Christians- How do you know Jesus and the Bible are true?

[joelr]

Yes I have decided that the gospels about Jesus are true and the stories about Krishna are probably made up and Muhammad is a false prophet. But that is not to do with experiences that people have.

There is no valid reason to believe that.

The evidence shows the gospels were written (except for John) in the 50s and 60s.
People who put the synoptic gospels later than 70AD deny that supernatural prophecy is real and so say that synoptic gospels were written after 70AD, the date of the temple destruction. So skeptic historians do that (even if they call themselves Christians) and they you and others come along and say the gospels were written after 70AD by people who did not know Jesus. So it starts with the presumption that the stories were fiction and ends with a conclusion that the stories are fiction. It is circular reasoning even if modern skeptical historians provide the first part of the circle and you and other skeptics provide the rest of the circle. (But I'm sure many skeptical historians provide the ready drawn full circle)

There are no "skeptical historians", that is an apologetic myth. There are PhD historians who look at all possible evidence. There is no reason to believe there was any prophecy in the gospels, many other factors demonstrate the dating. There are also certain the names were not added until late 2nd century.
Again, Mark is a myth. Uses mythic literary language, copies narratives from Paul and the OT, Jesus scores the highest score on the mythotype scale and all of the theology was found earlier in Hellenism and Persian religion. There is no getting around this fact.

I have evidence of the stories of the experiences of people and as I have said above, skeptics try to trash to make it look as if it is not evidence of anything.

Wait, you just said above that personal experience is NOT part of your evidence? Again, I have stories from Hindu and Lord Krishna that are all exactly the same as the Jesus personal stories.

Enuma Elish is very different from Genesis .

You don't seem to understand it's not an argument that Genesis wasn't using earlier mythology, there are several sources as outlined in the video.
Intertextuality is used to compare the different text.

Enuma Elish and Genesis | Michael Zank

blogs.bu.edu

Michael Zank, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Medieval Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University
PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University


Enuma Elish and Genesis


Let us ask just one question about Genesis 1-11 in comparison with the Akkadian creation epic: how do human beings appear in these two stories?


To ask this question, we do not need to decide in advance whether the authors of Genesis deliberately produced a counter-narrative that took Enuma Elish as its negative foil or Vorlage. There are indications that this was so, but it may be just as well to consider Genesis as having been written by scholars who were aware of the need to produce something like Enuma Elish for the b’ney ha-golah (the exiles), something that articulated and preserved the values of Judahites and Israelites in a foreign land who were wrestling with the experiences of loss of sovereignty, deportation, displacement, and an uncertain future.


The story about the tower of Babel alone indicates that those authors served a community impressed by, as well as skeptical of, Babylonian achievements. Exposed to a far more populous and powerful civilization, the future “Jews” found the language to diminish what was before their eyes and put it in its place in ways that still ring profound and true today.


How did they do it? What is it in the language of Genesis 1-11 that achieves these results? These results could not have been achieved had the authors of Genesis been entirely ignorant or completely silent on Babylonian matters. Only by responding in their own idiom to the ancient and well-known Akkadian creation myth and, in the flood story, also to elements of Gilgamesh, were they able to create a story of creation that was to substitute for that of their more powerful Babylonian hosts. In the long term, the creation of Genesis rather than the ancient Akkadian epic served as the touchstone of civilizations that inherited the Bible and disseminated it across the globe.


The ancient myths that prompted the authors of Genesis to write as they did never vanished completely. One might even say that it was Genesis itself, with its subtle allusions to alternate ways of conceiving of the beginning, which prepared the ground for the eventual retrieval of its intertextual other.


Just as we now know, thanks to the archaeological and epigraphic retrieval of Ancient Near Eastern texts and traditions, that Genesis did not appear in splendid isolation but was shaped out of its preconditions and from within particular contexts, we can also observe that Genesis did not act in splendid isolation when it advanced to the status of the foundational story of other communities, even nations and empires, who read those ancient Israelite and Judahite texts in new situations and with new eyes, for they also read these texts with their old eyes.


It seems to me that these later readers of Genesis, themselves steeped in Babylonian, Egyptian, Syriac, Greek, and Roman traditions approached the text from contexts and with connotations that resembled those represented in Enuma Elish. They did not object, on principle, to the notion that the world was “full of gods,” as the Stoics taught, or that worlds came and went and were prone to destruction and regeneration. Theirs was a much more colorful universe than what we might imagine if we approach the Bible with the mental asceticism and puritan austerity of Calvinists. The ancient readers were hardly iconoclasts. Theirs was a world of divine beings, messengers, powers ruling the air, and a Supreme Being ruling all. That Supreme Being, the God hidden to the eyes of men, was not residing in splendid isolation but surrounded by a court and happy in that he had a son created in his likeness who was obedient to the point of sacrificing his own happiness to please his father. In other words, theirs was the world of Enuma Elish, or one very much like it.


So let us ask ourselves that one question. What is the role of the human being in Enuma Elish and what is the role of the human being in Genesis 1-11?


When it comes to the answer to this question, the difference between these texts could not be more pronounced. That difference would be meaningless if the texts could not be compared, if these texts had no relation to one another, if there was no “intertextuality” that linked them just enough to see where they align and where they depart from one another.


To answer briefly, while in Enuma Elish the creation of human beings is an afterthought and their purpose is to serve as an accouterment to the lifestyle of the gods, the creation of Genesis puts human beings in the place of the gods. It is not by accident when the Psalmist muses, “You made him only slightly less than God” (Psalm 8:5).


Genesis 1 barely conceals the existence of the divine retinue, of lesser gods and angels, but it reduces them to spectators and a silent chorus. (See Gen 1:26) Only later, in rabbinic midrash are the spectators and silent chorus given words that are unabashedly[1] assumed to have been spoken before the creation of the human being.[2] Like the Christians, the Jews of late antiquity imagined God as part of a pleroma, a fullness rather than an emptiness.


So the difference of Genesis is not that there are no lesser gods or divine beings but that it is almost completely silent about them. This includes a barely acknowledged silence, a may-he-who-has-ears-to-hear-get-the-hint of something barely remembered, or rather well remembered but now barely alluded to, namely, the great combat myth that was indelibly linked with the reputation of Marduk, god of cities, that is meant to be ignored, though not entirely forgotten. This, too, later readers remembered well. Not only those mindful of the vanquished saltwater chaos dragon, that monstrous goddess Tiamat slain in the beginning to save the gods and from whose carcass the habitable world was created, but others, too, who believed that YHWH Elohim slew Rahab and captured the Leviathan whose flesh will be the feast of the righteous at the end of days. (Rahab: see Job 9:13 and Job 26:12, Ps 89:10, Isa 59:9; Leviathan: see Job 3:8, 41:1.12, Psalm 74:14, 104:26, Isa 27:1) These lively images of primordial threat to existence contained by heroic divine intervention returned in stories about the battles of Christ and the saints against Satan and his lot.


Again, the creation of Genesis contains all this but barely hints to it. Instead it trains its spotlight on the human being. All other questions are rendered irrelevant: where was God’s wind before it hovered over the deep/tehom? Why and for what purpose did he fashion what he spoke into being? Why, in his majestic cohortative soliloquy, does He create human beings “in our likeness”? Did not Ea fashion Marduk after his likeness? Isn’t Christ the true likeness of God, the one who is even called by his name, a veritable “son of the sun” or, as in the Orthodox creed, “light from light?”


In Genesis, sonship or slightly-lesser-than-Godship, is conferred on human beings. In Enuma Elish, on the other hand, humans are created from the blood of Kingu, an evil figure, and hence their eternal enslavement to the gods is more than skin-deep. It is a condition that cannot be shed. It is their fate to serve the gods.


The story that the Babylonians read and reenact every fall during the season of the New Year is about divine kingship, the kingship of Marduk and the kingship and priesthood of few, their right to rule over the many: humans are meant to feed the gods. Without the gods and their protection, diligently mediated by the priest-king, they had nothing to eat themselves. The eternal merit of the gods rests on their providing the conditions of life, while life remains under the fragile protection of the gods. Stop feeding the gods and see what happens. Change their rites and you will fail. Disturb their temples and deprive them of their proper sacrifices and you will perish.


It is no accident that Babylonian Jewry, and Jews ever since, recall creation and divine kingship in the fall, the season when the world was created. Like the Babylonian New Year, Jewish festivities are drawn out from the first of the month of Tishrey (the names of the Jewish months are Babylonian) to the tenth of the month, the solemn day of atonement, followed by eight days of seasonal festivities recalling the Israelites’ sojourn in the desert. While there is no overt reference to Babylonian religion, the manner in which Jews recall creation and associate it with divine enthronement echoes the sequence of events in Enuma Elish. Creation and divine enthronement are meaningfully associated only if creation involves an assertion of supreme power over non-creation, chaos, perdition. As in Enuma Elish, though not so obviously in Genesis. Not if one reads it with the diminished range of overtones that were still audible to those in whose ears rang those other tunes.

 

[joelr]

The flood story in earlier writings is just evidence that the Genesis flood is real.
The historians you read are skeptics who bring skepticism into their historical analysis of spiritual books and presume the supernatural is not true and instead of saying "we don't know about the supernatural", they go straight for the jugular of spiritual stories and preach that they are fictions derived from earlier fictions.

The flood story in earlier writings is just evidence that the Genesis flood is real.
The historians you read are skeptics who bring skepticism into their historical analysis of spiritual books and presume the supernatural is not true and instead of saying "we don't know about the supernatural", they go straight for the jugular of spiritual stories and preach that they are fictions derived from earlier fictions.

Noahs Ark is taken from older flood myths.
Modern geology has also ruled out a world flood.


Seams and Sources: Genesis 5-11 and the Historical-Critical Method

25:15 Gilgamesh flood story, Sumerian flood story comparisons


26:21 - there are significant contrasts as well between the Mesopotamian flood story and it’s Israelite ADAPTATION. Israelite story is purposely rejecting certain motifs and giving the opposite or an improved version (nicer deity…)


36:20 2 flood stories in Genesis, or contradictions and doublets.


