advocate early dates. E.g. Crossley, quite avowedly an unbelieving scholar (whatever that means to nose-counters on positions) advocates very early dates for the gospel of Mark (late 30's early 40's).

Consensus is a tricky thing, and those who love to lean it need to think twice about how to nuance it. In any event, is the questions is, is there evidence and scholarship for early dating (and the corollary questions regarding other eras for dating), the answer is yes. There is peer reviewed scholarship by respected scholars from across the spectrum holding to a variety of dates.

The task is to sift through them, and make up your own mind on the basis of what seems most plausible given your understanding, which may change at any given time when you encounter new (or new to you) evidence.