Was the New Testament written in the early first century CE or at a much later date? Sturdy's work was conceived as a reply to John Robinson's Reading the New Testament, which dated the New Testament material very early. Sturdy argued that the Pauline letters are in places interpolated, Colossians, Ephesians and the Pastorals are pseudonymous, and that Luke and Acts are not by the same author. He believed that Matthew was the last Synoptic Gospel to be written, with John assigned to the period 140 CE. Redrawing the Boundaries offers a radical approach to New Testament Studies that stands in a long tradition of scholarship represented by the Tuebingen School in Germany.

"The late J. Sturdy (d. 1996) has left a major manuscript that restudies the chronology of the New Testament Writings. ...given the recent trend to reconsider late datings, for instance in the case of the book of Revelation (Thomas Witulski), Sturdy has something to say.'"

Source: International Review of Biblical Studies