Yahweh/Elohim, rain/cosmic waters flowing,


40:05 two creation stories, very different. Genesis 1 formalized, highly structured


Genesis 2 dramatic. Genesis 1 serious writing style, Genesis 2 uses Hebrew word puns.


Genesis 1/2 use different terms for gender


Genesis 1/2 use different names, description and style for God



Both stories have distinctive styles, vocabulary, themes, placed side by side. Flood stories are interwoven.


Genesis to 2nd Kings entire historical saga is repeated again in Chronicles.


Noah's flood[edit]


Andrew George submits that the Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that "few doubt" that it derives from a Mesopotamian account.[67] What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale "point by point and in the same order", even when the story permits other alternatives.[68] In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: "The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling."[69] Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.

Erosion​

The global flood cannot explain geological formations such as angular unconformities, where sedimentary rocks have been tilted and eroded then more sedimentary layers deposited on top, needing long periods of time for these processes. There is also the time needed for the erosion of valleys in sedimentary rock mountains. In another example, the flood, had it occurred, should also have produced large-scale effects spread throughout the entire world. Erosion should be evenly distributed, yet the levels of erosion in, for example, the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains differ significantly

Geochronology​

Geochronology is the science of determining the absolute age of rocks, fossils, and sediments by a variety of techniques. These methods indicate that the Earth as a whole is about 4.54 billion years old, and that the strata that, according to flood geology, were laid down during the Flood some 6,000 years ago, were actually deposited gradually over many millions of years.

Paleontology​

If the flood were responsible for fossilization, then all the animals now fossilized must have been living together on the Earth just before the flood. Based on estimates of the number of remains buried in the Karoo fossil formation in Africa, this would correspond to an abnormally high density of vertebrates worldwide, close to 2100 per acre.[85] Creationists argue that evidence for the geological column is fragmentary, and all the complex layers of chalk occurred in the approach to the 150th day of Noah's flood.[115][116] However, the entire geologic column is found in several places, and shows multiple features, including evidence of erosion and burrowing through older layers, which are inexplicable on a short timescale. Carbonate hardgrounds and the fossils associated with them show that the so-called flood sediments include evidence of long hiatuses in deposition that are not consistent with flood dynamics or timing.[

Geochemistry​

Proponents of Flood Geology are also unable to account for the alternation between calcite seas and aragonite seas through the Phanerozoic. The cyclical pattern of carbonate hardgrounds, calcitic and aragonitic ooids, and calcite-shelled fauna has apparently been controlled by seafloor spreading rates and the flushing of seawater through hydrothermal vents which changes its Mg/Ca ratio

Sedimentary rock features​

Phil Senter's 2011 article, "The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology", in the journal Reports of the National Center for Science Education, discusses "sedimentologic and other geologic features that Flood geologists have identified as evidence that particular strata cannot have been deposited during a time when the entire planet was under water ... and distribution of strata that predate the existence of the Ararat mountain chain." These include continental basalts, terrestrial tracks of animals, and marine communities preserving multiple in-situ generations included in the rocks of most or all Phanerozoic periods, and the basalt even in the younger Precambrian rocks. Others, occurring in rocks of several geologic periods, include lake deposits and eolian (wind) deposits. Using their own words, Flood geologists find evidence in every Paleozoic and Mesozoic period, and in every epoch of the Cenozoic period, indicating that a global flood could not have occurred during that interval.[118] A single flood could also not account for such features as angular unconformities, in which lower rock layers are tilted while higher rock layers were laid down horizontally on top.[119]

Physics​

The engineer Jane Albright notes several scientific failings of the canopy theory, reasoning from first principles in physics. Among these are that enough water to create a flood of even 5 centimetres (2.0 in) of rain would form a vapor blanket thick enough to make the earth too hot for life, since water vapor is a greenhouse gas; the same blanket would have an optical depth sufficient to effectively obscure all incoming starlight.

 

[joelr]

I think this is more of two people looking at the same evidence and coming to a different conclusion.

As I view it, I see it as a confirmation that a flood did happen and that the different religions reported on it.

In the last post above I gave the consensus on modern geology about a world flood. Did not happen.

The entire biblical historicity field is in agreement that Genesis is a re-working of Mesopotamian myths.
Every textbook will say this. I will give examples. That video is from the Yale Divinity Lectures.



These are all peer-reviewed PhD textbooks/monographs,


John Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible 3rd ed.
“Biblical creation stories draw motifs from Mesopotamia, Much of the language and imagery of the Bible was culture specific and deeply embedded in the traditions of the Near East.
2nd ed. The Old Testament, Davies and Rogerson
“We know from the history of the composition of Gilamesh that ancient writers did adapt and re-use older stories……
It is safer to content ourselves with comparing the motifs and themes of Genesis with those of other ancient Near East texts.
In this way we acknowledge our belief that the biblical writers adapted existing stories, while we confess our ignorance about the form and content of the actual stories that the Biblical writers used.”
The Old Testament, A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, M. Coogan
“Genesis employs and alludes to mythical concepts and phrasing, but at the same time it also adapts transforms and rejected them”
God in Translation, Smith
“…the Bibles authors fashioned whatever they may have inherited of the Mesopotamian literary tradition on their own terms”
THE OT Text and Content, Matthews, Moyer
“….a great deal of material contained in the primeval epics in Genesis is borrowed and adapted from the ancient cultures of that region.”


The Formation of Genesis 1-11, Carr
“The previous discussion has made clear how this story in Genesis represents a complex juxtaposition of multiple traditions often found separately in the Mesopotamian literary world….”
The Priestly Vision of Genesis, Smith
“….storm God and cosmic enemies passed into Israelite tradition. The biblical God is not only generally similar to Baal as a storm god, but God inherited the names of Baal’s cosmic enemies, with names such as Leviathan, Sea, Death and Tanninim.”


Other PhD -

Enuma Elish and Genesis | Michael Zank

blogs.bu.edu

Michael Zank, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Medieval Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University

PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University

Enuma Elish - The Babylonian Epic of Creation - Full Text

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Babylonian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece,

www.worldhistory.org

Genesis/Enuma Elish


The Enuma Elish would later be the inspiration for the Hebrew scribes who created the text now known as the biblical Book of Genesis. Prior to the 19th century CE, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world and its narratives were thought to be completely original. In the mid-19th century CE, however, European museums, as well as academic and religious institutions, sponsored excavations in Mesopotamia to find physical evidence for historical corroboration of the stories in the Bible. These excavations found quite the opposite, however, in that, once cuneiform was translated, it was understood that a number of biblical narratives were Mesopotamian in origin.

Famous stories such as the Fall of Man and the Great Flood were originally conceived and written down in Sumer, translated and modified later in Babylon, and reworked by the Assyrians before they were used by the Hebrew scribes for the versions which appear in the Bible.



Both Genesis and Enuma Elsih are religious texts which detail and celebrate cultural origins: Genesis describes the origin and founding of the Jewish people under the guidance of the Lord; Enuma Elish recounts the origin and founding of Babylon under the leadership of the god Marduk. Contained in each work is a story of how the cosmos and man were created. Each work begins by describing the watery chaos and primeval darkness that once filled the universe. Then light is created to replace the darkness. Afterward, the heavens are made and in them heavenly bodies are placed. Finally, man is created.

Briticannica


Relationship to the Bible[edit]


Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Hebrew Bible correlate with the Epic of Gilgamesh – notably, the accounts of the Garden of Eden, the advice from Ecclesiastes, and the Genesis flood narrative.
Noah's flood[edit]

Andrew George submits that the Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that "few doubt" that it derives from a Mesopotamian account.[67] What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale "point by point and in the same order", even when the story permits other alternatives.[68] In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: "The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling."[69] Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.

 

[joelr]

Here's a quote from that link...

Instead, the Gospels appear to be fictional historical biographies, likely written by specially interested Christians whose intent was to edify Jesus, just like many other fictional historical biographies that were made for various heroes and sages in antiquity.​

​

For me, I find that very believable. Why wouldn't the stories be, in the very least, embellished? But can an embellished, mythical, fictional story have the impact and change the lives of people? I don't think it can as much as when those possibly fictional stories are believed as true. I've know Christians completely in love with Jesus and the Bible and being filled with the Spirit. But, when they have fallen and began to doubt, I've seen them lose the faith and trust in those beliefs. It doesn't work, or at least not as well, unless a person believes as completely as they can. And, of course, when doubts creep in, to deny them and claim that Satan is trying to cause them to doubt. For them, it is real and true.

Problem is... Other people in some of the other religions do the same things with their Scriptures. They believe it is The Truth. And their Truth contradicts the beliefs and the Truth of the people in some of the other religions.

Some of them, like the Baha'i Faith, tries to reconcile all those differences, but by doing so, they have to deny the way some of those believers take their Scriptures, as being the real, historical and literal truth. Using the example of those literal-believing Evangelical Christians, the Baha'i interpretation takes away some of the core their beliefs, like a belief in Satan, the flood, creation and the resurrection. Then the ultimate question becomes is the Baha'i Faith real? Are they based on myth and fiction and borrowed stories? For me, the greatest myth they present as true is that all the other religions were revealed by the one and only God, the God they believe in. I don't see that. To me, it seems very likely each people and culture made up their own Gods and religion. But, then again, if people believe in the Baha'i version of truth, I'm sure it's working for them... as long as they keep believing it as truth.

The Hindu personal stories about their personal deity - Krishna are very similar to stories about having a relationship with Jesus.

The Bahai faith is beyond me, I cannot understand why people find that credible. The other religions have claims of deities and supernatural events while Bahai has none of that. The writings have many scientific errors and there are no predictions or mention of any science that was about to be invented over the next 100 years following the writings. It sounds like he used the Quran and Bible and just wrote a lot of repetitive praise. There isn't any chiasmus or any type of grammatical structure that scripture has which indicates a trained writer, no philosophy or profound wisdom. Even during an age of amazing philosophy, Leibniz, Berkely, Kant, philosophers who were arguing against materialism and FOR God and a soul and he didn't give one word of addition to this debate. The style and level regarding materialism is zero if his contemporaries are 9 and 10.
This is supposed to be GOD?? Just stop.

