"Wasn't [the New Testament] written like 300 years after Jesus?" No, the New Testament wasn't written 300 years after Jesus. You may be referring to 325 AD, when the Council of Nicaea officially recognized the New Testament as having been written by God. By then, Christians had been reading the New Testament as God's Word for 2 centuries. So when was the New Testament written? Please pay close attention to the dates below to decipher when the New Testament was written: Acts, the fifth book in the New Testament, is a methodical account of the early church written by a doctor named Luke when he was the assistant to and the note taker for the Apostle Paul. 62 AD was when Paul was martyred in Rome. 64 AD was when Emperor Nero burnt Rome and blamed the fire on Christians to launch the Roman persecution of Christians. 70 AD was when the future Emperor Titus sacked Jerusalem. Acts ends with Paul having just completed his 2-year imprisonment in Rome but without mentioning his martyrdom. Acts also does not mention the start of the Roman persecution of Christians or the destruction of Jerusalem, both monumental milestones in Christian history. This indicates that Acts was written around 62 AD. Luke begins Acts with: "The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach..." (Acts 1:1) The “former account” Luke referred to was what we call today the Gospel of Luke, which was also written by Luke to this man named Theophilus: "Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed." (Luke 1:1-4) The delivered eyewitness accounts Luke mentions above are the Gospel of Matthew, written by one of Jesus' 12 Apostles, and the Gospel of Mark, written by the note taker for Apostle Peter. Estimating 3-5 years between Acts and Luke, and another 3-5 years between Luke and Matthew & Mark dates three of the four Gospels to 52-59 AD, which is only 2 decades after Jesus' ascension. Some of the other New Testament books were written before and some after these Gospels, but all were written by eyewitnesses of Jesus or their note takers, and read by people who were also eyewitnesses and could validate their details. Related: Haven't the New Testament manuscripts been corrupted over the years? If Jesus is God, why did God have to die?
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