HISTORICAL METHOD and the Question of Christian Origins

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. Those who have some background in the academic study of history often refer to the criteria used in the study of secular history: HOW does a scholar determine the authenticity of ancient data? In addition to the solid objects that have come to us from the past - statues, stelae, coins, paintings and other physical bits and pieces of our history - we have texts, papyri and codices, containing the words used in support of modern perceptions of the past.

What are these criteria? The headline for this topic and following quotes come from Vridar.org, a blog which discusses religion and politics

A historian needs to establish some fundamental facts about the sources at hand before he or she starts pulling out data from them to make a historical narrative or argument. Let’s take the gospels as one set of sources to be used in investigating the question of Christian origins. What does any historian need to establish about these — or any — sources?

• We need to know when they were written.
• We need to know by whom and why. (“By whom” means more than the name of the person: it refers to where the person is from, to what social or political entity he or she belongs — “Who is this person?” — that is more important than a mere name.)
• We need to know what they are, what sorts of documents they are. Their genre, if you like. This will include knowledge of how they compare with other literature of their day.
• We need to know something about their reception at the time they were written and soon after.
• We need to know something about the world in which they were written — both the political and social history of that world and the wider literary and philosophical cultural world to which they belonged.
• We need to know a little how the documents came into our possession. Through what authorities or channels were they preserved and what sort of manuscript trail did they leave.

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For the True Believer, it is not seen as necessary to examine the texts in the described manner because they 'know' the words are the Truth. However, when the methods commonly used by historians as they seek to pry more reality out of the distant past are laid out in examining the Bible, we end up with more questions than answers.

The First Step
So for the first point above, the date of the gospels, we can do no better than accept a range of year in which they were written. A combination of internal evidence and the evidence that they were known by others leads us (well, me at least) to a period between 70 CE and the mid second century (possibly known to Justin, certainly to Irenaeus).

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The terms used by historians in dating objects or texts are terminus post quem - point after which the object must originate and terminus ante quem - the latest date which can be assigned to the object/text being studied.

The second step
This is the “What is it?” question. Are we reading a letter? A memoir? A biography? A what? What’s a gospel?
<snip>
This is a critical question that needs to be resolved before we can know how to interpret what we are reading.

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The third step.
What do we make of what we are reading? Is it a true story? Is it partly true? Based on true persons and events? Obviously our conclusions from the above two steps will have some impact on our answers to these questions.

Narratives, even ancient fictional ones, certainly can and sometimes do involve persons known to have a real historical existence. And probably most ancient fiction is known to contain scenes based on real ethnic groups, geographic areas and cities.

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An example of the real world in a fictional tale is of course to be found in the Harry Potter tales - Harry Potter - Locations in London Simply because a person or place is named in a story does not automatically authentic the whole story.

Why are the theologians unwilling to use the same standards of examination as are seen to be necessary for secular historians when they look at ancient artifacts?

One obvious problem with describing creation as "history", as was done in the bible, is that man was created last. One seems to need to accept that god talked (communicated with?) some later person to explain (document?) that creation process. Many simply seem to accept that what is must have been created by a creator so the only thing left to discuss is when and to assign a name (title?) to the creator. They, in essence, flip the burden of proof to those that would dare to doubt "the word of god".

EDIT: One other problem with using the bible as a history book is that it contains future predictions.

Somerville said:

A combination of internal evidence and the evidence that they were known by others leads us (well, me at least) to a period between 70 CE and the mid second century (possibly known to Justin, certainly to Irenaeus).

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'mid second century'?

Scholars tell a much different story.

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books

That pretty much does it for you.

Jesus is Lord!

Somerville said:

Why are the theologians unwilling to use the same standards of examination as are seen to be necessary for secular historians when they look at ancient artifacts?

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Well, just to confer, what's the difference in the method used by theologians? (Other than, of course, assuming that the Bible is largely factually correct and divinely inspired.)

Somerville said:

Why are the theologians unwilling to use the same standards of examination as are seen to be necessary for secular historians when they look at ancient artifacts?

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Looking to open up a mess today huh?

But more seriously, the biggest problem we run into is the function of systems of process (science) vs. systems of belief (religions.) They are not interchangeable and in some respects are inherently adversarial.

There is also a slight difference in someone studying Theology for the purpose of Religion and beliefs vs. the purpose of understanding human nature regarding religion in terms of history. With that some aspects of Theology will pay attention to not just dating historical text but also place into context why it was perhaps written as such. Or, the sociological and anthropological aspects of why certain text became so important to various systems of belief.