 

[Brian2]

Noahs Ark is taken from older flood myths.
Modern geology has also ruled out a world flood.


Seams and Sources: Genesis 5-11 and the Historical-Critical Method

I'm not talking about one gigantic global flood, so the evidence you present is not applicable.

Genesis 2 dramatic. Genesis 1 serious writing style, Genesis 2 uses Hebrew word puns.


Genesis 1/2 use different terms for gender


Genesis 1/2 use different names, description and style for God



Both stories have distinctive styles, vocabulary, themes, placed side by side. Flood stories are interwoven.

I don't see Genesis 2 as a creation story, I see it as the story of humanity and what God did when He created Adam and Eve.

Genesis to 2nd Kings entire historical saga is repeated again in Chronicles.

What is wrong with that?

 

[joelr]

I'm not talking about one gigantic global flood, so the evidence you present is not applicable.



I don't see Genesis 2 as a creation story, I see it as the story of humanity and what God did when He created Adam and Eve.



What is wrong with that?

The evidence is that Genesis is a re-working of older Mesopotamian creation and flood myths. All historical scholars agree this is true.

Enuma Elish and Genesis | Michael Zank

blogs.bu.edu

Michael Zank, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Medieval Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University


PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University





Enuma Elish and Genesis


Let us ask just one question about Genesis 1-11 in comparison with the Akkadian creation epic: how do human beings appear in these two stories?


Tree of life was a common Near Eastern myth at th etime:

The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting: Genesis 1-4 in Context

41:20 tree of life, common myth in this part of the world at the time. Bible is telling a variation or new interpretation of story.

 

[Brian2]

There is no valid reason to believe that.

I have decided that there is valid reason.

There are no "skeptical historians", that is an apologetic myth. There are PhD historians who look at all possible evidence. There is no reason to believe there was any prophecy in the gospels, many other factors demonstrate the dating. There are also certain the names were not added until late 2nd century.
Again, Mark is a myth. Uses mythic literary language, copies narratives from Paul and the OT, Jesus scores the highest score on the mythotype scale and all of the theology was found earlier in Hellenism and Persian religion. There is no getting around this fact.

Skeptical historians are all historians who say the gospels had to have been written after or very close to 70AD because of Jesus prophecy about the Temple.
After that decision they hunt around for places and times to put the writing of the gospels that might fit with perceived themes in them.

The names were added because of earlier church tradition and writings. Here is a good article with evidence for the authorship of the gospels.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels in the New Testament?

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Gospels in the New Testament? Was it really Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or could these texts have been anonymous?

www.timothypauljones.com

Wait, you just said above that personal experience is NOT part of your evidence? Again, I have stories from Hindu and Lord Krishna that are all exactly the same as the Jesus personal stories.

I was referring to the experiences of people who join various religions.
I was not referring to the witness accounts in the gospels, which are part of the evidence.
I think that stories of Krishna that are supposes to closely resemble stories of Jesus in the gospels are not that close if written before the gospels.

You don't seem to understand it's not an argument that Genesis wasn't using earlier mythology, there are several sources as outlined in the video.
Intertextuality is used to compare the different text.

Enuma Elish and Genesis | Michael Zank

blogs.bu.edu

Michael Zank, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Medieval Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University
PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University

If Michael Zank, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Medieval Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University
PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University, says that the major differences between the Genesis creation account and Enuma Elish creation account show that the Jews copied from the Enuma Elish, your evidence is rock solid, what have I got to refute the claim of plagiarism.
Isn't it amazing, even when the stories are nothing alike that is evidence the Jews plagiarized from the Babylonian account while in Exile in Babylon. What a smart man is Michael Zank.

 

[joelr]

I have decided that there is valid reason.

Then demonstrate it.

Skeptical historians are all historians who say the gospels had to have been written after or very close to 70AD because of Jesus prophecy about the Temple.
After that decision they hunt around for places and times to put the writing of the gospels that might fit with perceived themes in them.

So you don't study historicity of the gospels I guess but instead decide buying into amateur apologetics is where you will get your information?

The names were added because of earlier church tradition and writings. Here is a good article with evidence for the authorship of the gospels.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels in the New Testament?

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Gospels in the New Testament? Was it really Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or could these texts have been anonymous?

www.timothypauljones.com

standby on this,

I was referring to the experiences of people who join various religions.
I was not referring to the witness accounts in the gospels, which are part of the evidence.
I think that stories of Krishna that are supposes to closely resemble stories of Jesus in the gospels are not that close if written before the gospels.

The Gospels have been demonstrated to source Mark. Mark is demonstrated to be a myth many ways over.

If Michael Zank, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Medieval Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University
PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University, says that the major differences between the Genesis creation account and Enuma Elish creation account show that the Jews copied from the Enuma Elish, your evidence is rock solid, what have I got to refute the claim of plagiarism.
Isn't it amazing, even when the stories are nothing alike that is evidence the Jews plagiarized from the Babylonian account while in Exile in Babylon. What a smart man is Michael Zank.

All historians agree. Intertextuality is used. Dr Zank did mention intertextuality a few times. The claim of plagarism is incorrect. Genesis is a reaction and reworking of Mesopotamian myth. Dr Zank explains this. No way you would have missed that if you read it.
A few examples are given here:

Was Genesis "Stolen" from Pagan

5:30 - 2 stories from Gilamesh widely considered by scholars to have variously influenced Genesis


6:19 - obvious literary parallels


7:29 - wouldn’t a simpler explanation be that there were just a few similarities? No and this is a ridiculous caricature of consensus scholarly views about Genesis.


9:25 - techniques for understanding borrowing (not with point by point precision), scholars study clever and more subtle use of language. Must recognize how authors intently and unintentionally crafted narratives.


31:04 - works on understanding intertextuality

39:09 - examples from Bible

 

[joelr]

Skeptical historians are all historians who say the gospels had to have been written after or very close to 70AD because of Jesus prophecy about the Temple.
After that decision they hunt around for places and times to put the writing of the gospels that might fit with perceived themes in them.

The names were added because of earlier church tradition and writings. Here is a good article with evidence for the authorship of the gospels.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels in the New Testament?

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Gospels in the New Testament? Was it really Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or could these texts have been anonymous?

www.timothypauljones.com

First, the only source given at th eend of this article is Ehrman who is a PhD historian who agrees with the standard dating of the gospels.
Are you actually trying to enter an amateur blog piece as evidence? O.M.G. You do not care about what is true.
As to gospel names, the vast amount of evidence supports late 2nd century naming, internal and external.

Lets start with this -
"

To provide a good overview of the majority opinion about the Gospels, the Oxford Annotated Bible (a compilation of multiple scholars summarizing dominant scholarly trends for the last 150 years) states (p. 1744):


Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith (Lk. 1.4; Jn. 20.31). Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings."


As scholarly sources like the Oxford Annotated Bible note, the Gospels are not historical works (even if they contain some historical kernels). I have discussed elsewhere some of the reasons why scholars recognize that the Gospels are not historical in their genre, purpose, or character in my article “Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament.” However, I will now also lay out a resource here explaining why many scholars likewise doubt the traditional authorial attributions of the Gospels.




Internal Evidence


To begin with, the Gospels are all internally anonymous in that none of their authors names himself within the text. This is unlike many other ancient literary works in which the author’s name is included within the body of the text (most often in the prologue), such as Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (1:1), which states at the beginning: “Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, as they fought against each other.” The historians Herodotus (1:1), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1.8.4), and Josephus (BJ 1.3) all likewise include their names in prologues. Sometimes an author’s name can also appear later in the text. In his Life of Otho (10.1), for example, the biographer Suetonius Tranquillus refers to “my father, Suetonius Laetus,” which thus identifies his own family name.


It should be noted that the Gospels’ internal anonymity also stands in contrast with most of the other books in the New Testament, which provide the names of their authors (or, at least, their putative authors) within the text itself. As Armin Baum (“The Anonymity of the New Testament History Books,” p. 121) explains:


While most New Testament letters bear the names of their (purported) authors (James, Jude, Paul, Peter, or at least “the Elder”) the authors of the historical books [the Gospels and Acts] do not reveal their names. The superscriptions that include personal names (“Gospel according to Matthew” etc.) are clearly secondary.


Two exceptions are the Book of Hebrews and 1 John, which are anonymous texts, later attributed to the apostle Paul and John the son of Zebedee, respectively. Modern scholars, however, also doubt both of these later attributions. As the Oxford Annotated Bible (p. 2103) explains about the authorship of Hebrews:


Despite the traditional attribution to Paul … [t]here is not sufficient evidence to identify any person named in the New Testament as the author; thus it is held to be anonymous.


And about the authorship of 1 John (p. 2137):


The anonymous voice of 1 John was identified with the author of the Fourth Gospel by the end of the second century CE … Since the Gospel was attributed to the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, early Christians concluded that he had composed 1 John near the end of his long life … Modern scholars have a more complex view of the development of the Johannine community and its writings. The opening verses of 1 John employ a first person plural “we” … That “we” probably refers to a circle of teachers faithful to the apostolic testimony of the Beloved Disciple and evangelist. A prominent member of that group composed this introduction.


As such, it is not unusual for scholars to doubt the traditional authorship of the Gospels, considering that the authorial attributions of the other anonymous books in the New Testament are also in considerable dispute.


The internal anonymity of the Gospels is even acknowledged by many apologists and conservative scholars, such as Craig Blomberg, who states in The Case for Christ (p. 22): “It’s important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous.” So, immediately one type of evidence that we lack for the Gospels is their authors identifying themselves within the body of the text. This need not be an immediate death blow, however, since ancient authors did not always name themselves within the bodies of their texts. I have specifically chosen to compare the Gospels’ authorial traditions with that of Tacitus’ Histories, since Tacitus likewise does not name himself within his historical works. If the author does not name himself within the text, there are other types of evidence that can be looked at.


