> So what you're telling me is that historians have a consensus of who wrote the Gospels? This is news to me - do you have a link with this proof?

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying we have many ancient writers who tell us who wrote them. Some modern scholarship deprecates much of these ancient sources.

> It's more plausible than Paul never ever meeting Jesus until after Jesus supposedly came back from the death and suddenly Paul is the #1 apostle with his words being treated way too seriously for a typical human.

There is no written evidence that Paul ever met Jesus, but since he was trained as a Pharisee under the tutelage of Gamaliel, a Jerusalem rabbi, it could actually be reasonable that Paul had met Jesus. It's a reasonable speculation, but speculation nonetheless. Of course, we can't guarantee he didn't, because negative evidence is impossible.

> I don't care at all about evidence. Proof or speculation are the only words here. Do you have proof? If not, it's speculation.

Well, this explains why we're not getting anywhere in our conversation. Very little of what we know, excluding some disciplines of science, rely on absolute proof. With this as your criterion, you have limited your knowledge to a small slice of education.

> So... Joseph Smith really did get the new Testament from Angel Moroni?

Of course not. I didn't claim all claims to eyewitness testimony were reliable. What I did claim is that eyewitness can be reliable if the eyewitness actually experienced it and communicates his experience accurately. We have to be discerning.

> I don't believe the following ever happened: one doctor witnessed something, told others, it's now believed as fact across the medical community.

I agree with you, and since that's not what I'm talking about, it doesn't take us anywhere.

> I find it hard to believe that those people at those times would have recollections of the words Jesus used or a full and chronological listing of all places they went to and, again

Do you believe your friends when they tell you about an awesome movie they saw 10 years ago that made a profound impact on them? Would you believe Solzhenitsyn when he writes about his experiences in the Gulag, after he is living in Vermont, and thinking back to them?

> Literally everyone or let's just say vast, vast majority of the population? You're telling me that fishermen were trained in the oral rhetorical era?

It was part of their culture. Are Americans "trained" to be consumeristic? Of course we are. We are enculturated. Even Galilean fishermen were raised in the synagogue to learn and memorize the Torah. Since many people were non-literate (not stupid, but just unable to read), memorization would be required to function in society (just like ability to use technology is required in ours).

> 1 Cor. 15.3-6: In what non-Christian source is this proven?

It's a matter of scholarly consensus, both Christian and secular (non-christian). Paul is known to have existed and to have travelled as he did. At least 75% of his writings are widely regarded (except by the skeptical minimalists) as genuine. Two of those are the letters to the Corinthians and Galatians, and this is where we find out such things. Paul was converted shortly after the death of Christ, and he visited Jerusalem three years after his conversion (Gal. 1.18-19). This is when he most likely received the creed written in 1 Cor. 15.3-6. A minority of scholars even claim he received it in Damascus when he was converted. The former admission puts the latest date for the creed at AD 35, assuming, in agreement with most scholars, that Jesus was crucified in AD 30 and Paul was converted in 32. But the creed would have had to have been formulated before Paul received it. Even the radical Jesus Seminar dates the creed to no later than 33. Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide admits that the creed had to have been formed very soon after the crucifixion and resurrection. Scholars across the theological spectrum acknowledge the earliness of this creed, and most assign it a date of no more than 2-5 years after Jesus' crucifixion. If you study the scholarship on the text, you will see that I'm telling it straight.

> Actual historians, however, probably read those books, looked over all the other so-called evidence and said nope, this one isn't going into the box of historical facts.

It obviously matters which historians you choose to believe, because many say exactly the opposite. You have to weigh the evidence for yourself, and not just believe those that argue your a priori decision.

> We have many ancient writers who tell us who wrote them

So what you're telling me is that historians have a consensus of who wrote the Gospels? This is news to me - do you have a link with this proof?
this idea (that Paul paid them) doesn't have any evidence or reasoning to back it up.

It's more plausible than Paul never ever meeting Jesus until after Jesus supposedly came back from the death and suddenly Paul is the #1 apostle with his words being treated way too seriously for a typical human.

> We have plenty of evidence as to who it was.

I preapologize but this is a personal pet peeve: I don't care at all about evidence. Proof or speculation are the only words here. Do you have proof? If not, it's speculation.

> There is plenty of eyewitness testimony that is very reliable.

