Contemporary evidence for the supernatural Jesus
Offline So a couple weeks ago I finished reading Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, the gospels as eyewitness testimony, and I would highly recommend it, it certainly would be useful to scholars as well as laypersons.
Now onto my presentation of Bauckham's arguments, Richard Bauckham argues that the named witnesses we hear about in the Gospels were actually the same witnesses who passed down the traditions surrounding the events in which they participate. These witnesses which are important for my purposes are Jairus, the women in the Gospels who witnessed the burial and discovered the empty tomb of Jesus, Clopas, the named witness in the appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and the twelve disciples.
There are several arguments which Bauckham gives in support of his thesis, which I will present here
1: We observe a pattern of name-dropping in the synoptics. of all the characters in the Gospels, roughly half of these are anonymous, while the others actually have names. In the Gospel of Mark, some named witnesses actually lose a name in Matthew or Luke, but not a single anonymous witness gains a name in either Matthew or Luke. This is probably best explained by the fact that these once-named witnesses became obscure and hence were not designated as tradents of the synoptic Jesus tradition used by the evangelists. we should also take note that in many of the stories, such as the appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, we see Clopas named, and another witness who is left anonymous. This is strange given the fact that the story flows just as easily if both witnesses are left anonymous. this strongly suggests that "Luke" is saying that Clopas, the named witness, was the tradent of this tradition surrounding the appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus.
2: The named witnesses usually are witnesses to Jesus' miracles, recipients of Jesus' healing miracles, or disciples of Jesus. These people would have gained considerable prominence in the earliest Christian communities, suggesting that out of pragmatism, the gospel authors chose to rely on the traditions passed down by these individuals.
3: in the synoptic Gospels we can see a rather careful listing of the twelve disciples (no such list is found in John however, but the authorship of John can be saved for another day, I wish to focus on the Synoptic Jesus traditions) strongly suggests that these men were very prominent in the early christian communities as tradents of the historical tradition surrounding Jesus.
4: the literary device of "inclusio" is found in Mark and Luke. In Mark there is a particular emphasis in Peter's testimony, and Peter is also the first and last disciple to be named in Mark's Gospel. What is also of interest is that Peter is meant to stand out when Jesus also calls Andrew, Peter's brother. in Luke we find that the evangelist forms an inclusio around the gospel women, starting in chapter 6 with the beginning of Jesus' ministry in Gailiee, and ending the inclusio with the Angels telling the women to remember what Jesus told them in Luke 24. This strongly suggests that Luke relied heavily upon the testimony of the women, or at least traditions handed down by these women, and that Mark heavily relied on Peter's testimony in composing his Gospel.
that's just a small sampler of Bauckham's arguments in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.
I hope I don't get any morons saying "you used the bible, CIRCULAR REASONING!"
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
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"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
and I almost forgot to add with my discussion on the literary device of inclusio a detail found in extra-biblical literature, specifically Lucian of Samosata's use of a similar inclusio device to identify his main witness in his Life of Alexander, and Porphyry uses a similar device to identify his main witness in his Life of Plotinus.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
Literary discussion of this day .... relating to the intuition of all is ONE, as was the gnosis of even our wisest ancestors, the ancient beginnings of science, that was persecuted, as free thinkers, were and are still persecuted and called heretics.
http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefromcern/antimatter/index.html
Atheism Books.
"The fish was thiiiiis big."
That wasn't an argument. Sometimes the witnesses are named is a statement of fact.
How pragmatic is it to believe someone who says they saw a miracle? I just saw a guy saw a woman in half, after all. You figure that's what actually happened, or I just watched a magic show? Probably magic show, since miracles have never been reliably recorded.
Okay, sure. And your point is?
Really, really not seeing your point. Just because women gave the testimony, doesn't mean it's a good representation. You know that women can be wrong, don't you? You should, since all people can be wrong.
