THE SECOND CENTURY TESTAMENT
Christians like to give the gospels as early a date as possible because the
closer they put them to Jesus the more likely they think they are to be true. So
the question of when the gospels were composed might be inseparable from the
question as to whether or not Jesus existed.
Paul was the first Christian writer.
The gospels came later. Mark is the oldest extant gospel though there might have
been older ones. The gospels of Luke and Matthew were heavily dependent on it.
Those who wonder about the dating, concentrate on the prophecies made by Jesus
in the gospel. They assume that the prophecies were written after the event. But
it was possible that they were guesses and good ones. They were the kind of
prophecies of events that had to happen. There is no hard evidence that these
gospels were finished in the first century and well-known.
Nothing prevents you from thinking they were forged in the second century.
When do we get the first indication of the existence of
the Gospels and/or their emergence from the closet?
Tatian, composed a harmony of the four gospels which was finished as late as 150
AD. The gospels existed by then but were probably still private or fairly
private up to then. His work is called the Diatessaron and was treated as sacred
by the Churches that used Syriac. By then the legends about Jesus would have
seemed irrefutable.
The gospels were initially only released in pieces in certain regions. Justin
Martyr still did not have them except a few excerpts later on. It would be some
decades before they would be fully thrown open to the world yet.
The gospels, the most important part of the New Testament, edited by the heretic
Tatian and fused into one book! That he got away with it shows that the Church
knew fine well the gospels were not of divine or apostolic origin. Not only did
he get away with it but many of the Churches treated his gospel as scripture!
The first edition of the gospels that got canonical treatment by the “orthodox”
Church was his heretical one!
CONCLUSION
There is no reason to believe that anybody who would have known the truth had
any contact with the New Testament as we have it. The reasons Christians give
are pure speculation but a thousands speculations do not make a single reason!
BOOKS CONSULTED
ANSWERS TO TOUGH QUESTIONS, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press,
Bucks, 1988
CHRISTIANITY FOR THE TOUGH-MINDED, Editor John Warwick Montgomery, Bethany
Fellowship Inc, Minneapolis, 1973
Conspiracies and the Cross, Timothy Paul Jones, Front Line, A Strang Company,
Florida, 2008
CONTROVERSY, Hector Hawton, Pemberton Books, London, 1971
DICTIONARY OF SECTS, HERESIES, ECCLESIASTICAL PARTIES AND SCHOOLS OF RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT, by Blunt, Gale Research Company, Book Tower, Detroit, undated
DEAD SEA SCROLLS, Kenneth Hanson, Ph.D, Council Oak Books, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1997
EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS, Editor Maxwell Staniforth, Penguin, London, 1988
EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT, VOLUME 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press
Foundation, Bucks, 1995
JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN THE GOSPELS, Daniel J Grolin, George Ronald,
Oxford, 2002
JESUS AND THE FOUR GOSPELS, John Drane, Lion, Herts, 1984
JESUS HYPOTHESES, V Messori, St Paul Publications, Slough, 1977
JESUS LIFE OR LEGEND Carsten Thiede, Lion, Oxford, 1990
JESUS ONE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE CHRIST, Professor Alvar Ellegard, Century,
London, 1999
JESUS THE EVIDENCE, Ian Wilson, Pan, London, 1985
JESUS, A N Wilson, Flamingo, London, 1993
PUTTING AWAY CHILDISH THINGS, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco,
1994
REASONS FOR HOPE, Editor Jeffrey A Mirus, Christendom College Press, Virginia,
1982
REKINDLING THE WORD: IN SEARCH OF THE GOSPEL, Carsten Peter Thied,e Valley
Forge, Trinity Press, 1995
THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, FF Bruce, Chapter House, Glasgow, 1988
THE CONCISE DICTIONARY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, Editor Elizabeth Livingstone,
Omega Books, London, 1988
THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, Eusebius, Penguin, London, 1989
THE HOLY BLOOD AND THE HOLY GRAIL, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry
Lincoln, Corgi, London, 1982
THE JESUS EVENT AND OUR RESPONSE, Martin R Tripole SJ, Alba House, New York 1980
THE JESUS MYSTERIES, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Thorsons, London, 1999
THE JESUS PAPYRUS, Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew D’Ancona, Phoenix, London,
1997
THE MESSIANIC LEGACY, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln, Corgi,
London, 1987
THE ORIGINAL JESUS, Tom Wright, Lion, Oxford, 1996
THE PASSOVER PLOT, Hugh Schonfield, Element Books, Dorset, 1996
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London,
1905
THE UNAUTHORISED VERSION, Robin Lane Fox, Middlesex, 1992
WHY BELIEVE? A Rendle Short, The Intervarsity Fellowship, London, 1938
WILLIAM NEIL’S ONE VOLUME BIBLE COMMENTARY, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1962
THE WEB
THE JESUS PAPYRUS – FIVE YEARS ON Professor JK Elliott
www.bowness.demon.co.uk/thiede.htm
This informs us that Thiede ignored the main objections Elliott made to his
silly theories in a response added to The Jesus Papyrus. Thiede uses the work of
scholars that does not support his conclusions at all and twists them and
misquotes them to make it look like it does.
THE CASE FOR CHRISTIANITY EXAMINED (THE PROVENANCE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/040ChristianCase.html
MARK: FIRST GOSPEL OR PIOUS FORGERY? Dr M Magee
www.askwhy.co.uk/Christianity/080TheGospels4.html
SEVEN GREEK FRAGMENTS OF THE EPISTLE OF ENOCH FROM QUMRAN CAVE SEVEN
www.breadofangels.com/7quenoch/article2.html
HIGHER CRITICAL REVIEW, By Daryl D Schmidt
www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/thiede.html
THE JESUS PAPYRUS: EYEWITNESS TO JESUS?
www.askwhy.co.uk/awstruth/Thiede.html#TheJesusPapyrus:EyewitnesstoJesus?
THE GOSPEL OF MARCION AND THE GOSPEL OF LUKE COMPARED, CHARLES B WAITE
www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/3827/wait2.htm
CHALLENGING THE VERDICT by Earl Doherty
A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ
http://humanists.net/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsThree.htm
7Q5: THE EARLIEST NEW TESTAMENT PAPYRUS? Daniel Wallace Ph.D
www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/7q5.htm
