Who wrote the Gospels and when? Bart Ehrman vs Peter J Williams

Bart Ehrman & Peter J Williams debate the authorship of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life.

This is an extract of agnostic Bible scholar Bart Ehrman and Peter J Williams debating the reliability of the Gospels.

The Big Conversation is a unique video series from Unbelievable? featuring world-class thinkers across the Christian and atheist community. Exploring science, faith, philosophy and what it means to be human. 

The Big Conversation Season 2:

The Big Conversation Season 1:


The Big Conversation is produced by Premier in partnership with the Templeton Religion Trust
 

[ericsonofjohn]

if Acts was written after AD 70, why did Luke not mention Peter or Paul's death? Or Nero's persecution of christians?

[fernandopaulus]

in BArt's opening, he missed one key point that Luke opens with, Luke says he writes his account to confirm what they have..

[batman]

Even if the gospel writers didn’t speak Greek, most ancient writers had scribes. They didn’t literally write everything down themselves. Most likely, they were written in Greek because that was the most accessible language at the time.

[jamaicanification]

i'm not gonna lie. As a Christian myself who's interested in history and theology I feel like, though both made good points, Bart was more willing to follow the evidence where it leads(even if I don't agree with all of his conclusions). Let me illustrate it like this. If the evidence pointed to say St Luke getting the dates right about the time of Jesus's birth, Bart would follow the evidence to that point. If the evidence pointed in the opposite direction, Bart would follow it to that point. I can't say the same thing with guys like Peter J Williams(who i respect) and other apologist. If the evidence pointed to St Luke getting those dates right, they would say this confirms our point. If the evidence points in the opposite direction, if feel as if they would come up with apologetic gymnastics to try and cover that point. In other words, I feel as if sometimes apologists are more susceptible to confirmation bias. You see this also in this clip on the dating of the Gospels

[Acts-]

Well if translation is such an issue, I'll assume Plato, Socrates, Galileo, etc. are also unusable...translation you see...🙄

[coolmuso]

This new phenomenon concerning who wrote the Gospels never seemed to be a problem with the early Church Fathers. We have very good reasons to think that the Gospels are in fact written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

[ewankerr]

Both give simple clear explanations of their views. Many writers /historians write about events they witnessed thirty or forty years ago.

[glyemhouse]

The video ended before any discussion, let alone any conclusion could be reached. Also. The title is misleading. It makes you think you are going to hear evidence for the authorship of the gospels, when it never gets to that topic. It only discusses the possible timing of the writing of the gospels.

[Toy_House]

The Quran 2:79 says:
"And woe to those who write the book with their
own hands and then say: "This is from Allah
(God)." To traffic with it for a miserable price!
So woe to them for what their hands do write,
and woe to themfor what they earn thereby!"

[iamjakebryant]

DIRECT BART QUOTES:

“The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”

“We can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament with reasonable, though not complete, accuracy. The vast majority of changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away, the most common changes are simple slips of the pen, errors in copying.”

“The more I studied the manuscript tradition of the New Testament, the more I realized just how radically significant it was that we have thousands of copies. The New Testament is far better attested than any other book from antiquity in terms of the number of surviving manuscripts.”

“With the abundance of manuscripts that we have, scholars are able to reconstruct the original text with a high degree of accuracy, even if we can’t always be absolutely certain about every word.”

[paulrock]

One thing both left out. Jesus told his disciples (Apostle's) I am sending the Holy Spirit to teach/guide bring back to your remembrance the thing I have told you/taught you/spoke to you about. With the Holy Spirit doing these thing, I doubt if the time is as important as the who. (Holy men of God) chosen by Jesus to bring the gospel to in entire world. I also feel the same Holy Spirit was present as always when the (Bible) became what we know it today. If God created all things, He can also preserve his word, so he can go back & say my Word will not return to me void. I do believe if we don't have it all, we have enough of as Paul put it, (to sustain ourselves in the faith with a good foundation). Takes more than just a Bible as well, it takes a correct relationship with the Father through Jesus. Things come with time (mature spirit), give yourself time even Peter spoke where will we go, We know you have the Words of eternal life. Paul even had Peter back up his writings in 2 Peter 3:15-16 as well.

