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Thread: Kerygmania: Pre-70 dating of the Gospels
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Lev
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# 50
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Posted
Hi all,
Apologies if this has already been discussed - I've done a quick search of the last 5 pages and couldn't see it there. If it has, please could you direct me to the thread?
I was reading the Wikipedia article for John Robinson where he wrote a book arguing that all four gospels (even John!) must have been written before the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
Robinson's main arguments for this are put best by A. Moore who reviewed his book on the Amazon link above:
quote:
Robinson's main argument is that all the gospels must have been written before 70 AD when the temple in Jerusalem was burned to the ground. And it is very, very strange that the destruction isn't mentioned. Why? Because the gospels repeatedly state that Jesus predicted that "not one stone would remain on another" of the temple (Mark 13:2, Luke 21:5, and Matthew 24:1). So then why didn't the evangelists try to score points by pointing out the destruction?
And even stranger: Jesus predicted in Matthew 24 that "this generation shall not pass away" until they saw the temple pulled down. Then, sure enough, 40 years (40 years = one generation for the ancient Jews) to the day the temple fell. Again, if the gospels were written after the temple's destruction, why didn't anyone mention it?
The temple was destroyed during a short, brutal war between the Jews and the Romans. The war left one million Jews dead, their country in ruins, and the temple burned to the ground. Few people today can grasp how shattering that would be to the Jews, and how significant for Christians. The entire theocracy of the Jews was extinguished. Gone were the Sadduccees. Burned along with the temple were all records proving lineage, and thus, the priesthood was destroyed. Never again could there be a high priest. Or a sacrifice. There was no longer a legal outlet for purgation from sin for the Jews.
Historically, the war also marked a permanent breach between Jews and Christians. Henceforth, they were utterly separate. One reason may be because, as Eusebius says, the Christians refused to take part in the insurrection and stayed in Pella.
By the way, Robinson's argument is not new. He even quotes Torrey, who puts it quite succinctly: "It is perhaps conceivable that one evangelist writing after the year 70 might fail to allude to the destruction of the temple by the Roman armies...but that three or four should thus fail is quite incredible. On the contrary, what is shown is that all four gospels were written before the year 70."
All four gospels refer to the temple in the present tense, saying the temple "is" instead of "was". And then there is the temple tax issue. There was no reason for the gospel writers to insist that everyone pay the temple tax once the temple was destroyed.
In sum, Robinson argues that Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts were all written before 65 AD. Some portions may have been written in proto-Matthew (Q) in the early 40s. He concluded John was written before 70 AD, as well as James and the Didache.
These arguments seem quite compelling, but I understand the majority of NT scholars argue for later dates, with only Mark possibly written pre-70.
I'd be interested to hear what people here think - are the Robinson arguments for pre-70 dates for the gospels credible?
[ 19. November 2013, 02:14: Message edited by: Mamacita ]
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
I am really confused by the argument, which seems to say "Jesus mentions the destruction of the temple- why doesn't anyone mention the destruction of the temple?"
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Lev
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# 50
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Posted
I think it was that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple, but no author cites the actual destruction when it happened in 70AD.
Robinson's argument seems to be that if the gospels were written post 70AD they would have mentioned that the temple prophecy came about, as Barnabas did.
Moreover, the gospel authors use the present tense in describing the temple and its temple tax.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I think Jimmy Dunn is not alone in arguing from the evidence of the texts that there was a very early and fairly stable oral tradition. Sure there was some writing down of texts - probably some editing, ordering?
I'm not sure that the absence of any specific confirmation that the destruction of the temple had actually happened tells you very much, if anything, about when the texts in something close to the form we now have them were first written down. They might have been written down post AD70 but incorporating pre AD70 oral history. Or maybe edited to reflect post AD70 history? (i.e Mark 13 in its present form may reflect both an oral tradition of Jesus speaking in apocalyptic terms about Jerusalem and what the author knew had happened).
Some dating arguments may obscure the process from oral history through initial writing down to settled text. It seems undeniable that there was a process going on, and that took some time - and produced some variations. In the preserved oral history, there may well have been different versions of the same stories from very early on.
So far as the gospels are concerned, the oral histories could have started being kept and recited as early as the time of Jesus' earthly ministry. "Do you know what happened last week in Caperneum? Well ...). The written text was probably (and generally) settled by the end of the first century (maybe a bit but not much later). Not sure it's safe to go further than that on the basis of such evidence as we have. But it seems safe to go that far.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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tclune
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# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
I think it was that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple, but no author cites the actual destruction when it happened in 70AD.
Robinson's argument seems to be that if the gospels were written post 70AD they would have mentioned that the temple prophecy came about, as Barnabas did.
Moreover, the gospel authors use the present tense in describing the temple and its temple tax.
Of course, they are set in the lifetime of Jesus, when the destruction is a thing yet to come. It hardly seems necessary to tell their readers that the Temple really had been destroyed. If anything, from a literary POV, this would be breaking the fourth wall. It makes perfect sense to leave this unsaid. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
But Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple at the precise date of the destruction of the temple is the Gospels describing the destruction of the temple. So I still can't really grasp what this guy is on about. "Except for the descriptions of the destruction of the temple, the Gospels don't mention the destruction of the temple!" ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
[ 13. June 2012, 15:50: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Of course, they are set in the lifetime of Jesus, when the destruction is a thing yet to come. It hardly seems necessary to tell their readers that the Temple really had been destroyed. If anything, from a literary POV, this would be breaking the fourth wall. It makes perfect sense to leave this unsaid. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
On the fourth wall - isn't this broken on many occasions already though?
