Cygnus' Study - The Dating and Authorship of the Gospels

The Dating and Authorship of the Gospels

I would like to examine on contributor's claims in regards to gospel authorship and dating that he brought over from the highly apologetic and not very reliable website http://www.bible.org

Let's look at their mission statement to see if they should be considered a reliable source:

The Biblical Studies Foundation is a non-profit organization founded for the purpose of distributing sound, evangelical Bible study materials in electronic format so those with small personal libraries or without access to a local Bible college or seminary library, etc., may have access to sound biblical studies from their home.

In other words, they are attempting to provide the same type of information that one might find at a Bible college (always private and always promoting Christian belief as the only truth) or a seminary (the place where they produce preachermen). In other words, anything that we can expect from this website will be heavily biased towards evangelical Christianity and is, thus, completely unobjective.

In any event, let's deconstruct the misinformation provided by this site with objective and empirical evidence. Here is how the post about this subject began:

Looking at the authorship and attempting to date the Gospels is a study unto itself, and as with most areas of serious literary scholarship, opinion is not, nor should it necessarily be, universal. I would like to begin by looking at our areas of agreement, then look at the individual texts one by one to see what other scholars think.

Excellent. But... let's look at more than just the scholars cited by the biased website.

First, Cygnus and I seem to be in agreement as to the order in which the Gospels came about. Mark was first, followed by Matthew and Luke (approximately the same time, although you do not offer a date on Luke, so if I am wrong in this assumption, please let me know), and finally, John is definitely the last of the four.

Cool. I would also hope that you side with me on Matthean and Lukan use of Mark as a source, coupled with Q. The majority of scholars do and the case is only getting stronger the more that this is studied.

As to your dating them from 70AD for Mark through to 90-110AD for John, I do not necessarily disagree, but would like to point out the possibility of much earlier authorship, at least for the Synoptics.

OK.... let's read:

Mark

First off, did Mark write the Book of Mark? From http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/markotl.htm

“So strong was the early Christian testimony that Mark was the author of this gospel that we need do little more than mention this attestation.” It is cited by Papias

We have no works by Papias surviving. All that remains is quotations of his work and minute fragments. Unfortunately, Papias is not a reliable witness as we have no direct testimony from him. Even if we did have direct testimony, he lived too far after the reported writing of GMark that he is useless to us. Mahlon Smith, a Christian and Associate Professor of the NT at Rutgers University, has this to say about Papias (from http://religion.rutgers.edu/nt/primer/papias.html):

Clearly, Papias was no scholar. For he based his opinions on hearsay rather than on the comparison of texts. Moreover, Papias himself did not claim to be a disciple of "the elders," but rather a reporter who sought interviews with those who were their followers. Therefore, Papias' testimony is at best two steps removed from the apostolic generation, & even more from Jesus himself. This needs to be kept in mind in evaluating his comments about the composition of the gospels.

Papias is stricken from the record as an unreliable source of information.

Irenaeus

Irenaeus fares not much better than Papias, unfortunately. Irenaeus lived even later than Papias did and is, thus, not a reliable source for anything other than the tradition that he learned. He did not know the author of any book of the Bible (that we are aware of). Smith says of Irenaeus (http://religion.rutgers.edu/nt/primer/irenaeus.html):

Nor does his claim that Mark transcribed Peter's preaching support the view of Augustine, Griesbach & other western Christians that Mark condensed Matthew.

Irenaeus must also be stricken from the record as unreliable as he relies on the testimony of those who came before him. He, thus, presents nothing more than hearsay.

the Muratorian Canon (most likely)

Sorry.... speculation not allowed.

Further, we can see that the author of this source has no clue what they are talking about. The Muratorian Canon (also called the Muratorian Fragment) does not contain more than a few lines of GMark as can be read here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10642a.htm in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Clement of Alexandria

This person was not born until 150 CE. How can he possibly be testimony to anything other than tradition that he learned? He can provide us with nothing more than hearsay.

