Archaeology of the New Testament

[ZenMode]

I gave you the quote.

Ehrman says since nobody wrote their name on the gospels, they are anonymous, and we can't prove who wrote them.

He never said we can't use circumstantial evidence and logical inference to make educated guesses about the authors, which is exactly what I have done.

You haven't provided a shred of evidence for your claim that the gospels were written by random obscure people who were ten steps removed from anyone associated with the original apostles.

Hollering that they're written in Greek isn't even a real argument.

For God's sake man, you didn't even know Luke was not a companion of Jesus and never even met the man.

I never claimed Ehrman believes we are certain about who the gospel authors are. Back track this thread to familiarize yourself with what I really wrote.

I provided multiple lines of evidence about how we can make reasonably good inferences about who the authors were. My reasoning does not totally rely on Ehrmam.

Right, Ehrman wrote that you have to take seriously the claims of early church bishops about the gospel authors, although they don't prove anything and he himself is not inclined to buy it.

80 percent of everything I've written in this thread is consistent with what Ehrman has written or said. He is a valuable resource.

But he is not a prophet who has all the correct answers.

I'm not like you. I don't self select sources that I already know beforehand are already to going to agree with my preconceived beliefs. That's a terrible way to learn. Ehrman has great arguments, but other religious scholars sometimes have better arguments than him.

So much of this post reinforces my belief that you haven't actual read Ehrman. He does not just say "since nobody wrote their name on the gospels, they are anonymous, and we can't prove who wrote them."

IF you had actual read/watched his thoughts on the Gospels, and most other books of the NT, you'd know that there is so much more to determining who did/didn't write any given book or when the book was written. There's analysis of language, there's analysis of how, for example, Paul wrote, there's looking at the original Greek writing and seeing that the writers was not fluent in Greek, which means that it wouldn't have been written by this person or that person. There's also references to events in the writing that make it impossible for a specific person to be the author... unless they were 130 years old.

That's only going off of memory and I know I'm forgetting things.

IOW, you are ignoring so much in an attempt to keep believing what you want to believe.

 

[Cypress]

Right, but you can also be a liar without committing crimes.

Irrelevant to anything I wrote. This discussion isn't about garden variety liars.

The 9/11 hijackers were true believers, because they wouldn't have killed themselves for a belief they actually knew was a lie.

Paul wouldn't have given up the comfortable life of a Pharisee, and gone 180 degrees from oppressing Christians to taking on the dangerous life of an itinerant Christian teacher unless he genuinely believed he had some kind of a radical epiphany or vision. You're free to say he had a hallucination. But claiming he lied about it or had an epileptic seizure doesn't add up.

I said no such thing. I said they made things up to further their cause and/or give legitimacy to their beliefs. I said they made things up to further their cause and/or give legitimacy to their beliefs.

People don't die or submit to execution to cover up lies they know are untrue. These people genuinely believed they saw the death and resurrection of Jesus.

For example, claiming that a book was written by Mark when there's no reason to believe it was.

Yes, there are reasons.

1) The first century Bishop Pappias claims he was told by associates of the apostles that Mark was a secretary to Peter and wrote a gospel based on Peter's teachings.

2) It's irrational to believe that early church fathers would have named two canonical gospels after two low-ranking obscure Christians like Mark and Luke who didn't even know Jesus, unless it were true. If the goal was to make a splash with gospel accounts that seemed authoritative and utterly reliable, they would have named them after actual apostles like Andrew, Phillip, or James. You said it yourself: the early church bishops were interested in creating authoritative accounts to support their beliefs

3) The evidence clearly shows the early church fathers genuinely attempted (if not always successfully) to keep material written by frauds and fakes out of the canon. There were dozens of gospels written, but many of them were recognized to be frauds, and the church only selected four they were reasonably certain were written by eyewitnesses or those who knew the eyewitnesses.


Any one single reason by itself isn't utterly convincing. But collectively they point to the best explanation is that a Christian named Mark wrote the gospel that bears his name.


The problem is you haven't provided a shred of evidence for your position.

 

[Ichabod Stain]

He never said we can't use circumstantial evidence and logical inference to make educated guesses...

 

[ZenMode]

Irrelevant to anything I wrote. This discussion isn't about garden variety liars.

It is from my POV.

The 9/11 hijackers were true believers, because they wouldn't have killed themselves for a belief they actually knew was a lie.

Right and I'm sure most everyone involved in Biblical NT writings were also true believers.

Paul wouldn't have given up the comfortable life of a Pharisee, and gone 180 degrees from oppressing Christians to taking on the dangerous life of an itinerant Christian teacher unless he genuinely believed he had some kind of a radical epiphany or vision. You're free to say he had a hallucination. But claiming he lied about it or had an epileptic seizure doesn't add up.

Right....I agree that Paul most definitely was a true believer, just as many Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, etc are.

People don't die or submit to execution to cover up lies they know are untrue.

Well, the writers of the Bible obviously weren't executed. I've heard that being dead makes writing difficult. The people involved in the spread of Christianity were alive in a time after executions were happening....if they actually happened.

These people genuinely believed they saw the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The people involved in the writings didn't see Jesus die or resurrected. They are operating on oral tradition.

The reason that we see quotes from Jesus that directly conflict with each other is because authors are making things up and one of them can't possibly be an actual quote from Jesus.

When Christianity was relatively new, lots of people had lots of thoughts on what it should mean to be a Christian and a good way to give writings legitimacy is to make the author Mark...or Matthew or Peter, that's part of why there are multiple books that were excluded from the canon despite being in Peter's name. It's why, between Mark (earliest) and John (latest) the blame for executing Jesus goes from being the Roman's fault to the Jews fault.

Yes, there are reasons.

1) The first century Bishop Pappias claims he was told by associates of the apostles that Mark was a secretary to Peter and wrote a gospel based on Peter's teachings.

As I mentioned earlier, you are ignoring 10x reasons to believe it wasn't Mark in favor of 1 reason. That's because it's what you want to believe.

2) It's irrational to believe that early church fathers would have named two canonical gospels after two low-ranking obscure Christians like Mark and Luke who didn't even know Jesus, unless it were true.

It's not irrational. It's about giving legitimacy.

If the goal was to make a splash with gospel accounts that seemed authoritative and utterly reliable, they would have named them after actual apostles like Andrew, Phillip, or James.

They wouldn't because those closest to Jesus weren't reading or writing, especially in Greek.

You said it yourself: the early church bishops were interested in creating authoritative accounts to support their beliefs

3) The evidence clearly shows the early church fathers genuinely attempted (if not always successfully) to keep material written by frauds and fakes out of the canon. There were dozens of gospels written, but many of them were recognized to be frauds, and the church only selected four they were reasonably certain were written by eyewitnesses or those who knew the eyewitnesses.

This is what you want to believe, which is why you likely don't actually read Ehrman.

Any one single reason by itself isn't utterly convincing.

Unless it's Papias.....

But collectively they point to the best explanation is that a Christian named Mark wrote the gospel that bears his name.

Who is "they"?

The problem is you haven't provided a shred of evidence for your position.

I have. You just ignored it. The fact that you don't know the evidence is itself more evidence that you don't read Ehrman as you claim.