Here's a few examples I've just looked up:
Matthew 27:8
Mark 7:19
Luke 9:33
Luke 23:19
John 5:2-3
John 20:9
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
But Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple at the precise date of the destruction of the temple is the Gospels describing the destruction of the temple. So I still can't really grasp what this guy is on about. "Except for the descriptions of the destruction of the temple, the Gospels don't mention the destruction of the temple!"
But other predictions / prophecies that Jesus made have yet to come to pass, so we can't say for certain that the temple prophecy one did so at the time of writing, as not all prophesies are descriptions of events that have already occurred.
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
quote:
But other predictions / prophecies that Jesus made have yet to come to pass, so we can't say for certain that the temple prophecy one did so at the time of writing, as not all prophesies are descriptions of events that have already occurred.
You are assuming these predictions had yet to come to pass when they were written. Which is what we call "begging the question."
Even granting your assumption, you have nothing more than a very dubious argumentum e silentio- an "argument from silence."
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
But other predictions / prophecies that Jesus made have yet to come to pass, so we can't say for certain that the temple prophecy one did so at the time of writing, as not all prophesies are descriptions of events that have already occurred.
You are assuming these predictions had yet to come to pass when they were written. Which is what we call "begging the question."
Even granting your assumption, you have nothing more than a very dubious argumentum e silentio- an "argument from silence."
I'm not making any assumptions, I'm attempting to debate the point I raised - my mind is open.
I don't follow the second point you make.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Your whole basis for not counting Jesus' predictions of the destruction of the temple is your assumption that they were composed before the destruction of the temple. Yet that is exactly the conclusion you are trying to prove- which is a perfect example of begging the question. Once you remove the unproven assumption, there is no reason not to count Jesus' predictions as mentions of the destruction of the temple, and your argument collapses.
All of which is a mere intellectional exercise, since even if we grant that Jesus' predictions were composed before the destruction of the temple, all you have is the fact that they don't mention the events. Yet surely you can see how dubious such an argument can be. St. Paul's extant writings hardly mention Jesus' teachings, but that doesn't mean Jesus didn't have teachings to offer.
[ 13. June 2012, 16:28: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
Another argument for an early date for Luke is that Acts (which is clearly written slightly later) closes with Paul under house arrest in Rome. Pretty much everyone agrees Paul was executed under Nero (d. 68).
Of course, part of the structure of Acts is that the gospel is going from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth, and so it ends just after Paul reaches the capital of the known world, but why doesn't it say any more about what happened there?
Probably the most plausible reason is that at the time Acts was finished, Paul was still under house arrest in Rome. Whether Acts finished then because it was written as preparation for Paul's trial, or because Luke died, or just because that was when Luke happened to write a letter to Theophilus is a matter about which there has been some speculation.
But the fact remains that if Acts finished with Paul under house arrest because that was where Paul was at the time it was finished, Acts can't be later than 65 or so. Which means that Luke needs to be earlier, and Mark earlier still.
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blog
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
I've read the Robinson book. I've even got a copy on my shelves (*) I found it quite convincing.
Its not that Jesus doesn't mention the destruction of the Temple, its that neither Jesus nor anyone else describes or even hints at kn owing any of the details of the war which led to it - not the Jewish Revolt (and associated civil war), not Vespasian and Titus, not Masada, not the fighting amongst Jews in the streets of Jerusalem, not the siege - completely silent. There is no tthe slightest hinta nywhere in the New testament of any actual knowledge of the course of the history of the Jewish War of 66-73.
Its as if we read a book written in the 1920s in which a German Jewish preacher prophesied the destruction of Berlin - but never mentioned the Nazis, never mentioned Hitler or Stalin, the Red Army, the Eastern Front, Leningrad, Stalingrad or Kursk, had no hint of the RAF or the USAF strategic bombing - just the assertion that Berlin would fall for crimes already committed.
Another point, Luke (**) (almost everyone seems to assume) was written after Mark and Matthew, and Acts after Luke's Gospel, yet Acts has no hint of anything happening after the early 60s at the latest. It does not say whether Paul ever got to Spain, it does not say whether Peter ever got to Rome, it does not say how Peter and Paul died, there is no mention of Nero or his persecution of Jews and Christians alike.
Revelation seems to be about Nero and his persecutions (though we can't be sure - the very ancient association of it with the time of Domitian has some arguments in its favour, though fewer than Nero, and still the huge gap of why, if it was coded message about Domitian it never mentions his elder brother) and, if it is about Nero, is again probably all before AD 67. Before AD 69 at the latest because after that there would be no need to write about Nero in apo9calyptic code.
