Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[Aractus]

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Really? I gave you a completely straightforward answer. Inscriptions can be forged, just about anything can be forged.

You seem to be obsessed with dates as if they prove something. Your responses are becoming more and more lethargic as you go on.

Perhaps you are trying to respond to too many people at once. A self proclaimed skeptic of text such as youself must know that The Bible can be authentically dated, and the things written in it can still be false.

For whatever reason, you have chosen not to be skeptical of this. It is my guess that you have been blinded by confirmation bias and your beliefs are immune to revision.

Your position is indistinguishable from a delusion at this point. I don't think anything constructive will come from this exchange.

Thank you for your time.

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No, I responded to each person individually, and you never addressed any of the important points that I raised. Goodbye.

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Actually, I agree. I see what you've done here. You've used folklore, assumed everything about it to be true and then created artificial dates that conform to your assumptions.

No, as I already admitted I've changed my mind on some of these things multiple times. I've especially changed it over whether Mark or Matthew was written first, and when they were written. I had believed, for a very long time, that they were written in the 50's AD, but closer and more extensive examination has made me more convinced that it's not possible to date Matthew later than 45 AD.

Nothing to do with folklore. Nothing to do with what others believe (every pastor I know I would have multiple disagreements with in terms of these things, I was NOT taught what I believe).

As an aside, I especially love the way you can tout scholarly consensus when it suits you and then ignore it or discount it when it doesn't. Scholarly consensus on the dates of authorship, which actually are generous to Christians as they use the earliest possible dates, is Mark around 70 CE and the others came later.

I provide references, and you don't. That's the difference between you and me.

Do you know why they date Mark later than 70AD? I do.

It's because a church father in the 2nd century wrote down that John Mark wrote his Gospel from memory from the testimony of Peter, after Peter had died - and then you have another church father saying Peter dies by crucifixion c. 65 AD. Had he not said "after Peter died" then the dating would be far less contained, and you would have scholars saying 45-55 AD and scholars saying 70-80 AD.

Considering the comment that follows this, I don't understand how you could possibly firmly argue a later date.

The authorship of the Gospels is actually quite dubious, even among Christian Bible scholars. The NRSV 3rd Edition (Oxford University Press) states in it's introduction of Mark and Luke that their authorship is given by "tradition" and "scholars find little evidence to support this claim". In particular with Luke, "little is known of him" except that he was believed to be a physician traveling with Paul.

Thankyou, I agree, and this only strengthens my argument that the gospel could not have been written later than c. 45 AD.

But you employ this beautifully backward reasoning to establish your preferred early dates seemingly, judging by your post, in the following manner:

1. ASSUMPTION: The Bible is true
2. ASSUMPTION: The attributed authorship is accurate
3. ASSUMPTION: The folklore about the Bible and its attributed authors are true
4. COROLLARY: The dates couldn't be later than X because otherwise it wouldn't fit with the folklore and we know the folklore is true (see 3).
5. CONCLUSION: Getting the early dates you propose

Nice straw man.

As I said, I work backwards from LUKE. Luke can be reliably dated. That's it. I never said that anything about Luke, John or Paul's epistles is working backwards from anything else. If you really want to work backwards for Luke, not that I do, you could ask about the double-tradition with Josephus. Just like "Q", Josephus and Luke had to have a "common written source" (maybe it was "Q"), or one was based on the other. Almost no one believes that Luke is based on Josephus, thus we know he had to have what Josephus has, meaning it can't be written later than Antiquities, 95 AD.

But if Luke was written in c. 90 AD then: why doesn't he include the siege of Jerusalem, why doesn't he include the deaths of Peter Paul and others who have been martyred by then, and why does he end Acts c. 61 AD?

Let me throw a monkey wrench in some of your assumptions. First, would you agree that ...? :

1. Luke wrote The Gospel According to Luke
2. Luke wrote The Acts of the Apostles

If so, I'd like to ask a few other questions. Would you agree that ...? :

1. The event where the resurrected Jesus, after appearing to his followers, rose up into the sky is a rather important and memorable detail in the story
2. If Luke wrote both books, than both books should agree on that point

Now, when did Jesus rise up into the sky after his resurrection?

Gospel of Luke: On the day of his resurrection

Luke 24:50-51
And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

Acts of the Apostles: 40 days after the resurrection
Acts 1:3-9 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
...And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

I could go into more contradictions between the Gospel of Luke and Acts but that should suffice for now. I look forward to reading the mental contortions you engage into square this circle.

Look, I catch a lot of Christians out who don't know how many times wine was drunk at the last supper - because they follow traditional communion which has it only once after the bread is broken. No pastor, ever, has been able to explain to me when I've asked - "why don't we begin communion with wine?" Besides of course agreeing that it's traditional, and that yes wine is drunk, then the bread is broken, and then more wine is drunk at the last supper, we have two accounts that fully agree with that, but the other accounts leave out the first passing of the wine.

Why do I mention this? Because of the two accounts that have the same version, and they are Luke and (shock-horror) 1 Corinthians.

Have I proved my point yet?