Why? You're trying to establish a person's physical presence without physical evidence. I'd say you're going to have a hard time regardless of the type of reasoning you employ.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Normally I would ignore this sort of stupidity as it really doesn't deserve a response, but the people who hang out at these forums are such morons they might think that this was a serious argument against Bauckham's position.
you completely dodged the point. Eyewitness accounts are evidence within history. Sapient asked for evidence for the "supernatural Jesus". There is no evidence within the study of ancient history than eyewitnesses. Traditions handed down by eyewitnesses are the next best thing.
and since the traditions go back to eyewitnesses, that makes these traditions contemporary, hence There is contemporary evidence that Jesus lived and did miracles and rose from the dead.
so why do some named characters in Mark lose their names in Matthew or Luke? Why doesn't a single anonymous character in Mark gain a name in Luke or Matthew? again saying that it was supposed to be a "simple statement of fact" doesn't solve the problem of name-dropping. its as if the only thing you actually read was the part about "Mark Matthew and Luke name witnesses".
Thank you for completely missing my point. You did that on purpose didn't you? It was pragmatic for 3 reasons
1: These witnesses would be the most accessible as they would have been very prominent within early christian communities
2: Within early christian communities, these would have been the most trustworthy, hence their prominence.
3: All of the best ancient historians either used the testimony of a deeply and intimately involved eyewitness, or used their own knowledge of events (see: Polybius and Lucian of Samosata)
my point is that the most probable explanation for the careful preservation of the list of the twelve disciples is that these twleve men (well, eleven, but Jesus chose twelve because it signifies completion and hte ushering in of the kingdom of God because of the twelve tribes of Israel) were the principle tradents of the Jesus tradition.
again my point was that the use of the literary device of "Inclusio" where everything is covered between these witnesses (The women in Luke, Peter in Mark, and the Beloved disciple forming an inclusio around Peter's testimony in John, which is actually one piece of evidence that John is written to Complement Mark) shows that the evangelists heavily relied on their testimony in composing their Gospels. This best corroborated by the use of such a device in Lucian of Samosata's Life of Alexander and Porphyry's Life of Plotinus.
normally I would let the stupidity of that statement speak for itself, perhaps even now I would because probably around 1/4 to 1/2 the people (even, dare I say it, Rook Hawkins would understand) around here will understand why the demand for physical evidence is a wholly unreasonable standard of proof.
well I should point out that only a paltry some of ancient history has physical evidence for it.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
Here are some ancient historical eyewitness accounts about dragons.
http://www.pureinsight.org/node/141
damn people around here are stupid.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
What are Baukhams thoughts on some of this 'history' being influenced by bias?
Slowly building a blog at ~
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Using the Buybull is still an epic fail. Weren't Beowulf and The Odyssey passed on and include people witnessing things? A fictional person can't really witness something. Besides that eyewitnesses have been shown to be terribly unreliable - not only do people lie but their memories are often incorrect. Troll.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Eyewitnesses that just happened to wait 20 years after a guy who wasn't an eyewitness wrote his version of the religion and 40 years or so after the events they allegedly witnessed?
Convenient.
Oh, and circular resoning is only used when you attempt to use the Bible in an attempt to answer a question along the lines of "what makes the Bible correct?"
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
but Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd most deliciously refute this bias argument in the latter part of The Jesus Legend, a case for the historical reliability of the synoptic Jesus tradition.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
didn't I already say that I didn't want this bullshit response? damn you people are retarded.
no. The Iliad and the Odyssey were written hundreds of years after the events in question occured. The gospels were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
actually the witnesses would have passed on the traditions ORALLY to their students for the first couple decades, and only John MAY have been written 60 years after Jesus' life (more than likely it was written 60-70 AD) and then the evangelists, wishing to give these traditions to a much wider audience (See: Bauckham 1998 The Gospels for All Christians, rethinking the Gospel audiences)
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
So they waited for their memories to get old and faded before they wrote things down? Strange acts for students who thought so much of their teacher.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
and no, they weren't quite as old as you might think.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
Except that the earliest gospel was written in 70 BCE... Thank you for ignoring my point. Also, you'd think we'd have heard from those who were taught - we only read about Paul (whose stuff was actually around in 50 BCE and who never actually met Jesus. Why nothing from those the Apostles taught directly?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
2000 yrs later here I AM .... yup, you guessed it, it's me Christ as you.