OK, the Gospel dating isn't as simple as that, because the books we have (other than Mark) are obviously composed of earlier writings redacted together. Even the most stick-in-the mud literalist has to accept that Luke/Acts is, because it says so explicitly, and John hints at it in a few places. Matthew pretty clearly quites Mark. So saying that the words we have are from before AD 70 - or any other time - is not the same as saying that the arrangement we have them in is from before then. It might well be that Luke's main sources (***) are from before AD 65 but that they were arranged into the book we have now after taht date - but if so that arrangement was done by someone who respected the texts well enough not to add any update on more recent history, and not to rewrite the apparent predictions to make them fit what actually happened better than they do.
If there is one Gospel that shows signs of being later its Matthew, which most peopllassume is earlier than Luke (though I am not sure why). Even then its not explicit, its reading between the lines to try to reconstruct some hypothetical social situation, an early Christian community in which the Gospel was written and used. But the same could be true here - it might be that the Matthew we have is assembled form older texts with essentially nothing added.
No, none of it is 100% proof. But it does look very very persuasive.
(*) borrowed... but somehow not given back for years... Whoops. Sorry, Tim!
(**) As usual "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke", and "John" can be taken to mean whoever actually redacted the books we know by those names.
(***) Possibly Mark, a birth narrative, the stuff in common with Matthew, a putative collection of parables of Jesus, the stories of Peter and the Discpiles in Jerusalem, a story of the martyrdom of Steven, the Conversion of Paul, a narrative of Paul's early missionary journies, the "we" passages of Paul's later missionary journies - which might actually be the bit written by the original Luke.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Its not that Jesus doesn't mention the destruction of the Temple, its that neither Jesus nor anyone else describes or even hints at kn owing any of the details of the war which led to it -...
It seems more likely that none of the Gospel writers were actually there, didn't have the benefit of 24-hour televised news to fill them in on the details, and were only using the destruction of the temple as a rhetorical device anyway and weren't actually interested in the details.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Its not that Jesus doesn't mention the destruction of the Temple, its that neither Jesus nor anyone else describes or even hints at kn owing any of the details of the war which led to it -...
It seems more likely that none of the Gospel writers were actually there, didn't have the benefit of 24-hour televised news to fill them in on the details, and were only using the destruction of the temple as a rhetorical device anyway and weren't actually interested in the details.
Huh? Not interested? Ignorant? In the war that lasted five years and destroyed their nation and their way of life? ![[Confused]](confused.gif) Strange thing to say!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
Zach82 - if you re-read the first post, you'll see that I'm asking people's opinions on Robinson's theory - I haven't stated that I share his theory, I'm exploring it. I carry no assumption one way or the other.
Custard - Thanks for your response, and I agree that the Luke / Acts chronology is certainly a persuasive argument for a pre 70AD, and even pre 65AD date.
Ken - excellent response, and great to hear from someone who has read Robinson's book. What's important for me is when the material was originally written (I refer to this as the date of authorship), rather than the final date of assembly (I refer to this as date of publication), so if authorship is pre70AD then that stands a good chance of material being sourced from 1st generation disciples. If, as most NT scholars agree, the dates of authorship are between 70-110 for Matthew, Luke and John, then we're probably looking an era after the death of most of the apostles, where it would have been difficult to corroborate much of the material available with the apostles themselves.
I'm thinking of buying Robinson's book, but some reviews have said it's quite hard going. How would you rate it Ken?
Cheers,
...Lev
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Its not that Jesus doesn't mention the destruction of the Temple, its that neither Jesus nor anyone else describes or even hints at kn owing any of the details of the war which led to it -...
It seems more likely that none of the Gospel writers were actually there, didn't have the benefit of 24-hour televised news to fill them in on the details, and were only using the destruction of the temple as a rhetorical device anyway and weren't actually interested in the details.
Huh? Not interested? Ignorant? In the war that lasted five years and destroyed their nation and their way of life? Strange thing to say!
I'm beginning to think Zach is more interested in having an argument, than a debate, but I could be wrong.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Zach82 - if you re-read the first post, you'll see that I'm asking people's opinions on Robinson's theory - I haven't stated that I share his theory, I'm exploring it. I carry no assumption one way or the other.
And I am giving my opinion on his theories, which you have given every indication of finding to be a very happy ones. I haven't attacked you as a person, so it's no good getting defensive about an attack I never launched.
quote:
I'm beginning to think Zach is more interested in having an argument, than a debate, but I could be wrong.
I have only pointed out a poor argument and some misguided assumptions. I am thinking you are more interested in hearing praise for this author than any real engagement with ideas.
quote:
Huh? Not interested? Ignorant? In the war that lasted five years and destroyed their nation and their way of life? [Confused] Strange thing to say!
Who knows what they would have written if they wanted to talk about the destruction of the temple- the Gospel writers were Greek speaking Jews who wanted to talk about Jesus.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
I think it's probably best if I disengage with you Zach.
A thousand blessings upon thee sir.
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Nigel M
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# 11256
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Posted
I agree with those above who have reservations with the post-70 AD model. An oral link back to Jesus (noted above by Barnabas62) is well in keeping with the sociology of the time; controled dissemination of teachings and records of acts was a way of life, and still is in many cultures today.
