When were the gospels written? Does it matter?
Bold addedWe can say with a great deal of confidence that all four books were in existence by about AD 90 given the distribution of the books in all the churches. Almost all scholars will give a significantly earlier date to the four books, although some put the book of John as late as the 80s AD. A general consensus of conservative scholars puts Mark at about AD 60-65. Some even put Mark in the 50s AD. Matthew and Luke are usually given a date of writing of about AD 60-70 and John AD 70-90. These are obviously rough approximations. Such dates are based on guesses about which authors relied on the others. For instance, it is not unreasonable (though not proven) to think that Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke relate prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem (which happened in AD 70) which seems to support these books being published before AD 70. John shows evidence of response to gnostic ideas, likely implying a later date of writing. It is also believed that John lived significantly longer than the other gospel writers. The arguments for the date of writing of these books can get rather obtuse. If you want to get a feeling for these arguments, you should pick up a detailed commentary on each of the gospels and consider carefully the arguments of the authors. A good commentary will present more than one theory and the evidence for the different dates of authorship.
I wish I could give exact dates, but to be honest, we simply do not know the dates these books were written.
http://evidenceforchristianity.org/what ... o-we-know/
Notice that 60s CE would be three decades after Jesus is said to have died – and 90 CE would be sixty years after.
Yet, some attempt to claim that writers personally witnessed events and had perfect word-for-word memory of conversations.
As a person of seventy-six I am quite aware that I cannot describe in accurate detail events from thirty or sixty years ago and darn sure cannot recite word-for-word extended conversations. But then, I don't claim to be magic.
I could, however, write stories that made it sound as though I knew about or witnessed things (that I did not) from thirty or sixty years ago – and write detailed accounts of conversations. I might even hear about such things from folklore or oral tradition (“Uncle Joe did such and such and Aunt Mary said so and so�).
If Christian scholars and theologians do not know when gospels were written, do not know by whom they were written, do not know their sources of information HOW can anyone rationally claim that the stories are true and accurate accounts of events and conversations that really happened?