The next biggest problem we run into is establishing those "fundamental facts" about various text. In just dating all of the elements that eventually made its way into the Bible as we know it today, you are talking about a range of over 1000 years (more or less, depending upon that conflicting historical accounts) across several different cultures and authors. Some of the parts originating as far back as 745 BC ('ish) to roughly the 4th Century AD. Then of course we run into complications of translations, motivations of what is accounted for and included (thus parts excluded) from what we call the Bible in present format.

The Harry Potter reference unfortunately is not a very good comparison. Several reasons. One, the story itself may have influences but "parts" of it did not appear elsewhere across the area from an earlier time. Two, the story is a series of books but all written by one person. Three, comparing source text today in fiction contexts has no place in comparison to earlier text written for the purpose of systems of belief.

But for the purpose of this conversation, "historical method" is painful for this subject because of the bad comparison. One, various parts of the stories within the Bible appear in other texts across the region from roughly the same Bronze Age that ended up forming other religions. Two, these texts were written by various people across multiple cultures usually by those very educated and influenced (and that happened to be an extreme minority of the public at the time.) Three, we have to rely a little on alternate methods of obtaining dates and places to validate sources. There is no alternative location where someone recorded the exact date, place, and time historical text was written that eventually all became organized as the Old Testament for the Bible (as one example.) With the Bible itself we have to go to the next step as well and discuss motivations of the Roman Empire to basically fulfill the gap of organizing the text into something actionable in terms of a system of belief (ironically, sponsored by a government.)

And to the OP article itself, those "historians" all had their motivations as well. We cannot rule out motivations to further establish theological acceptance or present for discussion very adversarial conclusions to those accepted notions about the history of all this text. All of which influenced everything from Judaism to Christianity to Islam, including all the splinters of the three. Come to think of it, all those splinters of all of these core monotheistic faiths is the best evidence to date (apart from atheism) that there is real question and varying interpretation of what all of this text really means. Let alone, how it should be practiced and followed at the institutional and organizational levels.

In conclusion, the "provisional nature of anything we draw from the gospels" verifies that all this text can mean whatever you need it to mean. So it both stands the test of time, and all conveniently sidesteps standard practices of systems of process (science, in this case academia in general.)

Logicman said:

'mid second century'?

Scholars tell a much different story.

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books




That pretty much does it for you.

Jesus is Lord!

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A more accurate description of 'scholars' would be 'Theologians'. Theologians have axioms that might not line up with historical accuracy.

FieldTheorist said:

Well, just to confer, what's the difference in the method used by theologians? (Other than, of course, assuming that the Bible is largely factually correct and divinely inspired.)

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they have motivation to assume that the tradition of who wrote, and when it was written is correct, rather than question it's accuracy, and look at the external evidence. It starts making conclusions circular.

RAMOSS said:

A more accurate description of 'scholars' would be 'Theologians'. Theologians have axioms that might not line up with historical accuracy.

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Sure, Ramoss. They're all screwed in the head but you're the one to listen to.

ROTFLOL.

Logicman said:

Sure, Ramoss. They're all screwed in the head but you're the one to listen to.

ROTFLOL.

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Why, compared to the ones that you use for your source, yes. There are plenty of others theologians that don't have that issue, but many of them are also actual historians too. However, you seem to dismiss those out of hand, because the ones that are religiously motivated come to conclusions that are predetermined by their faith, and those presumptions are your presumptions.

FieldTheorist said:

Well, just to confer, what's the difference in the method used by theologians? (Other than, of course, assuming that the Bible is largely factually correct and divinely inspired.)

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RAMOSS said:

they have motivation to assume that the tradition of who wrote, and when it was written is correct, rather than question it's accuracy, and look at the external evidence. It starts making conclusions circular.

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When a 'scholar' begins his/her search from a position based upon religious beliefs, we see a tendency to either ignore or attempt to refute evidence which contradicts their faith. The historian is far more willing than the theologian to say at a certain point -- "I don't know, and I am unsure as whether we will ever know."