The reservations I have also revolve around the linguistic evidence. I think it's a fair conclusion to draw (with evidential backing) that writers had agendas: they wrote material to resolve a problem – organising as they saw fit to meet the particular need. Given this, it has always appeared strange to me that the gospel writers would flounder on about material that had little relevance to a post-temple audience. Enough material appears in the Miscellaneous category – every theory has one of those for the odd bits of data that don't immediately appear to fit the theory – to warrant revisiting the theory itself. It may turn out that we are in no position yet to draw firmer conclusions about the dating of the gospels' completion. Still, putting together the two factors of oral tradition and writer-agenda, I can't help but wonder if we have before us products of the temple era.
The temple itself seems to have been an important symbol for the early Christians, another factor that acts in support of Robinson's theory. After all, Paul could write about Christians being God's temple (1 Cor. 3:16) in almost replacement terms at a time when that physical institution was still standing. He can go on with that metaphor in the following verse to refer to a possibility of the temple's destruction – and all this in advance of its actual razing; there's no suggestion that 1 Corinthians must have been written after AD 70 just because Paul makes something of a suggestion that it has been removed (similar to Jesus' suggestion about tearing it down).
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Welcome back, Lev!
Moo
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
After all, Paul could write about Christians being God's temple (1 Cor. 3:16) in almost replacement terms at a time when that physical institution was still standing. He can go on with that metaphor in the following verse to refer to a possibility of the temple's destruction – and all this in advance of its actual razing; there's no suggestion that 1 Corinthians must have been written after AD 70 just because Paul makes something of a suggestion that it has been removed (similar to Jesus' suggestion about tearing it down).
Maybe we read different people, but I have never seen it said that the Gospels must have been written after 70 AD because they talk about the destruction of the Temple and it hadn't happened yet. The reasons that I see are more along the lines of the Pharisees only coming to great prominence after the destruction of the Temple; the Jewish Christians were not being run out of the synagogues until somewhere close to the end of the century or later; etc. The thing that is a tad odd about the Robinson thesis is that it appears to be aimed at a straw man.
Barnabas' point of an oral (and perhaps written) tradition that goes back some years before the Gospels that we have were written is pretty generally accepted by everyone, including folks who date the Gospels very late. All in all, it seems that the argument offered is loudly insisting on things that other people don't dispute, and then somehow insinuating that that provides evidence for a position that actually is in dispute. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
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tclune
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# 7959
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Posted
One other point:
quote:
Historically, the war also marked a permanent breach between Jews and Christians. Henceforth, they were utterly separate. One reason may be because, as Eusebius says, the Christians refused to take part in the insurrection and stayed in Pella.
This is just plain bad history AIUI. It was the Bar Kochba revolt that Christians refused to participate in, because they did not recognize Bar Kochba as the Messiah. That revolt was around 135 if memory serves, and should not be confused with the revolt that destroyed the Temple. That revolt thoroughly devastated Judea, and all the Jews in the area were killed or forcibly removed from what was then renamed as Palestine. The Christians were not persecuted by Rome because they did not participate in the revolt. Traditionally, this is held up as the final separation of Jew and Christian, although Daniel Boyarin's new book argues (unpersuasively to my mind) that the actual separation was considerably more drawn out, lasting for centuries. FWIW
--Tom Clune
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Nigel M
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# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
...I have never seen it said that the Gospels must have been written after 70 AD because they talk about the destruction of the Temple and it hadn't happened yet.
The argument I am thinking of is more that the temple must have been destroyed because it is being referred to in replacement terms.
One example that springs to mind for me is R. E. Brown's theory on John's Gospel that it exhibits a form of replacement theology and that this is an indication of a later date (for example, p.76 of the New York: Doubleday 2003 edition of An Introduction to the Gospel of John). He refers to the likes of John 2:19 – “Jesus replied, 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again'” - as evidence for such replacement.
It seemed to me a weakness of this particular replacement argument in that, to be consistent, commentators would also have to infer a late date for Paul's 1 Corinthians 3:16 replacement theology – if that is what it is. As I haven't come across any instance of a commentator arguing for such a post AD-70 date for 1 Corinthians, I wondered why similar usage in John could be used as evidence for a late date.
However, as you note, this is only one strand in a multi-woven set of arguments over dating and there are other, perhaps more weighty, issues in play.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
FWIW Margaret Barker reckons she can find evidence of a doctrine of rejection and replacement of the Temple in some pre-Christian Jewish writings and that early Christianity was very much a continuation of an anti-Temple strand in Judaism.
I suspect that';s wrong, mainly because the NT portrays Jesus and the Apostles very strongly as participants in Temple worship, but maybe she is right about the writings.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
I think it was that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple, but no author cites the actual destruction when it happened in 70AD.
Robinson's argument seems to be that if the gospels were written post 70AD they would have mentioned that the temple prophecy came about, as Barnabas did.
Moreover, the gospel authors use the present tense in describing the temple and its temple tax.
The gospels do funny things with the present tense. I think I was taught it was a storytelling technique. "So, this guy walks into a bar..."
Also, if he was politically astute, seeing that "this whole revolt against the Romans thing is going to end very, very badly" may not have required divine foresight. He had grown up near a Roman trade colony and probably saw how they handled this sort of thing.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
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Posted
I don't know enough about the current literature on this subject to really offer much here, but what about Mark's famous "(let the reader understand)"? Wouldn't that suggest he's writing after the event and pointing out that it did transpire?