First, even if the body of a text does not name its author, there is often still a name and title affixed to a text in our surviving manuscript traditions. These titles normally identify the traditional author. The standard naming convention for ancient literary works was to place the author’s name in the genitive case (indicating personal possession), followed by the title of the work. Classical scholar Clarence Mendell in Tacitus: The Man And His Work (pp. 295-296) notes that our earliest manuscript copies of both Tacitus’ Annals and Histories identify Tacitus as the author by placing his name in the genitive (Corneli Taciti), followed by the manuscript titles.[1] For the Histories (as well as books 11-16 of the Annals), in particular, Mendell (p. 345) also notes that many of the later manuscripts have the title Cor. Taciti Libri (“The Books of Cornelius Tacitus”). This naming convention is important, since it specifically identifies Tacitus as the author of the work. An attribution may still be doubted for any number of reasons, but it is important that there at least be a clear attribution.


Here, we already have a problem with the traditional authors of the Gospels. The titles that come down in our manuscripts of the Gospels do not even explicitly claim Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John as their authors. Instead, the Gospels have an abnormal title convention, where they instead use the Greek preposition κατα, meaning “according to” or “handed down from,” followed by the traditional names. For example, the Gospel of Matthew is titled ευαγγελιον κατα Μαθθαιον (“The Gospel according to Matthew”). This is problematic, from the beginning, in that the earliest title traditions already use a grammatical construction to distance themselves from an explicit claim to authorship. Instead, the titles operate more as placeholder names, where the Gospels have been “handed down” by church traditions affixed to names of figures in the early church, rather than the author being clearly identified.[2] In the case of Tacitus, none of our surviving titles or references says that the Annals or Histories were written “according to Tacitus” or “handed down from Tacitus.” Instead, we have a clear attribution to Tacitus in one case, and only ambivalent attributions in the titles of the Gospels.[3]

 

[joelr]

Skeptical historians are all historians who say the gospels had to have been written after or very close to 70AD because of Jesus prophecy about the Temple.
After that decision they hunt around for places and times to put the writing of the gospels that might fit with perceived themes in them.

The names were added because of earlier church tradition and writings. Here is a good article with evidence for the authorship of the gospels.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels in the New Testament?

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Gospels in the New Testament? Was it really Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or could these texts have been anonymous?

www.timothypauljones.com

part 2 internal evidence
Furthermore, it is not even clear that the Gospels’ abnormal titles were originally placed in the first manuscript copies. We do not have the autograph manuscript (i.e., the first manuscript written) of any literary work from antiquity, but for the Gospels, the earliest manuscripts that we possess have grammatical variations in their title conventions. This divergence in form suggests that, unlike the body of the text (which mostly remains consistent in transmission), the Gospels’ manuscript titles were not a fixed or original feature of the text itself.[4] As textual criticism expert Bart Ehrman (Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, pp. 249-250) points out:

Because our surviving Greek manuscripts provide such a wide variety of (different) titles for the Gospels, textual scholars have long realized that their familiar names do not go back to a single ‘original’ title, but were added by later scribes.

The specific wording of the Gospel titles also suggests that the portion bearing their names was a later addition. The κατα (“according to”) preposition supplements the word ευαγγελιον (“gospel”). This word for “gospel” was implicitly connected with Jesus, meaning that the full title was το ευαγγελιον Ιησου Χριστου (“The Gospel of Jesus Christ”), with the additional preposition κατα (“according to”) used to distinguish specific gospels by their individual names. Before there were multiple gospels written, however, this addition would have been unnecessary. In fact, many scholars argue that the opening line of the Gospel of Mark (1:1) probably functioned as the original title of the text:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ…

This original title of Mark can be compared with those of other ancient texts in which the opening lines served as titles. Herodotus’ Histories (1.1), for example, begins with the following line which probably served as the title of the text:

This is the exposition of the history of Herodotus…

A major difference between the Gospel of Mark and Herodotus’ Histories, however, is that opening line of Mark does not name the text’s author, but instead attributes the gospel to Jesus Christ. This title became insufficient, however, when there were multiple “gospels of Jesus” in circulation, and so, the additional κατα (“according to”) formula was used to distinguish specific gospels by their individual names. This circumstance, however, suggests that the names themselves were a later addition, as there would have been no need for such a distinction before multiple gospels were in circulation.

So, in addition to the problem that the Gospel titles do not even explicitly claim authors, we likewise have strong reason to suspect that these named titles were not even affixed to the first manuscript copies. This absence is important, since (as will be discussed under the “External Evidence” section below) the first church fathers who alluded to or quoted passages from the Gospels, for nearly a century after their composition, did so anonymously. Since these sources do not refer to the Gospels by their traditional names, this adds further evidence that the titles bearing those names were not added until a later period (probably in the latter half of the 2nd century CE), after these church fathers were writing.[5] And, if the manuscript titles were added later, and the Gospels themselves were quoted without names, this means that there is no evidence that the Gospels were referred to by their traditional names during the earliest period of their circulation. Instead, the Gospels would have more likely circulated anonymously.

As discussed above, Tacitus’ name is not affixed to his Histories using an “according to” formula (which in Latin would have been secundum Tacitum). Instead, Tacitus’ name was attached to the title in the genitive (“The Histories of Tacitus”). This kind of construction is not likely as a secondary addition, since the name Tacitus is not being used to distinguish multiple versions of a text, but is rather being used to indicate Tacitus’ personal possession of the work itself. That being said, there are substantial variations between the titles of Tacitus’ earliest manuscript copies. As Mendell (p. 345) explains, “the manuscript tradition of the Major Works [the Annals and Histories] is not consistent in the matter of title.” These variations report different names for the historical works that are attached to Tacitus’ name. The manuscripts of the Histories, for example, can also include the terms res gestae, historia Augustae, and acta diurna within the titles, in addition to historiae.

These title variations appear much later than those of the Gospels (which appear only a couple centuries after their composition), however, since we do not possess manuscripts of Tacitus’ historical works until several centuries after he composed, during the medieval period. (For an explanation of why the survival of fewer and later manuscript copies has no bearing upon the historical value of Tacitus versus the Gospels, see here.) Due to the negligence among medieval scribes in preserving manuscript copies of old Pagan literary works, both Tacitus’ Annals and Histories also contain large portions of missing material. Since these are far later copies, with large lacunas in the manuscripts, the title variations may have crept in later in the tradition.[6]

Nevertheless, Mendell (p. 345) notes that we have strong contemporary evidence to suggest that the title “Historiae” was originally associated with Tacitus’ Histories:

Pliny clearly referred to the work in which Tacitus was engaged as Historiae: Auguror nec me fallit augurium Historias tuas immortales futuras [“I predict, and my prediction does not deceive me, that your Histories will be immortal”] (Ep. 7.33.1). It is not clear whether the term was a specific one or simply referred to the general category of historical writing. The material to which Pliny refers, the eruption of Vesuvius, would have been in the Histories. Tertullian (Apologeticus Adversus Gentes 16, and Ad nationes 1.11 cites the Histories, using the term as a title: in quinta Historiarum [“Tacitus in the fifth book of his Histories“]. It should be noted that this reference is to the ‘separate’ tradition, not to the thirty-book tradition, so that Historiae are the Histories as we name them now.

The evidence for the original title of the Histories is not fully conclusive, but what is noteworthy is that Pliny the Younger (a contemporary) writes directly to Tacitus and says that he is writing a “Historiae,” and Tertullian, the next author to explicitly cite passages in the Histories, refers to the work by that title.

 

[joelr]

Skeptical historians are all historians who say the gospels had to have been written after or very close to 70AD because of Jesus prophecy about the Temple.
After that decision they hunt around for places and times to put the writing of the gospels that might fit with perceived themes in them.

The names were added because of earlier church tradition and writings. Here is a good article with evidence for the authorship of the gospels.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels in the New Testament?

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Gospels in the New Testament? Was it really Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or could these texts have been anonymous?

www.timothypauljones.com

For the purposes of authorship, however, the name of the work itself need not fully concern us. The evidence is certain in the case of Tacitus that the earliest manuscript tradition of his Histories clearly identifies him as the personal author. This manuscript tradition, though late in the process of textual transition, is corroborated by Pliny (a contemporary of Tacitus), who states that Tacitus himself was authoring a historical work about the same period and events covered in the Histories. This evidence is important, because it shows that Tacitus was known as the author of this historical work from the beginning of its transmission. And, although Pliny was writing while the work was still being composed (and thus does not cite passages from the text), the first source to cite passages from the Histories after it was published, Tertullian, clearly refers to Tacitus as the known author of the text. In Tacitus’ case, therefore, we have a clear claim to authorship, which dates back to the beginning of the tradition.


In the case of the Gospels, the first church fathers who allude to or quote the texts for nearly a century after their composition do so anonymously. Since the Gospels’ manuscript titles were likewise probably later additions (most likely after the mid-2nd century CE), this means that there is no evidence that the Gospels were referred to by their traditional names from the beginning of the tradition. Instead, these names only appear later in the tradition, which is the evidence to be expected if the Gospels first circulated anonymously, and were only given their authorial attributions in a subsequent period. Likewise, even when the later titles were added, the attributions were listed only as “according to” the names affixed to each text, which still entails considerable ambiguity about their authors.[7]


Beyond the titles, we can look within the body of a text to see if the author himself reveals any clues either directly or indirectly about his identity. For Tacitus, while the author does not explicitly name himself, he does discuss his relation to the events that he is describing in the Histories (1:1):


I myself was not acquainted with Galba, Otho, or Vitellius, either by profit or injury. I would not deny that my rank was first elevated by Vespasian, then raised by Titus, and still further increased by Domitian; but to those who profess unaltered truth, it is requisite to speak neither with partisanship nor prejudice.[8]


Here, while he does not name himself, the author of the Histories reveals himself to be a Roman politician during the Flavian Dynasty, which he specifies to be the period that he will write about. This matches the biographical information that we have of Tacitus outside of the Histories. For example, we know outside the text that Tacitus was writing a historical work about the Flavian period, since we have letters from Pliny the Younger (6.16; 6.20) written to Tacitus, where he responds to Tacitus’ request for information about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (which Tacitus also alludes to Histories 1.2). Pliny’s letters also refer to Tacitus’ career as a statesman, such as when he gave the funeral oration for the Roman general Verginius Rufus (2.1). So we know from outside the Histories that Tacitus was a Roman politician writing a history about the Flavian era. This outside information is corroborated exactly by the evidence within the text. Thus, we have good reason to suspect that the author of the Histories is Tacitus, as the internal evidence strongly coincides with this tradition.


