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HISTORICAL METHOD and the Question of Christian Origins

Somerville said:
Ever so cute - denigration of points made against your views without supplying a single bit of new support or corroboration.

The books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not written by those whose names are found there today. This is verifiable if you were to take the time to actually read some scholarly, not apologetic works.
Click to expand...

Absolute nonsense.

Let's just take Matthew.

"The early church fathers were unanimous in crediting the gospel to Matthew. Hiebert claims, “The earliest is the testimony of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, dating to the first half of the second century. Following Papias is Irenaeus “who wrote his famous Against Heresies around A.D. 185.” The next church father to attribute authorship to Matthew is Origen, who wrote in the early third century. He is quoted by Eusebius, who wrote in the early fourth century. Finally, Eusebius himself, in the early fourth century, documents that Matthew wrote the first gospel.

There is an unbroken witness to Matthew as the author of the first gospel going back to at least the middle of the second century..."

Who Wrote the Gospel of Matthew? ? #5 Post of 2010 | Tough Questions Answered

And you have the same sorts of attributions for the other Gospel writers.

You're busted, Somerville.
 
Logicman said:
Well, do you think modern day Jews, antichrists, atheists and agnostics will promote or defend it? Where O where have you been, Ramoss?
Click to expand...

Yet, you have never ever ever shown the alleged quotes in context, in the original form, and despite the fact those quotes have been refuted by actually LOOKING at what is said, or showing that your quote is a total forgery, you continue to use them.
 
Logicman said:
Absolute nonsense.

Let's just take Matthew.

"The early church fathers were unanimous in crediting the gospel to Matthew. Hiebert claims, “The earliest is the testimony of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, dating to the first half of the second century. Following Papias is Irenaeus “who wrote his famous Against Heresies around A.D. 185.” The next church father to attribute authorship to Matthew is Origen, who wrote in the early third century. He is quoted by Eusebius, who wrote in the early fourth century. Finally, Eusebius himself, in the early fourth century, documents that Matthew wrote the first gospel.

There is an unbroken witness to Matthew as the author of the first gospel going back to at least the middle of the second century..."

Who Wrote the Gospel of Matthew? ? #5 Post of 2010 | Tough Questions Answered

And you have the same sorts of attributions for the other Gospel writers.

You're busted, Somerville.
Click to expand...

Aside from literary criticism, I have no idea why people even study this crap however, even if for the sake of argument, we take it as demonstrated that someone called Matthew wrote it, it still leaves you with a god without evidence and a divine Jesus without evidence. What is your point?
 
William Rea said:
Aside from literary criticism, I have no idea why people even study this crap however, even if for the sake of argument, we take it as demonstrated that someone called Matthew wrote it, it still leaves you with a god without evidence and a divine Jesus without evidence. What is your point?
Click to expand...

Aaaaaand here you are as usual, contributing nothing of meaning or substance to the discussion......just popping in to scream "no god". I think we all get it; however, this thread was actually a fairly interesting discussion that was historiographic in nature until you jumped in with this vitriolic nonsense. I am assuming of course, that you even understand the basic concept of historiography.
 
FluffyNinja said:
Aaaaaand here you are as usual, contributing nothing of meaning or substance to the discussion......just popping in to scream "no god". I think we all get it; however, this thread was actually a fairly interesting discussion that was historiographic in nature until you jumped in with this vitriolic nonsense. I am assuming of course, that you even understand the basic concept of historiography.
Click to expand...

You always have the option to ignore me or have you lost control of your faculties?

'There has been a great deal of 'discussion' in this forum (Philosophical) and the other (Religious) about the reliability of the texts found in the book commonly called The Bible.'

They are not reliable if they make claims that cannot be evidenced.
 
William Rea said:
You always have the option to ignore me or have you lost control of your faculties?

'There has been a great deal of 'discussion' in this forum (Philosophical) and the other (Religious) about the reliability of the texts found in the book commonly called The Bible.'

