This post contains a summary by Claude.ai of a detailed post on Dave Allen’s blog titled “ANACHRONISMS IN THE GOSPELS“. Below the summary is the response titled Scholarly Responses to Allen’s 26 Anachronisms from Claude when prompted: Provide the position of critical bible scholars who support or disagree with the positions in the lists.
Copied from the end of Claude’s summary is this statement – Overall thesis: The cumulative weight of these anachronisms, the author contends, indicates the Gospel authors — especially Mark — lacked living memory of pre-70 Judean society, and that composition occurred significantly later than mainstream consensus allows, likely well into the second century.
Summary: “Anachronisms in the Gospels” — Dave Allen
The author argues that the Gospels (particularly Mark) contain numerous anachronisms pointing to composition well after 70 CE, possibly into the second century. Here are the 26 items with their supporting rationale:
- Pharisees in Galilee — Josephus and rabbinic sources indicate Pharisees were essentially absent from Galilee before 70 CE; their presence there in the Gospels reflects post-war migration northward.
- The title “Rabbi” — Scholars including Geza Vermes and Hyam Maccoby confirm the honorific “rabbi” was not in titular use until after the Temple’s destruction; contemporaries of Jesus like Hillel were called “elders,” not rabbis.
- “All the Jews wash their hands” — Ritual handwashing before meals was obligatory only for priests in Jesus’s day; it became normative for all Jews only around 100 CE or later.
- Burial in linen shrouds — According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the custom of burying in simple linen shrouds was inaugurated by Rabban Gamaliel roughly fifty years after the Temple’s destruction (~120 CE).
- Rolling (circular) tomb stones — Archaeological evidence shows over 98% of Second Temple–period tombs used square blocking stones; round stones became common only after 70 CE.
- Denarii as common currency — Coin-find data shows denarii were rare in Judea before 70 CE; the Tyrian shekel dominated, making Gospel references to denarii anachronistic for Jesus’s lifetime.
- “Render unto Caesar” taxation — Pre-war taxation was paid in kind, not coin; “Caesar” only became an imperial title in 68–69 CE, and the fiscus Judaicus referenced likely reflects Vespasian’s post-war tax.
- “I will build my church” — The ecclesiastical conception embedded in Matthew 16:18 reflects institutional church development too advanced for Jesus’s own era.
- Conflict with “the Jews” as monolith — The portrayal of a unified, normative Judaism opposing Jesus reflects post-Yavneh consolidation, a process that only began after 70 CE under Johannon ben-Zakkai.
- The Korban/vow dispute — Jesus’s halakhic position on vows (Mark 7:11–13) is the same view later controversially attributed to Eliezer ben Hyrkanus, whose career post-dated the Temple’s fall.
- Women initiating divorce — Mark 10:12 presupposes a woman’s right to initiate divorce, which did not exist under Jewish law but was standard in Greco-Roman contexts, suggesting a Gentile or later setting.
- Two simultaneous high priests — Josephus shows Annas and Caiaphas held office sequentially, not simultaneously; the Gospel conflation may reflect a later co-high-priesthood (Jonathan and Ananias, 48–52 CE).
- “Disciples of the Pharisees” — Pharisees were pious laymen, not clerical teachers with formal disciples; that institutional terminology arose only after the Temple’s destruction.
- Nazareth’s bad reputation — Nazareth only fell into disrepute among Jews because of its association with Jesus; before the Gospels there is no evidence of anyone disparaging the town.
- The Great Commission — If the risen Jesus explicitly commanded Gentile mission (Matt. 28:19), the subsequent controversy over Peter preaching to Cornelius (Acts 10–11) is inexplicable; the commission reflects later church policy.
- Competitive baptism — John 3:22–30 retrojecting baptismal rivalry into the lifetime of Jesus and John the Baptist depicts the later institutional competition between Jesus-followers and John’s movement.
- Synagogue excommunication — John 9’s depiction of expulsion from the synagogue for belief in Jesus reflects the post-70 birkat ha-minim situation, not anything possible in Jesus’s day.
- Zechariah son of Berechiah — Matthew 23:35’s reference likely alludes to Zacharias son of Baruch, murdered in the Temple precincts in the late 60s CE according to Josephus (Jewish War 4:343), placing the saying after that event.
- The Little Apocalypse — Mark 13’s prediction of the Temple’s destruction and the anticipation of the Pauline Gentile mission reads as prophecy after the fact, composed with knowledge of the 70 CE events.
