The Sources for Engagement Almost certainly, all of the New Testament documents were written between c. 30-100. The only one that can be justifiably doubted as falling out of this period is a three chapter letter known as 2 Peter. The New Testament consists of twenty-seven writings of which Paul’s are the earliest (though some scholars suggest that the letter of James may be in fact the oldest). Thirteen letters bear the name of Paul but amongst scholars only seven are universally agreed to be authentic although many will grant several more, and some, all thirteen. Personally, I only find two letters (1 Timothy and Titus) to be in any doubt whatsoever but all of them were certainly written in the first-century and thus tell us about Christian belief and practice in the early Church. Paul’s letters date from c. 48-63 (possibly 51-63 depending on the date of Galatians) though importantly, virtually all scholars agree that autobiographical data, creeds, hymns, and allusions that would become the data later found in the Gospels, shed little but crucial light back into the first twenty years of the Church. There are four (and only four) extant Gospels that record narrative and sayings of Jesus from the first-century that were written as theological biographies. A minority of scholars have attempted to date a sayings Gospel known as the Gospel of Thomas on equal footing with the traditional ones but it is obvious that the majority view that dates the odd sayings list to about c. 150 is correct, as the document represents second-century Gnostic forms of Christianity and appear to be dependent on oral teaching from the four Gospels. The Gospels are written anonymously but have been traditionally ascribed to the disciple Matthew, John Mark (a companion of Peter), Luke (a companion of Paul), and the disciple John. Luke also wrote The Acts of the Apostles which works as an early history of Christian preaching from the crucifixion and resurrection to c. 61 and provides us with several independent sermons from the earliest days of the Church. In my estimation, only the traditional authorship of Matthew is in any doubt but none of the ascribed names are very implausible or tremendously important. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptics (since they have a similar synopsis). The dating of the Gospels remains obscure and could range anywhere between c. 65-85. Scholars seem to all disagree within this range but precise dating is generally arbitrary. In fact, nobody knows how to date them precisely but due to usage in early second-century Church Fathers, no one goes much later. Almost everyone agrees that Mark is the earliest and was the base document for Matthew and Luke. Finally, the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, is unanimously dated into the 90’s and once again is dated fairly arbitrarily. A minority of scholars will put it as early as the 60’s. John is unique in a number of ways and though converges at points with the Synoptics, tends to diverge to a great extent. John’s Gospel is also a narrative and is likely paraphrasing Jesus’ teaching and perhaps concerned with rebutting Jewish criticisms of Jesus. The last day of Jesus’ life, the passion narrative (from passio meaning to suffer) is basically identical but is composed independently of the other three Gospels. A passion narrative is already known to Paul and is drawn on in 1 Corinthians (c. 55) and thus long predates any of the Gospels in the final forms that we possess. Finally, there are seven letters known as The Catholic Epistles (catholic meaning universal since they are not written to any one specific Church as are Paul’s letters), a brilliant work known as The Letter to the Hebrews, and Revelations. All of these letters have a name attached to them except Hebrews and 1, 2, and 3 John. The Catholic Epistles include James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude and were written between the 40’s and the 90’s (all probably after c. 60 with the likely exception of James). Of the works ascribed to the disciple John, we are clearly reading the works of the mind behind The Gospel of John as can be seen in his vocabulary. 2 Peter seems to be dependent on Jude (though a minority suggests that it is the other way around). I am convinced that besides these New Testament writings, a work known as 1 Clement written by a bishop in Rome to Corinth (c. 96) and another work known as the Didache (Teaching, c. 60-90?), an early Christian teaching manual, almost certainly offer us the entire corpus of remaining Christian literature from the first-century. However, some hold that a couple of second-century texts contain tradition from the first-century. Nothing here suggested is very controversial today amongst the majority of historians and New Testament scholars. The suggestion of other extant first-century works is in tenuous and the New Testament is still widely agreed to be the earliest remains of Christian literature. Surely much has been lost but in my view the remains give us a relatively strong basis for historical inquiry into assessing Jesus of Nazareth and the Christian claims.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:45:45 +0000
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