When N. T. written?

by ssn587 4 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  ssn587
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  ssn587

  It seems that some scholars have said that Mark was the first book of the N. T. written, and WTBTS says it is Matthew, does anyone really know. I would like to be able to determine which and when if at all possible, but don't have the time to research it for awhile. Any and all help will be much appreciated. Tks in advance.
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  whatcanIsay

  Bart Ehrnman seems to think he knows!

  Would it change anything if Mark came before Mathew? Most religions will go with Mathew first! but now that we have historical writers Like Bart! and the so called Lost Saying of Jesus Christ! or the Q. Anyhow as far as I am concerned The Lost Saying of Jesus Christ is just a theory and there is no proof as to which came first Mark of Mathew! I believe that the historical people are trying to throw in a new thought that could possible make people not believe in the bible or turn completely away from ones faith! Anyhow, it is about making money on their books and some of them really do put Christ down they do not bring him up as he was even more so!

  I just realized one day it does not matter! and the WTBTS are not unique in keeping Mathew before Mark! They are not going to change anymore than a Baptist! Who really is to say that a few modern day historian has it right! It is all smoke to get people to read the other books! I say read them and judge for youself! then you will feel hoodwinked just like the WTBTS did all of us! Believing in something that was just made up lies!

  On the flip side, WTBTS really did screw up their views regarding Revelations!
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  allelsefails

  Paul's writings are generally considered first. I agree with the fact that it doesn't matter at all which came first. The real question is why do we take a collection of books and call it the BIBLE? There are 66 books that should all stand on there own merit. To pretend there is "A" Bible that you either accept or reject is a recent idea of Christianity. Most early Christians did not accept Revelation, James, Hebrews, 2&3 John as "acceptable" And you won't find any early christian writings that refer to any Greek - NT book as "Scripture". Even if they quote from them it is like a JW quoting from the WT - it has authority but NEVER is inspriration applied to early Christian writings. I've studied this for a while, but if you find something different please let me know. .. .. . .. . Allelsefails
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  Leolaia

  It seems that some scholars have said that Mark was the first book of the N. T. written, and WTBTS says it is Matthew, does anyone really know.

  I think you mean "the first gospel" since most scholars date the Pauline epistles earlier than the gospels. But yes, most scholars date Mark earlier than Matthew. The former is usually placed at c. AD 65-75 and the latter is usually placed at c. 80-85.

  The most important observation to be made is that there is a clear literary relationship between the synoptic gospels; they were not written independent of each other. Matthew reproduces about 90% of the content of Mark (600 out of 661 verses), whereas only 53% of Mark (350 out of 661 verses) is paralleled in Luke — an observation that is nicely explained by the theory that Matthew is the major source of Luke. The Society's explanation is a version of the Augustinian hypothesis — that Mark is basically an abbreviated form of Matthew as conversationally retold by the apostle Peter, with Luke reflecting influence from both Matthew and Mark (cf. the 1 November 1961 Watchtower, pp. 664-667).

  But there are good reasons why the Augustian and Griesbach (which differs in making Mark dependent on Luke than the other way around) hypotheses are not generally accepted by scholars today. The literary evidence indicates on many different levels that Matthew and Luke presuppose the text of Mark. (1) Matthew and Luke open with very different infancy narratives but suddenly agree with each other and Mark at the point when Mark begins, with the ministry of John the Baptist....and then after following the narrative of Mark closely throughout they then diverge again with quite independent resurrection appearance stories at the point where Mark ends; (2) the author would have to omit the most essential parts of Matthew, such as the virgin birth of Jesus, the sermon on the mount, and the all-important resurrection appearances, while adding only such material as the odd incident with the naked man (14:51-52), a miracle narrative in which Jesus experienced a little difficulty in healing (8:22-26), and the comment about Jesus' family trying to seize him because he was thought to be crazy (3:21); (3) these phenomena would better be explained by assuming that the author of Matthew took over the bulk of Mark, adding the sermon on the mount and other important material, while omitting the difficult material in 8:22-26 and 14:51-52, revising the statement that Jesus "could not do" miracles in his town (Mark 6:5) to say that Jesus "did not do" his miracles there (Matthew 13:58), fixing the referential incongruity in Mark 10:46 (which Luke resolved in a different way), and making many other redactions where the evidence favors the originality of Mark; (4) these redactions however were not always consistent, for there is evidence of editorial fatigue (cf. Mark Goodacre's analysis of this) in Matthew and Luke showing a pattern of lapsing back into agreement with Mark after systematically departing from the Markan text, e.g. in the story of the death of John the Baptist, Mark consistently referred to Herod as "king" (6:22, 25, 26, 27), but the author of Matthew alters this to the correct title "tetrarch", only to lapse into referring to Herod as "king" midway through the story at Matthew 14:9, in agreement with Mark (cf. other lapses in continuity and reference in Matthew 8:4, 12:46, Luke 5:19, 8:13, 9:12, etc., all of which agree with Mark); (5) Mark generally utilizes the LXX when quoting or alluding to the OT, whereas the form of the Greek OT in Matthew conforms to the LXX mainly in passages paralleling Mark; otherwise non-LXX or freer forms of the OT passages occur in the places where Matthew was not paralleled by Mark (cf. David New's analysis of this); and (6) whenever Matthew diverges from the narrative order of Mark, Luke's order agrees with Mark, and whenever Luke's order diverges from Mark, Matthew's order agrees with Mark.

  With respect to the tradition that Mark contains Peter's reminiscenes, the theory of Matthean priority actually fits less well with this tradition than Markan priority. Matthean priority would mean that very little of what is in Mark actually comes from Peter's memories, with only 40 verses not accounted for through use of Matthew. There are no new major stories, miracle narratives, teaching, etc. in the gospel that one would expect Peter to recall. It would be rather strange that the apostle Peter would largely borrow the account written by another apostle, rather than give his own story from his point of view. But with Markan priority, one could (as some conversative scholars do, such as Richard Bauckham) regard the entirety of Mark's gospel as representing Peter's testimony, whereas all the lengthy material in Matthew that was added to the Markan narrative could represent material from another apostolic source (i.e. "Matthew"). Also Papias, the earliest person to furnish traditions about the authorship of the gospels (which themselves are anonymous aside from their titles), does not present a scenario at all resembling that given by the Society. Papias is explicit that Mark published what "he" recollected from memory, and although the reference to "he" is ambiguous, it most likely refers to Peter, i.e. what he recalled from memory, for that is how the same word is used by Justin Martyr, who refers to Mark as the "memoirs" of Peter. So Papias would seem to support the understanding that Mark as a whole comes from what Peter recalled — a view that conflicts with the presumption of Mark being dependent on Matthew. Finally, Papias does not say anything about Matthew being written before Mark, and neither does he refer to Matthew writing a gospel per se; he refers to Matthew composing the "sayings" of Jesus, an expression that could well accommodate the sayings material in Matthew (e.g. the parables, sermon on the mount, etc.) that is original to that gospel. It should be recognized also that many scholars do not trust what Papias and later second-century AD writers say about the authorship of the gospels which are all technically anonymous.

  Here is a good summary of the different hypotheses on synoptic relationships:

  http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/

  The Society's position is the Traditional Augustinian Hypothesis and until recently the standard scholarly model is the Two-Source Hypothesis. A growing number of scholars now question the validity of the Two-Source model and favor the Farrer Hypothesis instead. I personally think the Farrer Hypothesis is the most adequate model, at least on the current evidence. But as you can see, there are many variations in the details.