That's not to say the parenthetical comment couldn't have been added later by a scribe or redactor - does anyone know if there has been any scholarship on this?
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Afghan
Shipmate
# 10478
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Posted
It's an interesting point. The Gospels are not so artful that we should expect the Evangelists to refrain from an authorial aside about how Jesus was bang on the money with all the Little Apocalypse stuff.
But maybe it wasn't necessary. Surely it should be outrageously obvious what Mark's point was in Chapter 13 to anyone in a supposedly intended audience in 70-75 AD.
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
The gospels aren't uniformly anti-temple.
Luke begins and ends his gospel inside the temple, which is very odd as a rhetorical strategy if the temple has been destroyed and the Romans see the Jews as bad and rebellious. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense if he is writing pre-68.
Judaism had a strong legal status which meant that Jews were exempt from having to worship the emperor. If Luke is arguing that Christianity is Judaism brought to its completion and extended to the Gentiles (but rejected by many Jews), then that makes perfect sense of Luke's use of the temple. But he'd only argue that before the war of 68-70.
Admittedly, Matthew and John, by their selection of material, do show strong tensions between the Christian and Jewish communities, which many people take as a sign of a late date. On the other hand, we know that there were local tensions between Christianity and Judaism as early as 1 Thessalonians 2:14ff, which everyone dates in the 50s.
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Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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Nigel M
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# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
...what about Mark's famous "(let the reader understand)"? Wouldn't that suggest he's writing after the event and pointing out that it did transpire?
I'm not sure. Mark's phrasing...
quote:
"...when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be (let the reader understand)..."
...seems to be intended to bring to his readers' minds Daniel 9:25-27...
quote:
"Know and understand... at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation...
The phrasing could also bring to mind the 'abomination' caused by the Syrian Antiochus Epiphanes, who erected a pagan altar over the in the temple and sacrificed a pig on it to Zeus in 167 B.C. I can't remember reading anywhere that the events of AD 70 matched anything like this. Josephus records the temple catching fire during the last days of the fighting and then the Romans taking the remains apart. No abomination being set up, as far as I am aware. Is there a record of something similar happening then?
If not, then the "let the reader understand" must refer to something other than the temple's destruction in AD 70.
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
If not, then the "let the reader understand" must refer to something other than the temple's destruction in AD 70.
I thought something similar to you when I saw that. It is not clear exactly what Mark is getting at here.
This has also got me thinking about John 2. Nobody dates John early but John 2 does seem very bizarre post AD 70.
quote:
18 Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20 The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
That seems very strange unless it was written either before the destruction of the temple or sooooo long after (e.g. + 150AD) that it couldn't possibly be in the minds of John's readers. And yet, the John Rylands fragment is dated as being no later than 150.
I'm not talking about oral traditions, I'm talking about when it was written. There is no way someone would write that, say 95AD, without knowing that any Jewish readers would say "WHAT, destroy the temple?" I doubt they would even notice the reference to the resurrection.
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Custard:
On the other hand, we know that there were local tensions between Christianity and Judaism as early as 1 Thessalonians 2:14ff, which everyone dates in the 50s.
This is just bizarre. Christianity was Judaism at this time. The tension and antagonism that Paul felt was that he was "the apostle to the gentiles." He had problems with other Christians -- like Peter -- because he was way too open to letting foreigners into Judaism. Failing to read Paul with that understanding can only breed reptiles of the mind. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Welcome back, Lev!
Moo
Thanks Moo!
I really appreciate everyone's latest comments and analysis; some excellent points being made here.
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S
That seems very strange unless it was written either before the destruction of the temple or sooooo long after (e.g. + 150AD) that it couldn't possibly be in the minds of John's readers. And yet, the John Rylands fragment is dated as being no later than 150.
I had the pleasure of seeing this in Manchester, and the Library dates it to 125AD.
The biggest struggle I have with post-70AD authorship of the gospels is Luke, where the consensus seems to be that it was written before Acts and finished within the lifetime of Paul, probably around 60-64. Although some dispute this.
If Luke was written pre-70, then it follows that Mark and Q were also - as they appear to be sources of Luke. I appreciate how Mark 13 can cause some problems with this, but Nigel M's analysis seems to provide a credible explanation over how this could be leaning heavily on Daniel.
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
The biggest struggle I have with post-70AD authorship of the gospels is Luke, where the consensus seems to be that it was written before Acts and finished within the lifetime of Paul, probably around 60-64. Although some dispute this.
Perhaps reading the article on Luke about the dating of Luke will ease your doubts. The scholarly consensus is not what you feared, but that Luke was written after the destruction of the Temple.
--Tom Clune
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
[Nobody dates John early but John 2 does seem very bizarre post AD 70.
John Robinson does! And at least some other scholars, including some secular historians.
There is a minority strand of scholarship - but a respectable one - that thinks the Fourth Gospel and perhps Johns's Letters as well to be the product of a Jewish Christian community outside Judea that became very early somewhat separate from both the majority of Christians and also non-Christian Judaism, and was not perhaps aware of the other NT writings.