What's more, we do not have the text which claims that Mark wrote the gospel. What we do have is Eusebius quoting from it in Eccles. Hist. 6.14.5-7. This is not reliable testimony. Here is the quote, anyway:

And again Clement has inserted in the same books a tradition of the primitive elders concerning the order of the gospels as follows. He said that the gospels that include genealogies [Matthew & Luke] were written first; but that the gospel according to Mark came about in this way: When Peter had publicly proclaimed the word & by the Spirit preached the gospel at Rome, those who were present, being many, urged Mark---as one of his [Peter's] long-time followers who remembered what was said---to make a record of what had been spoken. And he did this and distributed the gospel among those who had asked him. And when this matter came to Peter's attention, he neither strongly forbid it, nor urged it on. But, last of all, John---aware that the outward facts had been set out in the [synoptic] gospels, --- was encouraged by his disciples & divinely motivated by the Spirit, composed a spiritual gospel. This is Clement's account.

Smith has this to say about this passage: (from http://religion.rutgers.edu/nt/primer/clement.html)

It is hard to know how much of Eusebius' comments are to be credited directly to Clement, since he only describes Clement's position indirectly. If this passage represents the actual content of Clement's text, his views on the origin of the gospels were distinct from other early Christian writers in two respects:
* the claim that not only Matthew but Luke was written before Mark and
* the claim that Mark was written during Peter's lifetime.

Clement must be disregarded for much the same reason that Papias is disregarded: we do not have direct testimony, and what we do have is unique to this one author making it unempirical where evidence is concerned.

Tertullian

Not born untul 160 CE, we see the same problem with all of the above writers. None of them knew the author of the gospel if it was written in the first century. All that they can possibly tell us about is the tradition that they received which, as has been pointed out, is nothing more than hearsay.

Origen

Not born until 185 CE. I suppose we are running out of possibile contemporary evidence as the people being referenced are all WAY too late to be of any use to us. Origen was brilliant but he has nothing that is anything other than tradition to tell us about.

Jerome

Jerome was not born until the fourth century of the common era. He is no more a valid source on who wrote Mark than I am. Why this is presented as evidence is anyone's guess but I am guessing that it is out of sheer desperation.

Here is what Smith says about Jerome (from http://religion.rutgers.edu/nt/primer/jerome.html):

Although Jerome credits his information about the composition of the gospel of Mark to Clement of Alexandria & Papias, it is uncertain whether he had read these authors himself. For his report simply summarizes the citations of these authors in Eusebius of Caesarea's Church History (2.25.2, 3.39.14-15, & 6.14.5-7), which Jerome himself had translated into Latin. In claiming that Peter personally approved and ordered the gospel of Mark to be read in churches, however, Jerome went beyond what he sources had actually written. For Papias explicitly claimed that Mark wrote after Peter's departure (exodus = death?) and Clement just as explicitly wrote:
"And when this matter came to Peter's attention, he neither strongly forbid it, nor urged it on."

Jerome's idea that Peter personally authorized the gospel of Mark for the use of other churches was probably based on nothing more than his own view of papal authority. At any rate, he was clearly inaccurate in ascribing this information to earlier Greek writers.

The apologetic website continues:

Further, this testimony is universal in connecting this gospel with Peter. Papias, for example, writes:
And the elder said this: “Mark became an interpreter of Peter; as many things as he remembered he wrote down accurately (though certainly not in order) the things said or done by the Lord. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but he came later—as he said with reference to Peter who taught whenever the need arose, but he did not [teach] according to the arrangement of the oracles of the Lord, with the result that Mark did not err when he thus wrote certain things as he recalled them. For he planned out one goal ahead of time, namely, to leave out nothing which he heard and not to falsify any [of the words of Peter].”

As we have seen above, Papias does not offer reliable testimony. He did not know the author nor the person named John Mark. He cannot tell us anything that we can consider other than hearsay. Moving on...

What is most remarkable about this external testimony is that Mark was by no means a major player in the NT. It is doubtful, therefore, that his name was picked out of thin air as it were. If this were the case, there would certainly be less than universal attestation.

