Is this controversial?
30-60 Passion Narrative
40-80 Lost Sayings Gospel Q
50-60 1 Thessalonians
50-60 Philippians
50-60 Galatians
50-60 1 Corinthians
50-60 2 Corinthians
50-60 Romans
50-60 Philemon
50-80 Colossians
50-90 Signs Gospel
50-95 Book of Hebrews
50-120 Didache
50-140 Gospel of Thomas
50-140 Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel
50-200 Sophia of Jesus Christ
65-80 Gospel of Mark
70-100 Epistle of James
70-120 Egerton Gospel
70-160 Gospel of Peter
70-160 Secret Mark
70-200 Fayyum Fragment
70-200 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
73-200 Mara Bar Serapion
80-100 2 Thessalonians
80-100 Ephesians
80-100 Gospel of Matthew
80-110 1 Peter
80-120 Epistle of Barnabas
80-130 Gospel of Luke
80-130 Acts of the Apostles
80-140 1 Clement
80-150 Gospel of the Egyptians
80-150 Gospel of the Hebrews
80-250 Christian Sibyllines
90-95 Apocalypse of John
90-120 Gospel of John
90-120 1 John
90-120 2 John
90-120 3 John
90-120 Epistle of Jude
93 Flavius Josephus
100-150 1 Timothy
100-150 2 Timothy
100-150 Titus
100-150 Apocalypse of Peter
100-150 Secret Book of James
100-150 Preaching of Peter
100-160 Gospel of the Ebionites
100-160 Gospel of the Nazoreans
100-160 Shepherd of Hermas
100-160 2 Peter
I like Haley’s Bible commentary. It has a great discussion.
One of the miracles of God is how He formed the Scriptures without the aid of any institution deciding what is inspired and what isn't.
“The New Testament Books are the Earliest Christian Writings We Possess”
And they were all written prior to 68 AD.
How the New Testament books were selected as acceptable reading in church (i.e., canonical) was a long and painful process that involved many decades of discussions, with no absolute consensus reached. Syrians, Ethiopians, Greeks, Russians, Rome and Protestants all have different books, the Protestant canon being, by a long way, the most recent.
Regardless, I find it really strange how many merely claim the NT as Christian writings. I would point out that the earliest Christian writings were the Pentateuch.
Because human committees decided them for you, by consensus.
But not the current versions. And there have been MANY alterations between those and what we have today.
Good list.
The really stellar historical point relates to the early date of 1 Corinthians.
Placing that letter in the 50s means that Paul wrote the letter 17-27 years after the crucifixion.
1 Corinthians chapter 15 makes an incredible historical claim that if true devastates skepticism:
“For I delivered to you [b]as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; . . .
12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified [f]against God that He raised [g]Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”
To allege as Paul did that 500 people saw Jesus alive after death in a period around 50 AD would be epistemological suicide— unless Jesus was resurrected. Anyone could demand to meet others who saw him alive. That would be an easy fact to check at such an early point in time.
I quoted that to a major atheist on one occasion and even with a team of researchers assisting him, he admitted he had not answer to the allegation raised by Paul.
Genesis 1 and 3 was as Christian as it gets, Trinity/Savior.
Here is a 2012 study of when the new testament books were written that makes very good sense to me.
http://bswett.com/2012NTChron.html
The author opens: This paper is a result of trying to understand when and where and by whom the books of the New Testament were written. I waded through numerous Internet archives and found that almost everything is controversial, with some scholars denying what others assert, so I decided to do my own research. I have relied on internal and external evidence, but not on modern scholarship, because so many modern scholars seem determined to justify their own preconceptions. For example, some say Matthew and Luke were written after 70 because they do not believe Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:1-2; Luke 21:5-6), but about 75 Josephus wrote that many people escaped from Jerusalem during a lull in the Roman siege (The Wars of the Jews 2.20.1), and about 325 Eusebius wrote that Christians remembered what Jesus predicted and fled from Jerusalem before it was destroyed (Ecclesiastical History 3.5.3).
Please note, I am merely the poster of this paper, NOT the author.
The sign on Jesus' cross was written in Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew and Latin, just to make sure that all understood the reason for His crucifixion.