In one Sherlock Holmes story, the great detective solves a crime because of a dog that did not bark in the night. The silence was the clue.
The New Testament has a silence just like that. In AD 70, Roman armies burned Jerusalem and pulled down its temple. For the Jewish people, it was the greatest disaster of the age. Jesus had clearly predicted it. Yet Matthew, Mark and Luke never once say, ‘And it happened, just as He said.’
Why not? The simplest answer is it hadn’t happened yet.
Some people say the Gospels were written long after Jesus, by people who never met Him, after the facts had grown into legends. In this article we will act like detectives and look at 7 clues. They all point one way: the Gospels were written while people who’d seen Jesus were still alive.
KEY TERMS EXPLAINED
- Gospel: One of the 4 books about the life of Jesus—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The word means ‘good news’.
- Critical scholars: Scholars who study the Bible like any other old book, often without believing that true prophecy can happen.
Do Bible-Believing Scholars Agree on the Dates?
No church creed sets the dates of the Gospels. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) lists the books of the Bible but doesn’t date them. That’s wise: the authority of the Bible depends on God, not on dates.
But when Bible-believing scholars study the evidence, most of them arrive at the same place. Scholars such as DA Carson, Douglas Moo, Donald Guthrie and Andreas Köstenberger hold Matthew, Mark and Luke were most likely written before AD 70. John Wenham argued all 3 came before about AD 55.
The table below compares the dates argued for in this article with the later dates that many critical scholars give.
| BOOK | DATES ARGUED FOR IN THIS ARTICLE | DATES MANY CRITICAL SCHOLARS GIVE |
|---|---|---|
| Mark | Mid-50s to early 60s | About AD 66–73 |
| Matthew | 50s or 60s, before AD 70 | About AD 80–90 |
| Luke | About AD 58–62 | About AD 80–90 (some say later) |
| Acts | About AD 62 | About AD 80–90 |
| John | About AD 85–95 (some say before AD 70) | About AD 90–110 |
Notice even the later dates fall within 40 to 80 years of Jesus. We shall come back to that.
Clue 1: The Book of Acts Stops Too Early
Luke wrote 2 books. The first is the Gospel of Luke. The second is the book of Acts, which tells the story of the early church. Acts opens like this:
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach
Acts 1:1
So Luke’s Gospel came first. Now look at how Acts ends. Paul is in Rome, waiting for his trial before the emperor. He has lived there ‘two whole years’ (Acts 28:30), which brings us to about AD 62. Then the book simply stops. Luke never tells us what happened next.
Timeline: What Happened After Acts Ends
- AD 62: James, the brother of Jesus, is killed in Jerusalem, as the Jewish historian Josephus records.
- AD 64: A great fire burns Rome. Emperor Nero blames the Christians and kills many of them.
- AD 64–67: Peter and Paul are put to death in Rome, according to early Christian writers.
- AD 70: Roman armies destroy Jerusalem and its temple.
Acts mentions none of these. Yet Luke loved to report what happened to church leaders, such as Stephen (Acts 7) and the apostle James (Acts 12). He spends 8 chapters (Acts 21–28) building up to Paul’s trial, then stops before the verdict. Would any writer do that if he knew the ending? The natural answer is that Luke wrote while Paul was still waiting.
Follow the logic step by step:
- Step 1: Acts was most likely finished around AD 62.
- Step 2: Luke’s Gospel was written before Acts (Acts 1:1).
- Step 3: Most scholars believe Luke used Mark’s Gospel as one of his sources.
- Result: Mark was written earlier still, probably in the 50s.
Clue 2: Paul Calls Luke’s Words ‘Scripture’
In 1 Timothy, Paul says hard-working church leaders should be paid. He supports this with two quotes:
For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The labourer deserves his wages.”
