Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "The Diary Of Julius Caesar"
channel.
-
5
-
@RissaFirecat They weren't written by eyewitnesses or those who interviewed eyewitnesses. The canon was essentially completed when many who had known the authors were still alive. This "Gospel of Judas" referenced, for instance was written after all the principals were long dead and the canon was compile.
It is true that in the early part of the 20th century, before the most recent manuscript discoveries were made, and when the oldest manuscripts for the New Testament books we had were hundreds of years after the events referred to, there were "Documentary Hypothesis" theories of the origin of many NT books promulgated by prominent German "higher critical scholars", the gospels in particular, which on the basis of some unsound internal speculation, asserted that much of the NT was an edited compilation of earlier sources, but this line of speculation depends on centuries having passed between the events and the books. This entire body of scholarship was swept away by later document finds which proved that there had not been time for such a process of legend and editing to have taken place before the books were extant.
Here are the dates for the most important (earliest) manuscripts (MSS) we have for the NT books:
Important Date
Manuscript Original MSS Approx.
Papyri Contents Written Date Time Span Location
p52 John 18:31-33, circa circa 29 yrs John Rylands Library,
(John Rylands 37-38 A.D. A.D. Manchester, England
Fragment) 96 125
P46 Rom. 5:17-6:3, 5-14; 50's- circa Approx. Chester Beatty Museum,
8:15-25, 27-35; 10:1-11, 70's A.D. 150 yrs Dublin & Ann Arbor,
22, 24-33, 35; 16:1-23, 200 Michigan, University
25-27; Heb.; 1 & 2 Cor., of Michigan library
(Chester Eph., Gal., Phil., Col.;
Beatty 1 Thess. 1:1, 9-10; 2:1-3;
Papyrus) 5:5-9, 23-28
P66 John 1:1-6:11, 70's circa Approx. Cologne, Geneva
(Bodmer 35-14:26; A.D. 130 yrs
Papyrus) fragment of 14:29-21:9 200
P67 Matt. 3:9,15; circa Approx. Barcelona, Fundacion
5:20-22, 25-28 A.D. 130 yrs San Lucas Evangelista,
200 P. Barc.1
Note that nobody claims that MSS are actually the originals penned by the authors, these are copies, so the books must have been written earlier than these MSS. The search for MSS is ongoing, of course and the difficult analysis of such finds as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are small fragments of papyri in jars, is ongoing. Earlier MSS or fragments of NT books may be found or identified at any time.
4