Why did it take so long after Christ's death to write the Bible?

Answer 1

The Old Testament was, of course, written long before the birth of Jesus. The Book of Hebrews is generally thought to have been written soon after the death of Jesus, and Paul also appears to have written his epistles fairly soon afterwards. None of these has anything to say about the life of Jesus. The four gospels are the books of The Bible which seem as if they ought to have been written as soon as possible after the death of Jesus, but we now know that they were not.

Scholars tell us that all the New Testament gospels were originally anonymous and were only attributed to the apostles whose names they now bear later in the second century, when the Church Fathers sought to establish to their own satisfaction who probably wrote each of the gospels.

The first gospel to be written was Mark's Gospel, which has been dated to approximately 68-73 CE. The reason for such a long delay is unclear, but some scholars point out parallels between some of the text and Paul's epistles. If so, the gospel may have been based in part on, or inspired by, the epistles, which are generally thought to have been written in the fifties, give or take a few years. The coincidence of the timing of Mark's Gospel with the end of the First Roman-Jewish War also suggests a possible connection with the events of that time and the imperative to write a gospel.

Scholars tell us that Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel were largely based on Mark's Gospel, with Matthew containing some 600 of the 666 verses in Mark. Clearly, they could not have been written until Mark had been published and enjoyed a wide circulation. For this and other reasons, Matthew is considered to have been written in the 80s of the first century, although Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) suggests allowing a few years either side of that decade. The success of Mark's Gospel could have led to a demand for an improved gospel, which would include more detail on the human side of Jesus such as the stories of his birth.

Not only can Luke's Gospel be dated after Mark, it seems likely that the author made use of Antiquities of the Jews, published by Josephus in 93 CE, and his Life biography written shortly afterwards, as historical background material. This would require Luke to have written his Gospel around the end of the first century or shortly afterwards, if he wanted to provide a historical context that would add further credibility to his account. Some of the subtext of Luke's Gospel indicates that it was written for a specific Christian community, in which case the growth of that community was the very reason for the Gospel.

Elaine Pagels sees one reason for John's Gospel being to counter the influence of a Christian sect said to be followers of the apostle Thomas - hence the repeated allusions to the 'doubting Thomas'. Another possible reason apparent in the text was to moderate the excessive veneration of the apostle Peter, defining him once again as no more than human and by no means greater than the others. On this view, the need for John's Gospel arose because of the developments taking place in the second-century Christian world. Apart from this, John's Gospel is believed to have been inspired by Luke's Gospel, and was therefore written in the early part of the second century.