Why doesn't this fucktard have the asshat avatar and troll label yet?
Because the mods aren't as generous as you are...
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Responding as a non-bible scholar but generally skeptical person. Please know that I'm questioning you here. Not condemning you.
I see the line of reasoning here, but as a person who is skeptical of the idea of a real-life supernatural Jesus, I don't find this particularly compelling. If Mark is understood to be the source for Matthew and Luke (which I know is contested by some), then the authors of Matthew and Luke could have omitted the specific names of these people for any number of reasons. For example, they could have omitted the names if the names were obscure or meaningless to the audience the gospels of Matthew and Luke were intended for. Or they could have been omitted reasons of style or purpose. By that I mean that if these were merely stories---albeit valued stories with deep meaning---then the authors of Matthew and Luke may have attempted to focus more on the narrative and the specific underlying meaning they wished to convey, not worrying too much about making sure each character was identified with a name. As for the case of naming Cleopas and not his companion, it's true that it would have had no real effect on the story had Cleopas remained an anonymous traveler, but I don't know that the fact that he is named necessarily indicates that he was a real person or tradent of this tradition.
But don't think that I'm rejecting what's written here or claiming to know for certain what the authors' intentions were. I won't pretend to know more than I know, but I really do not find this observation all that compelling.
They might have also only given names to major characters (e.g. disciples) for simplicity reasons and to more minor figures (e.g. witnesses) in order to establish a tone of authenticity, whether or not there actually was any. There is a significant difference between hearing, "and then Jesus laid his hands on a guy who couldn't walk, and suddenly the guy could walk again," versus, "and then Jesus laid his hands on a man named Jacob, and suddenly Jacob could walk again."
( "Jacob" is just a randomly chosen name for sake of example in this case.)
A person hearing or reading the latter version of this story would naturally want to assume that Jacob was a real person with a real name who excitedly told others of his great fortune, which is how the story has remained. But truthfully Jacob could either be a real person, or he could be a name that suggests a real person---for good narrative reasons---even though no such person existed.
I don't have much to say on this subject other than it seems to me that the names of figures as important to the Jesus story as the disciples would be one of the things you would want to copy accurately from one source to the next, as opposed to men who are met along the road.
If I wanted to write a new "Twas the Night Before Christmas", for example, it would be very important that I faithfully kept the names of the original reindeer. If I changed Rudolph's name to Laser because I liked it better, no one would want to listen to my story, because it wouldn't be canonical. But if I changed the name of the person whose house Santa drops into, no one would likely raise a fuss.
I realize that Santa Claus analogies are automatically a bit condescending, a bit simplistic, and a bit old hat, so I apologize for that in advance.
I wasn't going to comment on this last point because I don't know enough of the background information, but then I thought you might think I was just ignoring or dodging. I'm simply not commenting one way or the other on this one.
The only objection I would personally raise to that comment (and I suspect the objection HisWillness was basing his jab on) is that even though we have to rely on written eye-witness accounts when researching historical questions as important as "Did X happen" or "Did person Y exist", we also have to cross-reference every eye-witness account with multiple other eye-witness accounts.
Depending on what types of references you've got, you can answer questions like these with different degrees of confidence. If you have a single source that says X happened, then you can at best say that some guy claimed it did and wrote his claim down. But if you have multiple authors claiming X happened, you can claim that X may have happened with a little more certainty.
But you also have to question motives. For example, even though the Bible is not a single book but a collection of books written by different authors, they all have a Christian bias. This makes them less reliable as sources and reduces the confidence level of any claims we wish to make based on them.