- The Temple veil’s rending — Historical sources (including the Talmud and Josephus) indicate Titus slashed the veil in 70 CE; Mark’s claim that God tore it at Jesus’s death appears to theologize that historical event.
- Gospel dependence on Paul’s letters — The chiastic structure of Mark 12:10–36 mirrors quotations and themes from Romans and 1 Corinthians in a pattern intelligible only to readers already familiar with those epistles.
- Jesus as atoning sacrifice / new Temple — The theological equation of Jesus’s body with the Temple (John 2:18–22) only makes sense as atonement theology after the Temple no longer stood to perform that function.
- Nicodemus ben Gurion — The Johannine Nicodemus evokes the wealthy Talmudic figure Nicodemus ben Gurion, whose family appears in Josephus in the context of the 66 CE revolt, suggesting a post-war composition.
- The Parable of the Wicked Tenants — The parable’s narrative arc (God sending his son, the tenants’ destruction, the vineyard given to others) presupposes the Jewish War and the Gentile mission as already accomplished.
- Passover / atonement conflation — The identification of Jesus as a Passover lamb carrying atoning significance confuses Passover (not a sin offering) with Yom Kippur theology; the conflation is a later Christian theological development.
- The Gerasene “Legion” of pigs — Mark’s two thousand pigs destroyed by spirits called “Legion” reads as a thinly veiled reference to the Roman Tenth Legion (X Fretensis, whose emblem was a pig) occupying Jerusalem after 70 CE.
Overall thesis: The cumulative weight of these anachronisms, the author contends, indicates the Gospel authors — especially Mark — lacked living memory of pre-70 Judean society, and that composition occurred significantly later than mainstream consensus allows, likely well into the second century.
Scholarly Responses to Allen’s 26 Anachronisms
What follows organizes the positions of critical scholars — those who support or push back against Allen’s specific claims — item by item. The blog post is a popular-level synthesis drawing on real scholarly arguments, so the responses engage those underlying arguments directly.
Overall Dating Framework
The foundational premise of Allen’s piece is that Mark (and the other Gospels) were composed well after 70 CE, possibly into the second century. On the broader dating question, critical scholars are widely agreed that the earliest Gospel was Mark, written around 70 CE; that Matthew and Luke were written some years later, around 80–85 CE; and that John was the last Gospel, written around 90–95 CE. This mainstream position neither fully supports Allen (who pushes toward the second century) nor refutes him wholesale. Bart Ehrman Blog
The most significant critical dissent from a late date comes from the British scholars J.A.T. Robinson, Maurice Casey, and James Crossley. Within British scholarship, J.A.T. Robinson, Maurice Casey, and James Crossley are the best-known critical scholars who have dated Mark prior to Paul. Crossley’s 2004 monograph The Date of Mark’s Gospel (T&T Clark) argues specifically that Mark’s Gospel was not written as late as c. 65–75 CE, but dates from sometime between the late 30s and early 40s CE, based on internal evidence concerning Torah observance. Casey extended this, arguing Aramaic source material behind Mark pushed composition before 40 CE. These scholars represent the most rigorous critical (non-conservative) challenge to Allen’s late dating. Bart Ehrman BlogAmazon
On the other side, Richard Pervo (Dating Acts, Polebridge Press, 2006) is Allen’s most important scholarly ally on late dating. Pervo discovers that the author of Acts is familiar with the later writings of Josephus (c. 100 CE) and that the theological perspectives of Acts have much in common with elements found in the Pastoral Epistles and Polycarp (c. 125–130 CE), showing how a second-century date helps to interpret it. However, this position on Acts remains a minority view. As one commentator noted, even the liberal scholar W.G. Kümmel concluded that dependence of Acts on Josephus “has rightly been given up” (Introduction to the New Testament, 1966). Google Books
Item-by-Item Scholarly Positions
1. Pharisees in Galilee
Supports Allen: The historical argument here draws substantially from Morton Smith‘s work (referenced at Vridar.org), which surveys Josephus’s War and Vita to conclude the historical evidence for the non-prevalence of Pharisees in Galilee prior to 70 CE is strong and persuasive, noting the Yohanan ben Zakkai tradition and Josephus’s account that the only Pharisees he encountered there had been sent from Jerusalem to impress the locals. Burton Mack (Who Wrote the New Testament, HarperOne, 1995) takes the same view, as Allen notes. Vridar
Qualifies or pushes back: E.P. Sanders (Judaism: Practice and Belief, Fortress, 1992) argued that the Pharisees, while influential, were a relatively small party and did not “dictate policy” to other groups in pre-70 Judaism. Sanders argued that the evidence indicates the Pharisees did not dictate policy to any of these groups or individuals and stressed the importance of historical context for a proper understanding of first-century religion. Anthony Saldarini (Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society, Eerdmans, 1988) — which Sanders himself called “the best single book on the Pharisees” — used a sociological approach that allows for Pharisaic presence across the region, though he acknowledged their concentration in Jerusalem. Some commentators note that some Pharisees may have lived in Galilee — plenty of scribes already did — and the Gospel passages might represent a small number who did reside there. WikipediaCreekside