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
If Luke was written pre-70, then it follows that Mark and Q were also - as they appear to be sources of Luke. I appreciate how Mark 13 can cause some problems with this, but Nigel M's analysis seems to provide a credible explanation over how this could be leaning heavily on Daniel.
Mark 13 ius one of the mainstays of the argument for an early composition preceisely because it DOESN'T describe what happened in any detail.
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L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
There is a minority strand of scholarship - but a respectable one...
I just wanted to lift up this locution. ISTM that some of the anxiety about dating the scriptures boils down to folks thinking of alternative views as somehow suspect. We can both embrace the reality that the preponderance of scholars hold one view and that another view seems more compelling to us without thereby being disreputable -- we're just in the minority.
--Tom Clune
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
The biggest struggle I have with post-70AD authorship of the gospels is Luke, where the consensus seems to be that it was written before Acts and finished within the lifetime of Paul, probably around 60-64. Although some dispute this.
Perhaps reading the article on Luke about the dating of Luke will ease your doubts. The scholarly consensus is not what you feared, but that Luke was written after the destruction of the Temple.
--Tom Clune
The article states "Traditional Christian scholarship has dated the composition of the gospel to the early 60s, while higher criticism dates it to the later decades of the 1st century"
So it seems modern analysis places Luke post 70AD, which is in-line with the modern majority view of all four Gospels appearing after the destruction of the temple.
However, my concern with this is that it would mean Acts was written post 70AD which begs the question why it suddenly stopped charting early Church history around the early 60s?
Some have suggested that Luke and Acts were written in order to help Paul's defence in his forthcoming trial in Rome (Theophilus may have been a Roman official who was assisting in some capacity - or possibly even his lawyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_(Biblical)#A_lawyer)), which seems to make sense, but if a post 70AD authorship date is accepted, then that theory must be disbanded.
If a post 70AD composition is in fact what happened, it does leave some fairly large unanswered questions concerning what the purpose of Luke-Acts was, why Acts stopped when it did and who Theophilus was.
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
If Luke was written pre-70, then it follows that Mark and Q were also - as they appear to be sources of Luke. I appreciate how Mark 13 can cause some problems with this, but Nigel M's analysis seems to provide a credible explanation over how this could be leaning heavily on Daniel.
Mark 13 ius one of the mainstays of the argument for an early composition preceisely because it DOESN'T describe what happened in any detail. [/QB]
Aha, yes I see now.
BTW - would you recommend Robinson, Ken? I've seen reviews stating it's pretty hard going - how did you find it?
Cheers,
...Lev
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
If a post 70AD composition is in fact what happened, it does leave some fairly large unanswered questions concerning what the purpose of Luke-Acts was, why Acts stopped when it did and who Theophilus was.
To my mind, Luke was specifically written in response to Matthew -- I read Luke's initial justification as saying, in essence, "There's been a lot written about Christ, and some of it is crap. So I'm going to write an account that you can trust, Theophilus." Of course, it's said less confrontationally, but that's how it reads to me. And, given that it so closely tracks Matthew in outline and so thoroughly disagrees in detail -- starting with the geneology and the birth narrative -- that it seems self-consciously to be sayng, "This guy got it wrong."
What Luke seems to be saying is that Christ came to expand the covenant to all people, while Matthew says that Christ came to fulfill the Jewish covenant, but the Jewish people thwarted that effort, so He had to fall back to plan B.
Acts seems quite explicitly an attempt to claim that Paul was the heir to Christ, with a brief and rather flawed intermediate stop at Peter. The miracles and what-not show the Divine favor in each case, but Peter didn't seem to quite "get" the message about Cornelius, and his failure to recognize the generality of the mission to ALL people made Paul the true heir -- kind of like David surpassing Saul.
I have a particular view of "Theophilus," but AFAIK no reputable scholar has expressed this view: Luke is the only NT writer who uses the term "theophoboi" (God-fearers) for the gentile Christians, although it was apparently in general use at the time. My suspicion is that Luke is addressing his Gospel to the God-fearers, and addressing them as "Theophilus," saying in essence that they are accepted into the family of God through Christ, and therefore no longer need to fear the Almighty. So this form of address is really a foreshadowing of what he has to say in all of Luke-Acts.
--Tom Clune
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
Sorry, I meant to include {God-lover) in parentheses after "Theophilus," but I forgot and then missed the edit window.
--Tom Clune
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Lev
Shipmate
# 50
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Posted
Thanks Tom - really interesting theory.
Do you think Luke was a contemporary companion of Paul, as in the guy who included himself in the "we" section in the latter section of Acts?
If so, do you think that adds to the early dating theory, or is inconsequential? Also, why do you think he stops Acts where he does if it was written post 70AD?
Cheers,
...Lev
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
Do you think Luke was a contemporary companion of Paul, as in the guy who included himself in the "we" section in the latter section of Acts?
I'd like to think that he was the Luke of Colossians, but I really don't know.
quote:
Originally posted by Lev:
If so, do you think that adds to the early dating theory, or is inconsequential? Also, why do you think he stops Acts where he does if it was written post 70AD?
