Dating the New Testament Books

On one of the sites I regularly go to, they have numerous discussion boards with designated topics. The atheist who writes on the Religion board, and who is in love with himself and greatly admires his own perceived brilliance is something more than a atheist who does not merely believe there is any God or Supreme Being. Nope, this guy hates anything Christian and wants everyone to hate God, too. He is, I submit, a fine example of Freud’s findings and conclusions that people repress, or suppress, from their memory horrible experiences, usually childhood things. "He’s in denial," has a certain amount of truth to it, at least on some occasions. Yet those sub-conscious memories keep being tweaked and that irritation triggers personality abnormalities, like maybe great irrational fear of a man wearing a large silver buckle or a dark car with tinted windows. Well, this atheist fellow throws unoriginal ideas around as made popular by the German Higher Critics, such as the Bible is all myths and legends, as if he knew everything about the subject.

To his obsessions and compulsions, I once answered in detail and hopefully with logic for a full page or two suggesting the posting over and over of the same myths and legends junk was an obsession or compulsion indicative of a repression problem as per Freud. I was amazed. He absolutely went silent for awhile, maybe a month, then lately he came back, but not one additional time has he expressly mentioned myths and legends.

A few days ago I went to the board and he was arguing with what I deem might be a new believer, lots of zeal but not a lot of information or resources. [So I fail in controlling my own arrogant judgments, too, now and then.] The atheist had the Christian just a tad on the defensive. Atheist claimed the Christian’s belief in the Bible was ill-placed, because the New Testament books were actually not written by the Apostles or eye-witnesses, but were written in the 4th Century. Kind of a variation of the myths and legends argument! Now remember, this guy delights to speak as if he had unimpeachable knowledge of all he chooses to reveal to any gullible Christian that believes the Bible, and he doesn’t bother to support anything he says with citations to resources.

The Atheist has now said: "The consensus of the learned experts is that the New Testament books were written in the 300 AD era."

I responded: For sake of brevity I must summarize, yet I will be kind enough to explain my sources and some reasoning for what I say here. Okay, if someone doubts me then be kind enough to me to visit a Christian Book store and browse. Several good New Testament Surveys will give you a lot of information concerning every N.T. book. If that is not convincing, you will find author scholars who seem to specialize in a particular book and you can examine the reasoning of authors of each book separately. In their introductions to a particular book you will find discussions in detail of the probable date of the writing. They meet any variant opinion with logic and reasoning expressed and argued. To be sure, I possess or have access to numerous scholars’ work, scholars with fantastic credentials and awards and fellowships, etc. Some are conservative, some moderate/liberal and some (like me perhaps) may be considered conservative on some issues and liberal on another. One of the recognized best scholars on John’s Gospel, even by protestant scholars, is a Roman Catholic. That is to say, this is not my cooked-up narrow minded analysis in furtherance of some "fundamentalist" agenda. When we read arguments, points and counter-points we truly learn in depth about the issues upon which we argue.

In regard to dates, there are no meaningful disputes. For example: As to the time of NT formation, some might suggest 40-70 AD while another might use 50-100 AD based on his own analysis, not a meaningful difference in most cases. I recognize that in the 19th century when Nietzsche and the European liberal existentialists were a rage and had captured the attention of theological thinkers, it was opined that John was late, written decades after John would have died. That would mean John the Apostle would not be alive to write it. However, the bright idea fails because a manuscript fragment of numerous verses from John’s Gospel exactly as we know it was discovered about 125 AD in Egypt.

Then, examining the many books internally we find Paul, for example, referring in several of his letters to writers like Mark and Luke being with him in Rome. Paul’s last letters were written from prison. In Acts, really a NT historical document, we again learn of Paul imprisonments. Based on internal materials we know Paul in his latter days was imprisoned by the caesar who first intently and insanely persecuted Christians. Historically, things fit! Nero had Paul killed. Thus, Paul had finished his writings not later than about 64 AD and many of his letters clearly were much earlier, within maybe a decade of Jesus’ resurrection. The point is that cross-referencing points can be found between books and between authors.

