Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
According to modern historians, Matthew was probably written a decade or two after Mark in the 80s or 90s of the first century. By then the original expectation that the son of man would appear to anyone of the first generation was in serious doubt. Many of the predicted events had already occurred by the time the gospel of Matthew was written. The final caveat that no one knew exactly when the son of man would appear including Jesus himself punctuates the uncertainty of the author's point of view. Jesus's earlier statement that the son of man would return before they finished proselytizing Israel may reflect an earlier layer of tradition.
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If I understand this point correctly you are saying the author of Matthew was "adjusting" his quotes based on 20/20 hindsight. That is complete conjecture, but I am willing to put aside those quotes, remove them from consideration. There are still plenty of quotes concerning prophecies that they did not have any benefit of hindsight on.
Personally I think all of this is absurd. We have historians putting out accounts of WWII 60-70 years after the fact, but based on the documents that were created at the time. The fact that the gospel wasn't widely disseminated prior to a certain point is not evidence of anything. How long did it take John Meyers to write his book?