A lot of them hang their hat on a work by John A. T. Robinson, since they view him as just an unbiased scholar who was looking at the evidence, and concluding appropriately.
Robinson is not an unbiased scholar who is just looking at the facts. He was a liberal who did not believe in the second coming of Christ, but rather wanted to convince Christians that Jesus came to show the new age of God, which he defined as love, and that all other references to the coming of Christ referred to A.D. 70, and not to a future event. In other words, he had a similar belief to that of Preterists in that he did not believe in a literal second coming, and wanted to prove it by dating the New Testament the way that he did.
His central thesis is that if certain New Testament books were written after the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, much more would have been made of the event within them. Their virtual silence on the subject indicates, according to Robinson, that the event had not yet happened.
The problem with this argument is that (a) there are numerous Christian writings in the first and second century that all scholars agree are written after the event in A.D. 70, and yet, they do not mention the event either and do not make it the same sizeable issue that Robinson and Preterists do. It simply did not mean as much to early Christians, and so they did not mention it. (b) The New Testament books are addressing different issues that have been brought up in the church, and there are numerous historical events relating to themselves and to the Jews they do not mention. An argument from silence does not prove that an event had not yet occurred. It simply proves that such and such an author was concerned about other issues and so talked about them in the absence of talking about other events like the destruction of Jerusalem. (c) The point that many scholars make is that Matthew and Luke do make mention of the event in retrospect due to their more detailed description of the event than Mark has.[1] Jesus predicts the event as many the prophets predict future events, i.e., in more ambiguous terms. Robinson attempts to downplay and deny that these are ex eventu accounts, but Mark does, in fact, give us a basis for seeing the earlier form of the Olivet Discourse, and it is absent of these details. Luke describes it very clearly in his Olivet Discourse (even displaying a desire to distinguish the event from the ultimate climactic end, since his Gentile audience may not understand apocalyptic speech), and Matthew describes it in Jesus’ parable of the wicked tenants in 22:7, which is an allusion to an event that has already occurred and with which his audience would be familiar, not a prophecy of a future event. (d) About two-thirds of the New Testament is written before A.D. 70. Only a third within the corpus are written afterward (e.g., Matthew, Luke-Acts, John, Hebrews, Jude, 1–3 John, Revelation), and most of them (e.g., Matthew, Luke, Acts,[2] Revelation) seem to describe or have an echo of the event in their works. Hence, Robinson’s main argument for an early date of the New Testament as a whole fails to find a solid support, which is why the overwhelming majority of scholars do not accept it.
In fact, as said before, both Matthew and Luke make it a point to separate a lot of the original discourse out and place it elsewhere, indicating a desire to distinguish between the final consummation of the age and the destruction of Jerusalem. Luke, for instance, presents the final coming in a separate place in 17:22–37, and Matthew makes it a point to distinguish that event with the second coming by arguing that “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (24:14). He also argues that Christ’s coming will occur “after” the destruction of Jerusalem, although in typical apocalyptic/prophetic form, he places the one immediately after the other (v. 29). Likewise, Luke expresses the fact that there is more than one day of the Son of Man, and the final one that the disciples long to see the most, will not be seen by them (17:22).
All of this is likely due to the fact that, after the event had occurred, it was necessary to distinguish the two events for those who might confuse them, especially Luke, since his audience is a Gentile magistrate who may be unaware of the regular convention of prophetic/apocalyptic speech in the ancient Near Eastern world, Hebrew Bible, and Second Temple Judaism that combines the macrocosmic event with the microcosmic event. It is not necessary to distinguish them in such a way in Mark, as the event had not occurred yet, and it was more ambiguous as to whether both would occur at the same time (no one knew the day or hour, as Christ said, so it could have occurred at that time as well). Once the microcosmic event had occurred, however, and the macrocosmic one had not, it became necessary to distinguish them while also maintaining the integrity of the original pronouncement.
These factors indicate that Matthew and Luke, as most scholars would argue, are written after A.D. 70, not before it.
Likewise, in the case of Luke, distinguishing Christians from Jews, as he does in the Book of Acts, would be something necessary to do after the Jews lost their toleration by the Romans. Luke not only argues in the book that Christians are not a political threat, as concluded by various officials in the book, but also that they are not like the rebellious Jews who continually stir up trouble, both for Romans and for Christians. The condemnation of Jews at the end of the book makes it clear that the time of their grace period had already ended and that God was reaching out now to the nations. This all may be an indication that the book was written after, not before, the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
Other indicators in other books, such as the Apocalypse of John, indicate that they are written after A.D. 70. If John only considers the Flavian emperors as continuing the line of Caesar, and I have argued that he does, then he tells us that Nero is dead (17:9–10) and presents himself as writing under Vespasian (v. 9), even though this is a literary device used in apocalyptic works where the author speaks as though he is writing from the past about the future, which is really his present. Hence, even though he places himself under Vespasian, the text indicates that he is really writing under Domitian, the eighth king/second manifestation of the beast (vv. 9–12), and is currently suffering in exile together with those persecuted under his reign (1:9, see also 7:14).
Likewise, the opponents in much of Johannine literature (i.e., the Epistles of John, as well as Revelation) have changed from Judaizers attempting to institute Judaism over the Gentile converts to Gnostic antinomians teaching that the moral code and God of the Old Testament should be set aside. Although, this sort of Gnosticism may be present earlier than A.D. 70, the absence of the Jewish concern may provide, albeit not by itself, some evidence toward a cumulative argument for the later dating of the Epistles and Apocalypse of John.
Revelation does use the event, but as a symbolic representation of the destruction of the unfaithful church versus the preservation of the faithful church (11:1–2), indicating that it is an event that has already occurred and can now be used symbolically to an audience that has already observed the literal event.
Robinson attempts to make some lesser arguments about the time period in which Revelation must be written since the author is writing during the sixth king's reign. However, this is simply the misunderstanding of apoclyptic literature. That's much like saying that the apocalyptic books of Enoch, Elijah, Abraham, etc. are all written during their time periods. In fact, the very fact that an author of an apocalyptic book places the writing at a particular date means that said date is actually in the past, not the present. Robinson's argument simply fails on numerous accounts (e.g., the fact that some authors seem to indicate that most if not all of the apostles have died at the time of their writing).
Having said all of that, much of the New Testament likely is written before A.D. 70; but this was never the issue. The issue is whether all of the New Testament books were written beforehand. Given the evidence, as scholars almost universally agree, the truth of this claim is less likely. Furthermore, even if one were to show an earlier dating as more plausible, the books themselves speak of eschatological fulfillment in historical events beyond A.D. 70 (i.e., the destruction of the Roman Empire, the abolition of oppression, suffering, marriage, commerce, etc. in the world).
[1] “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Those who are inside the city must depart. Those who are out in the country must not enter it, because these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away as captives among all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:20–24)
The king was furious! He sent his soldiers, and they put those murderers to death and set their city on fire. (Matt 22:7)
[2] N. H. Taylor argues that Luke-Acts presents an alternate vision of God’s presence among the nations through the gospel as opposed to the Jewish hope of rebuilding the literal temple after its destruction. “The Jerusalem Temple in Luke-Acts” HTS 60 (1&2) 2004, pp. 459–85.
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