The Composition of Scripture, Part 2: New Testament

From our perspective, a rough summary of the accepted dates would be as follows: James at 44; Galatians at 49; 1-2 Thessalonians at 49 and 51; 1-2 Corinthians at 54 and 55; Romans between 55-58; Mark at 57 (though another model has this at 63); Luke at 60; the Prison Letters, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon at 60; Acts at either 61 or 62; then the Pastoral Letters, 1-2 Timothy in 61 and 63, with Titus in between at 62. 1-2 Peter can be dated as early as 63 and 64, with the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews both situated in the early to mid 60s. Jude can be the same, though could be dated to the 70s. The remainder are those of John—his Gospel and Epistles dated in the 80s up to 90, and Revelation at 90 if one takes that late view. The question of its relationship to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 offers a potential early dating to Revelation prior to that event. At any rate, this at least places the last possible date for the completion of the New Testament canon at about 90 AD. 

Review of Critical Scholarship

Just as we saw with Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis standing at the end of the stream of thought that begins in evolutionary theory, so we must take notice of the same in the New Testament criticism of one Ferdinand Christian Bauer (1792-1860), who traded in his more basic theological liberalism for the popular philosophy of his day, that of G. W. F. Hegel, specifically his Philosophy of History. There were already some very radical criticisms being made of the origins of the Christian faith before the 1840s. But here we must understand what has been called the “dialectical” explanation of history.

In the simplest terms, what Hegel proposed was that each generation has some basic set of beliefs, their “thesis,” and then the next generation counters this: an “antithesis.” As humans evolve in their thinking (notice that this is simply an evolution of reason), we chew the meat and spit out the bones, so to speak, taking the best of the prior thesis-versus-antithesis conflict, and derive a “synthesis” in the next generation. Naturally this becomes the new thesis for that third era, provoking yet another antithesis—and so on, ad infinitum, until one reaches what Hegel called the Absolute, or Spirit (Geist).

Now it just so happens, said Baur, that in the New Testament we find an original faith expressed by the Jerusalem community, represented chiefly by Peter; but then just as suddenly an innovation by this other Apostle Paul. The former was Jewish; the latter Greek in orientation. The former emphasized law and community; the latter grace and the individual. Any cursory reading of Acts or Galatians bears out some sort of conflict between them. What we have finally at Nicaea was the Catholic canon which had removed all of the books that could not resolve this tension. In other words, “Christianity” was the synthesis for which Peter’s Jewish Christianity was the thesis and Paul’s Gentile Christianity was the antithesis.

Against the Baur thesis, we should remember the ways that Acts and Galatians resolve the Judaizer controversy. They do not leave it unresolved. Should anyone object that Acts and Galatians are from the Pauline perspective anyway, so it proves nothing, we can only ask them to produce first century accounts that both champion a “Peter position” against Paul and go on to find widespread acceptance in any Christian community. There is nothing of that kind. Moreover, Peter writes,

“just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:15-16).

But if one may not separate Paul and Peter without such an elaborate theory, perhaps one may try to separate Paul and Jesus. In fact, this was a pet project on the nineteenth century criticism and even popular liberal theology. The idea was to divorce Jesus and Paul by the question of origins: usually either in the quest for the “historical Jesus” or the assertion of the “dogmatic Apostle.” Although some attempted this by claiming that Paul was a Gnostic, or an oriental mystic, to which Machen replied,

“The oriental religions were tolerant of other faiths; the religion of Paul, like the ancient religion of Israel, demanded an absolutely exclusive devotion.”1

Besides, any alleged common ground with Gnosticism usually comes from critics of classical thought in general (and specifically of Platonic thought): people who frankly do not understand what they are criticizing. The ideas of the immortality of the soul, the superiority of eternal things, the excellency of the immaterial aspect of man over the body, the priority of belief over practice, the form of his letters being more propositional than narrative, the emphasis on legal reconciliation with God as foundational to moral transformation—all of these in Paul are said to represent an extreme opposition to Judaism or to Jesus or the other other Apostles specifically by being Gnostic. But these elements are nothing other than necessary implications of monotheism. 

Against the notion that Paul and Jesus preached a “different gospel,” a few facts must be kept in view: First, there was liberal theology’s divorce between doctrine and life. This was simply the consistent application of Kant’s philosophy by Friedrich Schleiermacher. He discarded the importance of orthodoxy for the centrality of feeling.