Niels Peter Lemche in The Canaanites and Their Land wrote:

Ancient Israelite — or rather early Jewish — society was hardly interested in a scholarly presentation of the hard historical facts; they understood history to contain a significant narrative in which their own fate in the past, in the present and also in the future would be exposed. History writers were therefore free to convey their message to their readers in the form they had themselves chosen and were not bound to present a true picture of what had actually happened. A narrative would be considered true and genuine if its message was understood and accepted by the audience, not because it was true to the facts of past history. my emphasis (pgs. 159-160)

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This comment goes back to point #2 in the OP; we must know why a story was written in order to more readily evaluate its worth as history.

Dating the texts is perhaps the beginning of the problem in verifying their relationship to the group/society which was seen as the audience. Despite the linked page which "supports" First Century dates for the Epistles and Gospels, in the real world the truth is WE DON'T FRICKIN' KNOW!, historians work with many data points, sometimes, in their attempts to shrink the possible period of composition for a specific text but as I have mentioned in other threads we simply do not at this time have physical artifacts from the claimed dates of composition. Actual historians can say that the earliest reasonably well dated quotations from what became the New Testament are found in Against Heresies by Iranaeus - though we don't have any actual fragment of his book, just quotes found in Eusebius who was writing 100 to 150 years later.

Owing to the unknown route of transmission, we don't know the extent of editing and interpolations in the biblical text. One of the more critical examples is found with the Book of Mark in the Codex Sinaiticus - there is no resurrection, as the text ends at 16:8 unlike the present day book which continues with 16:9 - 20. Eusebius wrote that the Book of Mark ended at what we label as 16: 8 “at those words, in almost all copies of the Gospel according to Mark, comes the end”. Jerome, working and writing in the second half of the Fourth Century, once commented “there are almost as many forms of texts as there are copies.”

Somerville said:

Why are the theologians unwilling to use the same standards of examination as are seen to be necessary for secular historians when they look at ancient artifacts?

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Theologians don't use those techniques as a rule because their goal is to study theology, not history. However, biblical scholars do apply those principles. Some bible scholars, like Thomas (N.T.) Wright and Alister McGrath are both bible scholars and theologians; others like Wayne Grudem and Thomas Oden are strictly theologians. If you read any book or article by a bible scholar/historian/theologian, you will almost always find all of those principles you mentioned being addressed.

The things you mention are constantly and exhaustively discussed within the field of biblical scholarship. If I had a dime for every discussion I've read about the authorship of certain books of the bible, the approximate age they were written, or the possibility of a missing Q document...I'd be a much richer man. Those things are discussed practically ad nauseum. Thus, I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that those questions aren't constantly raised. Such questions are among the most commonly addressed within the field.

Somerville said:

When a 'scholar' begins his/her search from a position based upon religious beliefs, we see a tendency to either ignore or attempt to refute evidence which contradicts their faith. The historian is far more willing than the theologian to say at a certain point -- "I don't know, and I am unsure as whether we will ever know."

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It doesn't sound to me like you are very well read on this topic. Such conclusions are very common among Christian theologians and biblical scholars.

CrabCake said:

Theologians don't use those techniques as a rule because their goal is to study theology, not history. However, biblical scholars do apply those principles. Some bible scholars, like Thomas (N.T.) Wright and Alister McGrath are both bible scholars and theologians; others like Wayne Grudem and Thomas Oden are strictly theologians. If you read any book or article by a bible scholar/historian/theologian, you will almost always find all of those principles you mentioned being addressed.

The things you mention are constantly and exhaustively discussed within the field of biblical scholarship. If I had a dime for every discussion I've read about the authorship of certain books of the bible, the approximate age they were written, or the possibility of a missing Q document...I'd be a much richer man. Those things are discussed practically ad nauseum. Thus, I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that those questions aren't constantly raised. Such questions are among the most commonly addressed within the field.

It doesn't sound to me like you are very well read on this topic. Such conclusions are very common among Christian theologians and biblical scholars.

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I will repeat one point from earlier posts --

When a 'scholar' begins his/her search from a position based upon religious beliefs, we see a tendency to either ignore or attempt to refute evidence which contradicts their faith. The historian is far more willing than the theologian to say at a certain point -- "I don't know, and I am unsure as whether we will ever know."

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N.T. Wright is a respected scholar who also happens to be an Anglican Bishop. His thoughts on the biblical text are far more nuanced than those of the American evangelical apologists who call themselves "scholar" but even so, one should be willing to admit that his ruminations on the historical value of the biblical texts must be influenced by his personal religious beliefs.