As we have seen, there is not universal attestation. What we see is a tradition that dates back to the middle of the second century - 100 years after the gospel was written - and nothing more. At most, we have one source for this - Papias - and he got it from someone else who got it from someone else. This is called hearsay and is inadmissable as far as evidence goes.

Further, as strong as the desire was to attach this gospel to an apostle, the patristic writers refrained from saying that this was Peter’s Gospel. Such restraint speaks volumes for the rest of the NT where they do affirm apostolic authorship.

Unless they already knew of a Gospel of Peter which was written around this time (middle of the second century).

One simply cannot say that because these patristic writers surely wanted apostolic authorship they therefore invented such at their own convenience. Mark’s gospel flies in the face of that supposition.

One CAN say this and it will have just as much weight as the contrary. Saying that something cannot be so does not equal empirical evidence against the claim.

Now, let's look at some opinions of other modern scholars who have heard all of this "evidence" and weighed it on their own (some may have been posted here prior to this post):

"'Interpreter' probably means, not that Mark translated Peter's Aramaic words into Greek, but that as a catechist he expounded Peter's teaching."
- John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke (1991), p. 136

From Richard Shand's website on the Historical Jesus at http://home.fireplug.net/~rshand/reflections/messiah/jesus.html

Unlike the author of Matthew (who very likely wrote his gospel for a Palestinian audience) the author of Mark appears much less less informed about the Palestinian area and Judaism. For example, Mark 8:27 speaks of "the villages of Caesarea Philippi" but Caesarea Philippi was a single town. This would be consistent with Mark being gentile writer living in Rome. The location where the gospel was committed to writing, however, was Alexandria, Egypt.

And...

The view that Peter was a source for the Gospel of Mark is not widely held by biblical scholars, however.

"Papias's testimony that Mark represented the disciple Peter's remembrances is particularly at odds with the Second Gospel's ignorance and confusion about Jewish affairs (Mk. 14:12), and general gentile orientation."
- Larry A. Taylor, The Early Church Fathers and the Written Gospels

Dating

As for dating, we have agreed (I think) that Mark came first of the Gospels. That said, Mark probably wrote his Gospel while Peter was still alive, in part because Peter was almost certainly the source of much of his material.

This is patently false as Irenaeus tells us:

"After their departure [of Peter and Paul from earth], Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter."
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1

As we can see, church tradition which we receive from Irenaeus states that Peter and Paul were already dead before the putting into writing of this gospel.

Peter and Paul, according to Church tradition with which we have no reason to argue on this point, died in approximately 64 CE at the hands of Emperor Nero.

Add this to the internal evidence in Mark at chapter 13 and we find it more than likely that the gospel was written after the stones (of the Temple in Jerusalem) had been thrown to the ground (Mark 13:2) a short time later in 70 CE.

The early external evidence can be summed up this way: (1) there is universal testimony that Mark got his material for a gospel from Peter; (2) there is conflicting evidence as to when he compiled this gospel, either before or after Peter’s death. The earliest testimony (Papias) suggests that Peter was still alive—and Papias claims an earlier source for this as well. This is confirmed by Clement of Alexandria who adds other information (Roman destination), showing some independence from Papi... Our conclusion from the external evidence is that Mark wrote his gospel while Peter was still alive, sometime before Matthew wrote his gospel (based on our conclusion about the synoptic problem). We will see that other considerations corroborate this.

I find it funny but not at all surprising that the conflicting evidence is omitted.

From the contributor:

A second method of placing Mark at a date prior to 70AD is based on the dating of Luke (which I will discuss below) and Acts. If Acts is written before 62AD, then Mark must have been written in the 50’s or earlier.

Well... we already have internal and external evidence for the later date which flat out refutes the earlier date but we will entertain the argument if nothing more than to hear some down home apologetics.