1 Timothy 5:18
The first is from Deuteronomy 25:4. But the second isn’t from the Old Testament at all. The table below shows where it comes from.
| PASSAGE | EXACT WORDS (ESV) | WHAT THIS SHOWS |
|---|---|---|
| Luke 10:7 | ‘the labourer deserves his wages’ | Exactly the same words as Paul |
| Matthew 10:10 | ‘the labourer deserves his food’ | A different last word, so Paul is not quoting Matthew |
| 1 Timothy 5:18 | ‘The labourer deserves his wages’ | Paul calls these words ‘Scripture’ |
Paul’s words match Luke exactly, even in the original Greek, and he calls them ‘Scripture’ alongside the words of Moses. Paul wrote 1 Timothy in the early 60s. So by then, Luke’s Gospel was already written and honoured as God’s Word.
Some critics deny Paul wrote 1 Timothy. But the letter names him as its author (1 Timothy 1:1), and we take it at its word.
Clue 3: Paul’s Lord’s Supper Words Sound Like Luke
Around AD 53–55, Paul repeated the words of Jesus at the Last Supper:
This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
1 Corinthians 11:25
Only Paul and Luke (Luke 22:20) use the phrase ‘the new covenant in my blood’. Matthew and Mark word it differently. This doesn’t prove Luke’s Gospel existed by then. But it shows the Gospel story had a fixed form about 20 years after the cross.
Clue 4: The Dog That Did Not Bark
Now back to our opening clue. Jesus clearly predicted the fall of the temple:
Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.
Matthew 24:2
Matthew loves to show how Jesus fulfilled prophecy. Yet he never points to this great fulfilment. Instead, he writes as if the temple is still standing:
- The temple tax: Matthew 17:24–27 tells how Jesus paid the yearly temple tax. After AD 70, Rome forced Jews to pay this tax to a pagan temple instead. Yet Matthew says nothing about that painful change.
- Gifts at the altar: Jesus tells his hearers what to do ‘if you are offering your gift at the altar’ (Matthew 5:23). That teaching assumes the altar still exists.
John AT Robinson, a liberal Church of England bishop, didn’t share our view of the Bible. Yet this silence amazed him. He noted the fall of Jerusalem is ‘never once mentioned as a past fact’ in the New Testament. In Redating the New Testament (1976), he went on to argue every New Testament book came before AD 70.
Clue 5: Even Sceptics Admit Early Dates
Some sceptics have also argued for early dates:
- Adolf von Harnack: A famous German liberal scholar who, in 1911, changed his mind and dated Acts to around AD 62, while Paul was still alive.
- James Crossley: A modern British scholar who is not a Christian. In The Date of Mark’s Gospel (2004), he argued that Mark was written between the late 30s and the mid-40s AD.
These scholars had no reason to protect the Bible. They simply followed the evidence.
Clue 6: What the Early Church Said
The ‘church fathers’ were Christian leaders and writers of the first centuries after the apostles. Here’s what they tell us:
- Papias (writing about AD 110–130): He passed on this early teaching: ‘Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ.’ So Mark’s Gospel records Peter’s own preaching.
- Irenaeus (about AD 180): He wrote that ‘Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome’. Peter and Paul died in the mid-60s, so this places Matthew before then.
- Clement of Alexandria (about AD 200): He passed on an old tradition that the Gospels with family trees—Matthew and Luke—were written first.
To be honest, these writers don’t agree on every detail, such as the order of Mark and Luke. But they all agree the Gospels came from the apostles and their close helpers, in the first generation of the church.
Clue 7: The Eyewitness Fingerprints
Luke tells us where his facts came from:
just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us
Luke 1:2
Ned Stonehouse of Westminster Theological Seminary read these words as the promise of a careful historian. Modern research shows Luke kept it.
Richard Bauckham studied the names in the Gospels in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2006). In Israel at that time, Simon and Joseph were the 2 most common Jewish men’s names. The Gospels show the same pattern. Because Simon was so common, the writers add labels to tell people apart: Simon Peter, Simon the Zealot, Simon of Cyrene. That’s how people talk about real people.
Peter J Williams shows in Can We Trust the Gospels? (2018) the Gospel writers get small local details right, such as place names and customs. A writer living far away, generations later, would likely get them wrong.