So... Joseph Smith really did get the new Testament from Angel Moroni? Your flair does not say Mormon so you don't buy it.
we also see plenty of eyewitness testimony in the medical field

Because it can be repeated and studied. I don't believe the following ever happened:

one doctor witnessed something
told others
it's now believed as fact across the medical community

> There's nothing wrong with recollections.

I find it hard to believe that those people at those times would have recollections of the words Jesus used or a full and chronological listing of all places they went to and, again, this assumes that I buy testimony of regular people 2000 years ago as fact (which I obviously don't).

> The Gospels are of the same nature.

No they're not because I don't care about Clinton or Lincoln (say that three times fast). There is nothing in those books that would change my life in any way. However, there's tons that would change my life if Christian books were true so I have a bit more skepticism to books with actual effect on my life.

> Everyone in an oral rhetorical era was trained to have proper memory for events

Literally everyone or let's just say vast, vast majority of the population? You're telling me that fishermen were trained in the oral rhetorical era? I'll need some citation for this I guess.

> Everyone in an oral rhetorical era was trained to have proper memory for events

There's that "e" word again. Resurrection of Jesus is not a historical fact, therefore speculation. I'll admit: it's possible that any proof could have been lost in time. However, this doesn't mean I should believe in it.

> 1 Corinthians 15.3-6 comes from no more than 2-5 years after Jesus' death.

In what non-Christian source is this proven?

> You haven't interacted much with the evidence for the resurrection, then.

No, I defer to the experts whose career it is to study this stuff. I'm definitely not interested in researching it myself because I'm not a historian. Actual historians, however, probably read those books, looked over all the other so-called evidence and said nope, this one isn't going into the box of historical facts.

Cicero, I'm going to start a separate thread on this subject. Go there for further conversation. Thanks.

> I've actually had these conversations several times on this forum, and they don't go anywhere.

I understand (and often share) your frustration. In view of your claim that you have deeply researched this issue I am optimistic that constructive debate is possible; if it does tend towards the "interminable" I am quite willing to bring it to an amicable close.

I also agree with you that just hurling "evidence" about randomly is pointless, so I suggest a more systematic approach. In the first place, let's concentrate on a single Gospel (at least to begin with); I suggest Matthew. In the second place, rather than going on forever about individual pieces of evidence, let me summarise the broad outline of my objection to your stated views and see how you respond to that, before going into particulars. (You are, of course, welcome to do the same)

Where the external evidence is concerned, I think you are overestimating the reliability of the early Church fathers. The extent to which you find this persuasive will probably depend on how much of their work you have read, but I for one am unimpressed by the general quality of the claims they make and that's not just because I'm an atheist. Some of the historical stuff Justin Martyr and Tertullian put into their apologies, for instance, sometimes with the general agreement of their Christian contemporaries, is quite unequivocally silly and displays a lack of critical thought which, although it doesn't wholly invalidate your argument from the unanimity of tradition, very much reduces its strength.

More seriously, however, you overlook the fact that in the case of Matthew, the "external evidence" gets some very important facts wrong. For instance, Church tradition, as far as I know, unanimously agrees 1) that Matthew wrote before Mark, and 2) that Matthew wrote in Hebrew. I assume you are aware that both of these claims are demonstrably false; consequently even on the basis simply of the external evidence, I'd say the most logical view would be that Papias (the first writer to ascribe Matthew to Matthew) simply misidentified the document.

It is, then, the internal evidence which must decide this issue. Now the stylistic profile of Matthew does indeed fit what we would have expected of a Jew from that period, but in terms of genre, if nothing else, it objectively does not fit the distinctive profile which eyewitness accounts from antiquity tend to have. Such accounts will, for instance, signal their nature as such by the use of the first person pronoun and the integration of the (named) eyewitness into the narrative itself.

The decisive argument, however, is Matthew's heavy literary dependency on Mark. Whatever eyewitnesses may or may not do, their accounts always offer a distinctive, personalised, often idiosyncratic perspective on events. Matthew does show a willingness to alter Mark, but almost always for structural, stylistic reasons and rarely in order to add material of his own. An eyewitness would have added details. Matthew doesn't. In fact, Matthew makes no changes to Mark a writer in the second century with access to oral sources could not have made. Consequently, the balance of probabilities, in my view, is very strongly in favour of the view that the traditionally assigned name is a misattribution.