This is why we would need similar accounts from sources like enemies of Jesus or non-Christian authors. But we don't appear to have sources along those lines that I know of.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
"This is why we would need similar accounts from sources like enemies of Jesus or non-Christian authors. But we don't appear to have sources along those lines that I know of." ~ Arch
Yeah , that's a question I asked ROOK. Where is the opposing side, apart from the gnostic Dead Sea Scrolls ???
It seems, free thinking was litterly crushed by the ancient gov/church leaders ....
Atheism Books.
basically, my dating for the synoptic Gospels comes from the silence of Acts on several details which are missing from his narrative and these include the deaths of Peter, Paul, James, the Neronian persecution of Christians, and finally the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. The only way this silence could be explained is if Luke was ignorant of these details, putting Acts in no later than 62 AD. Acts was written as a sequel to the Gospel of Luke, and we can be reasonably certain that Luke's prologue "Many before have attempted" shows that Matthew probably was already in circulation, Mark's circulation throughout the christian communities is of course evident from Luke's obvious use of Mark as a source in his Gospel. This would place Luke in around 59-60 AD (since each individual book in Luke-acts would take up a 35foot scroll), Matthew in 55-59 AD, and Mark in around 49-55 AD). John's mention of the 5 columns at the pool of Bethesda and many other geographical details which were not present before the destruction of Jerusalem in the jewish revolt of AD 70 shows that John was probably written prior to 70 AD.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
Response to the fucktard fundy atheist Mattshizzle: You have given me absolutely nothing in the way of serious argument or opportunity, which is very interesting since you are the one shouting "Fucktard asshat". Your comment on this online game called "Jesus rising", where you apparently feed Jesus erectile dysfunction medication until "his dick explodes" leads me to conclude that you have serious problems. What's the matter, Did your daddy rape you when you were a little child? or perhaps it was your uncle of yours. So that's probably the only response you will get out of me until you can stop being such an asshole and start giving me serious arguments. Until then, go fuck yourself.
the point I should have made is that one hallmark of legendari-ness in Urban legends is the presense of anonymous participants "oh yeah, it happened to this guy I heard of" is probably more suspect than "Jan did that thing with Jim the other day". But the fact that the Gospels are ancient bioi seems to weigh against your contention that they added or retracted names out of "meaning". (they're probably bioi because if we look at other ancient bioi, like Philostratus' life of Apollonius of Tyana, they usually focus little on childhood and rather focus on the events surrounding an event of central importance in their subjects' lives. Scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries usually concluded that they were not biographies because they were comparing the Gospels to modern biographies)
This phenomenon is really only popular beginning in the 4th century of adding names to anonymous characters in hte Gospel tradition. outside the canonical GOspels, we only find a few examples of adding names to anonymous characters in the gospel stories. and it shifts the burden of proof regarding honesty. But you seem to think that you can dispel my argument by waving the magic wond of doubt.
yes, overly simplistic, and also acknowledged by, pretty much everybody in every period of time as fantasy. normally such a statement would not require a response, but I Think I will humor you. If Jesus chose this specific group of men as disciples, then they certainly would pass on the traditions (if you think the gospel authors made up the twelve, then the burden of proof is on you of course)
really? are you sure about that being a canon of modern historical scholarship?
well now it seems like every bit of ancient history must be cast out as rubbish.
no author of ancient times would have ever relied on some dispassioned observer to get an accurate picture of "what really happened". There's also that pesky little fact that pure objectivity is a fantasy.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
Curious... why would ancient authors reject the testimony of "a dispassioned observer"? Surely a less passionately involved observer would be more likely to give an accurate view of events involving strong passions. At the very least, anyone seriously interested in accuracy would not ignore any accouts where one had good reason to assume that the account was from someone reasonably close in time and space and access to the participants or actual witnesses to have acquired good information.
