Some Early Fragments Leading to Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament

I've received interest in earlier work that led to Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament. There seems to especially be interest now that it's being advertised in the Baker Academic Spring Catalogue. It might surprise people to learn that I have in fact published nothing focused on the dates of the New Testament, at least not via traditional academic channels. This is largely because I was so focused upon writing the book itself, and also because the entire point of the book is to cover all twenty-seven books of the NT corpus (as well as 1 Clement, Didache, Epistle of Barnabas, and Shepherd of Hermas) in a single volume. Cognizant that my judgment on (say) 1 Timothy could affect my judgment on (say) the Gospel of Luke—and vice versa—I was reluctant to publish anything on the matter of the dates of the NT corpus until I had covered all of them.

This having been said, I did just over five years ago blog my way through John A.T. Robinson's Redating the New Testament, the immediate predecessor to my own Rethinking. These posts lay out some of my own, relatively early thinking on the matter of the dates of the New Testament. (I say "relatively early," because by the time that I blogged through Robinson, I had already been off and on working on what became Rethinking for the better part of a decade). Here are the relevant posts (those in quotation marks are quoting titles from Robinson's Redating):


There's also this more recent post, which again engages with Robinson but which I think helps bring out my own thinking on matters fairly well: "Robinson's Neronian Error"

Some caveats are in order. First, the primary purpose of these posts was to engage with Robinson. Nonetheless, they do frequently give a sense of my own thinking. This however leads to a second point: they give a sense of my own thinking...five years ago. Most notably, I wrote this before I made the conceptual "breakthrough" that was organizing the relevant data in terms of synchronization, contextualization, and authorial biography. (This breakthrough actually occurred in writing this blog, and only subsequently did I realize that it would allow me to much more effectively organize and present the evidence and arguments in Rethinking. It actually required a significant restructuring of the monograph, although much of the argumentation remained the same).

I believe that I have collected the most relevant posts for giving some insight into my thinking. As I said, they are older, and persons who read these posts carefully as well as Rethinking when it comes out will notice changes in my thinking. But I also think it's worth preserving our earlier thought on matters, as it helps us see how we've developed.

[Addendum: it's been pointed out that Jonathan Bernier, “When Paul Met Sergius: An Assessment of Douglas Campbell’s Pauline Chronology for the Years 36 to 37,” Journal of Biblical Literature 138 (2019): 829–43, is also of relevance. I didn't include reference to it above, as it does not address the dates of the NT directly, but yes, it is indeed related].

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