In the next generation, in his books on The Life of Jesus (1832) and The Christ of History and Jesus of Faith (1865), David Friedrich Strauss took that same upper and lower story of divide as charted out by Kant, placing orthodox Christology above the line in the inaccessible and speculative old world of metaphysics, and leaving us only with the question of what the “real” “flesh and blood” Jesus must have been like and said.

Upon that foundation, it was supposed that whereas Paul spoke of the “truths” of Christianity, Jesus did good deeds and used stories to communicate God’s love. In other words, what we have here are more philosophical presuppositions that interpret the data of the different genres and moments in order to match. Second, there was the aforementioned “form criticism” that tended to divorce those different literary genres into radically different sources. If we put these assumptions together, two divergent schools of thought were read into what would otherwise be recognized as Paul and Jesus simply using two different forms of communication to speak of diverse angles on the same gospel. 

Synoptic Gospels and Acts

The Synoptic Gospels are so named after the Greek words for “with” or “together” (syn) and “visible” (optos). So there is a sense in which Matthew, Mark, and Luke are “seeing together.” Of course this can over-simplify the diversity of Christological focus and literary approach between the three.

However, there is a clear similarity to their approach as compared with John. That fourth Gospel was addressed to a late-first century audience in Asia Minor to show the exalted Christ over the various eastern myths and Gnostic ideas of light and logos, etc. It is commonly supposed that John gives us an exalted Christ, a divine Christ, whereas the Synoptics give us something more primitive. Put in this way, one can see the liberal and higher critical presuppositions behind the dichotomy. On the other hand, we can at least say that John has a driving emphasis on the divine glory, whether in the Person or the work of Christ.

There is also a structural difference. Whereas the Synoptics spend much more time tracing out the earthly ministry of Jesus, the Gospel of John spends a significant section—Chapter 13 to 17—on the Upper Room discourse, the rest (beginning in Chapter 12 with his stay in Bethany) on the events in Jerusalem. So almost half the Gospel is spent either in Prologue explaining the eternal background or else the significance of the work of Christ.

The chronological priority of Mark is an on-again-off-again theory in NT scholarship for about 200 years. There are some good reasons for it, but also one bad one that is usually the leading reason: its size (and thus “primitive” status). There are yet again philosophical assumptions behind this, having exactly nothing to do with anything intrinsic to the text or other external evidence. But leaving all that aside, the answers given in church history vary. Matthew gives a genealogy and in some other ways fitting to go after Chronicles (the last book of the Hebrew canon). There have been other reasons for Matthew’s priority. In his commentary Origen wrote, 

“I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first; and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism. The second written was that according to Mark, who wrote it according to the instruction of Peter, who, in his General Epistle, acknowledged him as a son, saying, ‘The church that is in Babylon, elect together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Mark my son.’ And third, was that according to Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, which he composed for the converts from the Gentiles. Last of all, that according to John.”2

Many in the Middle Ages, including Aquinas, believed it was first written in Hebrew: “For Matthew wrote the Gospel in Hebrew; and for that reason, in his writing he kept in the style of the Jews.”3

By word-count, Luke wrote more of the NT than anyone else, authoring both the Gospel of Luke and Acts. In fact, many scholars have believed that Luke-Acts should be primarily interpreted as one book. Robert Cara believes there is only a few months delay between the two books. Look at Luke 24:45-53 and then Acts 1:1. This all hinges on the singular audience: Theophilus. Along the same lines, scholars have compiled a list of comparative statements in Luke and Acts. As a sample of three: Compare Luke 23:34 and Acts 7:6 (Christ’s and Stephen’s petition to forgive enemies); then Luke 9:9 and Acts 12:2 (James’ martyrdom referring back to the killing in the gospel, both by Herod); and finally, Luke 23:2 and Acts 17:7 (parallel complaints that Jesus and apostles oppose Caesar). 

Archeology increasingly bears out Luke. Every single Greco-Roman title, once doubted, has been found. English scholars typically regard Luke as a historian, Germans as a theologian. We might ask the obvious question: Why cannot it be both? I. Howard Marshall is one conservative scholar who wrote commentaries on Luke and Acts, taking this view.4 We might also ask why German scholars were so quick to make him a theologian. Conzelman, for example, argued that since Luke was a theologian, it is of no significance that he disagrees with Paul! So he asks, “Why was Acts written when other Gospels were not followed up?” Answer: The parousia had not happened, so this prompts a third age, after the first (the Old Testament) and the second (Christ coming). Now the church age had to happen first before Jesus returns. In other words, Luke is coming in afterwards to clean up Paul’s false eschatological expectation. But as always, there are more modernist presuppositions. Luke is biased. Aren’t we all? But there is a subtle assumption that the human author who is most “objective” as to truth has emptied himself of all subjectivity. Neutrality alone can be accurate.