They are not reliable if they make claims that cannot be evidenced.
Click to expand...

The OP if you actually read it, is not actually about "reliability" of the stories therein but rather, more about authenticity and authorship.

And yes, I have the option to ignore; however, its just annoying to come across your nonsense in the middle a fairly good discussion of Biblical historiography. Its comparable to having a nice drive in the countryside and having to swerve to avoid hitting a pile of roadkill.
 
FluffyNinja said:
The OP if you actually read it, is not actually about "reliability" of the stories therein but rather, more about authenticity and authorship.

And yes, I have the option to ignore; however, its just annoying to come across your nonsense in the middle a fairly good discussion of Biblical historiography. Its comparable to having a nice drive in the countryside and having to swerve to avoid hitting a pile of roadkill.
Click to expand...

You are welcome to a nice comfy drive in the Religious Discussions forum, here we are skeptical and you are on the wrong bus.
 
Logicman said:
Absolute nonsense.

Let's just take Matthew.

"The early church fathers were unanimous in crediting the gospel to Matthew. Hiebert claims, “The earliest is the testimony of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, dating to the first half of the second century. Following Papias is Irenaeus “who wrote his famous Against Heresies around A.D. 185.” The next church father to attribute authorship to Matthew is Origen, who wrote in the early third century. He is quoted by Eusebius, who wrote in the early fourth century. Finally, Eusebius himself, in the early fourth century, documents that Matthew wrote the first gospel.

There is an unbroken witness to Matthew as the author of the first gospel going back to at least the middle of the second century..."

Who Wrote the Gospel of Matthew? ? #5 Post of 2010 | Tough Questions Answered

And you have the same sorts of attributions for the other Gospel writers.

You're busted, Somerville.
Click to expand...


That article is some very poor scholarship.. For example, it says that the attribution could be as early as 125 CE. Yet it leaves out information that makes things highly misleading. For example, when it talks about Papias, it doesn't mention that hte only record we have of any Papias's writing is through Ireanus, and we have nothing we can safely attribute to Papias directly.

Then, when it comes to Matthew, the statement does nto quote anything of the writings we currently name 'The Gospel of Matthew, but merely says that the apostle Matthew wrote a gospel in the hebrew language. The current Gospel of Matthew was written directly in Greek, so that is a contradiction to what Iraenus claims..

Plus, the earliest copies we have that are labeled 'The Gospel of Mathew' are in Greek, so either Papias was wrong, Iraenus was wrong, or it was referring to a different writing all together. The earliest FRAGMENT we have of the Gospel of Matthew is P104, which is dated in the late second century, and it not titled 'The Gospel of Matthew'. THe earliest manuscripts labels 'Gospel of Matthew' are early 4th century.

So, that 'got questions' essay is highly misleading, leaves out lots of information, and does not look at things in context. ALl in all, that shows that web site to be suspect at the very best when it comes to giving proper data to be able to make an informed conclusion about anything. This, of course, is to be expected, because it's a resource to convert people, not a scholarly resource.
 
Logicman said:
Absolute nonsense.

Let's just take Matthew.

"The early church fathers were unanimous in crediting the gospel to Matthew. Hiebert claims, “The earliest is the testimony of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, dating to the first half of the second century. Following Papias is Irenaeus “who wrote his famous Against Heresies around A.D. 185.” The next church father to attribute authorship to Matthew is Origen, who wrote in the early third century. He is quoted by Eusebius, who wrote in the early fourth century. Finally, Eusebius himself, in the early fourth century, documents that Matthew wrote the first gospel.

There is an unbroken witness to Matthew as the author of the first gospel going back to at least the middle of the second century..."

Who Wrote the Gospel of Matthew? ? #5 Post of 2010 | Tough Questions Answered

And you have the same sorts of attributions for the other Gospel writers.

You're busted, Somerville.
Click to expand...


So cute, using yet another apologetic website as some sort of support for still more silliness and denial.

