For those wondering about sources, Wikipedia has a solid article on the dates in the bible, and seem to settle on about 50 CE as the original authorship dates. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible]
Totally ignorant question, but what year is accepted as the official death for Jesus?
> "what year is accepted as the official death for Jesus?"
There's some disagreement, but in the research I was doing this morning the most commonly accepted date I found was April 7, 30 AD. (Other common dates are March 25 or April 25, 31 AD.)
Interestingly enough, this provides the source for the date of Christmas. There's an old tradition that says Jewish prophets always live a whole number of years, so their death and conception are the same date, putting their birth date 9 months later / 3 months earlier. The two dates being celebrated in the 2nd century church were December 25 (based on the March 25, 31 AD date) and January 7 (based on April 7, 30 AD). We now call those two dates "Christmas" and "Epiphany". You can find these dates discussed by Sextus Julius Africanus (160-240 AD), Irenaeus (in Against Heresies, 180 AD), and Hippolytus (commentary on Daniel, 204 AD).
Rumors about hijacking a pagan celebration date started several centuries later, by Jacob Bar-Salibi in the 12th century. He probably got his causation backwards -- the Dec 25 celebration "Sol Invictus" was a result of emperor Aurelius' decree in 274 AD, meaning it took a date Christians had already been celebrating a century earlier.
Totally ignorant question, but what year is accepted as the official death for Jesus?