Redating the New Testament [Paperback]

John A. T. Robinson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers (July 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579105270
• ISBN-13: 978-1579105273
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #216,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

112 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Title That Deserves Reprinting, April 8, 2000

By 

E. T. Veal (Chicago, Illinois USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Redating the New Testament (Hardcover)

What a pity that this pathbreaking work is out of print while publishers flood the bookstores with fantasy-as-history in an unending stream.

Bishop Robinson, a theological modernist whose "Honest to God" made him controversial within the Anglican communion, began this book as what he labels "a theological joke": "I thought I would see how far one could get with the hypothesis that the whole of the New Testament was written before 70", the year in which the Roman army sacked and burned the Temple of Jerusalem. As it turned out, he got much further than he had ever expected, a journey made more impressive by his lack of any predisposition toward a "conservative" point of view.

His conclusion is that there is no compelling evidence - indeed, little evidence of any kind - that anything in the New Testament canon reflects knowledge of the Temple's destruction. Furthermore, other considerations point consistently toward early dates and away from the common assumption (a prejudice with a seriously circular foundation) that a majority of primitive Christian authors wrote in the very late First or early-to-middle Second Century under assumed names.

For want of data, absolute proof of Robinson's thesis is impossible, and the weight of his arguments varies - from overwhelming in the case of the Epistle to the Hebrews through powerful (the Gospels, Acts and the Epistles of John) to merely strong (the Pastoral Epistles, the non-Johannine Catholic Epistles and Revelation).

In a postscript, Robinson reconsiders the dates of several subapostolic works: The Clementine Epistles, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache, the accepted dates for which range from the 90's to the latter half of the Second Century. He shows that, freed of the "push" of late dating of the canon, the most natural dates for these writings are earlier and that all could well have been written by 85 A.D.

Whether or not one agrees with every word of Robinson's analysis, he makes his case well and should force all students of the New Testament to rethink seriously the presuppositions that underlie much of what is currently written about First Century Christianity. Of course, that's not likely to happen unless some publisher brings "Redating the New Testament" back into print.

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS BOOKS OF BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP, September 15, 2005

By 

A. Moore "lovesbooks" (phoenix) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Redating the New Testament (Paperback)

Robinson (now deceased) was an Anglican bishop who published books that ruffled conservative feathers. He decided as a joke to try to prove that all the gospels were written before 70 AD, an idea then regarded as ridiculous.

The result was "Redating the New Testament" which showed why early dating is more logical. The book has become famous. Fads in biblical scholarship have come and gone and their works gather dust in libraries. But Robinson's book continues to impact.

Robinson's main argument is that all the gospels must have been written before 70 AD when the temple in Jerusalem was burned to the ground. And it is very, very strange that the destruction isn't mentioned. Why? Because the gospels repeatedly state that Jesus predicted that "not one stone would remain on another" of the temple (Mark 13:2, Luke 21:5, and Matthew 24:1). So then why didn't the evangelists try to score points by pointing out the destruction?

And even stranger: Jesus predicted in Matthew 24 that "this generation shall not pass away" until they saw the temple pulled down. Then, sure enough, 40 years (40 years = one generation for the ancient Jews) to the day the temple fell. Again, if the gospels were written after the temple's destruction, why didn't anyone mention it?

The temple was destroyed during a short, brutal war between the Jews and the Romans. The war left one million Jews dead, their country in ruins, and the temple burned to the ground. Few people today can grasp how shattering that would be to the Jews, and how significant for Christians. The entire theocracy of the Jews was extinguished. Gone were the Sadduccees. Burned along with the temple were all records proving lineage, and thus, the priesthood was destroyed. Never again could there be a high priest. Or a sacrifice. There was no longer a legal outlet for purgation from sin for the Jews.

Historically, the war also marked a permanent breach between Jews and Christians. Henceforth, they were utterly separate. One reason may be because, as Eusebius says, the Christians refused to take part in the insurrection and stayed in Pella.

By the way, Robinson's argument is not new. He even quotes Torrey, who puts it quite succinctly: "It is perhaps conceivable that one evangelist writing after the year 70 might fail to allude to the destruction of the temple by the Roman armies...but that three or four should thus fail is quite incredible. On the contrary, what is shown is that all four gospels were written before the year 70."

All four gospels refer to the temple in the present tense, saying the temple "is" instead of "was". And then there is the temple tax issue. There was no reason for the gospel writers to insist that everyone pay the temple tax once the temple was destroyed.

In sum, Robinson argues that Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts were all written before 65 AD. Some portions may have been written in proto-Matthew (Q) in the early 40s. He concluded John was written before 70 AD, as well as James and the Didache.

Anyone interested in this subject should read "Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke" by John Wenham, who also supports early dates. Another book arguing for early dates is Jean Carmignac's "Birth of the Synoptic Gospels". Carmignac, a noted linguist and Dead Sea scroll scholar, insists he found linguistic and textual proof some of the gospels were written in Hebrew.

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robinson is a giant among scholars., June 4, 2005

By 

Anne Rice "Anne Rice" (Little Paradise, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Redating the New Testament (Paperback)

This man was brilliant, and his criticisms of Biblical scholarship are as fitting for today as they were when this book first saw print. His reasoning and his arguments are all highly persuasive. This and his book, The Priority of John, are of great importance to anyone undertaking serious study of the gospels or study of "the historical Jesus." He left me pretty well convinced by his ideas about the early date of the gospels, and I've read much since -- published after his death -- that supports his view.