[bromponie]

Within less than 165 years, more than *20* sources attributed or linked the fourth Gospel to the "disciple", "apostle" and/or "John".

That's a lot, and it astounds me how people just sweep this under the rug.

[bibleburner]

The gospels were written anonymously, written in the third person, and written decades after Jesus' purported death.

[MarkusGhambari]

In my view, it doesn't matter. It's not my responsibility to make sure God has protected his words or not or how he's protected them or who he's chosen to write them down and copy, etc. These are all God's responsibility not mine. My responsibility is to simply call upon him and believe what he says. I was raised Muslim and when I grew up I found out about the Bible and then called upon God and he led me out of Islam and pointed me to the Bible.

[geoweb]

Rather than Mark’s Gospel, the timeframe of the writing of Luke’s Gospel can be established with a higher degree of confidence.

The Book of Acts is clearly a continuation of the Gospel According to Luke. So if we can establish when Luke wrote Acts, we can infer that Luke was written a short time prior. So when was Acts written? The Book of Acts is a series of historical events and ends with the Apostle Paul in Rome under house arrest awaiting trial before the Roman emperor Nero. There is no mention of the destruction of the Jewish Temple (AD 70), Paul and Peter’s martyrdom (~AD 66), persecution under Nero (~AD 64), nor the martyrdom of James, the half-brother of Jesus. The most obvious reason for these omissions is that the events had not yet occurred. So when did James die? Josephus, an early Jewish historian, records James’ death:

“Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned. . . .”1

Porcius Festus and Lucceius Albinus were governors of Judea, and Josephus reports that James died between their reigns. So when did Festus die? British scholar F.F. Bruce concludes it was AD 62, three months before Albinus took office.2 When did Albinus take office? Emil Schürer, a German theologian, hones in as follows:

“The date of Albinus’s succession to office may be gauged from B.J. [Josephus’ Jewish War] vi 5, 3 (300-9). Albinus was already procurator four years before the outbreak of the war, and over 7 years and 5 months before the destruction of Jerusalem, when, at the Feast of Tabernacles, a certain prophet of doom, Jesus son of Ananias, made his appearance. These two dates point to the time of Sukkoth in A.D. 62. Albinus must therefore have assumed office at the latest during the summer of A.D. 62.”3

Albinus was on his way from Alexandria to Jerusalem, a trip measured in weeks. So James was martyred just prior to Albinus’ arrival, no later than the summer of AD 62. Thus, Luke completed the Book of Acts prior to the summer of AD 62. Luke’s Gospel can be reasonably dated to AD 58-60.

1 Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 538.

2 F. F. Bruce, New Testament History (1969; repr., Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1980), 347.

3 Emil Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, ed. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Matthew Black, trans. T. A. Burkill et al. rev. ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1973), 1:468.

[randypacchioli]

No reason not to believe in the traditional view of Mark in the 50’s, Matthew and Luke in the 60’s and John around 80 ad.

[pleaseenteraname]

I think that John wrote his gospel. But when it comes to the others I’m pretty undecided to me it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, whether or not they were actually written by who they’re attributed to or they’re written by scribes of the apostles.

I surprisingly disagree with Peter J Williams here more than I do Ehrman, I think it makes perfect sense of the gospels were written originally anonymously and then given names later, Greg Evans suggests that they could’ve been composed anonymously originally and written anonymously so they could prevent being persecuted by the Romans.

[teachpeace]

Everything Bart said is what we learned in the first year of seminary. He’s right on.

[Hikmalaaf]

I wonder why the translation book is used as a reference for people to study their religion, why don't we learn to use the first language of Bible which makes us know more about the book itself, We know humans have many points of view, right? that's why there are so many differences between multiple translations Paul, Luke, Jhon and other's translation

[IsaacsCOOLwhenitsHOT]

As a Christian who has rejected fundamentalism for a fuller faith in Jesus and not in the box I believe he must fill, I appreciate Bart Ehrmen’s scholarship on this. For those who’s faith may be shaken by Ehrmen’s comments, listen to the “Ask NT Wright Anyting” podcast on the Infallibility of Scripture. Ehrmine said he was a Christian for many years still after learning all of this stuff, but what really took him from his faith was theodicy, or the problem of evil.