But that is the same 'conventional scholarship' that argues without evidence that Jesus Christ was a historical person, and that accepts unscientific miraculous claims. The evidence in terms of early citation and use of the Gospels point to later dates than convention assigns.Doulos wrote:The dates I posted are the range within respected scholarship, and yes they are considered very 'conventional'.
It is not just the question of the provenance of the prophecy of the destruction of the temple in 70AD, but also the thinness of any corroboration.
Part of the problem probably lies with your assumption of a 70's date, which is mainly predicated upon a view that prophesy cannot be real, and so any mention of future events must indicate a lie and future authorship. The problem is that this view is begging the question, and assumes something which is then used as its own proof.
You don't seem to get my point. Yes there were Christian traditions, which probably circulated by spoken word among secret societies. For example the whole Q tradition suggests early collections of sayings. But these traditions were not attributed to the four gospel authors until quite late, and there is a systematic tendency for Christian readers to apply their rose coloured apologist goggles to see things in the text that are simply not there, such as a historical Jesus in Paul.You still assert that there is "absence of definitive early citation," and seem to be ignoring the evidence to the contrary that I posted:
- Ignatius (30-110 AD) quotes Matthew, John, Acts, Romans, I Corinthians, Ephesians, Phillipians, Galatians, Colossians, James, I and II Thessalonians, I and II Timothy, and I Peter.
- 'Epistle of Barnabas' (dated 70-130 AD) cites Matthew, and Mark
- 'Shepherd of Hermas' (dated 80-90 AD) cites John, the synoptic Gospels, Ephesians, 1 Peter, Hebrews, James and the Book of Revelations.
As you will note, these are not citations of "Christian traditions," but rather citations of the "four Gospels as we have them" as well as other books of the NT. Furthermore, all of these are before Irenaeus.
So Doulos, you think it is acceptable to challenge an argument I did not make in order to question one I did? Before Irenaeus, ie until more than a century after they were supposedly written, there was no definitive Gospel text, and we find that the authors you cite have all sorts of ideas that clash with the later historicist orthodoxy, and often quote the text in ways that suggest they are using oral tradition rather than written works. The very late anthologising casts doubt on the date of writing and the authenticity of the Gospels.You seem to be confusing the collection of a canon with the existing of evidence. Merely because a person does not cite all "four gospels by name as a collection" does not mean they have not been cited separately, or without name (which was not a normal classical practice as you should well know). It is not a 'perfectly reasonable restriction,' but rather an attempt to ignore evidence. For shame Robert!
If documents about the American Civil War were only made public as a collection today, with no clear evidence of their provenance other than hidden oral memory and sketchy mentions by early writers, we would hardly consider them reliable. But the Christian situation is even worse, since the ancient Christians had a clear agenda to distort and invent history.
Claiming to be agnostic is just a trick that Ehrman uses to gain public credibility for his religious agenda. If Ehrman was not a secret believer he would not present the baseless sloppy arguments of Did Jesus Exist? He is driven more by emotion than reason in a classic religious manner.I would also suggest you not imply that Ehrman is a 'liar for the lord,' as he's made no secret of his own agnosticism.