Shall we begin with the 'liberal' Oxford Annotated Bible
“Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith (Lk 1:4; Jn 20:31). Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings.”
Click to expand...

There is also the problem when the apologists cite Papias; though this early church leader wrote five texts, titled An Exposition of the Lord's Oracles, we do not have them today. All we know of what was written is found in quotes from the writing of Eusebius in the fourth century, who apparently had never read Papias but knew of his works only from what Irenaeus had written. The description offered up by Eusebius in his supposed quotes from Papias doesn't seem to describe the Gospel of Matthew we know.
Now this is reported by Papias about Mark, but about Matthew this was said, Now Matthew compiled the reports in a Hebrew manner of speech, but each interpreted them as he could.
Click to expand...

Those who study the Bible without the Goggles of Truth have noted the near impossibility of Matthew, a tax collector, having the literary skills and knowledge to write the Gospel in the Greek language. Papias supposedly wrote that Matthew wrote something --"compiled the reports" -- in Hebrew. There is also the fact that Papias, or Eusebius quoting Papias, never supplied any quote(s) from this recounting of words by Matthew, which takes away another support leg for any apostolic authorship.




To short circuit an attempt to bring up John the disciple, who was John the son of Zebedee, as the author of the Book of John, may I point out that John the disciple is described in Acts 4:13 as being illiterate. Bit tough for an illiterate person to write a story.
 
William Rea said:
You are welcome to a nice comfy drive in the Religious Discussions forum, here we are skeptical and you are on the wrong bus.
Click to expand...
That's wonderful. Thanks for pointing out where I'm posting. I can assure you, I am well aware. Incidentally, I welcome skepticism and rather enjoy FOCUSED and meaningful discussion without all the childish vitriol. My criticism has zero to do with your skepticism and everything to do with your attempt to derail a discussion by interjecting something completely off topic.

We all know by now...you're an atheist, the Bible is a hoax, gods are silly, believers are intellectually bankrupt, flying spaghetti monsters, no objective evidence, yada yada yada..... All very enlightening, thank you; but your shtick is old and this topic was about historic process, historiography, authenticity, and authorship of the New testament. Your post offered nothing meaningful....just an attempt to interject your personal disdain for faith...yet again. I was enjoying the back and forth until I got to your waste of bandwidth.
 
FluffyNinja said:
That's wonderful. Thanks for pointing out where I'm posting. I can assure you, I am well aware. Incidentally, I welcome skepticism and rather enjoy FOCUSED and meaningful discussion without all the childish vitriol. My criticism has zero to do with your skepticism and everything to do with your attempt to derail a discussion by interjecting something completely off topic.

We all know by now...you're an atheist, the Bible is a hoax, gods are silly, believers are intellectually bankrupt, flying spaghetti monsters, no objective evidence, yada yada yada..... All very enlightening, thank you; but your shtick is old and this topic was about historic process, historiography, authenticity, and authorship of the New testament. Your post offered nothing meaningful....just an attempt to interject your personal disdain for faith...yet again. I was enjoying the back and forth until I got to your waste of bandwidth.
Click to expand...

I love that you accuse my posts of, '...childish vitriol' and then in the next paragraph you accuse my posts of, '...your shtick is old...', '...offered nothing meaningful...' and '...waste of bandwidth...'. How very clever of you to demonstrate the exact qualities in your post that my legitimate and apposite posts so far have been accused of containing, when mine clearly do not. There's a word for that but, I just can't put my finger on it right now? Can you help with that word, what with you having the intellect around here and all.

While you are having this 'highly intellectual' exchange of posts like exalted angels on high, one might have been forgiven for believing that we had actually seen you distracted from such superior stretches of the intellect in order to come down from your higher plane and shush my unworthy attempts to string two or three insignificant words together. And yet, here I am, graced by your response to my posts, in awe of their words of wisdom and positively erect at the thought that you have uttered such truths to me. I am clearly not at the same intellectual posting plane as you and you angelic correspondents so obviously, I am unable to understand such complex and enlightened discourse but Sir, with your honorable permission and that of your esteemed correspondents might I interject and just add one tiny, minuscule point to the fruits of your cranial exertions?