Matthew

That Matthew used Mark (but independently of Luke, who also used Mark) as a source is pretty much accepted in most academic circles. Authorship is less easily determined, nor should this be surprising. The Book was not signed by the author, and it was written almost 2000 years ago. Who wrote Matthew?
From http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/matotl.htm we find 7 pieces of internal evidence:

a. Familiarity with the Nation

Agreed. The author of Matthew has better information about Palestine than any other gospeller.

b. Hints of Semitisms in his Language

Which shows that he is familiar with Hebrew.

c. His Use of Scripture

Actually, his use of scripture is GREATLY called into question. He mixes up OT writers on several occasions and invents scripture that is not found. As the site gives nothing but an assertion, I will do the same with the bonus of saying that I can prove mine if need be.

d. Attack on Pharisees

This tells us nothing of who wrote the gospel.

e. Frequent Use of Numbers

Again, the author of the gospel was BAD at math. Count the number of generations listed in Matthew 1 and then see how many he said there were. This is an argument against a tax collector writing this gospel and not vice versa.

e. Frequent Use of Numbers

Whoops!

g. The Calling of Levi

Which tells us nothing of who the author is but it does tell us that the author could not have had direct knowledge of the first 8 chapters if he is not introduced until chapter 8.

Conclusion: In sum, each piece of evidence is hardly weighty on its own. But taken together, there is a cumulative impression made on the reader that a bilingual Palestinian Jew, well acquainted with money, wrote this gospel.

Unfortunately, much of the above is either untrue or misleading. The sum of these is that we are seeing nothing more than assertions and speculation. That this is the conclusion reached by this website shows that the website is only looking to back up what they already believe and not interested in discovering the truth.

External testimony has already suggested Matthew as the author;

Uh... where was that evidence again? If it is as strong for GMatthew as it was for GMark, I think that the absence of this evidence is as strong as its inclusion would be.

the internal evidence does nothing to shake this impression. There is, therefore, little reason to doubt Matthean authorship.

It does nothing but tell us that the authors of the site were desperate but not serious.

External Evidence:

Oh... here we go.

Added to this explicit testimony are the quotations of Matthew’s Gospel in the early patristic writers. It is quoted as early as 110 CE (by Ignatius), with a steady stream of patristic citations afterward.

This is all very good but a quotation from the gospel without naming its source is not evidence for the author of the gospel being named Matthew nor being the disciple. This is intentionally misleading and gives apologetics the bad name that it has.

In fact, Matthew’s Gospel was quoted (and copied) far more often than either Mark or Luke. From earliest times, then, it was treated as canonical and authoritative on the life of Jesus Christ, regardless of authorship.

In other words, it doesn't matter who wrote it. It only matters that it was treated as authoratative.

Sum total of external evidence: 0
Sum value of internal evidence: 0

One final comment about external evidence should be added. Although there is always the possibility of a vested interest on the part of patristic writers to seek apostolic authorship for the anonymous books of the NT, this does not explain why Matthew and no other apostle was ever suggested for the first gospel. Indeed, not only was Matthew by no means the most prominent of the apostles, but he also would not seem to be as qualified as some others to write to Jewish Christians, in light of his former occupation. Would not Andrew or Philip or Bartholomew have been more likely candidates if an apostolic author were merely a figment of the early church? None of them had the stigma of having been in league with the Romans, and all figured more prominently in the gospel narratives. What is especially impressive is that Matthew and Matthew alone was suggested as the author of the first gospel.

A fine argument from silence if I ever saw one. That the gospel is attributed to Matthew is not a great wonder. That it was not a prominent disciple is of little import as all 12 disciples were given the same charge to spread the message. This does not amount to external nor internal evidence for who wrote the gospel.

Now... let's look at REAL evidence:

Mahlon Smith writes in his fantastic website, The Canonical Status of Q:

The only patristic voice before 180 CE to record a claim of Matthean priority was Papias of Hieropolis (d. ca. 138 CE) --- according to Eusebius of Caesarea, that is, who quotes (ca. 350 CE) this vague one-line assertion from Papias’ no longer extant five volume exegesis of the sayings (logia) of Jesus: "So Matthew arranged the sayings (logia) in the Hebrew dialect, and each translated (or interpreted) them as he could."/15/ Papias did not claim that Matthew wrote any story of Jesus’ birth, baptism, miracles, passion or resurrection; on the contrary, his choice of words describes the act of compiling a sayings collection like Q rather than composing a narrative gospel like canonical Matthew.