We should not overlook early Church fathers who also wrote various letters that have been found. Of particular interest is a letter from an early church father Clement to the Christians in Corinth, with unmistakable dating--in AD 95. He cites verses from the Gospels, Acts, Romans, I Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. Ignatius wrote to several churches in Asia Minor, citing Matthew, John, Romans, 1 Cor., Galations, Ephesians, Philippians, 1-2 Timothy and Titus verses. Ignatius wrote in AD 115 (translated into our dating method). The point: the entire NT was written within the first century AD.

I had no intention to discuss reasons to proclaim the reliability of the Gospels for truth in this post, yet I point to Tacitus, a non-Christian Roman historian. He corroborates not only Nero’s persecution, but in learning about those crazy christus people who would die for their faith, he gives a good summary of the belief--Pontious Pilate, the crucifixion, the resurrection. There are other non-biblical points of corroboration by non-Christian writers of Jesus’ existence and of such things as His healings and other miracles. For example, Jewish writings of the time contain expressions that Jesus did these unusual things by sorcery.

I will now be so bold as to imitate the "consensus" comment, yet I have given the reasons for my statement: The genuine consensus of learned opinion is that every NT book was written not earlier than 40 AD and not later than 100 AD with most of it written before 70 AD.

The manuscript evidence for the authenticity of Biblical texts is astounding. There are 24,000 extant manuscripts to study and compare for any man-made corruption, alterations or variations. There are some excellent examples of intact manuscripts dating from AD 325-450, the Vaticanus and the Codex Siniaticus. There are multiple thousands of early fragments dating from 100 to 200 years before Vaticanus and Siniaticus. The especially clear and legible among the many fragments are those called the Chester Beatty Papyrus and the Bodner Papyrus. From these fragments alone all of Luke, John, Romans, 1-2 Cor., Galations, Eph, Philippians, Col., 1-2 Thess., Mark, Acts and Revelation are reconstructed into a whole. The pieces by words fit together to form the whole, much as forming the picture of a jig-saw puzzle from pieces. And it matters not whether the fragment depicting words from Mark 10 (example) came from Syria or Egypt. One scholar in Church history (sounding like others) has said succinctly, "It is of wonder that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration."

Lastly, I note the Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Some of them are definitely pieces of the NT. It is certain that the Qumran community hid their scrolls in caves at that crucial time in Jewish history when the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and the countryside villages, i.e., around 70 AD. These fragments are carefully cataloged. For example: Cave 7, Q6, Q15, Q5 contained verses from Mark, chapters 4, 6, and 12. There are similar fragments from Acts 27; Romans 5; 1 Timothy; 2 Peter; James. To be sure, much of the cave material has been basically destroyed, plus I haven’t printed the names of other Old Testament book copy fragments found.

After all this, and there is more an expert with time to write could add, I trust we can see that the claim the NT books were not written before the 4th century is...laughable!

Perhaps a lack of general biblical and church knowledge and failure to distinguish between the date of writing of the books by the Apostles and eye-witnesses and the much later church declaration of the canon has led to the confusion we are discussing. To again quote a scholar: "When at last a Church Council–the Synod of Hippo in AD 393–listed the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, it did not confer upon them any authority which they did not already possess, but simply recorded their previously established canonicity." The Church declaration was good and necessary to guard against those groups, such as the Gnostics, who tried to get their material used by the church, not to mention a serious heretical challenge by Marcion urging some strange ideas.
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Post Script: Since I posted my response the atheist has not replied to it. I’m almost disappointed! He has been on the site and has actively posted on other topics on the Religion board. The encouraging thing for me is to have received super comments from several Christians, including the one I deemed to be a new Christian and even from one who rarely posts there.