With your permission Sir?
 
RAMOSS said:
A more accurate description of 'scholars' would be 'Theologians'. Theologians have axioms that might not line up with historical accuracy.
Click to expand...

Order of books? Comparisons of texts? Accord with historical events? Even before we get to all of that we have to get past the evidence for the existence of any god(s), for the divinity of any prophets, for resurrection events and assorted other 'miracles'. It's no good trying to read the small print if you haven't even got a loan offer on the table.
 
William Rea said:
Aside from literary criticism, I have no idea why people even study this crap however, even if for the sake of argument, we take it as demonstrated that someone called Matthew wrote it, it still leaves you with a god without evidence and a divine Jesus without evidence. What is your point?
Click to expand...

The point back to you is you've obviously never studied the New Testament, etc., have you? Here's something to help you come up to speed on it:

historical_jesus_cover.jpg
 
RAMOSS said:
That article is some very poor scholarship.. For example, it says that the attribution could be as early as 125 CE. Yet it leaves out information that makes things highly misleading. For example, when it talks about Papias, it doesn't mention that hte only record we have of any Papias's writing is through Ireanus, and we have nothing we can safely attribute to Papias directly.

Then, when it comes to Matthew, the statement does nto quote anything of the writings we currently name 'The Gospel of Matthew, but merely says that the apostle Matthew wrote a gospel in the hebrew language. The current Gospel of Matthew was written directly in Greek, so that is a contradiction to what Iraenus claims..

Plus, the earliest copies we have that are labeled 'The Gospel of Mathew' are in Greek, so either Papias was wrong, Iraenus was wrong, or it was referring to a different writing all together. The earliest FRAGMENT we have of the Gospel of Matthew is P104, which is dated in the late second century, and it not titled 'The Gospel of Matthew'. THe earliest manuscripts labels 'Gospel of Matthew' are early 4th century.

So, that 'got questions' essay is highly misleading, leaves out lots of information, and does not look at things in context. ALl in all, that shows that web site to be suspect at the very best when it comes to giving proper data to be able to make an informed conclusion about anything. This, of course, is to be expected, because it's a resource to convert people, not a scholarly resource.
Click to expand...

Ramoss, that's nonsense. For instance, the earliest reported fragment from Mark probably dates to AD 80 or 90.

Earliest Fragment of Mark?s Gospel Apparently Found

Not only that, but just because fragments seem to be from the late first or second century, doesn't mean that's when a certain Gospel was written. There's other things to consider, like colloquialisms common to the 1st century and so on.

"The various handwriting styles in one time period over another help with dating. During the first and early second century, writers tried to keep letters on an imaginary top line. Slanted handwriting begins later in the 2nd century. The earlier manuscripts are written with mostly upright characters in a kind of print where letters tend to be as wide as they are high.

The earliest examples have something of a childish appearance, are rough and labored, the curves jerky rather than flowing. As better effect was sought with time, it took the form of attaching serifs to all terminal lines, and these characterize the style from the middle of the first to the middle of the second centuries. Gradually, too, cursive features appear. Letters tend to be connected without lifting the pen. Curves and loops are employed wherever possible, and letters tend to be oval rather than round, sloping rather than upright, varied in height rather than even, with long and dashing initial and terminal strokes. Within this process it is possible to date a given hand typologically with some confidence, although given scribes may be ahead of or behind the general development (Oates, Samuel, & Welles, 1967)."

The Earliest New Testament Manuscripts

And there's more, but that was just a sampling.

So, how do scholars date the New Testament? To the first century.

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books

Glad to help you out there, Ramoss. Now you can start running with the big dogs, or stay in denial. Your choice.

Jesus is Lord!
 
Logicman said:
No, but you should start studying that which you are trying to be conversant and knowledgeable on.
Click to expand...

