Dear Editor,
Chris Sinkinson’s article in the October en on the date of the changing of the name of Bethsaida raises matters on the dating of the Gospels.
Some years ago the late Dr John Wenham researched and wrote his book, with his informative sources, on the re-dating of the synoptic Gospels. He determined c.53–55 AD.
Then, more recently (c.10–12 years ago), I was listening to a speaker casually saying ‘… when Matthew came to write this down 60 years later’ – I woke with a shock: how old was Matthew when he was a Roman tax collector? Four or five years old?
If Bethsaida lost its name in 30AD, then the flow of the Gospels without comment on name change suggests that they were written much earlier, by 40AD at the reasonable latest. But since, by the calendar, the crucifixion was c.28/29AD, the name change happened so soon afterwards that I suspect the Gospels – all four, I add – were possibly, and probably, written before 35AD.
I can see total rejection by all Western academic intellectual standards, but I see a window when that could have happened during the early days in Jerusalem before any persecution was organised against the New Testament church. In Acts 6:1-4 the apostles say they are giving their time to the word and prayer. That ‘word’ was what? Only the Old Testament? Or was that when they were busy writing the gospels? If it has been calculated in 1994 that one copy of the letter to the Romans cost the equivalent of some £2,000, then were the scribal resources for such a task a possible contributory cause of the late poverty in the Jerusalem church, as given in Acts?
Yours sincerely,
Anthony Robson Southampton