2. The Title “Rabbi”
Supports Allen: Solomon Zeitlin published “The Title Rabbi in the Gospels Is Anachronistic” in Jewish Quarterly Review 59.2 (1968), pp. 158–160 (JSTOR), offering a foundational scholarly statement of this argument. Geza Vermes (Jesus the Jew, Fortress, 1973) confirmed that at the time of Jesus there were no titles in the technical rabbinic sense, noting that the great masters of Jesus’s era — Hillel, Shammai, Gamaliel — were called “elders” (presbyteroi), not “rabbis.” Hyam Maccoby (The Mythmaker, Harper & Row, 1986) makes the same point about the post-70 shift in terminology. Henkrijstenberg
Qualifies: Some scholars note that “rabbi” appears in first-century contexts as an honorific term of address meaning “my great one” without yet carrying its later technical titular weight. The debate is therefore partly about whether its Gospel usage is anachronistically formal or simply informal address. Hershel Shanks published a response to Zeitlin in the same JQR issue (53, 1962–63, pp. 337ff.) questioning whether the anachronism charge was fully warranted. The debate continues with no firm consensus on whether informal early usage suffices to explain the Gospel data.
3. “All the Jews Wash Their Hands” (Mark 7:3)
Supports Allen: E.P. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism, Fortress, 1985, p. 186) explicitly states that in Jesus’s day handwashing before eating would have applied to only a small number of Jews, and that the Rabbis eventually made handwashing “normative” — but before 70 CE the common people did not accept the practice. Jacob Neusner (Judaic Law from Jesus to the Mishnah, Scholars Press, 1993) argued that the Pharisees tried to extend Temple purity codes into domestic settings — handwashing being among them — but that this was their agenda, not yet established practice. Dave Allens blog
Qualifies: James Crossley (The Date of Mark’s Gospel, T&T Clark, 2004) argues that Mark’s assumptions about Jewish law observance are precisely what one would expect from an early author deeply embedded in Jewish halakhic debates, not a late Gentile author anachronistically projecting later norms. On his reading, the handwashing dispute reflects genuine early controversy, not post-hoc invention.
4. Burial in Linen Shrouds
Supports Allen: The claim rests on Talmudic tradition attributing the normalization of linen burial shrouds (tachrichim) to Rabban Gamaliel II, roughly fifty years after the Temple’s destruction. This is accepted in Jewish historical scholarship as reflecting a genuine post-70 development. The Jewish Encyclopedia entries Allen cites on Gamaliel and Mo’ed Katan represent established reference sources on this.
Qualifies: Several scholars note that the Gospels do not specifically describe Jesus as being buried in the tachrichim type of communal shroud that Gamaliel introduced; the text simply mentions linen wrappings (sindon in Mark 15:46), which could reflect general wealthy burial custom. Byron McCane (Roll Back the Stone, Trinity Press, 2003) contextualizes Jewish burial customs of the period without treating the shroud reference as necessarily anachronistic.
5. Circular (Rolling) Tomb Stones
Supports Allen and Carrier: The key scholarly source here is Amos Kloner (Bar-Ilan University), whose article “Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus’ Tomb?” (Biblical Archaeology Review 25:5, 1999) is the primary archaeological reference. Kloner observed that while hundreds of rock-cut family tombs have been found from the Second Temple era, almost all were sealed with square blocking stones, not round ones, with round rolling stones being extremely rare and used only for the burial caves of the wealthy or high-status individuals. Danny The Digger
Important qualification: Kloner himself did not use this evidence to argue for late Gospel composition. Instead, Kloner suggested adding “dislodge” or “move” to the definition of the Greek verb kulio, proposing that a square blocking stone might more readily be described as being “dislodged” or “moved” than “rolled,” resolving any incongruity between the biblical text and the archaeological record. So the archaeologist whose work Allen’s source cites actually offered a counter-reading. The anachronism argument depends on insisting the Gospels specifically mean disk-shaped stones — which Kloner himself contested. Biblical Archaeology Society
6 & 7. Denarii and Taxation
Supports Allen: Fabian Udoh (To Caesar What Is Caesar’s, University of Notre Dame Press, 2006, p. 236) concluded that “the imperial denarii were not required for Roman taxation, and they did not form the basis of the silver currency of the region” in pre-70 Judea, with the Tyrian shekel dominating. Coin-hoard evidence (the Isfiya hoard showing 4,400 Tyrian coins to 160 denarii) supports this picture. The claim that “Caesar” as an imperial title dates from 68–69 CE is a standard observation in Roman numismatics. Nicenefoundation
Pushes back: Some scholars note that even as a minority currency, denarii did circulate in Judea before 70 CE, and Roman soldiers were paid in denarii. The issue is whether the Gospel narrative requires denarii to be the dominant currency — which it does not — or merely assumes their recognizability, which the evidence does support.