A one line assertion by someone who cannot give direct testimony is not evidence.

"The [Church] fathers are almost unanimous in asserting that Matthew the tax-collector was the author, writing first, for Hebrews in the Hebrew language: Papias (c. 60-130), Irenaeus (c. 130-200), Pantaenus (died c. 190), Origen (c. 185-254), Eusebius (c. 260-340), Epiphanius (c. 315-403), Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-86) and others write in this vein. The Medieval Hebrew gospel of Matthew in Even Bohan could be a corrupted version of the original. Though unrivaled, the tradition has been discounted on various grounds, particularly on the supposed unreliability of Papias, from whom some would derive the whole tradition."
- John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke (1991), p. 116

Some researchers think that Papias' Matthew might actually have been the Gospel of the Hebrews:

"Almost certainly he [Papias] was referring to Hebrews, although it is not impossible that he had in mind the Q gospel. He declared that Maththaios's Hebrew tract had been widely translated. When Hebrews was discovered and found to contain an admission by Jesus that he might have sinned, that passage was deemed adequate evidence in the eyes of second-century Christians that it was a pseudepigraphic forgery. Hebrews was excluded from the Christian canon and an alternative Matthew was sought.
"An anonymous Greek-language gospel then in existence appeared to conform to Papias's general description, even though it was not a translation of a gospel originally composed in Hebrew, and contained no hint that its author had been Maththaios. It was this Greek gospel that...was given the name Matthew and retains the name Matthew to this day. While many of the sayings attributed to Jesus in Matthew were indeed Greek translations of Hebrew verse (7:1; 7:6-8; 11:17; 23:34-35; 23:37-38), the gospel as a whole was composed by a man who could not read Hebrew."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus

It is clear to me that the issue of authorship is not certain but it is relatively certain that the disciple named alternately Levi or Matthew did not write this book. That this is accepted in most scholarly circles escaped mention by the contributor which should come as no real surprise.

Dating

No evidence was provided by the contributor, so I will simply offer what I know and what I can find:

John P. Meier is a conservative Christian scholar who has in many cases, vehemently disagreed with the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar and like-minded scholars. He wrote:

"...Matthew wrote his Gospel somewhere around AD 85-90..."
- John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2

The Jesus Seminar states:

"Matthew apparently considers the Pharisees to be the sole legal authority. This was true only after the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E., a generation after Jesus and long after the composition of Q."
- Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

That pretty much covers both sides of that coin.

Luke

Quoting from http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/lukeotl.htm

Attestation of Lukan authorship is found in the Muratorian Canon, the anti-Marcionite Prologue to Luke, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius, and Jerome. These all not only affirm authorship of the gospel by Luke, but Lukan authorship for the book of Acts, too. Thus the external evidence is both unanimous and early. “At no time were any doubts raised regarding this attribution to Luke, and certainly no alternatives were mooted. The tradition could hardly be stronger . . .” As with Mark, this unanimous tradition is all the more surprising if it were not true since Luke was not an apostle, nor even closely associated with one of the twelve.

Unfortunately, as in the case of GMark, none of these can give valuable insight into who the author of the gospel was. All it can tell us is what the tradition dating back to the second century was. That this is the tradition is not disputed, though the tradition itself is.

Caird makes the interesting observation:

Not all the traditions of the early Church are to be accepted at their face value, but there are good reasons for accepting this one. . . . a book which was meant for publication must have borne its author’s name from the start. In this respect the literary conventions of the first century were stricter than ours, which allow an author to hide behind a pen-name. Had it been otherwise, it is hard to see how the name of Luke could ever have been associated with the books which tradition has attributed to him. Luke can scarcely be described as a prominent figure in the annals of first-century Christianity.

Why the need for apostolic authority? The gospel opens by saying that he asked around and these are the answers he got. The whole of the gospel is naught but hearsay by the author's own admission. But... that's a subject for another post.