'Order of books? Comparisons of texts? Accord with historical events? Even before we get to all of that we have to get past the evidence for the existence of any god(s), for the divinity of any prophets, for resurrection events and assorted other 'miracles'. It's no good trying to read the small print if you haven't even got a loan offer on the table.'

I think that I was pretty clear where I stood on Literary Criticism and Theology and especially the discussion of such which is not the same as producing evidence of gods, divinity or miracles. It is just talking about people that talked about these things. We can talk when you have some evidence.
 
William Rea said:
I love that you accuse my posts of, '...childish vitriol' and then in the next paragraph you accuse my posts of, '...your shtick is old...', '...offered nothing meaningful...' and '...waste of bandwidth...'. How very clever of you to demonstrate the exact qualities in your post that my legitimate and apposite posts so far have been accused of containing, when mine clearly do not. There's a word for that but, I just can't put my finger on it right now? Can you help with that word, what with you having the intellect around here and all.

While you are having this 'highly intellectual' exchange of posts like exalted angels on high, one might have been forgiven for believing that we had actually seen you distracted from such superior stretches of the intellect in order to come down from your higher plane and shush my unworthy attempts to string two or three insignificant words together. And yet, here I am, graced by your response to my posts, in awe of their words of wisdom and positively erect at the thought that you have uttered such truths to me. I am clearly not at the same intellectual posting plane as you and you angelic correspondents so obviously, I am unable to understand such complex and enlightened discourse but Sir, with your honorable permission and that of your esteemed correspondents might I interject and just add one tiny, minuscule point to the fruits of your cranial exertions?

With your permission Sir?
Click to expand...
Sarcasm noted. So you typed all of that for???
 
William Rea said:
'Order of books? Comparisons of texts? Accord with historical events? Even before we get to all of that we have to get past the evidence for the existence of any god(s), for the divinity of any prophets, for resurrection events and assorted other 'miracles'. It's no good trying to read the small print if you haven't even got a loan offer on the table.'

I think that I was pretty clear where I stood on Literary Criticism and Theology and especially the discussion of such which is not the same as producing evidence of gods, divinity or miracles. It is just talking about people that talked about these things. We can talk when you have some evidence.
Click to expand...

This! Right here! No we don't! What does the OP or this discussion have to do with evidence on the existence of gods or the resurrection? The discussion is not about CREDIBILITY of some of the biblical stories, its about AUTHENTICITY of it as an historic text. I'd been assuming that you understood the difference; its apparent you do not. This was a discussion of the historicity of the gospels! Do you deny that they were written in the past, some taken from 1st and 2nd century scrolls and papyri? This isn't a discussion about whether gods do or don't exist and NO we don't have to PROVE the existence of anything in order to do a historiographic comparison of the gospels. Its what historians do....search for corroborating evidence to prove authorship or authenticity of a manuscript. Its simply attempting to show that it is authentic to the time period in which it was allegedly written and that events within accurately align with other corroborating events.

If we went along with your illogical approach, we must scrap Homer's Iliad as well, discounting any historical authenticity due to the fact that history in it was interwoven with mythical tales of Achilles and a Trojan Horse. Incidentally, historians and literary scholars the world over thankfully do not share your biased ignorance and DO study these texts for their historiographic value.
 
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William Rea said:
I think that I was pretty clear where I stood on Literary Criticism.....
Click to expand...
Yes, it is quite evident where you stand on literary criticism.........you're ignorant of how it actually works apparently.
 
Logicman said:
Ramoss, that's nonsense. For instance, the earliest reported fragment from Mark probably dates to AD 80 or 90.

Earliest Fragment of Mark?s Gospel Apparently Found

Not only that, but just because fragments seem to be from the late first or second century, doesn't mean that's when a certain Gospel was written. There's other things to consider, like colloquialisms common to the 1st century and so on.

"The various handwriting styles in one time period over another help with dating. During the first and early second century, writers tried to keep letters on an imaginary top line. Slanted handwriting begins later in the 2nd century. The earlier manuscripts are written with mostly upright characters in a kind of print where letters tend to be as wide as they are high.