My personal belief is that Luke was probably written around the year 80 AD, after Luke was old enough to no longer be a travelling missionary but still wanting to fight the good fight, and Acts shortly after that. I have no real evidence for that, and it isn't particularly important AFAICS. But, when I sit back and imagine a timeline, that is pretty much the one that seems most natural to me.
To my mind, the reason to stop with Paul reaching Rome is that he has finished his argument about Paul's legitimacy, and this was as clean a stopping point as any. We are interested in knowing what happened after that, but I imagine that Luke's audience would already have known the story better than we ever will. There was probably no need to tell the story except for purposes of arguing his thesis.
--Tom Clune
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Acts seems quite explicitly an attempt to claim that Paul was the heir to Christ, with a brief and rather flawed intermediate stop at Peter. The miracles and what-not show the Divine favor in each case, but Peter didn't seem to quite "get" the message about Cornelius, and his failure to recognize the generality of the mission to ALL people made Paul the true heir -- kind of like David surpassing Saul.
I have a particular view of "Theophilus," but AFAIK no reputable scholar has expressed this view: Luke is the only NT writer who uses the term "theophoboi" (God-fearers) for the gentile Christians, although it was apparently in general use at the time. My suspicion is that Luke is addressing his Gospel to the God-fearers, and addressing them as "Theophilus," saying in essence that they are accepted into the family of God through Christ, and therefore no longer need to fear the Almighty. So this form of address is really a foreshadowing of what he has to say in all of Luke-Acts.
--Tom Clune
I'm not equipped to debate the dates of writing, but I like your theory from the point of the growth of the Christian Church. The God-fearers formed a substantial portion of the community in the eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia and Persia by the start of the Christian era, hovering around the edges of their local Jewish community, but feeling not part of it. Luke, Paul and others would have wanted to look amongst them for converts. They were already half-way there, as it were, and would have been more fertile ground than followers of the old State religions.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Freddy
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# 365
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Posted
It seems incredible to me that after the events of c. AD 33 no one would have written anything about it until 40 years later in a literate population.
Surely it is more likely that a number of accounts were written almost immediately, and passed down alongside oral tradition.
When we talk about the dating of the Gospels, aren't we talking about the idea that only a few of these stood the test of time and were collected and put into their present form by that time?
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
There is a minority strand of scholarship - but a respectable one...
I just wanted to lift up this locution. ISTM that some of the anxiety about dating the scriptures boils down to folks thinking of alternative views as somehow suspect. We can both embrace the reality that the preponderance of scholars hold one view and that another view seems more compelling to us without thereby being disreputable -- we're just in the minority.
--Tom Clune
You've got me bang to rights here Tom. I promise to come quietly.
Apologies to Ken too - I was using 'nobody' in that "not enough people to be taken seriously" kind of patronising tone. I was aware of Robinson but didn't think his ideas had gained much traction.
Mea culpa.
I repent in dust and ashes.
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
Just to ponder. The destruction of the Temple was so significant that everybody knew about it and a subtle reference to its destruction would have been enough to bring it to mind.
If you are writing to make a point it is sometimes better to be subtle, letting the audience take it to the next level in their minds.
A current example would be writing rusty farm implement on the Ship. It brings Erin and all that we remember about her springing to mind without having to go further. What our imaginations bring to the table is better than trying to capture Erin in a paragraph.
Alternatively, the point about the Christians staying in Pella instead of participating in the revolt, brings another theory to mind. The early Christian authors did not want to over emphasize the destruction of the Temple because their audience may have been ambivalent about the massive brutalization of their fellow residents of Israel and the role, or lack thereof, in the revolt that led to it.
Try a third argument. The Gospels may have been forming in oral tradition since they were first related at the time of Jesus, but they were not in fixed form until after the first revolt. By that time there was some amount of hmmmmmm, when exactly is the second coming going to happen here? going on in peoples minds. The general expectation in Israel at the time of the first revolt was that God was delivering them into a new age and freeing them from Rome. A kind of apocalyptic event. The Christians had just about as much stake in this as the Jews. They were also suffering from the oppression of the Roman governors and the bandits.
When God did not deliver Israel from Rome; when God allowed Rome to come in and massacre a lot of Israel, there had to be a lot of angst in the Christian community as well. Their neighbors were not happy with them for having chosen to forgo helping them. The Jews were looking for the agent of God to deliver them in ways that Jesus simply didn't. The title of Bar Kokhba for the leader of the second revolt demonstrates that.
Mention of the destruction of the Temple might not have been taken as too good a thing at the time of the writing of the Gospels.
I write these theories because I think it is difficult to place ourselves in the shoes, and minds, of the authors of the Gospels. A whole lot was going on and looking at only one aspect of that piece of history is likely to lead us astray.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Some good points to ponder, Tortuf, and sparked some questions.
There's a lot to be said about the issue of presupposition pools. As you say, an event as nationally traumatic as the destruction of the temple would not need much to bring to mind, especially as such an event had a history – so to speak – with earlier destructions in the corporate memory of the people Israel.
