It's easy to figure this out ... here's the sequence of events:

      1. Jesus lives on the earth.   He dies [33 CE].

      2. Then ... his followers start spreading his (actual) teachings [after 33 CE].

      3. Then 14 years later ... Paul comes along [49 CE] (there's a dramatic story in the NT about his "conversion") and invents "salvation by grace."   You dont have to DO anything, you just have to think the right thoughts, to stay of hell.

      Which makes international evangelism a lot easier.   "Hey guys, with our religion, you get eternal life regardless of your evil behavior!   C'mon, join up!"

      Paul was executed in 64 CE.

      4. And then after Paul dies, the Synoptic Gospels are written [70 CE - 85 CE].   According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the "only believe" doctrine was never taught by Jesus.   It is completely absent from those three gospels.

      5. Ten years pass.

      6. "John" comes along [95 CE] and writes a new "gospel" -- 90% of the weird stuff he writes isn't found in the Synoptic Gospels.   It's fiction.   Sixty years after Jesus' death, John writes a biography in which he quotes Jesus verbatim, at great length.

      Remember, this was before the invention of the printing press and tape recorders and video cameras and computers.

      And all of a sudden, we have John 3:16, which is destined to become the most popular Bible verse since Psalm 23 -- sixty years after Jesus' death, and twenty years after Paul's death -- we find out for the first time that Jesus himself endorsed "salvation by grace."

      Think about it.   Matthew writes his gospel ... Jesus never says "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son."

      Mark writes his gospel ... Jesus never says "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son."

      Luke writes his gospel ... Jesus never says "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son."

NT "Book"	Approximate Date Written	[Comments]
Galatians	49 CE	This is one of the "undisputed" letters, that is, nobody doubts that Paul wrote it.
I Thessalonians	50 CE	This is one of the "undisputed" letters, that is, nobody doubts that Paul actually wrote it.
Romans	54-58 CE	This is one of the "undisputed" letters, that is, nobody doubts that Paul wrote it.
I Corinthians	56 CE	This is one of the "undisputed" letters, that is, nobody doubts that Paul wrote it.
Colossians	56 CE	There is no academic consensus that Paul actually wrote this letter. It is referred to as a "deutero-Pauline letter."
II Corinthians	57 CE	This is one of the "undisputed" letters, that is, nobody doubts that Paul wrote it.
Philippians	58 CE	This is one of the "undisputed" letters, that is, nobody doubts that Paul actually wrote it.
Philemon	60 CE	This is one of the "undisputed" letters, that is, nobody doubts that Paul actually wrote it.
Ephesians	60 CE	There is no academic consensus that Paul actually wrote this letter. It is referred to as a "deutero-Pauline letter." In Ephesians, there are nine sentences that are more than 50 words in length (translators always chop them up into shorter sentences).   Paul tended to write in short sentences. Ephesians has 116 words in it that don't appear in any of Paul's other letters (13 of the 27 "books" of the New Testament are attributed to Paul, so we have a lot of raw material to work with).
James	61 CE
• • • • •	64 CE	Paul is executed. Before any of the gospels are written.
Hebrews	66 CE
I Peter	70-100 CE	Acts 4:13 says that Peter was agrammatoi - "unlettered" - i.e., illiterate. Yet here he is, writing an eloquent letter -- in Greek --- in 70 CE, even though he'd been executed in 64 CE.
Mark	70 CE	This is the oldest gospel, the first one ever written ... 37 years after Jesus died. (Dr. Bart Ehrman discusses the historical validity of the Gospels) The Jesus in Mark's gospel is a fallible, no-frills Jesus. The Jesus in John's gospel is almost the opposite (John's Jesus should have been stoned for blasphemy almost right out of the gate). Mark supposedly got his information from Peter, yet the other Gospels have more information about Peter than Mark's gospel does.
Matthew	85 CE	Of the 661 verses in Mark's gospel, Matthew reproduces the essence of more than 600 of them, in language that is largely identical.
Luke	85 CE	The author never states his identity, but it is the same person who wrote Acts (there are similar theological views, shared vocabulary and writing style, and opening passages addressed to "Theophilus").
Acts	87 CE	Why doesn't Luke record Paul's acrimonious encounter with Peter and other Christians (Gal. 2:11)?
John	95 CE	John's Jesus is "Superman without Clark Kent." John's gospel does not mention Sadducees or scribes. Instances in the Gospels when Jesus talks about "Jew" or "Jews:"       Matthew:   5 times       Mark:   6 times       Luke:   5 times       John:   71 times -- more than half of these references are nasty and/or anti-Semitic. John's gospel contains no parables. John's gospel does not have any demons in it (but see John 8:52). In John's gospel, Jesus talks endlessly about himself (he makes eight statements about "I am" -- John 6:35, John 8:12, John 8:58, John 10:7, John 10:11, John 11:25, John 14:6, John 14:10).
Revelation	95 CE
Jude	99 CE
I John	100 CE
II John	100 CE
III John	100 CE
II Peter	125 CE	Since the times of the early church, scholars are convinced that II Peter was not written by the same person who wrote I Peter.
II Thessalonians	Second Century CE	There is no academic consensus that Paul actually wrote this letter. It is referred to as a "deutero-Pauline letter."
I Timothy	Second Century CE	Paul didn't write this letter. It's a forgery. A quick note about "textual criticism:"       There are three letters in the New Testament - — I Timothy, — II Timothy, and — Titus - which are attributed to Paul. Scholars are pretty sure that Paul did not write them, that is, that they are forgeries written in the Second Century CE (long after Paul was dead).       The reasons that scholars believe this are:       1. Paul's other letters   —   the 20 or so other New Testament "books" which are attributed to him   —   are addressed to churches, not to individuals (with the exception of Paul's brief letter to Philemon).   When there was a problem at a church, or Paul wanted to convey some kind of teaching or doctrine, he wrote to the church, not to an individual.       2. The total vocabulary of these three letters is 848 words.   306 of those words don't appear in any of Paul's other letters.   And 2/3 of those 848 "new words" appear in Christian literature of the Second Century.       3. In these three letters, there are instructions about a hierarchy in the church.   This kind of hierarchy was unknown in the First Century church, and is not addressed (in any meaningful way) in Paul's other letters.
II Timothy	Second Century CE	Paul didn't write this letter. It's a forgery.
Titus	Second Century CE	Paul didn't write this letter. It's a forgery.

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