Pauline Epistles

Often, in order to defend Paul’s authorship of his epistles, one must first defend his apostleship. There are three main lines of reason that demonstrate his authenticity: (1) the early circulation of his letters; (2) the confirmation of the other apostles and apostolic writers in the New Testament, concerning both his ministry and writings; and (3) the consistency of his teaching with the other New Testament writings and their theology. Let’s take each of these in turn:

First, the early circulation of his letters. All of Paul’s letters range from 48 to 64 AD. Even the most radical critics of the Bible acknowledge that the earlier letters to the 1-2 Thessalonians (48-49), Galatians (49), 1-2 Corinthians (55-57), and Romans (58), were written by Paul. But all of them were widely quoted, in one form or another, by the earliest Christian writers outside of the Apostolic circle. 

Second, the confirmation of the other apostles and apostolic writers in the New Testament, concerning both his ministry and writings. Luke’s book of Acts chronicles many events in the ministry of Paul, and Peter mentions in his letter, “our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you” (2 Pet. 3:15). So his writing and ministry are attested by the other first century apostles. As a finer point to that, it should be remembered that Acts records Paul interacting with the Jerusalem church on more than one occasion, one at a significant council (Ch. 15), while in Galatians, Paul records those same events. If such were not true, there would have been ample time and many people who would have an interest in refuting it all. 

Third, the consistency of his teaching with the other New Testament writings and their theology. Contrary to the liberal criticism of the nineteenth century, Paul taught the same gospel as Jesus did. The fact that Paul uses different words and employs different arguments is owing to the fact that Paul is writing letters (and thus making tightly packed logical arguments) whereas Jesus is not writing and is having his words recorded, which are largely narrative and parable in form. 

Why are some of Paul's letters disputed? The reasons vary, from (i) anti-supernatural bias, to  (ii) ignorance as to their early dating, to (iii) stylistic differences, to (iv) phrases and concepts that seem different in one letter (or set of letters) than in others. In other words, the critic is making theological or philosophical assumptions rather than appealing to actual evidence to the contrary.

Prison Letters. What is the critical argument against the Pauline authorship of Ephesians? For Werner G. Kümmel, it boils down to what he sees as its clear (1) literary dependence on Colossians, yet (2) substantive theological difference in what was improvised. So, the Ephesians author committed violence to what was Pauline in Colossians, whether by incompetence or deliberate agenda. Notice first that which is less disputable: namely, the similarities:

Note that the first half is a division of Paul’s singular prayer in Ephesians to four scattered locations in Colossians. It is not verbatim and about an understandably persistent desire for all under his care. The second half is just the so-called Roman house code.

As far as divergences that are drawn out, a few common ones are (i) unity in Ephesians 2 and 4, versus completion in Colossians (2:9-10) in terms of what we have in Christ; (ii) the mystery being the union of Jews and Gentiles in Ephesians (3:3-6), yet in Colossians the mystery is “Christ in you” (1:26-27); (iii) Christ is Head over the church in Ephesians 1:22-23, yet Head, or Lord, over all in Colossians 2:15-17; and (iv) Paul is constructive with a softer tone to the Ephesians, yet reactionary toward error with a stronger tone to the Colossians. 

Kümmel added to these that the view of the church in Ephesians is always (a) universal—usually local in Paul’s epistles as a whole—and (b) grounded in “apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20) rather than on Christ, whereas Colossians 2:7 has this ground in Christ. There is also a text-critical problem with “in Ephesus” (1:1). The phrase does not appear in some important early MSS. Thus a circular letter makes sense to the critics.

The orthodox have no problem with a circular letter, but such a letter can be circular while one place (Ephesus) is the ultimate, intended audience. Chrysostom took Pauline authorship of Ephesians for granted.5 In spite of his critical view, Kümmel acknowledged in the last generation that the number of those scholars who accepted Paul’s authorship was “equally high”6 compared to those who rejected it. Raymond Brown was on the opposite end of the same day, claiming as high as “80 percent of critical scholarship”7 against Paul. Note the definition of critical scholarship.

