I've been following up on a few things mentioned in this tread. First, the similarity between Jesus's biography and that of many earlier godmen is quite remarkable and it would surely be really stretching things to suggest that such similarities were simply a coincidence. Secondly, dating a Gospel by saying it must have been written before the fall of Masada because there is no reference to that event in the bible makes no sense. Why mention Masada? For example, if somebody today wrote a biog. of J.F.K would anyone ask why it didn't include references to events that happened after his death - apart from the various conspiracy theories.