We have seen that there was a crisis for the Church in A.D.64j65 as a result of the attack of the Emperor Nero on the Christians in Rome. The writing of the gospel of Mark and the first letter of Peter is associated with this crisis and the death of Peter and Paul around that time.

In the period A.D.66-70 there was the terrible crisis for the Jews in Palestine of the rebellion and war against the Romans. The main effect of this on the Church was to make Christians aware of their total separation by then from Judaism. The letter to the Hebrews, not attributed to Paul but its author unknown, was probably written before the Jewish Temple was destroyed in A.D.70.

Luke-Acts, composed as a two-volume work by the same author, was probably written between A.D.70-80, as was the gospel of Matthew. Both Luke and Matthew made distinctive use of the material of the gospel of Mark, within their much more expanded gospels.

As we have said, the gospel of John was written during the second half of the first century but more precise dating is open to discussion, as is the question about whether it was written after the other gospels and whether it relied upon their records.

The remaining letters of the New Testament and the Christian apocalyptic work, The Revelation to John, were also written during this period. The first, second and third letters of John share ideas; style and vocabulary found in the gospel and were very probably by the same author. There is doubt that the second letter of Peter was written by the same writer as the first letter. The second letter of Peter and the letter of Jude share similar ideas and language in warnings against false teachers in the Church. The book of Revelation was written to encourage Christians facing persecution; it contains great visions of the final destruction of evil by God. There are scholarly arguments to connect the writing of his book with attacks on Christians by either Nero or the later emperor, Domitian.

It may be noted that the eminent New Testament scholar Dr J.A.T.

Robinson, in his book Redating the New Testament, published by the S.C.M. Press (1976) has put forward interesting and persuasive arguments to support the theory that all the New Testament books could have been written by A.D.70. Dr. Robinson's arguments are open to question but if they were widely accepted by other scholars as correct, this would bring the whole of the New Testament very close to -the earliest days of the Church.

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