In evaluating the particulars, it is helpful to have the best general principles, as when one Ephesians commentator, Peter O’Brien reminds us that, “we should hold anyone who claims to be the author of any letter coming to us from antiquity to be just that unless there is very strong evidence to the contrary.”8 As to why Ephesians and Colossians should be so similar to begin with, O’Brien replies that this is what we would expect of letters written “within a short time of each other, perhaps no more than a year or two apart.”9

Pastoral Letters. William Barcley wrote that, “Most of the arguments against Pauline authorship come down to four categories: vocabulary, style, theology, and ecclesiology.”10 As to vocabulary, of the roughly 900 words that are used in the Pastorals, 306 are unique to Paul and 175 are nowhere else in the New Testament; yet they are frequent in the second century Christian writers. Though this overlaps with style, William Mounce notes, a more contextual study of these words will show how they naturally fit with the larger theological categories and issues that arise in the other letters.11 As to theology, there is no doctrinal change suggested, but the critics point to Paul’s reactionary precision. Correcting errors is much more emphasized, supposedly reflecting a period where church dogma was more developed. 

How does ecclesiology relate to the critical argument that Paul did not write the Pastorals? The critics say, “that the church structure Paul lays down in the Pastorals (such as, elders who rule, deacons) reflect a more developed church formation than would have been present in Paul’s day.”12 But is this not the whole point of Paul setting it forth? These are Pastoral Letters after all. They are addressed to Paul’s two most famous protégés, Timothy and Titus. What would we expect to be highlighted? It should be remembered that elder rule was set down during Paul’s first missionary journey (cf. Acts 14:23) and that something of a proto-diaconate existed with the appointment of Stephen and the others in Acts 6. So it is also demonstratively false. 

General Epistles

These are also called the “catholic epistles” because they are to universal audiences. For example, Peter’s first letter is addressed to churches in “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1:1), so a group of cities in Asia-Minor.

James is generally regarded to be the first in this group. Bruce Lowe offers five reasons why James’ authorship is valid:

“(1) the letter lacks any of the signs normally attributes to pseudonymity; (2) it contains all telltale discussions one might expect in early Christianity and few that would characterize a later text; (3) James shows great evidence of the traditional sayings of Jesus, placing it alongside other early texts of Christianity; (4) even the way James seems to respond to Paul’s teaching may indicate an earlier time; and (5) there are a number of incidental details suggesting Palestinian provenance.”13

Of course, there is another issue here with authorship. Although it is titled after the author; and there is no qualifier to his name (son of x, etc.). The lack thereof suggests that he is well known. There are three logical options for which James this is: (1) son of Zebedee (one of the original twelve); (2) son of Alpheus (rarer James in early Christianity); (3) brother of Jesus, came to faith late: likely after the resurrection. It was he that became one of the three pillars of the Jerusalem church. 

This third option is the most likely for these reasons. Mark 13:55 refers to him as one of Mary’s sons. John 7 records his [or at least “the brothers”] lack of belief. 1 Corinthians 15:7 cites him as one to whom Christ appeared. It is interesting how prominent he is: “first to James, then to the twelve apostles …” Why is he put in a different category? The letter is early and the conversion of his brother (once an unbeliever) parallels his unlikely conversion to Paul’s. He convenes the Jerusalem council in Acts 15.

Does the treatment of justification in Chapter 2 give any indication on date? No reference to Paul is made, yet it is suggested  that there might be a correction of abuses of Paul’s doctrine? The Council that ruled on this was in 50AD. They would have agreed after this. If, on the other hand, James and Paul had to work out the coherence of their doctrine, then pre-50. Also there was no real Jew-versus-Gentile issue here, so these Christians are just predominantly Jews, and not dealing with that yet. For all these reasons, Kruger puts this as the earliest book: 45 AD. As to provenance, Jerusalem was very likely. He says, “To the twelve tribes in the dispersion” (1:1). But those who date it early reply that he is applying the “twelve” to a Christian audience.