This kind of first person interjection from the author, described above, where Tacitus mentions his own relation to events within the narrative, stands in stark contrast with the anonymous style of narration in the Gospels. Although Tacitus does not overtly name himself in his historical works, he still uses the first person to discuss biographical details about himself. The gospels Matthew and Mark, in contrast, do not even use the first person, spoken by the author, anywhere in the text! Instead, both narratives are told in the third person, from an external narrator. This style of narration casts doubt on whether either author is relating personal experiences. As Irene de Jong (Narratology & Classics: A Practical Guide, p. 17) explains:


It is an important principle of narratology that the narrator cannot automatically be equated with the author; rather, it is a creation of the author, like the characters.


The narrators of both Matthew and Mark describe the events in their texts from an outside point of view. This is a subtle aspect of both texts, but it is a very important consideration for why scholars describe them as “anonymous.” Neither narrative is an overt recollection of personal experiences, but rather focuses solely on the subject—Jesus Christ—with the author fading into the background, making it unclear whether the author has any personal relation to events set within the narrative at all.


The author of Luke-Acts only uses the first person singular in the prologues of his works (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1), without describing any biographical details about himself, and it is doubtful that the use of the first person plural, scattered throughout the “we” passages in Acts (16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16), reflects the personal experiences of the author (discussed further by William Campbell under the “External Evidence” section below). John is thus the only gospel to include any kind of eyewitness construction, through the mention of an anonymous “beloved disciple” (John 21:24); however, modern scholars doubt that this “beloved disciple” was the actual author of John (see endnotes 31 and 32 below), and the character’s complete anonymity fails to explicitly connect it with the experiences of any known figure within the narrative.


Another piece of internal evidence that scholars look at is the linguistic rigor and complexity of a text. Based on the writing itself, we can tell that a certain level of education was required to author it. On this point, it is worth noting that Tacitus, as an educated Roman politician, would have had all of the literary, rhetorical, and compositional training needed to author a complex work of prose, such as his Histories. That is to say, from what we know of the Tacitus’ background, he belonged to the demographic of people whom we would expect to write complex Latin Histories.


As we will see for the Gospels’ authors, we have little reason to suspect, at least in the case of Matthew and John, that their traditional authors would have even been able to write a complex narrative in Greek prose. According the estimates of William Harris in his classic study Ancient Literacy (p. 22), “The likely overall illiteracy of the Roman Empire under the principate is almost certain to have been above 90%.” Of the remaining tenth, only a few could read and write well, and even a smaller fraction could author complex prose works like the Gospels.[9]


Immediately, the language and style of the Gospel of John contradicts the traditional attribution of the text to John the son of Zebedee. We know from internal evidence, based on its complex Greek composition, that the author of this gospel had advanced literacy and training in the Greek language. Yet, from what we know of the biography of John the son of Zebedee, it would rather improbable that he could author such a text. John was a poor, rural peasant from Galilee, who spoke Aramaic. In an ancient world where literary training was largely restricted to a small fraction of rich, educated elite, we have little reason to suspect that an Aramaic-speaking Galilean peasant could author a complex Greek gospel. Furthermore, in Acts 4:13, John is even explicitly identified as being αγραμματος (“illiterate”), which shows that even evidence within the New Testament itself would not identify such a figure as an author.[10]

 

[joelr]

Skeptical historians are all historians who say the gospels had to have been written after or very close to 70AD because of Jesus prophecy about the Temple.
After that decision they hunt around for places and times to put the writing of the gospels that might fit with perceived themes in them.

The names were added because of earlier church tradition and writings. Here is a good article with evidence for the authorship of the gospels.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels in the New Testament?

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Gospels in the New Testament? Was it really Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or could these texts have been anonymous?

www.timothypauljones.com

Likewise, the internal evidence of the Gospel of Matthew contradicts the traditional attribution to Matthew (or Levi) the tax collector. While tax collectors had basic training in accounting, the Gospel of Matthew is written in a complex narrative of Greek prose that shows extensive familiarity with Jewish scripture and teachings. However, tax collectors were regarded by educated Jews as a sinful, “pro-Roman” class (as noted by J. R. Donahue in “Tax Collectors and Sinners: An Attempt at Identification“), who were alienated from their religious community, as is evidenced by the Pharisees accusations against Jesus in Mark 2:15-17, Matthew 9:10-13, and Luke 5:29-31 for associating “with tax collectors and sinners” (μετα των τελωνων και αμαρτωλων). Regarding the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew, scholar Barbara Reid (The Gospel According to Matthew, pp. 5-6) explains, “The author had extensive knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures and a keen concern for Jewish observance and the role of the Law … It is doubtful that a tax collector would have the kind of religious and literary education needed to produce this Gospel.” For a further analysis of why Matthew the tax collector would have probably lacked the religious and literary education needed to author the gospel attributed to his name, see my essay “Matthew the τελωνης (“Toll Collector”) and the Authorship of the First Gospel.”


We have no such problem, however, in the case of Tacitus. As an educated Roman senator, who belonged to a small social class of people known to author Latin Histories, Tacitus is the exact sort of person that we would expect to author a work like the Histories, whereas we would have no strong reason to believe that an illiterate peasant, like John, or a mere tax collector, like Matthew, would have been able to author the Greek gospels that are attributed to them.[11]


Furthermore, the sources used within a text can often betray clues about its author. In the case of the Gospels, we know that they are all interdependent upon each other for their information.[12] Matthew borrows from as much as 80% of the verses in the Gospel of Mark, and Luke borrows from 65%. And while John does not follow the ipsissima verba of the earlier gospels, its author was still probably aware of the earlier narratives (as shown by scholar Louis Ruprecht in This Tragic Gospel).


Once more for the Gospel of Matthew, the internal evidence contradicts the traditional authorial attribution. The disciple Matthew was allegedly an eyewitness of Jesus. John Mark, on the other hand, who is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark, was neither an eyewitness of Jesus nor a disciple, but merely a later attendant of Peter. And yet the author of Matthew copies from 80% of the verses in Mark. Why would Matthew, an alleged eyewitness, need to borrow from as much as 80% of the material of Mark, a non-eyewitness? As the Oxford Annotated Bible (p. 1746) concludes, “[T]he fact that the evangelist was so reliant upon Mark and a collection of Jesus’ sayings (“Q”) seems to point to a later, unknown, author.”


Apologists will often posit dubious assumptions to explain away this problem with the disciple Matthew, an alleged eyewitness, borrowing the bulk of his text from a non-eyewitness. For example, Blomberg in The Case for Christ (p. 28) speculates:


It only makes sense if Mark was indeed basing his account on the recollections of the eyewitness Peter … it would make sense for Matthew, even though he was an eyewitness, to rely on Peter’s version of events as transmitted through Mark.


To begin with, nowhere in the Gospel of Mark does the author ever claim that he based his account on the recollections of Peter (Blomberg is splicing this detail with a later dubious claim by the church father Papias, to be discussed below). The author of Mark never names any eyewitness from whom he gathered information.


But what is further problematic for Blomberg’s assumption is that his description of how the author of Matthew used Mark is way off. The author of Matthew does not “rely” on Mark rather than redact Mark to change important details from the earlier gospel. As scholar J. C. Fenton (The Gospel of St. Matthew, p. 12) explains, “the changes which he makes in Mark’s way of telling the story are not those corrections which an eyewitness might make in the account of one who was not an eyewitness.” Instead, many of the changes that Matthew makes to Mark are to correct misunderstandings of the Jewish scriptures. For example, in Mark 1:2-3 the author misquotes the Book of Isaiah by including a verse from Malachi 3:1 in addition to Isaiah 40:3. As scholar Pheme Perkins (Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels, p. 177) points out, “Matthew corrects the citation” in Matthew 3:3 by removing the verse from Malachi and only including Isaiah 40:3.
There are also other instances where Matthew adds Jewish elements that Mark overlooks. For example:

• Mark 9:4 names Elijah before Moses. Instead, Matthew 17:3 puts Moses before Elijah, since Moses is a more important figure to Jews than Elijah.
• Mark 11:10 refers to the kingdom of “our father” David. Ancient Jews would not have referred to “our father” David, however, since the father of the nation was Abraham, or possibly Jacob, who was renamed Israel. As such, not all Jews were sons of David. Instead, Matthew 21:9 does not refer to “our father” David.

These are subtle differences, but what they demonstrate is that the author of Matthew was not “relying” on Peter via Mark, but was redacting the earlier gospel to make it more consistent with Jewish scripture and teachings! This makes no sense at all for Blomberg’s hypothesis. Matthew is described as a tax collector (a profession that made one a social outcast from the Jewish religious community). Peter, in contrast, is described as a Galilean Jew who was Jesus’ chief disciple. Why would Matthew redact the recollections of Peter via the writings of his attendant in order to make them more consistent with Jewish scripture and teachings?

 

[joelr]

Skeptical historians are all historians who say the gospels had to have been written after or very close to 70AD because of Jesus prophecy about the Temple.
After that decision they hunt around for places and times to put the writing of the gospels that might fit with perceived themes in them.

The names were added because of earlier church tradition and writings. Here is a good article with evidence for the authorship of the gospels.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels in the New Testament?

