Matthew wrote to a Jewish audience to prove to them that Jesus is indeed their Messiah.

That's why Matthew includes many of the teachings of Christ and makes numerous references to Old Testament prophecies.

So considering that the oldest copies of the gospels are dated to around 400 AD (I'm thinking of the Codex Sinaiticus), how do scholars go about estimating the date of composition of the gospels?

I mean I'm sure there are some textual clues; I mean I assume the usage of Koine would probably change somewhat over 300 years but are there other clues that scholars use to estimate the general time of composition?

Therefore, he makes his case by focusing on the events of Christ's life.

However, he does not record two similar events which would make his case well.

We can thus infer that he wrote Acts before those events took place.

But if He really was the Son of God, as the gospels state, then He could have prophesied the future. But that assumption is itself founded on mere assumptions. At face value, it makes more sense to say Mark was written before A. 70, for it seems unbelievable that Mark (whom critics agree was John Mark mentioned in Acts) would wait thirty to forty years to write down his gospel. If he wrote afterwards, he could not have portrayed the Romans only as friends.

(3) With regard to the arguments for a post-70 date for Luke, the first assumes Mark was not written before A. Is it really plausible to think that Mark would wait decades before writing his brief gospel, which would be so valuable in sharing and leaving with newly established churches as the gospel preachers went about teaching and preaching? As a matter of fact, Jesus’ prophecies are actually evidence that the gospels were written before A. 70, for Luke never casts the Romans in the role of enemies in his writings. Besides that, we have Josephus’s descriptions of the sacking of Jerusalem in A. 70, and many of the striking peculiarities of the city’s destruction are absent from the prophecies.