An example of where Bishop Wrights' faith trumps his scholarly proclivities lies in his 'explanation' for the Gospels' recounting of the resurrection and the events which followed. Basically he claims that the stories wouldn't have been written as they were if they were not true. A miracle, he concludes, offers the best “explanatory power” for the origins of Christianity. He denies the similarities to other dying and risen mythical beings found in well-known, among the educated of the time, stories. When some of these similarities are pointed out, he focuses on the differences between the story of the risen Jesus and all of the others, which is a failure to understand the origin of any tale. There is very little written which does not rely upon precedents but that which makes each story unique are the differences created by the authors of each story.

McGrath has in recent years come under attack for his refusal to accept new findings and his tendency to engage in personal attacks against his opponents, often without actually engaging in a discussion about the controversial points being made.

As Richard Carrier has noted, the apologists often claim to be following the methods used by actual historians, they seldom actually practice what the non-religion oriented scholars know as historical-critical methodology.

Somerville said:

even so, one should be willing to admit that his ruminations on the historical value of the biblical texts must be influenced by his personal religious beliefs.

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As much as he has spoken out against the failures of the modernist delusion of objectivity; I'm sure he would be the first to admit that, as with all people, his view of reality is filtered through his personal beliefs. If you really believe that anyone is able to approach this (or any topic) from a legitimately unbiased perspective, you are deluding yourself.

Somerville said:

An example of where Bishop Wrights' faith trumps his scholarly proclivities lies in his 'explanation' for the Gospels' recounting of the resurrection and the events which followed. Basically he claims that the stories wouldn't have been written as they were if they were not true. A miracle, he concludes, offers the best “explanatory power” for the origins of Christianity. He denies the similarities to other dying and risen mythical beings found in well-known, among the educated of the time, stories. When some of these similarities are pointed out, he focuses on the differences between the story of the risen Jesus and all of the others, which is a failure to understand the origin of any tale. There is very little written which does not rely upon precedents but that which makes each story unique are the differences created by the authors of each story.

McGrath has in recent years come under attack for his refusal to accept new findings and his tendency to engage in personal attacks against his opponents, often without actually engaging in a discussion about the controversial points being made.

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Your claim was that theologians are unwilling to use the same standards of examination historians use. Faced with the fact that they actually do use those same standards extensively, you seem to be switching gears now to some kind of attack on specific theologians. Ironically, your attack on one of them is composed of criticizing him for attacking other theologians.

Whether you agree with them or not, the fact remains that I could continue mentioning names all day long. Larry Hurtado, Robert Gundry, Craig Evans, and Rowan Williams all write extensively on theology and history and make use of all the tools of historical analysis you mentioned. I could go on mentioning names for a long time because the fact is that contemporary New Testament scholarship uses all of the tools you mentioned extensively and it isn't even a new development; theologians have been using the tools of historians since the 1800s, around the time of Schweitzer.

Now, of course you could disagree with specific theologians or with the conclusions they reach or you could cry about bias. But the fact remain those criteria are used extensively.

CrabCake said:

As much as he has spoken out against the failures of the modernist delusion of objectivity; I'm sure he would be the first to admit that, as with all people, his view of reality is filtered through his personal beliefs. If you really believe that anyone is able to approach this (or any topic) from a legitimately unbiased perspective, you are deluding yourself.



Your claim was that theologians are unwilling to use the same standards of examination historians use. Faced with the fact that they actually do use those same standards extensively, you seem to be switching gears now to some kind of attack on specific theologians. Ironically, your attack on one of them is composed of criticizing him for attacking other theologians.

Whether you agree with them or not, the fact remains that I could continue mentioning names all day long. Larry Hurtado, Robert Gundry, Craig Evans, and Rowan Williams all write extensively on theology and history and make use of all the tools of historical analysis you mentioned. I could go on mentioning names for a long time because the fact is that contemporary New Testament scholarship uses all of the tools you mentioned extensively and it isn't even a new development; theologians have been using the tools of historians since the 1800s, around the time of Schweitzer.

Now, of course you could disagree with specific theologians or with the conclusions they reach or you could cry about bias. But the fact remain those criteria are used extensively.

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It's so much easier for pseudo-intellectuals if they don't have to read a lot of stuff from the other side of an argument or debate, so they just dismiss any arguments from the 'other side' out of hand, without any acknowledgements of their validity re the historical record, as if the biases of on side aren't worth noting while their own biases are perfectly 'rational n stuff'. They prefer dealing from a stacked deck; it saves them a lot of work.

