“All of them were written 40 to 70 years after the Crucifixion, in a language that Jesus did not speak, and not by eyewitnesses,” he said. “I see them more as Jewish interpretive portraits painted by Jewish artists trying to capture the essence of this man’s life.”
70 years after the crucifixion? Then some of these Jewish artists might have mentioned the destruction of the temple in 78 AD. The lack of any mention of it dates the writings, and while the 40 might be accurate the 70 is way off.
70 years after the crucifixion? Then some of these Jewish artists might have mentioned the destruction of the temple in 78 AD. The lack of any mention of it dates the writings, and while the 40 might be accurate the 70 is way off.
...true enough (though the destruction was 70 AD, not 78)...
this event was well recorded by later Jewish historians such as Josephus, and its exclusion in the Gospels certainly speaks to their earlier formation, even while it is not ipso facto dispositive proof...I’ve heard some postulate that Christ’s foretelling of the Temple destruction precluded the necessity of writing about the actual event...but I’m not buying that...
...the actual truth is that nobody really knows either who wrote the Gospels and when they were written, though of course educated opinion provides compelling conjecture...