So Mark is really, really interested in the Jewish temple, and that might show that he’s writing at a time when the temple is under threat or when the temple has been destroyed. His telling of the story of Jesus keeps having for him these contemporary resonances. Matthew and Luke probably a little later still. They’re probably writing in the 80s or even as late as the 90s, and that means that you can just pick up again some concerns that are around later in the first century.
But at the same time, we must bear in mind that it isn’t that late. And when you push into the second century, you do start seeing what much more fictional accounts, you know, totally fictional accounts look like. And after you get into the second century, it’s harder to find anything that you can pin down and say, “Ah, this is a good bit of early Jesus history.”
