On "Redating the New Testament" by John A. T. Robinson *****

This compelling book illustrates for me something that I've thought about in some way or another since I was a teen-ager, namely how does one ever really know something? That isn't Robinson's point, of course, but what he does demonstrates this basic idea. What he does is this: Rather than accepting the later dates for the New Testament books presented by biblical scholars (of the nonconservative variety), Robinson starts with the premise that all the books were written before 70 A.D. because of their lack of addressing of what would have been a major event to religiously minded Jewish folks in the first century--namely, the destruction of the Jewish temple.

Now, many scholars present the later dates for certain books based on the idea that they actually do address this--most specifically in the Gospels. There is the whole Matthew 24 prophecy that Jesus renders. For a secularist, such a prophecy coming to fruition demands that the material had to have been written after the event, the prophecy a way of seeming to be profound and mystic when one is not. Robinson sees this as a poor argument, because the predictions in the Gospels about the Temple's demise are not of the specific variety that one would expect were one writing after the fact. Some items in the prophecy didn't come true in the exact manner Jesus predicted; no dates are presented, and in general the prophecy is rather vague. (Hebrews is an interesting case in point too, since if it were written after the fact, why not just point out the Temple's destruction in denoting Jesus as the replacement for the high priest?)

Having banished the few arguments for later writing of some of the books, Robinson follows through on his premise, presenting arguments for just when each book could have been written--all of them before 70 A.D. And all this goes to show what I often think/thought about as a young man--how assumptions, prejudices, and premises all shape our point of view before we even start into a topic. Start with an assumption that certain New Testament books must be written later, and suddenly all of them take on a different cast; start with another premise, and suddenly all of them fall much earlier. What is the truth of the date of writing? Who can possibly know?