The most objections against the author of any of the general epistles is against Peter. It is said that his Greek is too polished. Bart Ehrmann’s book Forged argues for this. It also rests on the presupposition of widespread illiteracy, especially among rural communities like Galilee, in the ANE. Peter died during the same Neronian persecutions as Paul, so the burden of proof is much more on the one who would posit a later source. One last thing the critics say is that the broader persecution that Peter seems to depict doesn’t happen until Domitian, a good thirty years after Peter’s death. Nero’s persecution wasn’t as widespread. However, this is an imaginative stretch. The type of persecution Peter describes could be limited or sporadic or local. There’s nothing that demands it to be empire-wide. George Eldon Ladd wrote, “It was quite certainly written from Rome—designated as Babylon (5:13)—just before the outbreak of the Neronian persecution.”14

As to Peter’s second epistle, notice that he refers to his prior letter in 3:1, and says “second letter I am writing to you.” Only the circumstances have changed. He is writing from Rome once again. No good reason to think he had moved somewhere else prior to his execution. Critics point to a very late, second century, date and give three reasons: 1. more developed ecclesiology, 2. dashed hopes of the second coming (3:3-13), and 3. direct refutation of millennialism (3:8), which is very popular in the mid-second century.

In reply we would only say that, if it was written in the second century, or later, one would expect to find a revision of the second coming. And yes, Peter acknowledges scoffers about that issue, but he does not concede their premise. In fact, he doubles down, adding to the imagery of Christ’s immanent return the burning up of the cosmos (3:10-12). The fact that many of the early forgeries were making Petrine claims probably explains why the church took so long to verify this letter.

Jude must be mentioned here for its relation to 2 Peter. 19 of the 25 verses in Jude have a parallel in 2 Peter. So, logically, one has three options: 1. 2 Peter copied from Jude; 2. Jude copied from 2 Peter; or 3. Neither copied from each other, but both from a common source—essentially the Catholic Epistles’ version of a “Q” brought in to solve the Synoptic Problem. The first is the most common theory in modern scholarship. Of course, if one thinks 2 Peter was written in the second century, then this becomes an easier choice. Of the second, one can hang his hat on the words of verse 19: “The Apostle said.” 

John’s Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation

There is extremely early evidence that John was the author of both the Gospel and Epistles that bear his name. For instance, there are references by Papias (ca. 125 AD) and Irenaeus (ca. 180 AD) who sat under Polycarp’s teaching. Both Papias and Polycarp were direct disciples of John. We can think of a few internal reasons: (1) The letters have thematic similarities with the Gospel of John; (2) similar words and phrases such as logos, life, light, darkness are used in both Gospel and Letters; (3) and the level of Greek is simple in both – e. g., many present tenses and very few participles. Both were probably written from Ephesus and likely dealing with some proto-Gnostic antagonism. The opening to the First Epistle presupposes that the listeners had already heard the story of Jesus (even in his own words), so there is evidence that this letter was written after the Gospel.

Critics may ask why John mentions his name in the Apocalypse, but not in the Gospel or Epistles. One answer has always been the subtle reference to “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (Jn. 13:23) is partly functioning in this way. But the whole thing is irrelevant for the same reasons as the form-critical objection that the Gospels, Epistles, and Apocalypse are so different from each other that they cannot possibly have the same author. We refer the critic to their own emails—both personal and business—and see if they catch the point.

The author of the Epistles certainly comes across as one who sees himself in the apostolic circle. For instance, “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (1 Jn. 1:1); or “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us” (1 Jn. 4:6).

Finally as to Revelation, here too John was the author. Some amount of early confusion was introduced when Dionysius of Corinth suggested “another John [the elder],” and Eusebius bought into it in the next century. Martin Hengel and Richard Bauckham are among more modern authors who have echoed the same.15 This may be worth remembering in the canon discussion. The aforementioned Papias already referred to the book as Scripture. Here the date is more controversial; but since I have covered the rationale of both sides of that debate in our class on eschatology, I refer the curious to that resource. 

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1. J. Gresham Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1921), 9.

2. Origen, Ante-Nicene Fathers, IX.xvi.ii.ii. (412)

3. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew (Camillus, NY: Dolorosa Press, 2012), 7

4. I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978);  Acts: An Introduction and Commentary, Volume 5 Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008).

5. Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians (NPNF 13:49).

6. Werner Georg Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975), 357.

7. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 620.

8. Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 4.

9. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, 20-21.

10. William B. Barcley, “Introduction to the Pastoral Letters,” in Michael J. Kruger, ed., A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 351.

11. William Mounce, cited in Barcley, “Introduction to the Pastoral Letters”, in BTINT, 351.

12. Barcley, “Introduction to the Pastoral Letters”, in BTINT, 351.

13. Bruce A. Lowe, “James,” in BTINT, 439.

14. George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 641

15. Hengel and Bauckham are cited by Charles E. Hill, “1-3 John,” in BTINT, 487.