It doesn't take scholarly consensus to know that all the Gospels are written anonymously. It's clear in just reading them that the author's names are nowhere in the content.

I don't consider it a disconnect. The nature of the genre was that the author's name was kept out of it, just like any modern novel. If we didn't have the cover or the title page, we'd be lost about who wrote it because authors don't put their own names in novels.

People in the know know the source. Samuel Clemens wrote under a pseudonym, Mark Twain, but people who knew him knew he was the author. Possibly that isn't the best example.

Deep Throat was the anonymous informer of the Watergate information that brought Nixon down. He was anonymous to most of the world, but people at the Washington Post knew who he was.

We know that most media outlets use anonymous sources to some extent, and that the use of such sources is more prevalent than a generation ago. But those in the "inner circle" know who these people are.

But those are all examples of people trying to protect their identity. In the case of the Gospels, it was not part of the literary genre to include one's name. John in particular goes to great lengths to disguise his identity. It's not a disconnect. The style of the Gospels is actually similar to contemporary works (such as Plutarch).

> The titles of all four Gospels were unanimously accepted in the early church as having been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary.

And yet the scholarly consensus is that all the gospels are written anonymously. Why the disconnect?

> If they're anonymous, you have no idea who wrote it.

This is not true. We have many ancient writers who tell us who wrote them, and they unanimously (and without contest) say that the authors are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Every external evidence in existence tells us who the authors are, and the all agree: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

> it's possible they didn't, it's possible Paul paid some scholars and told them what to write

I guess we do have to concede that anything's possible, but we have to weigh the evidence and infer the most reasonable conclusion, and this idea (that Paul paid them) doesn't have any evidence or reasoning to back it up.

> it's possible someone else did all this a century after Jesus died.

This is actually not possible. We have manuscripts of authors quoting from the Gospels before AD 100.

> That's what anonymous means - we have no idea who it was.

That's NOT what anonymous means. We have plenty of evidence as to who it was. Anonymous means that they aren't signed.

> You're presuming that eyewitness testimony is reliable when it's not.

You can't just make a blanket statement like that. There is plenty of eyewitness testimony that is very reliable. It's mostly what journalism is now, but we also see plenty of eyewitness testimony in the medical field (dermatology, psychology, etc.), in the sciences (ornithology, nature studies, etc.), in jurisprudence (legal testimony), and in historiography (we largely have records of what people claim they witnessed). We accept lots of eyewitness testimony.

> There's no proof and I don't think even evidence to say that these were written when Jesus was alive so they're recollections at best.

There's nothing wrong with recollections. A book just came out about Hillary Clinton's failed campaign—it's a recollection based on research. I have biographies on my shelf about Abraham Lincoln. Good stuff, well researched, some based on eyewitness accounts, some on documentation. The Gospels are of the same nature.

> Since nobody has proof of who wrote the gospels

We have strong evidence of who wrote the Gospels. We have to infer the most reasonable conclusion based on the weight of evidence.

> how accurately they wrote anything down

We can test how accurately they wrote things down when we compare their writings with known corroborations of events from other sources, and the Gospels do a very reputable job.

> if they were ever trained to have proper memory for various events

Everyone in an oral rhetorical era was trained to have proper memory for events, but especially Jews who were to train their minds to memorize large portions of the Torah. We have such lazy memories in our era compared to people from oral cultures.

> Who knows, for all you know, Jesus died and stayed dead and someone, in their grief, said Jesus won't ever die as long as we'll remember them.

Actually, there are considerable evidences to the contrary. It's just that you choose not to attribute reliability to what others consider reliable reports.

> Then, some barely educated amateur wrote that down as Jesus not dying and someone else re-edited that decades later and invented the resurrection.

Not possible. 1 Corinthians 15.3-6 comes from no more than 2-5 years after Jesus' death.

> invented the resurrection

You haven't interacted much with the evidence for the resurrection, then. I could recommend some books, but they're too thick for you to read casually: The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach by Mike Licona, The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T Wright, and Gary Habermas, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. But these aren't light reading, and you'd only bother if you were really interested in investigating the evidence for real.

> Just because the authors are anonymous doesn't mean they didn't meet Jesus.

If they're anonymous, you have no idea who wrote it. It's possible they did, it's possible they didn't, it's possible Paul paid some scholars and told them what to write, it's possible someone else did all this a century after Jesus died. That's what anonymous means - we have no idea who it was.