8. “I Will Build My Church” (Matt. 16:18)
Supports Allen: This is a classic argument in form criticism. Rudolf Bultmann and subsequent tradition-history scholars generally concluded that the ekklesia (church) sayings in Matthew reflect the post-Easter community’s self-understanding, not the historical Jesus. John P. Meier (A Marginal Jew, vol. 3, Doubleday, 2001) treats this saying skeptically, viewing institutional church terminology as post-resurrection development.
Pushes back: N.T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God, Fortress, 1996) argues that Jesus’s gathering of a renewed Israel around himself is historically plausible and that the ekklesia terminology, while shaped by the evangelists, reflects a genuine intention by the historical Jesus to reconstitute Israel. Craig Keener (A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Eerdmans, 1999) also defends the plausibility of the saying in its Jewish context.
9. “The Jews” as a Monolithic Opposition
Supports Allen: J. Louis Martyn (History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, Westminster John Knox, 2003) and the broader post-Yavneh scholarship support the view that the Gospel portrait of a unified, normative Judaism opposing Jesus reflects the post-70 restructuring begun at Yavneh under Johannon ben-Zakkai. Jacob Neusner consistently argued that pre-70 Judaism was radically diverse and that the rabbinic “normative Judaism” was a later construction.
Qualifies: E.P. Sanders argued for a “Common Judaism” — shared practices across most first-century Jewish groups — which means some degree of unified identity did exist pre-70, even if the Gospels exaggerate the monolithic opposition to Jesus. Amy-Jill Levine (The Misunderstood Jew, HarperOne, 2006) cautions against reading the Gospel’s anti-Jewish polemics as necessarily proving late composition; the diversity argument cuts both ways.
11. Women Initiating Divorce (Mark 10:12)
Supports Allen: Mark Allan Powell (Jesus as a Figure in History, Westminster John Knox, 1998, p. 49) explicitly states this: “Under Jewish law, only husbands were allowed to initiate divorce. The second half of this saying, therefore, is anachronistic.”
Important qualification: A widely accepted counter-reading notes that Herodias — a woman who divorced her first husband under Roman law — was a contemporary of Jesus and is explicitly mentioned by Josephus and the Gospels themselves. Josephus states that Herodias violated the laws of the country by divorcing herself from her husband while he was alive, using Roman civil law to circumvent Jewish courts. Many scholars, including those at Working Preacher/Luther Seminary, argue that Mark 10:12 is directly intelligible as a reference to the Herodias situation — a real, live example of a woman initiating divorce that Jesus’s audience would have recognized. On this reading, the verse is not anachronistic but topically specific to a scandal of Jesus’s own day. First Fruits of Zion
12. Two Simultaneous High Priests
Supports Allen: The Josephus chronology is well established in scholarship. John Meier and Raymond Brown both note the confusion in Luke 3:2 (which names “Annas and Caiaphas” together as high priests) as historically imprecise, since Josephus makes clear they served sequentially.
Qualifies: Some scholars suggest Annas retained informal authority and the title as a courtesy after his deposition, which would explain the dual reference without requiring late composition. Craig Evans and other conservative scholars take this line.