The external evidence has already been dealt with and I see no reason to discredit the testimony of these authors again. Let's move on to the internal evidence supplied by the contributor and his apologetic site:

Internal Evidence:
a. Unity of Authorship of Luke and Acts

This has long been disputed and is still argued widely. All one must do to see this is join a mailing list like Acts-L or Synoptic-L to read the fascinating arguments of both sides. (contact me for information on these lists, if you are interested).

b. Evidence that the Author was a Companion of Paul
Col. 4:14 calls Luke ‘the beloved physician.’ In 1882 W. K. Hobart wrote his celebrated The Medical Language of St. Luke in which he argued that where Matthew and Mark use common, everyday terms, Luke often used medical terms in describing Jesus’ healings.

The evidence that the author of Luke was the companion of Paul is non-existent. This is a tradition, again, dating from the second century that has no scriptural support. That there is also a Luke (Loukas in Greek, actually) mentioned in the writings of Paul is very interesting but there is nothing to indicate that these two people are one and the same other than second century tradition.

What do others say?

The Jesus Seminar:

"The tradition that Luke the physician and companion of Paul was the author of Luke-Acts goes back to the second century C.E. The Luke in question is referred to in Col 4:14; Phlm 24; 2 Tim 4:11, where he is identified as a physician. It is improbable that the author of Luke-Acts was a physician; it is doubtful that he was a companion of Paul."
- Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

From PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/mmluke.html:

Tradition holds that the author of the gospel of Luke was a physician and a traveling companion of the apostle Paul. History offers no evidence to substantiate these claims, but the work itself suggests that it was composed by someone who lived in one of the cities where Paul had established his early churches. The composition and language of the work suggests that its author was well-educated, fluent in Greek, and possessed a keen sense of literary style. (Emphasis mine)

Again, we are not sure who DID write the Gospel of Luke but we are relatively certain that it was not who tradition holds it to be.

Dating

The contributor writes:

The dating of Luke is closely linked with Acts and Matthew, since the former is commonly viewed as a set with Luke, and the latter was clearly written independent of knowledge of Matthew, yet followed Mark. Thus, in this case, if Matthew is dated around mid 50’s to early 60’s then so must Luke. Further, if Acts is a set with Luke then:
The date of Acts is of course the most significant piece of evidence in dating Luke, for the gospel must precede Acts.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. There is no reason to assume that Acts comes after the gospel. That the story is a continuation does not rule out the possibility that the author wrote Acts first and the gospel second.

Further, there is nothing in the above relation to the Gospel of Matthew that indicates that GLuke must have been written at the same time. This is nothing but speculation. class="text"

We will deal with the date of Acts in some detail in our introduction to that book, but one point can be made here. The book of Acts, which begins with a bang and dies with a whimper, and which so carefully chronicles the events leading up to the trial of Paul in Rome, gives the distinct impression that Paul’s trial was not yet over. In other words, it is very doubtful that this book was written after 62 CE. If so, then Luke was not written after 62 CE.

Another fine piece of speculation. Unfortunately, Luke is dependent on GMark and we have already dated that gospel, based on internal and external evidence, to the year 70 CE or later. Thus, GLuke must also be later than 70.

From John Dominic Crossan, a Christian scholar and Professor of the New Testament at DePaul University:

"Using the same sources as Matthew, as well as much other data, the Gospel of Luke was "written possibly as early as the nineties but before John 1-20, which used its passion and resurrection account."
- John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)

Acts

From the contributor:

I have included Acts here, since its dating is clearly central to dating Luke. If the two books are a set, as many scholars believe, the Gospel must have preceded Acts.

This is more than likely true. There is, however, the possibility that it is not and it is unfortunate to see that this possibility is not even entertained. Oh, well. We did know setting out that we would not be presented an objective study from this contributor or his apologetic site.

First off, I admit that most scholars date Acts at 80-90AD.

Rightly so.

That said, there is strong evidence to suggest that it was written much earlier.

It just so happens that these same "most scholars" are aware of the following evidence and STILL date it as they do. Amazing!

Consider from http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/actsotl.htm:

(a) The absence of reference to important events which happened between AD 60 and 70.