The earliest examples have something of a childish appearance, are rough and labored, the curves jerky rather than flowing. As better effect was sought with time, it took the form of attaching serifs to all terminal lines, and these characterize the style from the middle of the first to the middle of the second centuries. Gradually, too, cursive features appear. Letters tend to be connected without lifting the pen. Curves and loops are employed wherever possible, and letters tend to be oval rather than round, sloping rather than upright, varied in height rather than even, with long and dashing initial and terminal strokes. Within this process it is possible to date a given hand typologically with some confidence, although given scribes may be ahead of or behind the general development (Oates, Samuel, & Welles, 1967)."

The Earliest New Testament Manuscripts

And there's more, but that was just a sampling.

So, how do scholars date the New Testament? To the first century.

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books

Glad to help you out there, Ramoss. Now you can start running with the big dogs, or stay in denial. Your choice.

Jesus is Lord!
Click to expand...

Continue to hold tight to your faith but more rational people, even those who call themselves Christian seem to be willing to acknowledge the problems to be found with these early dating claims. For example your first link Earliest Fragment of Mark?s Gospel Apparently Found has a little problem. The first announcement of the 'discovery' was in 2012 and that person said they would be publishing on the discovery by late 2013. In January 2015, Craig Evans in response to academic queries about the study got a lot of response from the media with proclamations about "The Oldest New Testament Manuscript Found!!", said the paper would be published by the end of the year (2015) Within a week, he had changed to saying publication wouldn't happen until 2017. A couple of those liberal academic types wrote an article which appeared on the CNN website: Was oldest gospel really found in a mummy mask? . Interesting read; one paragraph goes into paleographical dating of ancient texts.
2. Is the handwriting consistent with the supposed dating?

Brice Jones, a papyrologist at Concordia University, told us that dating a text by handwriting, or paleography, "is not a precise science, and I know of no papyrologist who would date a literary papryus to within a decade on the basis of paleography alone."
Click to expand...
This is a response to your c & p from yet another apologetics website - The Earliest New Testament Manuscripts although I did notice a bit of a mention with problems on dating from handwriting - "Slanted handwriting begins later in the 2nd century" In other words, paleographical based dating in many cases will only allow a range of approximately ONE CENTURY. That statement coincides with another quote from the CNN piece

3. Is the ink or papyrus itself consistent with the supposed dating?

According to Jones, if paleography is inexact, "radiocarbon dating is equally (and perhaps more) problematic, since one must allow for a time gap of a century or more."
Click to expand...

We've already debunked your "evidenceforjesus.org" web page many times. It seems that denial is a requisite quality for those who insist upon one accepted way of believing.




Please try to give credit to those who write the words you c&p.
 
FluffyNinja said:
Yes, it is quite evident where you stand on literary criticism.........you're ignorant of how it actually works apparently.
Click to expand...

Wow, that was a leap off the edge of the cliff of moral high ground. Classy.
 
FluffyNinja said:
This! Right here! No we don't! What does the OP or this discussion have to do with evidence on the existence of gods or the resurrection? The discussion is not about CREDIBILITY of some of the biblical stories, its about AUTHENTICITY of it as an historic text. I'd been assuming that you understood the difference; its apparent you do not. This was a discussion of the historicity of the gospels! Do you deny that they were written in the past, some taken from 1st and 2nd century scrolls and papyri? This isn't a discussion about whether gods do or don't exist and NO we don't have to PROVE the existence of anything in order to do a historiographic comparison of the gospels. Its what historians do....search for corroborating evidence to prove authorship or authenticity of a manuscript. Its simply attempting to show that it is authentic to the time period in which it was allegedly written and that events within accurately align with other corroborating events.

