The blog Fides Quaerens Intellectum has an intriguing discussion of an argument for an early dating of the documents of the New Testament found in John A.T. Robinson’s book Redating the New Testament. Interestingly the liberal Robinson, who was sort of the Bishop Spong of his day,* came to the conclusion that all the books of the NT should be dated prior to 70 A.D. Needless to say, this isn’t the view of the majority of NT scholars, and I have no idea how Robinson’s work is regarded in the field.
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*Though perhaps in fairness to Robinson we should say that his controversial book Honest to God was not quite as radical as some thought; essentially, if I recall correctly, it was popularized Paul Tillich, pointing out the metphorical nature of our speech about God.
Bishop Robinson and the dating of the NT
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3 responses to “Bishop Robinson and the dating of the NT”
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Interesting, but completely wrong. He seems to ignore completely the “synoptic apocolypse” passages in the synoptic gospels. For example, Luke 21:20, and 21:6 seem pretty clearly to be about the destruction of the temple.
There is an odd impulse among some who consider themselves “conservatives” to push the dates of the gospels earlier as if that makes them more authentic if they were written on the Monday after Easter, A.D. 33.
One of the commenters there stated that to claim like I did above, that the apocalyptic passages in the gospels that seem to refer to the destruction of the temple, is to show bais against the supernatural. That is absolutely true. One has to be baised against supernatural explanations in dealing with “introductory issues” because if one allows such explanations one could decide the gospels were written in 300 BC by a Mayan living in Cancun. Disagree? then you are baised against the supernatural! Repent and have faith in God!
Biblical studies is about the text and about evidence, not about theology, at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The gospels are not somehow less genuine if they are from the 70’s rather than the 40’s. To claim that they are shows a greater lack of faith than someone who is willing to take an honest look at the evidence.
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Thanks, I was hoping you’d chime in and give us a more informed perspective on this.
Here’s an interesting thought-experiment, though: surely there’s some date such that if we discovered the NT texts were composed after it that would cast doubt on our faith. Suppose, for example, that we discovered that the Gospels were actually written in the 4th century? Wouldn’t that tend to undermine one’s faith?
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It depends. I think if the gospels were written hundreds of years after the events they but were based on sources from the time they depict, then I think they remain authoratative. On the other hand, if they were shown to be largely creations out of whole cloth, then they would take a blow to their credibility.
The question of the authority of the Epistles is another interesting one. This is most easily seen in the pastoral epistles and the catholic epistles. If 1 & 2 Timothy & Titus were written years after Paul’s death, does that make them less authoratative? Most scholars believe that 2 Peter was written in the early-mid 2nd century. If this is the case, then is that letter less athoratative than other NT letters? 1 Clement may have been written before 2 Peter, does that make Clement more authoratative? At least 1 Clement doesn’t pretend to be written by someone who was dead at the time! It’s a question I’m not sure I know how to answer.
A Thinking Reed 
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