> Given the nature of the content, there is reason to believe some of the authors were eyewitnesses

You're presuming that eyewitness testimony is reliable when it's not. There's no proof and I don't think even evidence to say that these were written when Jesus was alive so they're recollections at best. I'm presuming they were eyewitnesses at all of which there's no proof.

> Memory skills were well-developed, but tended to be thematic

Since nobody has proof of who wrote the gospels, you have no idea what their background was like, what their education level was, how accurately they wrote anything down, remembered anything, or if they were ever trained to have proper memory for various events. Who knows, for all you know, Jesus died and stayed dead and someone, in their grief, said Jesus won't ever die as long as we'll remember them. Then, some barely educated amateur wrote that down as Jesus not dying and someone else re-edited that decades later and invented the resurrection.

We can go into further, if you wish. As you might guess, I was giving a very brief overview of the material available and the arguments pro and con. I have researched the authorship of the Gospels very deeply, have take thorough notes, and have come to the conclusion that the weight of evidence lies in favor of traditional authorship. I know others (and apparently you) disagree with me, and these conversations can drag on interminably. The indisputable fact is that in the early church, without except, the four Gospels were said to have been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is not until our era (2000 years later) that scholars take a different position. As you know, all such scholarly treatises are based on interpretations of internal evidence, since all of the external evidence says the authors were Mt, Mk, Lk, and Jn.

I've actually had these conversations several times on this forum, and they don't go anywhere. I give my piles of evidence in favor of the traditional authorship, the other person gives their piles of evidence against traditional authorship, and we don't have a meeting of the minds.

Matthew: I mentioned a few points of my research, but certainly didn't dump it all out and write a wall of text. My point was that the nature, style, language, and themes of Matthew all point to the kind of guy we would expect Matthew to be. And since all external evidence identifies him as the author, there is a weight of argument there we are remiss to ignore.

Mark: Mark shows little evidence of having been written in the 70s, though some scholars still put it there. Justin Martyr (about AD 150) says Mark wrote it based on Peter's memoirs. Clement of Alexandria says it was written when Peter was alive. Papias says Mark was the interpreter of Peter. The evidence is far stronger than those arguing a post-70 writing.

Luke: Luke is well-respected as a reliable historical except by the most cynical and minimalist scholars.

John: "The vividity of the Johannine narrative might just as well be fiction." Of course it might be, but there's no substantive reason to take it as such. As far as the conversation between Pilate and Jesus, we have reason to believe John had friends in the Jerusalem priesthood, and later we know that Paul had inside access to the Praetorian guard. It's easy to come up with reasonable theories as to how this information was procured.

I don't know if the conversation is going to be worthwhile, but I'm willing to have it if you wish. I welcome any sincere dialogue.

I don't have time at this moment to give your eloquent post the response it deserves, but I would like briefly to counter your in my view very uncritical assessment of the traditional authorship of the Gospels.

> The author of Matthew was a conservative-minded Jew, not inclined to sectarian views, interested in the Law, in ecclesiastical matters, and burdened about customs.

This doesn't prove he was the apostle, it just proves he was a conservative-minded Jew, not inclined to sectarian views, interested in the Law, in ecclesiastical matters, and burdened about customs. Don't really see where you're going here...

> Mark seems to have been a friend of Peter's, and his book speaks of Pete a lot.

Mark shows evidence of having been written in the 70s. By this time Peter was dead. Also, Mark shows the tell-tale structural signs of having been based on oral tradition, not eyewitness information.

> Luke clearly speaks as a historian.

This is just plain wrong, as I pointed out in a previous comment. It is an error of genre. The Gospel of Luke is a novellistic biography, not a work of history, and has very few of the normal indications of critical historiography (like explicit reflection on the sources he used)

> John, on the other hand, is replete with eye-witness details that could never have been known (or would have been bothered with) if one had not been there.

The vividity of the Johannine narrative might just as well be fiction. Evidence for this view is found, for instance, in the fact that events which John definitely didn't witness, like the conversation between Pilate and Jesus, are described very vividly too (in my view).

If you want to go into this further I'd be very glad to enumerate my reasons for holding that there is a huge amount of evidence against the proposition that the Gospels were written by these people (rather than merely responding to your claims, as I have now)