The Latest Possible Date—and Why It Is Still Early Enough
Suppose the critics are right about the later dates. Is that a problem? Not really.
We know the Gospels were in use by about AD 100. Clement of Rome (about AD 96) echoes the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels. Ignatius, who died around AD 110, says Jesus was baptised ‘that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him’—words from Matthew 3:15.
Adrian N Sherwin-White, an Oxford expert in Roman history, concluded ‘even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core’ of the story. In simple words: there wasn’t enough time for legends to replace the facts.
The table below compares the time gap between some famous people and the main written sources we have about their lives.
| PERSON | DIED | MAIN EARLY SOURCES | TIME GAP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander the Great | 323 BC | Arrian and Plutarch, about AD 100–130 | About 400 years or more |
| Emperor Tiberius | AD 37 | Tacitus, Annals, about AD 115 | About 80 years |
| Jesus | About AD 30–33 | Matthew, Mark, Luke and John | About 20 to 60 years |
Historians gladly trust sources written 400 years after Alexander. The Gospels are far closer.
There is even earlier evidence. In 1 Corinthians 15:3–7, Paul passes on a short summary of the faith that he had ‘received’ from others. Many scholars, including critical ones, date this summary to within a few years of the cross. Paul adds that most of the 500 people who saw the risen Jesus were ‘still alive’ (1 Corinthians 15:6). In other words: go and ask them.
What About John’s Gospel?
Most Bible-believing scholars date John later, for two good reasons:
- Peter has already died: John 21:19 explains a saying of Jesus ‘to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God’. This suggests that the death of Peter in the mid-60s was already known.
- The memory of the early church: Irenaeus says John lived on in Ephesus until the time of Emperor Trajan, who began to rule in AD 98.
So many careful scholars, such as Carson, place John in the 80s or 90s. Yet a few date it before AD 70. They point to this verse:
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
John 5:2
John says the pool ‘is’ there, not ‘was’, and archaeologists have found it, five colonnades and all. Either way, John wrote as an eyewitness (John 21:24). Even in AD 95, he was still alive to stand behind his words.
Answering the Main Objections
The table below answers the main reasons critics give for later dates.
| WHAT CRITICS SAY | A SHORT ANSWER |
|---|---|
| ‘Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s fall must have been written after it happened.’ | This assumes God cannot reveal the future—a belief brought to the text, not found in it. Charles H. Dodd showed in 1947 that Luke 21 uses Old Testament language about the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, not details unique to AD 70. |
| ‘Belief that Jesus is God took many decades to develop.’ | Paul’s letters from the 50s already worship Jesus as God (Philippians 2:6; 1 Corinthians 8:6). |
| ‘John 9:22 shows Christians being thrown out of synagogues around AD 85.’ | This theory, made popular by James Louis Martyn, rests on weak evidence. Believers were punished by synagogues much earlier (Luke 6:22; 2 Corinthians 11:24). |
Why the Dates Matter—and What They Cannot Do
Christianity isn’t a set of nice ideas. It rests on real events. John Gresham Machen of Princeton put it plainly: ‘Christianity is based, then, upon an account of something that happened.’ Paul agrees:
And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:14
So the dates matter. If the Gospels were late legends, our faith would rest on sand.
But we must also be careful. Dates don’t make the Bible true. The Westminster Confession says the authority of Scripture ‘dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof’ (1.4). John Calvin taught Scripture is ‘self-authenticated’—it carries its own proof that it comes from God. He also wrote ‘the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason.’
Herman Ridderbos, the Dutch New Testament scholar, showed the Gospels carry authority because Christ appointed the apostles as his witnesses. Michael Kruger adds the New Testament books bear the marks of their divine origin, and history confirms them.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US
We don’t need scholars to tell us the Gospels are true. God’s Spirit opens our eyes to His Word. But when someone calls the Gospels late legends, we can answer with calm confidence.