Very disappointing that you make that remark about 'pure objectivity'. Of course no observer can be perfectly objective, everyone here recognises that. The point is that we can make broad assessments of relative objectivity of an observer. and also do all that cross referencing of all available accounts, each assigned some relative weight as far as we can. Anyone seriously and honestly trying to figure out the most likely course of events in any circumstances should do this. If it is not common practice in any field, especially where we have fragmentary to little direct evidence, then something is seriously wrong in that field.
Failure to find multiple independent sources certainly weakens the justifiable confindence we may place in any conclusions we draw, but to retort that it implies that "we must throw out all of ancient history (well, very nearly all)" because we have limited sources is another intemperate and illogical comment. Not "Throw out", just limit the confidence we can have in the truth of any conclusions drawn from them.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Mig_killer, I wanted to take these piece in detail because it intrigues me.
"could it be because none of them wanted to actually write down their teachings for a wider audience? and what's wrong with not having writings from the apostles directly? Mark, Matthew, and Luke obviously used traditions handed down by the twelve apostles (since the lists of the twelve are rather carefully preserved), and John's identification of himself as the beloved disciple (c'mon, who else could be saying "This is the disciple who wrote these things down, and we know his testimony is true" other than the Disciple whom Jesus loved?) shows that he probably personally knew the apostles (though was not among the twelve because niether he nor any other reasonably early patristic writers identify John the son of Zebedee as the author of the 4th Gospel, and the Gospel author never identifies himself as one of the sons of Zebedee, even though these 2 are mentioned)"
You mean that the apostles believed that they had spent time with the son of God and wanted to keep it to themselves? Even though that same person commanded them to "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." Why would they intentionally violate their teacher's commands?
Could it be that they were more gnostic than you're giving them credit for? That they knew that Jesus was a spiritual concept and not a physical person? That they're patterned their stories after other myths and created a character based on a rabbi they liked?
I asked about why the people the apostles taught never wrote anything down. If you are more enlightened thatn I thought and realize that the gospels weren't written by the guys they were named after, good on you and I apologize for the misreading.
If it was such a widely taught oral tradition, though, surely they'd have run into someone who was literate? Unless we go back to the gnostic thing and you had to be an initiate into the mysteries and hold them secret (which again would violate their master's command)?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Interesting, was that the spirit of the supernatural Jesus speaking through you ?
( PS, thanks for opening my eyes. I studied the Bible and went to church for years and yet I didn't know Jesus was down with the "F bomb" and sexual perversion as an insult. Wait till I tell my Christian family members what I learned today! )
The evidence for these witnesses as reliable is substantiated exactly how? In other words, why should anyone accept they provided an accurate account. Why should we accept they were providing an unbiased account of events when the traditions clearly show bias and persons enthralled with the concepts of Jesus as the one. People see and report that which reinforces their desires and beliefs and attempt to fit square pegs into round holes.
Exactly which women who witnessed the burial as there seems to be a conflict of who exactly was there.
In Mark it's Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Here they encounter a young man who told them to tell his disciples that Jesus has gone to Galilee. They leave afraid and tell no one.
In Luke add Joanna to the group of women as well as other unnamed women and delete Salome. This time its 2 angels and the women go tell the apostles. Peter runs to the grave.
In Matthew it's Mary Magdalene and the other Mary that see one angel. They go to tell the disciples and encounter Jesus and held him by the feet worshiping him.
In John it's only Mary Magdalene who goes and she encounters an empty tomb. She goes to get the disciples. Peter and the other disciple go and find it empty. Mary comes back and finds Jesus who she doesn't recognize at first. He tells her not to touch him.
The conflicting testimony supports no one has a clue what went on if anything. It doesn't give these women indisputable reliability at all if they are what you rely on for evidence.
Difference suggest oral traditions and retelling of stories where details may be altered.
This is cherry picking to support the legends. You can also see the following problems if you look:
The selection of disciples.
Jesus' baptism and desert encounters.
The centurion goes to Jesus or sends a servant to ask for his servant to be healed.
Multiple choice accounts: of the trial; activities before Pilate; whether he is taken to Herod or not; The Last Supper and identification of the traitor; The Garden of Gethsemane events.