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Gospels in the New Testament? Was it really Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or could these texts have been anonymous?

www.timothypauljones.com

I

Instead, many scholars argue that the anonymous author of Mark was more likely an unknown Gentile living in the Jewish Diaspora outside of Palestine. This is strengthened by the fact that Mark uses Greek translations to quote from the Old Testament. Likewise, the author is unaware of many features of Palestinian geography. Just for one brief example: in Mark 7:31 Jesus is described as having traveled out of Tyre through Sidon (north of Tyre) to the Sea of Galilee (south of Tyre). In the words of scholar Hugh Anderson in The Gospel of Mark (p. 192), this would be like “travelling from Cornwall to London by way of Manchester.” These discrepancies make little sense if the author of Mark was a traveling attendant of Peter, an Aramaic-speaking native of Galilee.[13]


Instead, scholars recognize that the author of Matthew was actually an ethnic Jew (probably a Greek-speaking and educated Jew, who was living in Antioch). As someone more familiar with Jewish teachings, he redacted Mark to correct many of the non-Jewish elements in the earlier gospel. This again makes little sense if the author of Matthew was actually Matthew the tax collector, whose profession would have ostracized him from the Jewish community. Instead, scholars recognize that the later authorial attributions of both of these works are most likely wrong.[14] In fact, even conservative New Testament scholars like Bruce Metzger (The New Testament, p. 97) have agreed:


In the case of the first Gospel, the apostle Matthew can scarcely be the final author; for why should one who presumably had been an eyewitness of much that he records depend … upon the account given by Mark, who had not been an eyewitness?


And Christian scholar Raymond Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 159-160) likewise acknowledges:


That the author of the Greek Gospel was John Mark, a (presumably Aramaic-speaking) Jew of Jerusalem who had early become a Christian, is hard to reconcile with the impression that it does not seem to be a translation from Aramaic, that it seems to depend on oral traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek, and that it seems confused about Palestinian geography.


The way that the Gospel of Luke uses Mark as a source likewise casts doubt on the tradition that John Mark, the attendant of Peter, was the original author of the text. As discussed above, the author of Luke borrows from as much as 65% of the verses in Mark. This is all very interesting, since the author of Luke is likewise the author of Acts, and John Mark, the attendant of Peter, has an appearance in Acts (12:12). This means that the author of Luke-Acts includes within his later narrative the alleged author of an earlier gospel, from which he has even borrowed a substantial amount of his material. Yet, never once does the author of Luke-Acts identify this man as one of his major sources! As Randel Helms points out in Who Wrote the Gospels? (p. 2):


So the author of Luke-Acts not only knew about a John Mark of Jerusalem, the personal associate of Peter and Paul, but also possessed a copy of what we call the Gospel of Mark, copying some three hundred of its verses into the Gospel of Luke, and never once thought to link the two—John Mark and the Gospel of Mark—together! The reason is simple: the connecting of the anonymous Gospel of Mark with John Mark of Jerusalem is a second-century guess, on that had not been made in Luke’s time.


Apologists here will merely try to dismiss this point as being an argument from silence. But again, as in the case of Matthew, the way that the author of Luke uses Mark strongly suggests that he was not “relying” on the recollections of Peter via his attendant, as Blomberg suggests, but was redacting an earlier anonymous narrative. For example, Bart Ehrman in Jesus Interrupted (pp. 64-70) discusses how the author of Luke makes changes to many of the details of the passion scene in Mark. In the Markan Passion, Jesus is depicted in despair and agony, whereas in the Lukan Passion, key details are changed to instead depict Jesus as calm and tranquil during his crucifixion. For example, Jesus’ last words are altered from a despairing statement in Mark 15:33-37 to a more tranquil one in Luke 23:44-46. But why would Luke—the mere Gentile attendant of Paul—redact and change the recollections of Peter—the chief disciple of Jesus—about the passion, crucifixion, and death of Jesus? The reason why is that the author of Luke most likely did not believe that Mark was based on the teachings of Peter. Instead, the anonymous author of Luke redacted and changed Mark, which was written by another anonymous author, to suite his own theological and narrative purposes.[15]
A final note about the Gospels borrowing material from each other is that such works, which are not entirely original in their composition, but are largely redactions of earlier traditions, generally lack authorial personality. We saw above that Tacitus (Histories 1:1) discusses his relations with the Roman emperors during the Roman civil war of 69 CE and the Flavian Dynasty, which is the period that his Histories is written about. The Gospels, in contrast, are not written to tell the recollections of any one person, let alone an eyewitness.[16] Instead, the Gospels are highly anonymous, not only in not naming their authors, but in writing in a collective, revisionist manner. New Testament expert Bart Ehrman (Forged, p. 224) explains that the general anonymity of the Gospels, in part, derives from the anonymous narrative structures of Old Testament texts, which served as their model of inspiration:

In all four Gospels, the story of Jesus is presented as a continuation of the history of the people of God as narrated in the Jewish Bible. The portions of the Old Testament that relate to the history of Israel after the death of Moses are found in the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. All of these books are written anonymously … [T]he message of the Gospels … is portrayed … as continuous with the anonymously written history of Israel as laid out in the Old Testament Scriptures.

 

[joelr]

Skeptical historians are all historians who say the gospels had to have been written after or very close to 70AD because of Jesus prophecy about the Temple.
After that decision they hunt around for places and times to put the writing of the gospels that might fit with perceived themes in them.

The names were added because of earlier church tradition and writings. Here is a good article with evidence for the authorship of the gospels.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels in the New Testament?

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Gospels in the New Testament? Was it really Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or could these texts have been anonymous?

www.timothypauljones.com

The authors of the Gospels were thus more concerned with gathering a collection of their communities’ teachings and organizing them into a cohesive narrative, similar to the anonymous, third person narratives found in the Old Testament. As Armin Baum (“The Anonymity of the New Testament History Books,” p. 142) explains, “The anonymity of the Gospels is thus rooted in a deep conviction concerning the ultimate priority of their subject matter.” This is not at all the case for Tacitus. We might be suspicious of the authorial attribution (at least to the extent that the Histories can be considered Tacitus’ own version of events), if Tacitus had merely copied from 80% of the material of an earlier author (as the Gospel of Matthew did) in order to write a highly anonymous narrative. Instead, Tacitus wrote in a unique Latin style that distinguished him as an individual, personal author, and he likewise comments on the events within his narrative from his own personal point of view.

We have seen above that the internal evidence does not support Matthew, Mark, or John as the authors of the gospels attributed to them. What about Luke? The Gospel of Luke and Acts are attributed to Luke, the traveling attendant of Paul. This is all very interesting, since we possess 7 undisputed epistles of the apostle Paul in the New Testament (6 of the traditional letters of Paul—Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus—are of disputed authorship and are possibly forgeries, as explained by Ehrman in Forged: Writing in the Name of God.) If Luke was Paul’s attendant, then corroborating details between Acts and the Pauline epistles may support the claim that Luke authored Acts; however, scholars often find the opposite to be the case.[17] To name a few discrepancies:

• In Acts 9:26-28, Paul travels from Damascus to Jerusalem only “days” (Acts 9:19; 9:23) after his conversion in Acts 9:3-8, where Barnabas introduces him to the other apostles. However, in his own writings (Galatians 1:16-19), Paul states that he “did not consult any human of flesh and blood” after his conversion (despite consulting Ananias and preaching in the synagogues of Damascus after his conversion in Acts 9:17-22), but instead traveled into Arabia (which Acts makes no mention of), and did not travel to Jerusalem until “three years” after the event, where he only met Peter and James.[18]
• In Acts 16:1-3, Paul has a disciple named Timothy, who was born from a Greek father, be circumcised “due to the Jews who lived in that area.” However, this goes against Paul’s own deceleration (Galatians 2:7) “of ministering the gospel to the uncircumcised.” Likewise, in Galatians 2:1-3, Paul brings another Gentile disciple, Titus, to the Jewish community in Jerusalem, but particularly insists that Titus not be circumcised.[19] Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 7:20, Paul states regarding circumcision, “Each should remain in the condition in which they were called to God.”
• In Galatians 2:6, Paul makes it clear that his authority is equal to the original apostles, stating, “Of whatever sort they were makes no difference to me; God does not show partiality—their opinions added nothing to my message.” However, in Acts 13:31, Paul grants higher authority to those who originally “witnessed” Jesus. Likewise, Acts 1:21 restricts the status of “apostle” to those who had originally been with Jesus during his ministry, despite Paul’s repeated insistence that he was an apostle within his own letters (1 Corinthians 9:1-2).

In light of these and other discrepancies between Paul’s own recollections and how he is depicted in Acts, many scholars agree that the author of Luke-Acts was probably not an attendant of Paul (the speculation that he was is based largely on the ambiguous use of the first person plural in a few sections of Acts, to be addressed below). Nevertheless, the author of Luke-Acts clearly had a strong interest in Paul. However, the Oxford Annotated Bible (p. 1919) points out that the author “was probably someone from the Pauline mission area who, a generation or so after Paul, addressed issues facing Christians who found themselves in circumstances different from those addressed by Paul himself.” Hence, we once more have an anonymous author who was distanced from the various traditions and stories that he later compiled as a non-eyewitness.

The same problem of discrepancies between a text and outside epistolary evidence does not exist in the case of Tacitus. For example, we have Pliny the Younger’s letters (6.16; 6.20) written to Tacitus about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Campania. This outside evidence is corroborated within the text, when Tacitus mentions the burial of cities in Campania in the praefatio of his Histories (1.2), as well as when Tacitus mentions the volcanic eruption itself in his Annals (4.6). That Tacitus alludes to the volcanic eruption in the introduction to his Histories shows that he used Pliny’s account when describing the disaster more fully later in his narrative (although these later books did not survive the bottleneck of texts lost during the Middle Ages). Thus, in the case of Tacitus, we have harmony between outside epistolary evidence and the internal evidence of the text, whereas in the case of the Gospel of Luke, we have discrepancies between Paul’s letters, showing that the author was probably not a companion of Paul.

So far I have addressed the internal evidence for the authorship of Tacitus’ Histories and the Gospels. As has been shown, Tacitus has passed the criteria with flying colors, while all of the Gospels have had multiple internal problems. However, there are likewise external reasons to doubt the traditional authors of
the Gospels.



End of internal evidence External evidence is much longer and debunks everything in that amateur crank.
Internal evidence compiled by
Matthew Ferguson, Ph.D. graduate student

 

[Brian2]

Then demonstrate it.

