When the Gospels Go Viral

Fact-checking Wesley Huff on the Diary of a CEO

I don’t usually listen to Steven Bartlett’s, The Diary of a CEO, but last week, a video appeared on my feed with a title I couldn’t possibly ignore:

No. 1 Christianity Expert, Wesley Huff: Here is The Proof that Christianity is True!

For those who have been living under a rock – or whose algorithm simply differs from mine – Huff has become a massive name in Christian apologetics over the last year.

He shot to fame after rather coolly debunking conspiracy theorist Billy Carson and was interviewed shortly afterwards by Joe Rogan, in an episode I reviewed here.

I am sure that Huff would not describe himself as the ‘no. 1 Christianity expert.’ Nor is it quite true – as the description says – that he specialises ‘in the historical accuracy of ancient Biblical texts.’ Huff is a Canadian apologist who is pursuing a PhD in the para-textual features of ancient biblical manuscripts, not the historicity of the Bible.

With that said, Huff has surely become one of the most desirable guests in Christian podcast-dem. He speaks with confidence on a plethora of theological topics, and is putting out his case for Christianity on some of the biggest platforms in the world. Whether you like or lump his approach, Huff’s presence looms large in the online space.

I think it is important, then, that his arguments receive critical engagement. If he is – at least in the eyes of some people – the no.1 Christianity expert, what do scholars in the field make of his arguments?

In this piece, I review some of his arguments on The Diary of a CEO which overlap most closely with the subjects I have treated on this substack: the historicity of the gospels, memory and oral tradition, and the resurrection of Jesus.

1. Dating the New Testament

Coming up to their conversation about Jesus, Bartlett first wants to know when the New Testament texts were written. Huff unpacks the debate in this way:

“So the debate…. it’s a question of if John’s gospel is written before 70 AD or after 70 AD. And if it’s written after 70 AD it’s written in the 90s. So it’s written pretty far afterwards…. At minimum I think like 99% of historians, biblical scholars, classicists would argue that the 27 books of the New Testament are written in the first century. And so in that sense, they’re in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses to a certain degree.”

Huff is certainly right that there is a debate about dating, but it is not the debate he outlines here. It is simply false that 99% of relevant scholars would argue that the 27 books of the New Testament are written in the first century. This is a misrepresentation of the debate within the field, and it is hard to know how Huff would gain this impression from reading the scholarly literature.

It is not rare to find texts such as the pastoral epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus)¹ and 2 Peter dated into the second century.² The Johannine epistles are also sometimes dated into the second century,³ while late dates for Luke-Acts are also becoming increasingly common, especially for those who think Luke relied upon Josephus.⁴

The framing of the debate about the dating of the NT as a question of whether John is pre-70 or post-70 – and if it’s post-70, it is in the 90s – is therefore really odd. A more representative summary may be that the majority of New Testament was written in the first century, while more than a handful of texts are debated as second century works.