DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
Agree. Paul's genuine letters date to roughly the 50s CE; the earliest Gospel, Mark, is usually dated around 70. So the oldest writings in the New Testament are Paul's, not the Gospels.
Why it’s interesting
It means the first Christian texts we have are letters to working churches, written before anyone sat down to narrate Jesus' life. Their order in the Bible follows theme and length, not the calendar.
Scholarly consensus
You can know the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.