How early were the New Testament Gospels written?

The New Testament contains four books that tell the story of Jesus:  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  They are named for the authors ascribed to them by the early church. The books themselves don’t say who wrote them, but there are some internal clues and significant external evidence.

The books of the Bible don’t come with copywrite dates.  Were they written so late that the story had changed? There are different opinions and any opinion on when they were written carries an uncertainty range.  Even given that, the large majority of scholars agree that all were written in the first century.  I will make the case that we can actually place them much earlier.  To do this, I want to start with the books of Luke and Acts. The beginnings of both books make it clear that they were written as a set. Luke can be called the original and the book of Acts, the sequel.

From chapter 13 to the end of the book of Acts, the central character is the Apostle Paul.  His missionary activities are chronicled.  The writer makes it clear that he was with Paul for some of these journeys.  While Luke is not named in the book, this ascription by the early church fits what we know of Paul’s traveling companions.  Any attempt to propose another author needs to account for this clear, deliberate claim from the text.   

While we have no internal clues regarding the timing of the writing of Luke, there is information in Acts that helps.

Timeline for the Life of Paul

Paul’s life provides a backdrop to understanding the writing of Luke and Acts. The Apostle Paul, whose Jewish name was Saul, did not come to Christianity easily.  He was the ultimate skeptic, persecuting and pursuing the early believers whom he considered heretics and blasphemers .   Acts records his testimony of a personal encounter with the risen Jesus.  He made a 180 degree change from persecutor to one who boldly proclaimed Jesus as the risen messiah.  There were no gospels to read, but the followers of the Way, as Christians were then known, recited to him the oral statements that they used to learn and teach about Jesus.  One such tradition is preserved in I Corinthians 15:1-7, describing the basics of Jesus death and resurrection.

Paul’s calling to preach Jesus took him around modern day Turkey and Greece, and included him being stoned, beaten and imprisoned. He finally got an expense paid trip to a Roman prison. He was there under house arrest, awaiting trial before Nero when the book of Acts closes.  At this point, Nero had not begun to persecute the Christians so it is reasonable that Paul was released for a period of time.  After the Great Fire of Rome, Nero tried to blame the Christians.  This led to the death of Paul and Peter in approximately 66 to 68 AD along with many other believers.

Timeline for the Life of Luke

Now, what can we tell about Luke’s life?

We don’t know when Luke was born but tradition has it that Luke was martyred in 84 AD. Notice that from about 51 AD to the end of Paul’s life, Luke was with him much of the time. If Luke wrote these books, then it happened before 84 AD. If the book of Luke was written before Acts and if it is also true that Acts records events occurring as late as 62 AD, then Acts could not have been written before that point. 

Surely, one option that has to be considered is that Luke wrote Acts in 62 AD.  Many scholars view Luke as having been written between 65 to 85 AD.  If that is true, why did he end it abruptly with events in 62 AD?   Arguments that are made for the later date include:

1. The current book of Acts basically fills one scroll and the argument is made that the book could not have been longer because of the space limitation.
2. The author’s purpose was to fulfill Acts 1:8. Paul by reaching Rome symbolically fulfilled the “ends of the earth”. Some say that he intended to show the gospel proceeding unhindered.

I don’t see either of these as convincing.  The author chose what information to include and later events could have been written to fit his purpose even more strongly than ending it here.  He could have chosen to leave out events to give space to allow him to include the martyrdom of Paul and Peter and shown that these deaths did not stop the spread of the gospel.  This is all hypothetical.

Regardless of the exact dates or the order in which they were written,  the Gospels were all from the first century.  This figure shows possible date ranges for the various gospels using the solid boxes with names inside them.  This shows  a consensus given by a wide range of scholars. These specific ranges are provided by Dr Timothy Paul Jones.  I highly recommend his books: “Misquoting Truth” and “How We Got the Bible”.  Extending to the left are lighter colored boxes that show the range proposed by more conservative scholars.  Also shown are dates that I prefer.  The key to these dates is dating the book of Acts.  If it was written in 62 AD, then it is clear that Luke was written earlier.

While there are proponents who think Matthew was written first, most scholars consider Mark to have been the earliest gospel.  Early Christian writers tell us that Mark was a protégé of Peter and in addition, internal evidence suggests that Peter was the source that Mark used.  I posit that his was written around 50 AD.   This gives time for it to have been circulated and available for Matthew and Luke to draw from. 

Most agree that John was written later.  While it fills in gaps in Jesus’ ministry, it was written primarily to teach theology.  

This all tells us  that scholars date the gospels to between 45 to 95 AD, but there is more to consider.  By today’s standards, Jesus was old news by the time the books were written.  We really can’t use modern news standards to judge these.  In fact, by ancient standards, these are incredibly close to the events they describe.