Replies

Agreed, all were early. See the link I posted in #60 to a study on the New Testament Chronology done in 2012.

http://bswett.com/2012NTChron.html

Please note that I am NOT the author of this study.

Thanks, GF. The paper seems reasonable to me and with an effort to be fair with dates.

I’d place Mark earlier than it does, and I’m not real sure I’d say Mark was copied as I’d say that they all had access to the same sources....notes, perhaps, taken by those who accompanied Jesus.

The following is evidence that notes were a real thing in that era:

***23 Then he called two of his centurions and ordered them, “Get ready a detachment of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea at nine tonight. 24 Provide mounts for Paul so that he may be taken safely to Governor Felix.” 25 He wrote a letter as follows: 26 Claudius Lysias, To His Excellency, Governor Felix: Greetings. 27 This man was seized by the Jews and they were about to kill him, but I came with my troops and rescued him, for I had learned that he is a Roman citizen.***

One of the interesting notes Luke records in the Book of Acts (late in Chapter 2) is how strongly the early Church converts were devoted to the Apostles teaching.

This was not a group that was interested in being kept ignorant of the specifics of who Jesus was and what he taught. They were quite focused on it, giving another hint that they either wrote it down very early (my hunch), or at least kept a full oral tradition alive for the twenty or so years before the three so called synoptic gospels were written down (My hunch: much was written earlier, then compiled by different people in different places with the help of others who lived through it and witnessed all of it).

Good links and info btw, much appreciated.