Part of it is the authenticity of the gospels from the first century and being from witnesses, John being a disciple of Jesus, Matthew being a disciple of Jesus, Luke having obtained information from witnesses and Mark having received information from Peter.

So you don't study historicity of the gospels I guess but instead decide buying into amateur apologetics is where you will get your information?

Internal evidence from the New Testament puts the writing of the gospels before 70 AD except for John who lived a long time and was known by some early church fathers and his gospel comes from after 70AD.

The Gospels have been demonstrated to source Mark. Mark is demonstrated to be a myth many ways over.

"Demonstrated" ? How? I guess it's the usual way these "demonstrations" go. Someone thinks they see similarities between Mark and other writings and so Mark has been demonstrated to be a myth.

All historians agree. Intertextuality is used. Dr Zank did mention intertextuality a few times. The claim of plagarism is incorrect. Genesis is a reaction and reworking of Mesopotamian myth. Dr Zank explains this. No way you would have missed that if you read it.
A few examples are given here:

Was Genesis "Stolen" from Pagan

5:30 - 2 stories from Gilamesh widely considered by scholars to have variously influenced Genesis


6:19 - obvious literary parallels


7:29 - wouldn’t a simpler explanation be that there were just a few similarities? No and this is a ridiculous caricature of consensus scholarly views about Genesis.


9:25 - techniques for understanding borrowing (not with point by point precision), scholars study clever and more subtle use of language. Must recognize how authors intently and unintentionally crafted narratives.


31:04 - works on understanding intertextuality

39:09 - examples from Bible

I don't know who Michael Jones is but from what I heard on the video it is pretty obvious that the plagiarising of Genesis suggested as having happened in the Exile in Babylon was not innocent in nature and was an attempt to trick the Israelites about their ancestry and history, to lie to them to try to give them a reason to by united.
The characterisations that Jones gives are sarcastic but would have had to be close to what is being suggested to have happened in Exile in Babylon.
It is interesting that in the video they see intertextuality between Isaiah and other books of the Bible when compared to Canaanite texts probably in use at the time.
This is seen as Yahweh having inherited the enemies of Baal when in fact the ideas would be in the culture of Israel because of the Israelites going after the gods of Canaan, the Baals for example and God would be telling the Israelites a message using the language and understanding of the times and making the point that it is Yahweh the true God who can defeat these enemies of the Baals.
IOWs the whole thing fits in with the Bible when the Bible is read without seeing any intertextuality, but as just the true story of Israel and God trying to win them back to follow Him again instead of the Baals.
The whole thing about the OT being gleaned somehow from the surrounding cultures is a presupposition by people who see no religions as true but as having developed that way, and the Bible is read with that in mind.
So Yahweh was a Baal god with a wife Ashterah instead of the real story that Yahweh was the God of Israel and the Israelites started believing in the Baals also and worshipping them the way the Canaanites did. The story is all there in the OT and modern scholarship (skeptical scholarship with skeptical assumptions) ignores the Bible story and makes up their own version of what really happened.

 

[Brian2]

First, the only source given at th eend of this article is Ehrman who is a PhD historian who agrees with the standard dating of the gospels.
Are you actually trying to enter an amateur blog piece as evidence? O.M.G. You do not care about what is true.
As to gospel names, the vast amount of evidence supports late 2nd century naming, internal and external.

There are links to sources all the way through the article, I suppose Ehrman was added as a source because they could not get a link to what was used of his work.
Both Bailey and Jones are highly educated scholars.
It is true that we don't know for sure who wrote the gospels, as has been shown in the articles there is plenty of evidence that the early church did know.

Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith (Lk. 1.4; Jn. 20.31). Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings."

Yes many scholars believe the gospels were written after 70AD because of the temple prophecy and so then they hunt around for a place and time after that which fit what they see as the general attitude of the each gospel. (is that what you call internal evidence?)

As scholarly sources like the Oxford Annotated Bible note, the Gospels are not historical works (even if they contain some historical kernels). I have discussed elsewhere some of the reasons why scholars recognize that the Gospels are not historical in their genre, purpose, or character in my article “Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament.” However, I will now also lay out a resource here explaining why many scholars likewise doubt the traditional authorial attributions of the Gospels.

The gospels are not meant to be in the historical genre true.

The anonymous voice of 1 John was identified with the author of the Fourth Gospel by the end of the second century CE … Since the Gospel was attributed to the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, early Christians concluded that he had composed 1 John near the end of his long life … Modern scholars have a more complex view of the development of the Johannine community and its writings. The opening verses of 1 John employ a first person plural “we” … That “we” probably refers to a circle of teachers faithful to the apostolic testimony of the Beloved Disciple and evangelist. A prominent member of that group composed this introduction.


As such, it is not unusual for scholars to doubt the traditional authorship of the Gospels, considering that the authorial attributions of the other anonymous books in the New Testament are also in considerable dispute.

Really? Because "we" is in the opening of 1John 1 they consider the "we" to be part of a Johanine community of teachers?
To me the opening points to someone who was close to Jesus and the "we" are the others disciples of Jesus who knew Him and carried the gospel around.

1John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our[a] joy complete.

The internal anonymity of the Gospels is even acknowledged by many apologists and conservative scholars, such as Craig Blomberg, who states in The Case for Christ (p. 22): “It’s important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous.” So, immediately one type of evidence that we lack for the Gospels is their authors identifying themselves within the body of the text. This need not be an immediate death blow, however, since ancient authors did not always name themselves within the bodies of their texts. I have specifically chosen to compare the Gospels’ authorial traditions with that of Tacitus’ Histories, since Tacitus likewise does not name himself within his historical works. If the author does not name himself within the text, there are other types of evidence that can be looked at.


First, even if the body of a text does not name its author, there is often still a name and title affixed to a text in our surviving manuscript traditions. These titles normally identify the traditional author. The standard naming convention for ancient literary works was to place the author’s name in the genitive case (indicating personal possession), followed by the title of the work. Classical scholar Clarence Mendell in Tacitus: The Man And His Work (pp. 295-296) notes that our earliest manuscript copies of both Tacitus’ Annals and Histories identify Tacitus as the author by placing his name in the genitive (Corneli Taciti), followed by the manuscript titles.[1] For the Histories (as well as books 11-16 of the Annals), in particular, Mendell (p. 345) also notes that many of the later manuscripts have the title Cor. Taciti Libri (“The Books of Cornelius Tacitus”). This naming convention is important, since it specifically identifies Tacitus as the author of the work. An attribution may still be doubted for any number of reasons, but it is important that there at least be a clear attribution.


Here, we already have a problem with the traditional authors of the Gospels. The titles that come down in our manuscripts of the Gospels do not even explicitly claim Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John as their authors. Instead, the Gospels have an abnormal title convention, where they instead use the Greek preposition κατα, meaning “according to” or “handed down from,” followed by the traditional names. For example, the Gospel of Matthew is titled ευαγγελιον κατα Μαθθαιον (“The Gospel according to Matthew”). This is problematic, from the beginning, in that the earliest title traditions already use a grammatical construction to distance themselves from an explicit claim to authorship. Instead, the titles operate more as placeholder names, where the Gospels have been “handed down” by church traditions affixed to names of figures in the early church, rather than the author being clearly identified.[2] In the case of Tacitus, none of our surviving titles or references says that the Annals or Histories were written “according to Tacitus” or “handed down from Tacitus.” Instead, we have a clear attribution to Tacitus in one case, and only ambivalent attributions in the titles of the Gospels.[3]

Really? The gospels are recognised as not historical genre and then there is a problem with how the names are attached to the gospels?
There is agreement that the authors are not definitely known but there is also agreement among conservative scholars that there is plenty of evidence for the authors that are named.
You don't seem to have much evidence imo. that the authorship is completely unknown and cannot be the authors we have.
That there is plenty of evidence for the authors we have should be admitted by all scholars imo. I doubt that it is.

 

[Brian2]

part 2 internal evidence
Furthermore, it is not even clear that the Gospels’ abnormal titles were originally placed in the first manuscript copies. We do not have the autograph manuscript (i.e., the first manuscript written) of any literary work from antiquity, but for the Gospels, the earliest manuscripts that we possess have grammatical variations in their title conventions. This divergence in form suggests that, unlike the body of the text (which mostly remains consistent in transmission), the Gospels’ manuscript titles were not a fixed or original feature of the text itself.[4] As textual criticism expert Bart Ehrman (Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, pp. 249-250) points out:

Yes that is admitted by most scholars.
That article I posted did say that all the manuscripts we have do have names attached even if the names vary in the form that is used. BUT the names are consistent. The right name is with the right gospel in all the manuscripts and so it was not just a matter of different people making up names to attach, it was most likely the names that were known by the church to be the actual authors.

 

[Brian2]

This kind of first person interjection from the author, described above, where Tacitus mentions his own relation to events within the narrative, stands in stark contrast with the anonymous style of narration in the Gospels. Although Tacitus does not overtly name himself in his historical works, he still uses the first person to discuss biographical details about himself. The gospels Matthew and Mark, in contrast, do not even use the first person, spoken by the author, anywhere in the text! Instead, both narratives are told in the third person, from an external narrator. This style of narration casts doubt on whether either author is relating personal experiences. As Irene de Jong (Narratology & Classics: A Practical Guide, p. 17) explains:


It is an important principle of narratology that the narrator cannot automatically be equated with the author; rather, it is a creation of the author, like the characters.


The narrators of both Matthew and Mark describe the events in their texts from an outside point of view. This is a subtle aspect of both texts, but it is a very important consideration for why scholars describe them as “anonymous.” Neither narrative is an overt recollection of personal experiences, but rather focuses solely on the subject—Jesus Christ—with the author fading into the background, making it unclear whether the author has any personal relation to events set within the narrative at all.

Mark probably had no personal involvement in most of what he wrote about.
Matthew is said to have written his gospel in Hebrew characters and it was meant to have been translated to Greek. Matthew may not have used the first person in his writings and a later translator may have even taken them out if he had used the first person.

