Redrawing the Boundaries ─ The Date of Early Christian Literature

The late Sturdy (former dean, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge) formulated this text in response to John Robinson's 1975 Redating the New Testament, in which Robinson argued for a mostly first century date for the New Testament. Sturdy approached the dating from 1 Clement, Polycarp and the Ignatian correspondence, all of which he believed to be pseudonymous and not from the late first or early second century, which allowed him to push back the date for the New Testament writings which were known by the authors of the texts. This theory, if accepted, would require still further reevaluation of the dating of the entire New Testament. Knight (research fellow, Katie Wheeler Trust) was called upon to prepare Sturdy's incomplete manuscript for publication, and in the interest of leaving Sturdy's work as original to the author as possible, some arguments were left underdeveloped. The text begins with the problem of accepted dating of New Testament literature, and follows with chapters on specific areas: 1 Clement, the Letters of Ignatius, Polycarp, parameters of dates of early Christian literature, Mark, Luke, Matthew, Acts, the growth and development of the Pauline corpus, the Catholic epistles, and the Johannine literature. Included as an appendix is Sturdy's 1976 published review of Robinson's work. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

John Sturdy was Dean of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, until his death in 1996, and taught German in the Divinity Faculty.

Jonathan Knight is Research Fellow of the Katie Wheeler Trust, and previously Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Sheffield University and Research Assistant to Bishop Stephen Sykes.