Unfortunately, this is not true. Acts contains an account of Paul's imprisonment in Rome. This lasted two years and was from 62-64 CE. This is attested in Acts as well as by church tradition.

(b) The primitive character of the subject-matter. In particular, “the Jewish-Gentile controversy…

This is not a strong indication for a date. Up until the end of the first century, the situation was growing more complex but could still be viewed as primitive for longer periods of time the further one travelled from Jerusalem.

(c) The primitive nature of the theology. Terms such as “the Christ,” “disciples,” “the Way,”

The word "disciples" did not catch on in popularity until later in the first century. This is an argument against an earlier dating. The same can be said of "the way". As for the term "the Christ," this is unique to Acts and as such cannot be used to determine the date of the text.

(d) The attitude of the state towards the church. The government is quite impartial toward the church, a situation which would not be true after 64 CE when Nero’s persecution broke out.

This is incorrect. Christians did enjoy a short period where their religion was seen much in the same way as Judaism was. They had a special status as an allowed religion and did not need to worship the emperor as all others did. This ended early in the second century.

(e) The relation of Acts to the Pauline epistles. Luke shows no awareness of Paul’s literary endeavors. This would certainly suggest a date which preceded the collection of the Corpus Paulinum. Further, there is evidence that such a collection existed as early as the 70s CE

Two things - that the author of Acts showing no awareness of Paul's literary endeavours is an argument against Paul's travelling companion, Luke, being the author of this work. Second, there is no evidence for such an early collection of Paul's work. Even if there was, there is no reason to think that the author would have known about it.

(f) The absence of reference to the death of Paul. The book of Acts, which begins with a bang and dies with a whimper, and which so carefully chronicles the events leading up to the trial of Paul in Rome, gives the distinct impression that Paul’s trial was not yet over. In other words, it is very doubtful that this book was written after 62 CE

A possibility which is rarely entertained by Christian scholars which should be is that the author of Acts died prior to being able to finish his work. The work does end rather abruptly and does not end with the zeal that it began with.

Conclusion: All in all, that Acts ends where it does is a great embarrassment to those who do not maintain a pre-64 date. Robinson, who bases much of his Redating the New Testament on an early (62) date of Acts, argues ably for this view. In particular, he points out that Adolph von Harnack, “whose massive scholarship and objectivity of judgment contrast with so many who have come after him,” is still worth quoting precisely because “on this subject he was forced slowly and painfully to change his mind.” Two snippets from Harnack’s The Date of Acts will have to suffice: “Throughout eight whole chapters St. Luke keeps his readers intensely interested in the progress of the trial of St. Paul, simply that he may in the end completely disappoint them—they learn nothing of the final result of the trial!” “The more clearly we see that the trial of St. Paul, and above all his appeal to Caesar, is the chief subject of the last quarter of Acts, the more hopeless does it appear that we can explain why the narrative breaks off as it does, otherwise than by assuming that the trial had actually not yet reached its close. It is no use to struggle against this conclusion.”

And yet, scholars still do, having read Harnack and Robinson, conclude that Acts was written in the 80s.

John

From http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/jnotl.htm:

External Evidence: Attestation of Johannine authorship is found as early as Irenaeus. Eusebius reports that Irenaeus received his information from Polycarp, who in turn received it from the apostles directly. Although Irenaeus’ testimony has been assailed on critical grounds (since he received the information as a child, and may have been mistaken as to which John wrote the gospel), since all patristic writers after Irenaeus do not question apostolic authorship, criticism must give way to historical probability. The list of fathers include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc.

And what the site fails to realize is that all of these men used Irenaeus as their source for information on this, giving us not many sources of information but one. That Irenaeus is unreliable has been established above and is admitted here. This apparently does not deter the believer looking to defend tradition, though.

Further, the Muratorian Canon suggests that John was given the commission to write this gospel after Andrew received a vision indicating that he would do so. If one were to sift out the possible accretions in this statement, the bare fact of Johannine authorship is not disturbed. Finally, the anti-Marcionite Prologue also affirms Johannine authorship.