The author of Luke-Acts only uses the first person singular in the prologues of his works (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1), without describing any biographical details about himself, and it is doubtful that the use of the first person plural, scattered throughout the “we” passages in Acts (16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16), reflects the personal experiences of the author (discussed further by William Campbell under the “External Evidence” section below). John is thus the only gospel to include any kind of eyewitness construction, through the mention of an anonymous “beloved disciple” (John 21:24); however, modern scholars doubt that this “beloved disciple” was the actual author of John (see endnotes 31 and 32 below), and the character’s complete anonymity fails to explicitly connect it with the experiences of any known figure within the narrative.

Yes Luke was probably not a follower of Jesus at all, and seems to make that plain in the opening to his gospel.
But who make such a big deal about the first person personal pronouns in the gospel and then want to deny that the "we" pronouns used in Acts mean that Luke was referring to himself. What sort of confused or biased thinking is that?

As we will see for the Gospels’ authors, we have little reason to suspect, at least in the case of Matthew and John, that their traditional authors would have even been able to write a complex narrative in Greek prose. According the estimates of William Harris in his classic study Ancient Literacy (p. 22), “The likely overall illiteracy of the Roman Empire under the principate is almost certain to have been above 90%.” Of the remaining tenth, only a few could read and write well, and even a smaller fraction could author complex prose works like the Gospels.[9]


Immediately, the language and style of the Gospel of John contradicts the traditional attribution of the text to John the son of Zebedee. We know from internal evidence, based on its complex Greek composition, that the author of this gospel had advanced literacy and training in the Greek language. Yet, from what we know of the biography of John the son of Zebedee, it would rather improbable that he could author such a text. John was a poor, rural peasant from Galilee, who spoke Aramaic. In an ancient world where literary training was largely restricted to a small fraction of rich, educated elite, we have little reason to suspect that an Aramaic-speaking Galilean peasant could author a complex Greek gospel. Furthermore, in Acts 4:13, John is even explicitly identified as being αγραμματος (“illiterate”), which shows that even evidence within the New Testament itself would not identify such a figure as an author.[10]

Yes John was unschooled but not necessarily illiterate and the end of the gospel of John does indicate that others may have written for John, just as Mark is said to have written for Peter.
Actually the literacy in ancient Israel I hear was pretty good compared to the rest of the ancient world, with some teaching happening in the synagogues.
Jesus, a carpenter, is said to have got up in the synagogue to read from the Torah.
The Levites were no doubt more literate because of their duty to teach the law etc. Matthew was also called Levi and so could well have been a Levite and so was probably literate.

 

[Brian2]

Likewise, the internal evidence of the Gospel of Matthew contradicts the traditional attribution to Matthew (or Levi) the tax collector. While tax collectors had basic training in accounting, the Gospel of Matthew is written in a complex narrative of Greek prose that shows extensive familiarity with Jewish scripture and teachings. However, tax collectors were regarded by educated Jews as a sinful, “pro-Roman” class (as noted by J. R. Donahue in “Tax Collectors and Sinners: An Attempt at Identification“), who were alienated from their religious community, as is evidenced by the Pharisees accusations against Jesus in Mark 2:15-17, Matthew 9:10-13, and Luke 5:29-31 for associating “with tax collectors and sinners” (μετα των τελωνων και αμαρτωλων). Regarding the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew, scholar Barbara Reid (The Gospel According to Matthew, pp. 5-6) explains, “The author had extensive knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures and a keen concern for Jewish observance and the role of the Law … It is doubtful that a tax collector would have the kind of religious and literary education needed to produce this Gospel.” For a further analysis of why Matthew the tax collector would have probably lacked the religious and literary education needed to author the gospel attributed to his name, see my essay “Matthew the τελωνης (“Toll Collector”) and the Authorship of the First Gospel.”

As I said, Matthew is said to have written in Hebrew or Aramaic and was translated to Greek later according to the church history of those times. And as I said, Matthew (Levi) was probably a Levite with knowledge of the scriptures and the religion and who was not always a tax collector so gained his knowledge earlier in life.
These things are common knowledge but when people want to ignore the history of the times, just brush it off as church tradition that was probably made up, they end up making up some silly stuff to replace it with.

We have no such problem, however, in the case of Tacitus. As an educated Roman senator, who belonged to a small social class of people known to author Latin Histories, Tacitus is the exact sort of person that we would expect to author a work like the Histories, whereas we would have no strong reason to believe that an illiterate peasant, like John, or a mere tax collector, like Matthew, would have been able to author the Greek gospels that are attributed to them.[11]

Who cares about Tacitus anyway.
https://infidels.org/library/modern/matthew-ferguson-gospel-authors/#11

Furthermore, the sources used within a text can often betray clues about its author. In the case of the Gospels, we know that they are all interdependent upon each other for their information.[12] Matthew borrows from as much as 80% of the verses in the Gospel of Mark, and Luke borrows from 65%. And while John does not follow the ipsissima verba of the earlier gospels, its author was still probably aware of the earlier narratives (as shown by scholar Louis Ruprecht in This Tragic Gospel).


Once more for the Gospel of Matthew, the internal evidence contradicts the traditional authorial attribution. The disciple Matthew was allegedly an eyewitness of Jesus. John Mark, on the other hand, who is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark, was neither an eyewitness of Jesus nor a disciple, but merely a later attendant of Peter. And yet the author of Matthew copies from 80% of the verses in Mark. Why would Matthew, an alleged eyewitness, need to borrow from as much as 80% of the material of Mark, a non-eyewitness? As the Oxford Annotated Bible (p. 1746) concludes, “[T]he fact that the evangelist was so reliant upon Mark and a collection of Jesus’ sayings (“Q”) seems to point to a later, unknown, author.”

You might see that as a problem, but I don't. It does not show Matthew was not there at all imo
The percentages vary from 90% to 50% having been taken from Mark it seems in opinions I have seen and it is not known if Matthew of Mark was written first.

Apologists will often posit dubious assumptions to explain away this problem with the disciple Matthew, an alleged eyewitness, borrowing the bulk of his text from a non-eyewitness. For example, Blomberg in The Case for Christ (p. 28) speculates:

Why say "borrowing from a non eye witness" if the eyewitness in Mark's case is Peter? (and of course there are many things that Peter, James and John were privy to which the other disciples were not).

It only makes sense if Mark was indeed basing his account on the recollections of the eyewitness Peter … it would make sense for Matthew, even though he was an eyewitness, to rely on Peter’s version of events as transmitted through Mark.


To begin with, nowhere in the Gospel of Mark does the author ever claim that he based his account on the recollections of Peter (Blomberg is splicing this detail with a later dubious claim by the church father Papias, to be discussed below). The author of Mark never names any eyewitness from whom he gathered information.

Here we go again making Blomberg a speculation when it is based on the church history of the time. And then condemning speculation when all this author has is speculation. Incredible.

But what is further problematic for Blomberg’s assumption is that his description of how the author of Matthew used Mark is way off. The author of Matthew does not “rely” on Mark rather than redact Mark to change important details from the earlier gospel. As scholar J. C. Fenton (The Gospel of St. Matthew, p. 12) explains, “the changes which he makes in Mark’s way of telling the story are not those corrections which an eyewitness might make in the account of one who was not an eyewitness.” Instead, many of the changes that Matthew makes to Mark are to correct misunderstandings of the Jewish scriptures. For example, in Mark 1:2-3 the author misquotes the Book of Isaiah by including a verse from Malachi 3:1 in addition to Isaiah 40:3. As scholar Pheme Perkins (Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels, p. 177) points out, “Matthew corrects the citation” in Matthew 3:3 by removing the verse from Malachi and only including Isaiah 40:3.
There are also other instances where Matthew adds Jewish elements that Mark overlooks. For example:

• Mark 9:4 names Elijah before Moses. Instead, Matthew 17:3 puts Moses before Elijah, since Moses is a more important figure to Jews than Elijah.
• Mark 11:10 refers to the kingdom of “our father” David. Ancient Jews would not have referred to “our father” David, however, since the father of the nation was Abraham, or possibly Jacob, who was renamed Israel. As such, not all Jews were sons of David. Instead, Matthew 21:9 does not refer to “our father” David.

Matthew is said to have written for Jews and uses phrases more acceptable to the Jews of the time. But the Messiah was the Son of David and the common uneducated people who were shouting Hosanna, could well have said (our father David).
I wonder what could have been changed by the translators of Matthew's gospel into Greek.

These are subtle differences, but what they demonstrate is that the author of Matthew was not “relying” on Peter via Mark, but was redacting the earlier gospel to make it more consistent with Jewish scripture and teachings! This makes no sense at all for Blomberg’s hypothesis. Matthew is described as a tax collector (a profession that made one a social outcast from the Jewish religious community). Peter, in contrast, is described as a Galilean Jew who was Jesus’ chief disciple. Why would Matthew redact the recollections of Peter via the writings of his attendant in order to make them more consistent with Jewish scripture and teachings?

As I said, Matthew was writing for the Jews and used terms more acceptable to them. So he used Kingdom of heaven instead of Kingdom of God etc.

 

[Brian2]

Instead, many scholars argue that the anonymous author of Mark was more likely an unknown Gentile living in the Jewish Diaspora outside of Palestine. This is strengthened by the fact that Mark uses Greek translations to quote from the Old Testament. Likewise, the author is unaware of many features of Palestinian geography. Just for one brief example: in Mark 7:31 Jesus is described as having traveled out of Tyre through Sidon (north of Tyre) to the Sea of Galilee (south of Tyre). In the words of scholar Hugh Anderson in The Gospel of Mark (p. 192), this would be like “travelling from Cornwall to London by way of Manchester.” These discrepancies make little sense if the author of Mark was a traveling attendant of Peter, an Aramaic-speaking native of Galilee.[13]

I also can look at maps and note that this description of the way Jesus went makes perfect sense. It is not saying that the destination was Galilee or the Decapolis (which is where it says he went after Galilee), all it is saying is the journey Jesus made and where he ended up. These authors you use say some ridiculous things.
https://infidels.org/library/modern/matthew-ferguson-gospel-authors/#13