If we went along with your illogical approach, we must scrap Homer's Iliad as well, discounting any historical authenticity due to the fact that history in it was interwoven with mythical tales of Achilles and a Trojan Horse. Incidentally, historians and literary scholars the world over thankfully do not share your biased ignorance and DO study these texts for their historiographic value.
Click to expand...

Yes all very nice but, trust me I'm doing you a favour challenging Logicman now.

I have no problem with The Iliad, Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland. Strange that you would extrapolate that from my post but, kind of expected.

PS there is a History section in the Academia forum.
 
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William Rea said:
Yes all very nice but, trust me I'm doing you a favour challenging Logicman now.

I have no problem with The Iliad, Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland. Strange that you would extrapolate that from my post but, kind of expected.

PS there is a History section in the Academia forum.
Click to expand...

Sorry, though I agree with you on many items, your posts here have not been too helpful as pointed out by the fluffy ninja who I disagree with more often than not. In this one thread, which I originated we are discussing an academic topic which does rub against religion and philosophy. Perhaps I only started it to draw out the True Believers - yeah probably did. Using the appropriate methods of historiography in studying the origins of Christianity is of interest to me. I am agnostic as to the existence of some Jewish preacher wandering around in one small area of Judea at the turn of the millenia but I find it interesting to contrast the ways in which historians of the period look at available information when trying to determine subjects such as daily life for Romans, which differed greatly from the daily life of people in other regions of the empire. What changes came about as tribal/ethnic/linguistic groups migrated into new areas? Did battles and wars actually take place in the places traditionally thought to be the sites, as some written records show.

Proper historians can be believing Christians but they will acknowledge that simply assuming X as an origin of any movement, before building a history upon that one supposition - just ain't the way to do proper history. Real historians, most of them anyway, are like scientists - you hold onto an idea/concept/hypothesis but when the available evidence contradicts or shows that idea/concept/hypothesis has little more basis than that pink unicorn in my garage, the real scholars will admit it - "Damn, I've been wrong for years!" It ain't easy to give up something you have valued for years, spent hours and days pondering and studying, writing the most boring papers imaginable, to one day come to realise you would have been better off growing organic turnips in the back yard. Some do refuse to accept but the better ones will just start over from the new base point.
 
Logicman said:
Ramoss, that's nonsense. For instance, the earliest reported fragment from Mark probably dates to AD 80 or 90.

Earliest Fragment of Mark?s Gospel Apparently Found

Not only that, but just because fragments seem to be from the late first or second century, doesn't mean that's when a certain Gospel was written. There's other things to consider, like colloquialisms common to the 1st century and so on.

"The various handwriting styles in one time period over another help with dating. During the first and early second century, writers tried to keep letters on an imaginary top line. Slanted handwriting begins later in the 2nd century. The earlier manuscripts are written with mostly upright characters in a kind of print where letters tend to be as wide as they are high.

The earliest examples have something of a childish appearance, are rough and labored, the curves jerky rather than flowing. As better effect was sought with time, it took the form of attaching serifs to all terminal lines, and these characterize the style from the middle of the first to the middle of the second centuries. Gradually, too, cursive features appear. Letters tend to be connected without lifting the pen. Curves and loops are employed wherever possible, and letters tend to be oval rather than round, sloping rather than upright, varied in height rather than even, with long and dashing initial and terminal strokes. Within this process it is possible to date a given hand typologically with some confidence, although given scribes may be ahead of or behind the general development (Oates, Samuel, & Welles, 1967)."

The Earliest New Testament Manuscripts

And there's more, but that was just a sampling.

So, how do scholars date the New Testament? To the first century.

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books

Glad to help you out there, Ramoss. Now you can start running with the big dogs, or stay in denial. Your choice.

Jesus is Lord!
Click to expand...

AH yes, quoting from psuedo archaeologist sources. Here is a link to be entirely skeptical about the methodlogy used, the way things are dated, and the entire process of extraction of the fragment, and More reason to be skeptical are found on this link.

You do have the tendency to jump on the most outrageous claims, which can not be currently backed up, and quote them as well, they are gospel.
 
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