Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written prior to 70 AD.
You also forget, that we may not have sources 2,000 years later that were surely available to someone in 100 AD. This would be Tacitus and Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius.
Jimmy Akin is the chief apologist for Catholic Answers, but there are plenty of other sources saying the same things.
There is lots of evidence for early scholarship, but one of the best is related to the destruction of the Jewish Temple. Modernists absolutely have to try to show the gospels were written after the destruction, because the Gospels have Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple, and we can't have a prediction come true, can we?
However, if they were written after the destruction, the authors could have written "and these things came to pass as Jesus foretold" but they didn't.
Or it could have been a happy accident for Christians that the temple got destroyed and it's cited as proof of Jesus' predictive powers.
Either way, the Gospels were written by people that knew Jesus personally, or spoke to those who did. This is akin to Plato writing about Socrates (who never wrote anything down himself) or people writing down what Buddha said, who also never wrote anything down himself.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written prior to 70 AD.
You also forget, that we may not have sources 2,000 years later that were surely available to someone in 100 AD. This would be Tacitus and Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius.
What do you think historians, particularly ancient historians, do, exactly?
https://jimmyakin.com/2021/02/when-were-the-gospels-written-the-dates-of-matthew-mark-luke-and-john-jimmy-akins-mysterious-world.html
Jimmy Akin is the chief apologist for Catholic Answers, but there are plenty of other sources saying the same things.
There is lots of evidence for early scholarship, but one of the best is related to the destruction of the Jewish Temple. Modernists absolutely have to try to show the gospels were written after the destruction, because the Gospels have Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple, and we can't have a prediction come true, can we?
However, if they were written after the destruction, the authors could have written "and these things came to pass as Jesus foretold" but they didn't.
Or it could have been a happy accident for Christians that the temple got destroyed and it's cited as proof of Jesus' predictive powers.
Either way, the Gospels were written by people that knew Jesus personally, or spoke to those who did. This is akin to Plato writing about Socrates (who never wrote anything down himself) or people writing down what Buddha said, who also never wrote anything down himself.