We do so because the New Testament is mainly fiction and apologetic stuff, so making historical claims using it, is impossible.
Actually, most of the New Testament doesn't contain fiction. Most of it is composed up of letters. Not fiction. As for being apologetic, not really. That wouldn't come until later. Most of it is directions and answers to various churches.
That signature and that writing style doesn't mean a thing, there are many other pseudo-graphical signatures in the New Testament. It could just as well be the style of Marcion. My point is that there is no work of reference that can actually be placed in the first century.
Well besides internal references that firmly places their writing in the first century. Such as the figures mentioned, being completely oblivious to the destruction of the Temple, etc.
Not to mention that when even non-Christian scholars date the work of Paul, they also date it earlier.
And no, it can't be the style of Marcion because it simply doesn't match up. How do we know this? Because we can compare the two.
I highly doubt that as it is consistently dated to around that time. If you want to argue otherwise, you better make a good argument.
Yes, that is a good question. Faking letters of people who were thought of as having contributed to the early movement was the norm in the second century. There was no need whatsoever for any "real" early historical letters. Besides that, the epistles aren't real letters at all, they are apologetic pamphlets imitating letters [quite poorly].
I have to assume you have never read the letters then. Because they look and feel just like letters from the ancient world. How do we know this? By looking at other letters. Now, the book of Hebrews looks more apologetic, but it really isn't a letter, and it isn't by Paul.
And no, it wasn't the norm to write in someone else's name in the second century. And when people did, there works usually were not followed for too long. As in, by the second century, people were knowing which writings were older.
That is no argument because if Marcion was the real author, then you are by that method merely telling which letters were by Marcion and which were written by his others in his church.
But we can compare the work of Marcion, and the work of Paul, and see that they are different. Not to mention, that the Early Church fathers also could tell the difference. They hardly would have kept forged writings by Marcion, while claiming Marcion a heretic.
You don't understand the meaning of the signatures of the NT writings. Every writing or sub-text in the NT had to attributed to an "early" apostle or to Jesus himself even though such writings were largely absent. None of the people who knew Jesus wrote anything, but most NT writings were written in their names pseudo-graphically after the first century had passed.
I fully understand such meanings. That is my main area of study (as in the early history of Christianity). However, nearly all, if not all, of the writings of the NT were written in the first century. That is the accepted scholarly consensus. Now, if you have a problem with that, and want to claim it as wrong, you need to show your evidence and show why it is more reasonable to believe that what is already accepted.
He does do that over and over. I could make a separate tread about it, the writer of the original letters was definitely someone with gnostic or mystic beliefs.
Only if you want to see such in his work, and then ignore the Jewish heritage. You really can read anything you want in a book. The problem is the aspect of want here.
Then where are your proofs in genuine extra-canonical first century writings? Or even first century original fragments of the letters or gospels? There are none.
There are no need for them either. We don't have the originals for nearly any ancient document. That doesn't mean they didn't exist. That is where textual criticism comes into play.
As for proofs in extra-canonical first century writings? Again, not needed, as we know the originals came from that time. There is no reason to assume that they were mentioned in extra-canonical work though as the works themselves were addressed specifically to churches, and probably were not spread very far anyway. Not to mention, we don't require such with other ancient works. So really, you are special pleading here.