What came to my mind on this was that it would not be the actual event, as such, that would need referencing as much as its significance. For those followers of Jesus who came from Jewish stock – and possibly for non-Jews who had been attracted to Judaism and now followed this new 'Way' – the loss of temple should have raised several questions, including the “what is going on here” sort of thing you mentioned. Now it's true that the likes of Mark 13 and its parallels would fit nicely the post-70 setting if the writers were keen to deflect attention from overindulgence in the event. So, for example, the “Don't pay attention to signs, they're deceptive. You focus on staying ready” line has significance for author and reader alike if the aim was to avoid overemphasis on the temple destruction. No need to make much of a reference to the event itself.
The difficulty I have with Mark 13 is the issue mentioned earlier, the ‘When you see “the abomination that causes desolation” standing where it does not belong – let the reader understand...' issue. If this is about the temple using hindsight, then it seems to be way off beam. Mark appears to be referring to something that everyone would have known did not happen. It's this that seems to me to be evidence of a pre-AD70 writing, whereas the mismatch was something that should have been ironed out by an author writing or collating material after the event.
If anything, I can see this material fitting better the growing tensions between the Jerusalem/Temple authorities who drove orthodoxy (small 'o'!) and the particular Jewish sect that claimed allegiance to the heretic Jesus, the sort of tensions witnessed to by Paul in his letters (and in Acts). Here is a band of believers from Jewish stock who were already being hounded by the Jerusalem authorities, finding it increasingly difficult to worship in Temple or synagogue. This type of persecution is similar to that which drove the Essene community to seek alternative locations for worship and who 'replaced' the temple with an alternative liturgy. Are we, perhaps, seeing something similar going on in the gospels and in Paul? Not rejecting the temple as a concept, but recognising the fact of life that it was becoming impossible to maintain a witness there. The questions addressed by Mark and Paul could then be more long the lines of: “What stance should we as followers of Jesus have with regard to the temple, seeing as we are not welcome there any more?”
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
I agree with your thoughts on the Temple. I do not see the new members of the Jesus Communities all of a sudden identifying themselves as so longer being Jewish. They would have wanted to honor their Temple traditions just as much as anyone else. They would also have been getting a good deal of grief for their heretical views.
To my mind the observations about the Gospels being the product of oral tradition gradually morphed into text seems realistic. Under that hypothesis, material suggesting both pre ad post 70 authorship would nestle together throughout the text.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
If anything, I can see this material fitting better the growing tensions between the Jerusalem/Temple authorities who drove orthodoxy (small 'o'!) and the particular Jewish sect that claimed allegiance to the heretic Jesus, the sort of tensions witnessed to by Paul in his letters (and in Acts). Here is a band of believers from Jewish stock who were already being hounded by the Jerusalem authorities, finding it increasingly difficult to worship in Temple or synagogue.
This doesn't fit my understanding of the nature of the early tensions in Judea. True, Peter was arrested when he was mouthing off in the Temple itself, but that hardly seems to count as "persecution," at least by the standards of the day. My sense is that even Paul, when he was anti-Christian, was mostly anti-foreigner. It appears that the real division was between native Judeans and Hellenists (diaspora Jews) who were returning to Judea -- at least until the destruction of the Temple.
Stephen seems to have been reviled more for being a foreigner than for being a Christian Jew. If you examine the Christians themselves, you see exactly the same division as you see in Judea itself -- the native Judean Christians did not find the non-native Jews to be their equal, and even worse was the gentile riff-raff that people like Paul kept converting to Christian Judaism.
The tension really does not seem to have been predominantly theological -- it was xenophobic. The insistence on casting that as somehow anti-Christian at this point seems to me to be anachronistic. Certainly, it became theological eventually. But that seems to be much more a post-Temple phenomenon. When we elide the various conflicts -- or confuse the fact that Christian refuges of the revolt that led to the destruction of the Temple congregated in Pella (without engendering any hostility AFAIK) with the hostility toward Jewish Christians shown during the Bar Kochba revolt due to their refusal to participate in that revolt (as a number of folks seem to be doing on this thread), we make it very difficult to make sense out of the history presented in the NT. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
I don't know that it would have been easy to separate out the theological from the political, though Tom, in the same way our more recent societies can. Surely the two went hand in hand?
I agree with the analysis that there were divisions/distinctions in Jerusalem particularly between the native Aramaic-speaking Jews and the immigrant (or returned) Greek-speaking Jews. The thing is, though, that these Greek speakers returned to Jerusalem out of desire to be near the temple. They had a real affinity with that institution. To have a go at them for being 'foreign' would inevitably also have meant resenting their presence in the temple.
In respect of Stephen, according to the record in Acts the opposition to him came from within the Greek community itself, not the Aramaic. The core argument of the opposition was that he was theologically deviant - a heretic. It was on this basis that he was hauled before the Jerusalem authorities.
To my mind it seems on all fours with the fact of an executed Jesus and the charge against him concerning the fate of the temple. We can, if you like, read back from Stephen's trial to that of Jesus, where similar charges were brought according to the gospel writers.
I agree that the tension at the time was not yet seen as Jewish vs. Christian. However the evidence suggests that Judaism pre-AD70 was quite a mixed bag and that the Jerusalem authorities were constantly engaged in attempting to define boundaries - who was 'in' and who 'out' of Judaism proper. With Jesus and his first generation of followers or so this was one of those activities. The tension seems quite on a par with what went on before the Jewish rebellion.
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