17. Synagogue Excommunication (Aposynagōgos)
Supports Allen: This is J. Louis Martyn‘s foundational argument, detailed in History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (1st ed. 1968). Martyn argues that the threat of expulsion reflects the Birkat ha-Minim, a Jewish benediction against “Nazarenes and heretics,” and concludes that the Johannine expulsions are anachronistic — that the author of the Fourth Gospel read this expulsion back into Jesus’s lifetime. On Martyn’s reading, no one sympathetic to Jesus either experienced or even feared expulsion from the synagogue during his lifetime, whereas members of the Johannine community were indeed expelled in the late first century. DTS VoiceBible Interp
Pushes back significantly: Martyn’s thesis has faced substantial scholarly revision. The centering of John’s conflict around synagogue expulsion has been significantly challenged across the past two decades, with the Birkat ha-Minim being strongly charged as anachronistically applied to the Johannine context (Bernier 2013; Klink 2007, 2008). Reuven Kimelman (“Birkat Ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity,” 1981) challenged Martyn’s identification of the prayer as specifically targeting Jewish Christians. Most rabbinic scholars now take for granted that the traditions surrounding the Birkat ha-Minim are legendary and that the prayer is a product not of the first but of the second or even third centuries — which, paradoxically, further undermines Martyn’s specific mechanism while leaving open whether some kind of expulsion practice existed. Raymond Brown, David Rensberger, and John Ashton all registered doubts about the Birkat ha-Minim as the direct cause, even while broadly accepting a Martynian two-level reading. ResearchGateBible Interp
19 & 20. The Little Apocalypse and the Temple Veil
Supports Allen: The argument that Mark 13’s “prediction” is actually vaticinium ex eventu (prophecy after the fact) is widely held among critical scholars. John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg argued that the Little Apocalypse reflects knowledge of the 70 CE events. On the Temple veil, Joel Marcus (Mark 8–16, Anchor Yale Bible, 2009) connects the rending of the veil to the Temple’s destruction in Jewish and Roman sources.
Pushes back: James Crossley (The Date of Mark’s Gospel) argues that Mark 13 best reflects the crisis of 40 CE when Caligula ordered his statue placed in the Temple, and could have arisen during any of various threats to the Temple — so on the basis of Mark 13 alone, the book can be dated to that earlier period. N.T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God) defends the authenticity of Jesus’s Temple predictions as historically intelligible prophetic speech in the tradition of Jeremiah. Jgrchj
21. Gospel Dependence on Paul’s Epistles
Supports Allen: The chiastic structure argument about Mark 12 drawing on Romans and 1 Corinthians is associated with Michael Goulder (Midrash and Lection in Matthew, SPCK, 1974) and Thomas Brodie‘s work on intertextuality. More recently, Dennis MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, Yale, 2000) has argued broadly for Mark’s literary dependence on prior written sources.
Pushes back: The majority of critical scholars, including John Meier, E.P. Sanders, and Bart Ehrman, do not hold that Mark is directly dependent on Paul’s letters. The overlapping themes and structural parallels are explained by shared early Christian tradition, not literary dependence. James Crossley specifically argues that Mark’s Jewish assumptions are incompatible with Pauline Christianity, making post-Pauline literary dependence implausible.
15. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:19)
Supports Allen: The tension between the Great Commission and the Peter/Cornelius episode has long been noted. Ulrich Luz (Matthew 21–28, Hermeneia, Fortress, 2005) and most critical scholars treat Matthew 28:16–20 as a Matthean composition reflecting the post-Easter community’s developed theology. Rudolf Bultmann and the form-critical tradition viewed it as a community formation.
Qualifies: N.T. Wright and others argue that Jesus’s gathering of the Twelve and his own encounters with Gentiles make a universal horizon historically plausible. The Acts tension is explained by the disciples’ failure to grasp the commission’s implications, not by the commission’s inauthenticity. W.D. Davies and Dale Allison (Matthew, ICC, T&T Clark, 1997, 3:682–683) argue the passage draws on the Son of Man tradition from Daniel 7, giving it a plausible pre-Easter Jewish conceptual root.
Summary Assessment
Allen’s blog post is a popular synthesis of real scholarly arguments, many of which are taken directly from reputable critical scholars (Sanders, Vermes, Maccoby, Kloner, Martyn, Pervo, Powell). The strongest items — Pharisees in Galilee (#1), the title “rabbi” (#2), handwashing (#3), the aposynagōgos passages (#17), and the denarius/taxation complex (#6–7) — rest on arguments that mainstream critical scholarship takes seriously, though rarely as proof of second-century composition. The weakest items — the rolling stone (#5, where Kloner himself disagreed with the inference), the divorce saying (#11, where Herodias provides a first-century context), and Pauline dependence (#21, where most scholars reject it) — involve evidence that has been significantly qualified or overturned by the scholars whose work Allen’s source is actually drawing upon. The mainstream critical consensus remains that Mark was composed around 70 CE and the other Gospels somewhat later in the first century — a position that concedes some of Allen’s points (post-Temple composition) while rejecting his push toward the second century.