Conclusion: The Silence Speaks
The fall of Jerusalem was the loudest event of the age, yet the Gospels never describe it as past. Acts stops in AD 62. Paul quotes Luke as Scripture. Even sceptics admit early dates. Every clue points the same way.
The Gospels were written by eyewitnesses and their close companions, within living memory of Jesus. Peter, whose preaching stands behind Mark’s Gospel, said it best:
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
2 Peter 1:16
The dog didn’t bark. Its silence tells us we can trust the story.
Tough Questions, Honest Answers
Which Gospel was written first?
Most scholars today believe Mark was written first, and that Matthew and Luke used it. But the early church usually said Matthew came first, and some Bible-believing scholars still hold that view. Both views are held by people who fully trust the Bible. The order doesn’t change anything important. Each Gospel is fully God’s Word, because ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God’ (2 Timothy 3:16).
The Gospels don’t name their authors. How do we know who wrote them?
It’s true the writers don’t sign their names in the main text. But every early copy that has a title gives the same names: ‘According to Matthew’, ‘According to Mark’, and so on. The German scholar Martin Hengel pointed out no rival names appear anywhere in the early church. Notice too that Mark and Luke weren’t apostles. If people had been inventing authors, they’d surely have chosen more famous names, such as Peter or James.
What language were the Gospels first written in?
All 4 Gospels, as we have them, were written in Greek. This was the everyday Greek of the Roman world, called Koine, which means ‘common’. Jesus Himself mostly spoke Aramaic, and the Gospels keep some of His Aramaic words, such as ‘Talitha cumi’, which means ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise’ (Mark 5:41). Papias said Matthew first wrote in a ‘Hebrew dialect’, but scholars debate what he meant. God chose a common language so His Word could reach the whole world.
What is the ‘Q’ source?
Matthew and Luke share about 200 verses that are not found in Mark. Many scholars think both writers copied these from a lost document they call ‘Q’, from the German word Quelle, meaning ‘source’. But no copy of Q has ever been found, and some scholars, such as Mark Goodacre, think Luke simply used Matthew. Either way, there’s no threat to our faith. Luke openly says he used earlier accounts (Luke 1:1–3). God’s inspiration does not cancel careful research; it guides it.
Why are there 4 Gospels and not just one?
God’s law says a charge must be confirmed ‘on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses’ (Deuteronomy 19:15). God gave us 4. Each writer tells the story for a different audience and shows a different side of Jesus. Their differences in small details are what we expect from honest witnesses, each telling the story in his own way. Around AD 180, Irenaeus was already defending four Gospels—no more and no fewer—as God’s gift to the church.
Do we still have the original Gospel manuscripts?
No. The original documents, which scholars call ‘autographs’, wore out long ago, as nearly all ancient writings did. But we have more than 5,800 handwritten copies of the New Testament in Greek, far more than for any other ancient book. By comparing these copies, scholars can recover the original wording with great confidence. The Westminster Confession says God has, ‘by His singular care and providence’, kept His Word ‘pure in all ages’ (1.8).
Were the Gnostic gospels written as early as the four Gospels?
No. The Gnostic gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas, came from groups who taught that salvation comes through secret knowledge. Most scholars date them to the second century or later, long after the apostles had died. They also lack the eyewitness fingerprints we find in the four Gospels, such as real names, places and customs. That is why the early church rejected them. Irenaeus even warned against the Gospel of Judas by name around AD 180.
Related Reads
- Oral Tradition and the Gospels: How Was Jesus’ Story Kept Safe?
- Are the Gospels Eyewitness Accounts? The Mounting Evidence
- Who Wrote the Gospels? Evaluating Modern Scholarship
- Who Wrote the Fourth Gospel? Was It Indeed John?
- Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? Testing the Four Accounts
- Historical Accuracy of the Book of Acts: A Treasure Trove of Evidence
- Rylands Papyrus P52: Why This Tiny Fragment Still Matters
- Why Didn’t the Gnostic Gospels Make the Cut Into the Canon?
