New Testament documents timeline

51: Paul, 1 Thessalonians
54: Paul, 1 Corinthians, Galatians
55: Paul, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians
57: Paul, Philippians
58: Paul, Philemon, Romans
65: James, Gospel of Mark
68: Hebrews
75: Colossians
85: Gospel of Matthew, Luke, Acts
90: Ephesians
95: Gospel of John, Revelations, 1 Peter
100: 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus

source: p. 259, Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible.
I chose this source because it gave the data in a timeline format. I think the dates are approximate, and there are others who would place the letters and gospels a little differently, but overall I think most would agree to this in general. Also, the specificity of the dates is not so clear - there's wiggle room!

Jesus and Paul

As for Jesus, I don't buy the "he never existed" argument.  It has the feel of conspiracy thinking.  There are several non-biblical sources that mention him, such as the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus.  To me it's no big deal to acknowledge that he was a real man.  It's all the claims beyond that which are debateable.  Like I said, I see him as a Jewish man who saw himself as a messiah, in a spiritual way, not in a Davidic independence-for-Israel way, and who seems to have been opposed to oral Torah, and who proposed a radical reinterpretation of written and oral Torah.  More and more I'm reading about oral Torah and rereading the gospels -- and that's where many of Jesus's criticisms center on. 

 

Paul -- well, he latched onto Jesus as the centerpiece of an even more radical revision of Judaism.  For Paul Jesus had a functional value as the Messiah, and whatever he did or said in his life didn't matter much.  With JC as the new Messiah Paul could construct his new "Judaism" around him, with ideas that Paul had for himself.  I imagine that someone has written of the probable sources, Jewish and Greek, of Paul's ideas of salvation, sin, the messiah, etc.  My theory is that at his core, as  Jew, Paul wanted to somehow expand Judaism to incorporate everyone, not just the Jewish people.  I think this arises out of the issue of monotheism; how do you truly apply the theory of one god for all mankind in a way that is potentially inclusive of everyone?  Judaism's monotheism, with its set-up of the Jews as the "chosen people" still has the remnants of the tribal god -- the old polytheistic idea that "our" tribe's god is better than your tribe's god.  With JC as the functional key to global salvation, Paul found a way to open up the benefits of Judaism to everyone through faith in JC.  To do this he had to argue away Torah, oral and written, and revise any part of Judaism that stood in the way of this goal.  JC is the new covenant that replaces all the old ones, and it's open to anyone who professes faith.  A "new Judaism" for the world.  This finally rids Judaism of the remnants of tribal thinking of a two-class world of jews and gentiles. 

 

Now, is this what JC wanted?  I doubt.  I guess in the gospels we can see what JC might have been after, and in the non-Paul letters, at least some of them (I"m not sure which -- I'm reading them now).  Maybe JC did want something like this, a new global judaism, I don't know.  The gospels are not coherent in many ways. 

 

I read Paul's "convesion on the road to Damascus" this way:  Paul, the fanatic Pharisee, brimming with his own ideas, out to pursue renegade followers of JC, is suddenly struck by the idea that this JC guy is the key to explaining all the ideas and theories that Paul already had.  It's the shock of discovering that your enemy provides a critical piece in your puzzle.  It must have been an incredible shock to Paul.  I see it as an intellectual realization of Paul's that he categorizes as a religious experience.  For Paul, accepting JC as the messiah made perfect sense once he figured out that it could be through this event that everyone could have the righteous relationship with God that Jews have.  And then all his crazy revisionist ideas have a focus, and he's off and running to start converting people to his super-reformed neo-Judaism.

 

Anyway, that's my thinking now.  Probably someone thought of it years ago, or maybe I'm totally wrong.  I am but an enthusiastic amateur, as I tell my class, and not an expert.  But I think, in a broader context, the background of all this is the need of Jewish thinkers in this time period to reconcile their beliefs with the Greco-Roman hellenistic culture and philosophy that was permeating the Roman empire.  Another Jew who made an attempt to synthesize or correlate Judaism with hellenistic thought is Philo of Alexandria, who live around the time of JC.  He attempted to use the tools of greek thought -- philosphy, theology, etc., to reinterpret the Hebrew Bible in tems of Greek thought.  Look him up on Wiki, it's really fascinating.  Paul was attempting this, too, in a religous way.  Philo was doing it in a philosophical way. 

Reading Matthew chapter 2

quote is from Micah 5.2.  One project is to figure out why the gospel writers chose certain phrases from the Hebrew Bible (HB) and not others.  

Reading Matthew chapter 1

1:1-17

genealogy of Jesus.  Puts him in a specific jewish context; from Abraham to JC in sets of 14 generations.

1:18-25

The angel speaking with Joseph has a patrifocal angle; in Luke the angel speaks to Mary.  Quote is from Isaiah 7:14.  Note that Mary was pregnant before Joseph "took her as his wife."