And you're right, there are plenty of Christian scholars who are excellent historians and anthropologists, scientists, intellectuals, etc.

Somerville said:

As Richard Carrier has noted, the apologists often claim to be following the methods used by actual historians, they seldom actually practice what the non-religion oriented scholars know as historical-critical methodology.

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Actually many do, while many 'non-religion oriented scholars' routinely engage in confirmation bias and pseudo-intellectual faddism and peddle pet ideologies all the time; academia is rife with liars, plagiarists, and cranks of all kinds, especially these days, so that claim is hard to justify. An example of a meme that has been repeated for a long time that isn't factual and yet still persists today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth

The myth of the flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages in Europe saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.[1][2]

During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. From at least the 14th century, belief in a flat Earth among the educated was almost nonexistent, despite fanciful depictions in art, such as the exterior of Hieronymus Bosch's famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, in which a disc-shaped Earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere.[3]

According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the Earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology."[4] Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".[5]

Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat-earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution. Russell claims "with extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat", and ascribes popularization of the flat-earth myth to histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving.[6][7][2]

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Somebody was making that claim on this board just recently.

CrabCake said:

As much as he has spoken out against the failures of the modernist delusion of objectivity; I'm sure he would be the first to admit that, as with all people, his view of reality is filtered through his personal beliefs. If you really believe that anyone is able to approach this (or any topic) from a legitimately unbiased perspective, you are deluding yourself.

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Some don't understand the difference between 'rationalism' and 'rationalizations', true.

Your claim was that theologians are unwilling to use the same standards of examination historians use. Faced with the fact that they actually do use those same standards extensively, you seem to be switching gears now to some kind of attack on specific theologians. Ironically, your attack on one of them is composed of criticizing him for attacking other theologians.

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Yes. Just leave out the inconvenient examples that don't fit the narrative and your biases remain intact.

Logicman said:

'mid second century'?

Scholars tell a much different story.

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books

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Yes, it was clearly the teachings in that time period, and before the Roman destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, and clearly by multiple authors, from the oral teachings of the time, and not a hundred years later, and certainly not 'rewritten by Constantine', another ridiculous myth with no factual basis.

Oberon said:

Some don't understand the difference between 'rationalism' and 'rationalizations', true.



Yes. Just leave out the inconvenient examples that don't fit the narrative and your biases remain intact.

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This is true -- the True Believers 'rationalize' their beliefs by claiming the Gospels are true and then from that basic assumption base all of their claims of historicity upon it.

Oberon said:

Yes, it was clearly the teachings in that time period, and before the Roman destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, and clearly by multiple authors, from the oral teachings of the time, and not a hundred years later, and certainly not 'rewritten by Constantine', another ridiculous myth with no factual basis.

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There is ZERO evidence that all of the New Testament books were created in the First Century. Early Second Century church fathers fail to mention the Gospels, relying solely upon some of the Pauline epistles and "oral history"

No rational person thinks Constantine rewrote the New Testament. The Council of Nicaea which he called didn't even establish the canonical texts, the debate as to which texts were to be accepted lasted for a couple hundred more years. The Synod of Hippo Regius in North Africa (393) and the Synod of Carthage (397) were the first two councils which accepted the 27 books of the New Testament known to western nations, but it was only following the Council of Trent in 1546 western Christians positively affirmed their belief that the 27 books we know today were the only ones seen as canonical.

Somerville said:

There is ZERO evidence that all of the New Testament books were created in the First Century.

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That's horse manure.

Scholars date all New Testament books as first-century writings

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books

And all four Gospels and various epistles confirm the resurrection. You have to admit that important truth.

Logicman said:

That's horse manure.

Scholars date all New Testament books as first-century writings

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books

And all four Gospels and various epistles confirm the resurrection. You have to admit that important truth.

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You mean the books of the bible, that were chosen from a larger selection of possible stories, say the same thing and confirm one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith!? Wow...shocker.