And many more.
There are many differences in these stories and many contradict one another casting doubt on reliability of the supposed witnesses or suggesting oral tradition or multiple source accounts of legends. Who can tell what has basis, what is pure hype and what is fanatical belief in legend. If you can tell, provide evidence for such not conjecture.
The lists are there but there are still names that don't exactly match. The selection of the disciples is told in several versions that don't match.
Luke has many issues not the least of which is he has an inaccurate story of the census tax requiring persons to return to their ancestor's cities. The one that occurred was in 6 CE years after the supposed birth of Jesus. He also has Jesus' hometown folk attempting to toss him from a hill that does not exist in Nazareth.
Mark does emphasize Peter who apparently is the Temp with the keys until Jesus returns in their lifetime with the Kingdom of God. Wait, he didn't come back then did he.
____________________________________________________________
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how the hell would I know the mindset of the apostles? regardless, this is perfectly consistent with the record we have from Acts, not all the apostles went and preached to large multitudes like Paul did. Only after 20 or so years did they decide to record their teachings in writing.
nope. the evidence we have indicates that gnosticism is a later syncretism of Christianity, Judaism, and Platonist dualism between the material world and the higher spiritual world.
sorry. 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 clearly shows Paul's own belief that Jesus was a historical individual.
nope, sorry. 1st century palestinian jews were not exactly open to religious syncretism (see my discussion with Rook Hawkins in the Atheist vs. Theist board, rook has yet to respond to my points against his points for Christianity being a product of religious syncretism), hence the burden of proof would be on you. the magic wond of doubt does not make your hypothesis any more plausible.
THEY DID WRITE STUFF DOWN! THEY WROTE THE GOSPELS!
there's a possibility I admit that Matthew was not the author of the Gospel of Matthew, but it's a bit more likely that he was in fact the author (after all matthean authorship would best explain the internal evidence and the much later christian traditions surrounding authorship). Mark and Luke were most likely written by Mark and Luke though.
"If you can make any religion of the world look ridiculous, chances are you haven't understood it"-Ravi Zacharias
Doesn't that make it far more likely that Christianity was a Pauline construct that the gospel writers tried to harmonize later? Otherwise why wait twenty years before getting around to acknowledging your master?
nope. the evidence we have indicates that gnosticism is a later syncretism of Christianity, Judaism, and Platonist dualism between the material world and the higher spiritual world.
Accepted, though they could have embraced the concepts without knowing the name
sorry. 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 clearly shows Paul's own belief that Jesus was a historical individual.
That Paul never met - that does far more for Paul making up the Jesus character from cobbling others together.
nope, sorry. 1st century palestinian jews were not exactly open to religious syncretism (see my discussion with Rook Hawkins in the Atheist vs. Theist board, rook has yet to respond to my points against his points for Christianity being a product of religious syncretism), hence the burden of proof would be on you. the magic wond of doubt does not make your hypothesis any more plausible.
1st century Palestinians, on average, may not have been syncretistic but the Greek-educated folks who wrote the NT were exposed to it.
THEY DID WRITE STUFF DOWN! THEY WROTE THE GOSPELS!
there's a possibility I admit that Matthew was not the author of the Gospel of Matthew, but it's a bit more likely that he was in fact the author (after all matthean authorship would best explain the internal evidence and the much later christian traditions surrounding authorship). Mark and Luke were most likely written by Mark and Luke though.
So you don't believe that the apostles wrote the gospels - good on you. Damn shame it contradicts your earlier claim (that they wrote them, just later). I haven't got a problem with Mark writing and Luke plagiarizing from Mark. But I don't have much more evidence than you do on that.
So that's why the religion's founder did miracles and told people not to say anything and why he told parables that the general population wasn't supposed to understand? If the writings are accurate as you claim, Jesus admitted to that himself.
Is that why the apostles held off writing for two decades? Too busy shouting from the rooftops?
Seems to me like no one did any shouting from anything till Paul wrote their lines.