A misconception that I sometimes run into when discussing the New Testament (hereafter, NT) with uninformed readers is that it is presented in chronological order. Since the Gospels appear first, many, mistakenly, believe that they were also written first. They would, however, be incorrect. The order of appearance that the NT documents eventually took is an interesting subject for sure, but one that has nothing to do with the order in which it was written.
One of the most important events in the early history of Christianity is the destruction of Jerusalem and Judaism’s Second Temple by the Roman Empire in 70 C.E. This momentous event is key to understanding the NT and the subsequent development of the Christian religion.
The consensus among biblical scholars is that Paul’s letters were written before any other document in the NT canon. This includes scholars of all persuasions: conservative, liberal, Evangelical, Catholic, Protestant, believers, non-believers, etc.; with minor exceptions, of course.
Keeping the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. in mind, we can then form an idea of when Paul was writing his letters by simply reading them.
Paul writes and speaks of Jerusalem as if it has not been destroyed:
Romans 15:25 “At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints;”:
Here Paul explicitly states that he is making his way to Jerusalem. Since we know Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 C.E., it is obvious that Paul is writing before this time, since it would not make sense for him to say he is going to Jerusalem if it had already been destroyed by the Roman Empire.
1 Corinthians 16:3-4 “And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem. 4 If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.”:
Here again, Paul makes reference to sending someone to Jerusalem with letters and gifts and says that he would also be willing to go if it was necessary. Again, you can’t send someone to a city that has been destroyed.
Galatians 1:18 “Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days;”:
Here Paul mentions his first trip to Jerusalem after becoming a Jewish Christian, which happened three years after Jesus “revealed” himself to him. Jesus was crucified around 29-30 C.E., so if we assume Paul converted shortly after that, we could speculate this trip took place sometime between 33-40 C.E.
Galatians 4:25 “Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia[a] and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.”:
Here Paul is using allegory to interpret a passage in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the allegory, he refers to Mount Sinai corresponding to the “present (earthly) Jerusalem”, he takes it for granted that Jerusalem still stands.
Conclusion:
Using the verses above, we know that Paul is writing sometime between 30 (Jesus’ death) and 66 C.E. when the Jewish Revolt started in Jerusalem.
Paul met with Peter and James “the Brother of the Lord”:
Galatians 1:18, 2:1”Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days;…Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.”:
Adding up the years it took him to take his first (3 years) and second (14 years) trips to Jerusalem, we have 17 years. These events occurred after the death of Jesus, so the second trip had to have taken place at the very least sometime around 47 C.E., if not later. Peter and James were both contemporaries of Jesus who started following him around Galilee probably around the age of 20, if not older since Jesus started his ministry at the age of 30. When Paul met them during his second Jerusalem trip, they would have been around 37-40 years of age, or, by 1st Century standards, nearing the end of their life expectancy.
Conclusion:
Life expectancy in this part of the world during the 1st century was around 35-40 years of age, with the lucky ones making it to 50-60 very rarely. This continued through the 19th and 20th centuries when due to advances in science and medicine, humans began living in cleaner, safer, and more hospitable environments. Given this information, it’s very likely that this second trip to Jerusalem took place around 50 C.E. but not much later than that.
Paul is known to have spent some time in the places where he established Christian communities, sometimes more than a year at a time. When you combine the evidence mentioned above, it logically follows that Paul was writing his letters sometime between 50-60 C.E., but most likely no later than 66 C.E., which is when the Jewish Revolt began (66-70 C.E.).
When writing his letters, Paul gives no indication that he is aware of the Gospels’ existence, which is something that one would expect him to refer to had he known about them. The Synoptic Gospel writers, on the other hand, seem to be aware that Jerusalem has been destroyed (Matt. 24:1-2, Mk. 13.1-2, Lk. 21:5-6), which is why it is very likely that Paul wrote before the Gospel writers.
