I am <i>SO</i> enjoying this mp3 on CD audio book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (by Norman Geisler). Today as I’ve been listening (to something like chapter 60 out of 80 on (just) disc one(!) and heard some great arguments that make a really strong case for the dating of the New Testament. I’ve heard some vague criticism about the New Testament when I was in college, which surmised that those documents were written well after the first century … possibly even as late as 220+ AD, conveniently close to the time when certain councils met to determine and put a stamp on what books would be canonized. This is the first time I can remember hearing a case for all the books to have been written well before 100 AD. A good point for that is that many of the early church writers, which were written between 100 and 110 AD (and, I assume, since the point leaned on these early church writers and their dates being credible, that they are) … and these early church “fathers” referenced 25 of the 27 books we have in our New Testament! And the only two books not reference (and quoted) in their writings were Jude (a tiny, one-page book of the Bible) and 2 John, which we can assume was dated prior to 3 John, which is referenced.
That’s cool stuff. What’s more is that the fall/great defeat of Jerusalem and the destruction of its temple is not mentioned in the New Testament books. This is a really good argument to authenticate their writings as being before 70 AD. This destruction of the temple and Israel falling apart was a huge event that would likely be chronicled in all of these books, much less a few of them at least. It would be like someone writing a story about the World Trade Center buildings and all that has gone on in them and the book ending with them still standing. Most of us would assume that this book was written prior to 9/11. Why would any such book worth its weight leave that monumental event out? It would be like someone writing a book about the USS Arizona and how a vessel it is and all that … and not mentioning the bombing at Pearl Harbor and it sinking and thousands of US sailors dying. Why would they leave some detail like that out of the book? It’s beyond a reasonable doubt that they wouldn’t. We’d assume that the book were written prior to December 7, 1941. Because the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the loss of life by the thousands and the end of a way of life for the people living in Israel, there is pretty much no way that something that huge would be left out of these books (which often have meticulous detail on background, geography, policital landscape, current events). There’s just no way they’d leave that out. This means that virtually all of the New Testament was written before 70 AD.
This means that when Paul, who I think it is assumed was martyred in 62 AD at the hand of Rome, was alive when he wrote his books, and so were many of the “500 witnesses” to the resurrection of Christ that he referenced in 1 Corinthians. The book of Acts must have been written prior to 62 AD, because it would have mentioned Paul’s death had it happened before the book was written. Luke’s Gospel had to have been written before the book of Acts as well, since he references it in his introduction.
This is all fascinating to me. The early dating of the New Testament lends to its credibility. Not even halfway through it, I’d give at least a half-educated recommendation to this book. I like being able to feed in little chunks of it via the audio files. I hope it doesn’t sour at the end and I have to take back my recommendation, haha…
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