[Box on page 56]

Modern Criticism Found Wanting

As an example of the uncertain nature of modern Bible criticism, consider these remarks by Raymond E. Brown about the Gospel of John: “At the end of the last century and in the early years of this century, scholarship went through a period of extreme skepticism about this Gospel. John was dated very late, even to the second half of the 2nd century. As a product of the Hellenistic world, it was thought to be totally devoid of historical value and to have little relation to the Palestine of Jesus of Nazareth . . .

“There is not one such position that has not been affected by a series of unexpected archaeological, documentary, and textual discoveries. These discoveries have led us to challenge intelligently the critical views that had almost become orthodox and to recognize how fragile was the base which supported the highly skeptical analysis of John. . . .

“The dating of the Gospel has been moved back to the end of the 1st century or even earlier.

When Were They Written?

4. (a) Why is it important to know when the books of the Christian Greek Scriptures were written? (b) What are some opinions about the time of writing of the Christian Greek Scriptures?

⁴ It takes time for myths and legends to develop. So the question, When were these books written?, is important. Michael Grant, a historian, says that the historical writings of the Christian Greek Scriptures were begun “thirty or forty years after Jesus’ death.”​⁴ Biblical archaeologist William Foxwell Albright cited C. C. Torrey as concluding “that all the Gospels were written before 70 A.D. and that there is nothing in them which could not have been written within twenty years of the Crucifixion.” Albright’s own opinion was that their writing was completed “not later than about 80 A.D.” Others come up with slightly different estimates, but most agree that the writing of the “New Testament” was completed by the end of the first century.

5, 6. What should we conclude from the fact that the Christian Greek Scriptures were written not too long after the events they record?

⁵ What does this mean? Albright concludes: “All we can say is that a period of between twenty and fifty years is too slight to permit of any appreciable corruption of the essential content and even of the specific wording of the sayings of Jesus.”​⁵ Professor Gary Habermas adds: “The Gospels are quite close to the period of time which they record, while ancient histories often describe events which took place centuries earlier. Yet, modern historians are able to successfully derive the events even from these ancient periods of time.”​⁶