They rejected all the entertaining Jesus stories

Then the Lord Jesus calling the serpent, it presently came forth and submitted to him; to whom he said, "Go and suck out all the poison which thou hast infused into that boy"; so the serpent crept to the boy, and took away all its poison again. Then the Lord Jesus cursed the serpent so that it immediately burst asunder, and died.-- First Gospel of Infancy 18:13-16

And, lo, suddenly there came forth from the cave many dragons; and when the children saw them, they cried out in great terror. Then Jesus went down from the bosom of His mother, and stood on His feet before the dragons; and they adored Jesus, and thereafter retired.-- The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Chapter 18


"O evil, ungodly, and foolish one, what hurt did the pools and the waters do thee? Behold, now also thou shalt be withered like a tree, and shalt not bear leaves, neither root, nor fruit." And straightway that lad withered up wholly.-- Infancy Gospel of Thomas 3:2-3

Logicman said:

That's horse manure.

Scholars date all New Testament books as first-century writings

A Chronological Order of The New Testament Books

And all four Gospels and various epistles confirm the resurrection. You have to admit that important truth.

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There are two categories of 'scholars' in the list you continually post: 19th Century academics and 20th Century apologists. Archaeological findings in the 20th Century along with modern re-examination of extant texts buried in the back rooms of museums has pushed the possible dating into a much wider range.

It is generally accepted that 6 of the Pauline epistles (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon) come from a single author and are the most likely to be the oldest proto-Christian works. There is more discussion in regards to Ephesians and Colossians, while 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus are generally seen as having been written by others who used the name of Paul in their attempt to justify the theology by claiming ancient authority.

As we don't have any physical copies from the First Century and very few from the Second Century, at this time we have no way of knowing with certainty as to just how much 'editing' was done to the original compositions. A question that a few scholars are asking about some of the earliest known "quotes" to be found in the writings of early church fathers, supposedly from the Epistles and Gospels; Is it possible that the "quotes" are older than the texts we know today?


Yes, I will admit the New Testament texts "confirm the resurrection" - if one understands that the resurrection wasn't always viewed as having taken place on Earth but in one of the lower celestial spheres.

Ikari said:

You mean the books of the bible, that were chosen from a larger selection of possible stories, say the same thing and confirm one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith!? Wow...shocker.

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Why don't you document all that "choosing" that you claim went on? I'd like to see you document the first and second-century meetings and people who did all that? Include the dates and places. You need to be specific or it's just a bunch of hooey that you're belching out.

Somerville said:

There are two categories of 'scholars' in the list you continually post: 19th Century academics and 20th Century apologists. Archaeological findings in the 20th Century along with modern re-examination of extant texts buried in the back rooms of museums has pushed the possible dating into a much wider range.

It is generally accepted that 6 of the Pauline epistles (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon) come from a single author and are the most likely to be the oldest proto-Christian works. There is more discussion in regards to Ephesians and Colossians, while 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus are generally seen as having been written by others who used the name of Paul in their attempt to justify the theology by claiming ancient authority.

As we don't have any physical copies from the First Century and very few from the Second Century, at this time we have no way of knowing with certainty as to just how much 'editing' was done to the original compositions. A question that a few scholars are asking about some of the earliest known "quotes" to be found in the writings of early church fathers, supposedly from the Epistles and Gospels; Is it possible that the "quotes" are older than the texts we know today?

Yes, I will admit the New Testament texts "confirm the resurrection" - if one understands that the resurrection wasn't always viewed as having taken place on Earth but in one of the lower celestial spheres.

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Well, the resurrection in the Gospels was not of heaven, because Christ appeared physically to his disciples, ate fish with them, and asked Thomas to put his finger in Jesus' wounds.

In addition, we have the earliest mention of the resurrection in a first-century epistle.

Earliest Mention of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ « The Righter Report

"While the word “received” (a rabbinical term) can also be used in the New Testament of receiving a message or body of instruction or doctrine (1 Cor.11:23; 15:1, 3; Gal. 1:9, 12 [2x], Col 2:6; 1 Thess 2:13; 4:1; 2 Thess 3:6), it also means means “to receive from another.” This entails that Paul received this information from someone else at an even earlier date. 1 Corinthians is dated 50-55 A.D. Since Jesus was crucified in 30-33 A.D. the letter is only 20-25 years after the death of Jesus. But the actual creed here in 1 Cor. 15 was received by Paul much earlier than 55 A.D.

As Scholar Gary Habermas notes: “Even critical scholars usually agree that it has an exceptionally early origin.” Ulrich Wilckens declares that this creed “indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.” (8) Joachim Jeremias calls it “the earliest tradition of all.” (9) Even the non-Christian scholar Gerd Ludemann says that “I do insist that the discovery of pre-Pauline confessional foundations is one of the great achievements in the New Testament scholarship.”