Early Church fathers could not agree on whether the author of this gospel was John the Presbyter or John the Elder. This issue has never been determined to satisfaction and remains a debate to this day. Raymond Brown, the leading Catholic scholar of his day, stated succinctly that the discple was not the author of the gospel.

Internal Evidence:
a. Concentric Proofs From B. F. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John
(1) The Author was a Jew

Possible but not conclusive. This is an assertion and nothing more.

(2) The Author was a Jew in Palestine

Not only an assertion but contrary to popular scholarly opinion which places the writing of this gospel in Ephesus.

(3) The Author was an Eyewitness of What he Wrote He stated that he had beheld Christ’s glory (1:14) using a verb (qeavomai) which in NT Greek always bears the meaning of at least physical examination (cf. BAGD); there are incidental comments about his being there (Judas slipped out at night [13:16] 4:6 [the sixth hour], etc.).

And we know that the author was telling the truth about being a witness... because he says he is telling the truth. Excellent circular reasoning from B.S. Wescott.

(4) The Author was an Apostle He has an intimate knowledge of what happened among the disciples—cf. 2:11; 4:27; 6:19, etc.

Disputed by nearly all scholars who have studied the issue. That John was written by an apostle is a true minority position that does not even have any historical backing.

(5) The Author was the Apostle John

No... he wasn't. The apostle by the name of John was neither John the Elder nor John the Presbyter. These are the names given to the author by Eusebius and Irenaeus independently.

He is exact in mentioning names of characters in the book. If he is so careful, why does he omit the name of John unless he is John?

Argument from silence. Phillip is never mentioned in the gospel. Why didn't he write it? Or Matthew/Levi? Or Stephen? Or any of the other disciples not mentioned?

Further, his mention of John the Baptist merely as “John” (1:6) implies that if he is to show up in the narrative another name must be given him—such as “the beloved disciple”—or else confusion would result.

The "beloved disciple" is definitely under debate, though a recent poster (me!) on these boards made a very convincing case that it was Lazarus. No one here gave any compelling rebuttals to that argument.

How about some words from other scholars on this issue?

"As with the synoptics, the real name of the author of John is unknown. Certain similarities between the gospel, letters and Apocalypse that now bear that name led the early Christians to imagine that they had been the work of a single author; and since the redactor of Apocalypse had called himself Ioannes, that name was attached to the unsigned works also. In fact, while the author of Apocalypse had been a Jew whose Greek (Koine) left a lot to be desired, the author of John was a native Greek whose handling of that language was skilled and erudite."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus

"...The various styles of the New Testament texts ascribed to John - the Gospel, the Letters, and the Book of Revelations - are each so different in their style that it is extremely unlikely that they had been written by one person. Modern theory inclines to the opinion that these writings of 'John' are the work of a group of scholars in Asia Minor who followed an Apostle John, perhaps John the son of Zebedee, Jesus' cousin. One tradition tells that John wrote his Gospel in Ephesus in Asia Minor; at Ephesus there is a 'Tomb of John' that has been revered since the second century as the tomb of John the Apostle, and this is a very early date for such a shrine, reaching back almost into the generations of the successors of the Apostles."
- John Romer, Testament

"The Fourth Gospel was opposed as heretical in the early church, and it knows none of the stories associated with John, son of Zebedee. In the judgment of many scholars, it was produced by a 'school' of disciples, probably in Syria."
- Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

"...It has been thought for years that John's gospel was written after the other three based on a conjecture by Irenaeus which is quoted in Eusebius' church history. If, then, one dates Luke to c.85...John must be c.95 but not much later. If one disregards Irenaeus' speculations, there is no reason to suppose that it was not John which was written earlier."
- Frank Daniels

Dating

From the conributor:

As for dating this book, the site makes the case that while most scholars place the date at cf. 90AD, a case can be made for dating as early as the 60’s. This argument seems ridiculous to me, so I will not defend it. I believe that it was probably written around 90-95AD.

Actually, I believe that there is a source for GJohn that is now lost to us, much like Q. It is called the Signs Gospel and I believe that it is as early as Q - the 40s, 50s and 60s.