When Was the New Testament Written? (1 of 6)

Between roughly AD 48 and the end of the first century, and the order matters more than the dates.

The documents existed first. They were circulating, being read aloud, and being treated as authoritative long before anyone wrote a list. Every argument about the canon that starts with a council has the sequence backwards.

What Was Written First?

Probably one of Paul’s letters, and probably in the late 40s.

Paul’s thirteen letters are occasional documents. They were written to specific churches with specific problems, not composed as Scripture for the ages. That is worth holding onto, because it is part of why they are trustworthy. A man constructing a sacred text does not spend a chapter on a collection for the poor or ask someone to bring his cloak.

The Gospels come later, composed across roughly the 60s to the 90s, within living memory of the events. That timing has a consequence people skip past. Eyewitnesses were still available to be consulted, and still available to object.

Were the Letters Meant to Be Read Publicly?

Yes, and the instructions are inside the letters.

Col 4:16 tells the church that after this letter has been read among them, they should see that it is read in the church of the Laodiceans, and that they should read the letter coming from Laodicea. That is an exchange arrangement, written into the document.

1 Thess 5:27 is stronger. Paul charges them before the Lord to have the letter read to all the brothers and sisters. That may be the earliest document in the New Testament, and it is already claiming a public hearing under oath.

So from the very beginning these texts were not private correspondence that later got promoted. They were written for reading aloud to assembled congregations, and they were being passed between cities.

Did Luke Say Where He Got His Material?

He did, in the only formal preface in the Gospels.

Luke 1:1-4 says many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things fulfilled among them, just as they were handed down by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, and that having carefully investigated everything from the beginning he decided to write an orderly account.

Read what that concedes. He was not there. Others were. He worked from what they handed down, and he investigated.

A writer manufacturing authority does not open by explaining he got it from other people. The preface is the sort of thing that makes a document more credible, not less, and it tells you the first Christians were already thinking about sources.

Does the New Testament Call Itself Scripture?

In two places it treats other New Testament writing that way, and both are inside the collection.

2 Pet 3:15-16 refers to Paul’s letters, notes that some things in them are hard to understand, and says that ignorant and unstable people distort them as they do the other Scriptures. The phrase is the point. Paul’s letters are being placed in the same category as whatever else the writer means by Scripture.

1 Tim 5:18 introduces two quotations with the formula that Scripture says. The first is from Deuteronomy, about not muzzling the ox. The second, about the worker deserving his wages, matches Luke 10:7.

That is a Gospel saying cited under a Scripture formula, inside the New Testament.

Neither passage settles a canon. What they show is that the practice of treating these documents as authoritative was underway inside the writing period itself, not imposed on it centuries later.

Was There a List in the First Century?

No, and there did not need to be.

Lists get made when a question is forced. In the first century the churches had the apostles, or people who had known them, and documents circulating with obvious authority. Nobody was proposing rivals yet, so nobody had to define the boundary.

That changes in the second century when someone does propose a rival, and the list-making begins as a response. But for the first fifty years the authority was functioning without anyone needing to write it down.

Why Does the Order the New Testament Was Written In Matter?

Because almost every popular claim about the canon depends on getting it wrong.

The story that a council selected the books, or that an emperor decided them, requires the documents to have been sitting inert until an authority ruled on them. That is not what happened. They were written, circulated, read in worship, exchanged between cities, and quoted as Scripture, and only afterward did anyone produce an inventory.

The rest of this series follows that inventory as it develops. It starts with the documents being used, which is where the evidence actually starts.

Part of a series on how the New Testament came together, following the canon timeline.

Footnotes2

1. The 1 Timothy 5:18 case deserves care rather than triumphalism. That the second quotation matches Luke 10:7 is clear. Whether the writer is citing the Gospel of Luke as a document, or a saying of Jesus circulating in a form Luke also preserved, is not something the verse settles. It is still striking that the formula covers both.
2. The occasional character of Paul's letters is one of the better arguments for their authenticity and it is rarely made. Forged sacred texts tend to be timeless. These are full of names, travel plans, quarrels, and requests for personal items.

Sources

The biblical texts cited: Col 4:16, 1 Thess 5:27, Luke 1:1-4, 2 Pet 3:15-16, and 1 Tim 5:18.

Where the sourcing stops: the dating ranges given here are the standard conservative-to-moderate spread and there is a genuine scholarly range on both ends, particularly for the Gospels. The argument that a preface admitting dependence on others increases credibility is my own framing of a common observation.