Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Originally posted by southern_cross3
They don't, so it would appear that your post is irrelevant.
it's commonly accepted by nearly 100% of biblical scholars that matthew, mark, luke, and john were NOT written by matthew, mark, luke and john
why? because all of the evidence (which i've brought up in a lot of other threads) points towards the gospels being written well after the figures
died
and the writings of paul are mere accounts of what he said, not his actual writings
I'm not at all sure that any of this is correct. The actual evidence certainly doesn't support such ideas.
But suppose for a moment that 100% of biblical scholars said this. Why do we accept this authority? Don't we think for ourselves?
After all, 100% of scholars of anthropology stated that Jews were subhuman -- in Nazi Germany. Do we imagine that the people who control the media
agenda of our times are indifferent on these issues? Who do we imagine does the appointments?
In 1936 it was the "assured result of scientific investigation" that John's gospel was composed around 170 AD. Then a fragment of a physical copy
of John's gospel was found (not by a biblical scholar, but by a paleographer, who wasn't going to be told by non-specialists what date that fragment
was) which was dated to 125 AD and could hardly be the autograph. The "assured result of scientific investigation" was promptly shown to be based
on nothing more than wishful thinking.
And why were these scholars -- especially German scholars -- so keen to date all the gospels late? Well they were promoting the claims of the heretic
Marcion, ca. 140 AD. Why would they do that? Well, does it help to know that Marcion rejected the Old Testament, called the Jewish God 'evil' and
purged the New Testament of "Jewish Interpolations"? Does it help to know that German scholars of the same period were unanimous that Lucian of
Samosata was (a) Jewish and (b) derivative nonense, which opinion has been shown to be derived not from scholarship but directly from an anti-semitic
speech by Houston Stewart Chamberlain?
We need not be very suspicious to know that on matters of politics and religion scholars speak only as laymen, and invariably reflect the opinions of
those who control their budgets.
Let's have fewer appeals to 'authority' and more evidence. It is quite impossible, given the above fragment of papyrus, for John to be dated later
than the fourth quarter of the 1st century (when John was still alive); quite impossible for Acts to be written later than 61 AD (when Paul was in
prison), since it is pretty hard to imagine the author ignoring it if Paul was then released; Peter and Paul martyred; the temple destroyed; and
Christianity made illegal. The ancient evidence dates Mark to the same sort of period, at least in first draft (which probably explains why Luke made
some use of his stuff). It also says that Matthew was originally composed in Aramaic, which sort of explains how a Greek version has been augmented
from Luke also. Nothing in any of this requires any date other than the obvious.
Whether Christianity is true or not is one thing. But let's not play games or pretend that it didn't arise in more or less the usual way for
ideological movements. It obviously did. They all do.
All the best,
Roger Pearse
It's not too late to
say enough is enough. 
