The sayings of Jesus and the dating of the Gospels
Posted: February 4th, 2009, 3:54 am
I was thinking about this today. And keep in mind I know nothing about New Testament scholarship. From what I can tell, Mark is the earliest gospel, dated somewhere around 70 AD. Let's suppose that Mark is, instead, written ten years after Christ's death. Assuming that, how likely is it that the sayings of Jesus are accurately recorded? If ten years had passed since I was walking the shores of Galilee with Jesus, I would have a really hard time writing down exactly what Jesus said on this or that day. I think a very dramatic saying would stick with me, but all the little conversations would totally slip my mind.
I had a teacher who I recently took three classes with (about a year and a half of time), and if you asked me to write down some of the things he said ten years later, I simply couldn't do it. I can only think of maybe a page of stuff right now, and I was just in his class in December.
I've never seen this addressed in apologetics, but of course I haven't looked very hard either. Would the response be that the Gospels are inspired and so Christians can rest assured that Jesus' sayings are accurate? Or am I just wrong to assume that the Gospel writers couldn't have remembered all these subtle sayings of Jesus? Remember that I'm assuming only ten years have passed when Mark is writing his Gospel, but in reality it's probably around 30 or 40 years for Mark, and even more for the others.
I had a teacher who I recently took three classes with (about a year and a half of time), and if you asked me to write down some of the things he said ten years later, I simply couldn't do it. I can only think of maybe a page of stuff right now, and I was just in his class in December.
I've never seen this addressed in apologetics, but of course I haven't looked very hard either. Would the response be that the Gospels are inspired and so Christians can rest assured that Jesus' sayings are accurate? Or am I just wrong to assume that the Gospel writers couldn't have remembered all these subtle sayings of Jesus? Remember that I'm assuming only ten years have passed when Mark is writing his Gospel, but in reality it's probably around 30 or 40 years for Mark, and even more for the others.