Gospels Part 034
In today’s lesson we’ll address another question: When were the Gospels written?
Why is this important? Most unbelieving scholars do not believe the Gospels were written until well into the second century, well after Christ’s death and the death of the apostles. This would mean that the Gospels are not eyewitness accounts but simply made-up stories or the figment of someone’s imagination.
If this is correct, we have no firm basis for our belief that Jesus Christ existed or truly was the Son of God. The implications of this inaccurate dating are serious. Many other sincere Bible scholars even believe that the Gospels weren’t written until late in the first century, and this creates the same quandary.
Is there a way to know whether the Gospels were written:
- In the mid-first century?
- Within the lifetimes of personal eyewitnesses who could write such firsthand personal records?
- Within the lifetimes of hundreds or thousands of other personal eyewitnesses?
The short answer to these questions is yes. Several noted Roman and Jewish historians wrote matter-of-factly about the existence of Jesus Christ and His early followers exactly as we see them recorded in the Gospels and the book of Acts. This has been discussed in several previous lessons that are available to review: Lesson 18, Lesson 19, Lesson 20, Lesson 21. Anyone who denies those facts is simply denying historical reality.
Since none of the Gospels or the book of Acts tell us when they were written, is there a way to come to a logical and supportable conclusion? Yes. All it takes is a little detective work and putting together some puzzle pieces.
Let’s start with a question to make you think: How many times does the apostle Paul quote from the Gospels in his writings?
The answer is once. That’s in 1 Timothy 5:18, where Paul quotes Luke 10:7. Do you find that surprising? I certainly did the first time I realized that fact! Why wouldn’t Paul quote the Gospels extensively throughout his writings? It made no sense to me.
Unless—and here is the realization that finally dawned on me—the Gospels had not been written yet.
Paul wrote his letter of 1 Timothy around the year A.D. 65. So, for most of Paul’s ministry the simplest, most straightforward answer is that the Gospels were not yet written. This is the most logical reason for Paul not quoting from them.
Paul wrote his letters from around A.D. 50 to about A.D. 66 or 67, when he was put to death. Until shortly before his death, he did not have the Gospels to quote—except for that single line from Luke’s Gospel (and keep in mind that Luke was Paul’s traveling companion for an extended period).
So just a year or two before Paul’s death, he quotes from the Gospel of Luke. And that’s his only quote from the Gospels. The logical conclusion is that the Gospels weren’t written before the late 50s to early 60s, assuming it took several years for them to be distributed. It took a long time because each copy had to be handwritten and hand-carried to wherever they were distributed.
Also consider that the book of Acts ends abruptly at about A.D. 63 with Paul under house arrest in Rome. Luke wrote the book of Acts, but he also says that he wrote it after he wrote the book of Luke (Acts 1:1).
Luke was with Paul in Rome when Paul was under house arrest. That is when and where Luke ends the book of Acts in 63 A.D. Although it’s not recorded in the Bible, Paul was released not long after that and was free for several years before he was re-imprisoned in the reign of Emperor Nero and then executed in A.D. 66 or 67 A.D.
If the book of Acts was written and ended by A.D. 63, then Luke had to have written his Gospel before that—probably the very late 50s or early 60s A.D. That’s what most scholars who believe the Bible have concluded which is perfectly logical. Again, Paul doesn’t quote from any of the Gospels until around the year A.D. 65, so it’s logical to conclude that he didn’t quote from them until then because they didn’t come into existence until around or shortly before that time.
But what about a date later than that? Could the Gospels have been written considerably later in the first century, as many scholars propose? They generally argue that the Gospels were written in the 70s or 80s A.D. or later. But here’s another question to make you think: What major event took place in Judea after Christ’s death and resurrection that helps us understand when the Gospels were likely written? The answer: The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D.
Why is it unlikely that the Gospels were written after that? Because the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple are not mentioned to have happened anywhere in the New Testament writings. The Gospels describe the temple many times and include Jesus prophesying it would be destroyed, but there’s no mention of that having happened historically. If it had happened, it would have been logical for the Gospels to record that the temple was destroyed as Jesus had foretold. But none of them mention that, even though it would have greatly strengthened their argument that Jesus was indeed a divinely inspired prophet.
So again, logically it makes perfect sense that the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) were written before 70 A.D. while the temple was still standing. Otherwise, the destruction of the temple surely would have been mentioned as a fulfillment of Jesus Christ’s Olivet prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.
This illustrates a kind of game Bible critics play when it comes to dating the writing of various books of the Bible. These critics believe that since Jesus was a mere man, He could not have divinely prophesied the fall of Jerusalem before it happened. They say that the Gospels had to be written after 70 A.D. to make it appear that Jesus was a prophet.
That’s why you’ll see some dates for the writing of the Gospels from 80 A.D. on up until the mid-100s A.D. or later. When you see dates such as those, it's a sign that the author doesn’t believe that Jesus was a prophet and the author doesn’t really believe the Bible.
You’ll see the same reasoning used with the way they date the book of Daniel. They refuse to believe that Daniel prophesied in the 500s B.C. about the coming rise and fall of the Persian empire, of Alexander’s Greek empire and the rise of the Roman empire before these things happened, so they redate the book of Daniel to around 100-200 B.C. They say that Daniel wrote after these events, but pretended he was writing several centuries earlier so it would look like he was a prophet. Again, when you see things like this, it tells you that the writer doesn’t truly believe the Bible.
With our short exercise in logical thinking and some historical detective work, we can conclude that the evidence indicates that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke were written no earlier than the late 50s A.D. and no later than before A.D. 70.—most likely in the early to mid-60s A.D. (John’s Gospel is another story, likely having been written in the 80s to 90s A.D. for reasons explained in the Daily Dose lesson on the background of John’s Gospel.)
In the next Daily Dose lesson, we’ll discuss another important question about the dating of the synoptic Gospels—Why did they wait some 30 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection to write those Gospels? It’s a good question—and with some more logical thinking and detective work, we can come to more logical conclusions.
© Scott Ashley, 2025. All rights reserved.
Course Content
Scott Ashley
Scott Ashley was managing editor of Beyond Today magazine, United Church of God booklets and its printed Bible Study Course until his retirement in 2023. He also pastored three congregations in Colorado for 10 years from 2011-2021. He and his wife, Connie, live near Denver, Colorado.
Mr. Ashley attended Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas, graduating in 1976 with a theology major and minors in journalism and speech. It was there that he first became interested in publishing, an industry in which he worked for 50 years.
During his career, he has worked for several publishing companies in various capacities. He was employed by the United Church of God from 1995-2023, overseeing the planning, writing, editing, reviewing and production of Beyond Today magazine, several dozen booklets/study guides and a Bible study course covering major biblical teachings. His special interests are the Bible, archaeology, biblical culture, history and the Middle East.
