Chrisbenogor:

Simple question david, did the authors of those books state who they were?
Or were the authors infered?

DavidDylan:

I was waiting for this very question. Its a sad commentary on the double standard by which athiests try to force inconsistencies into the bible.

By this very same standard it can be claimed that thousands of ancient documents, whose authorships are surprisingly NEVER QUESTIONED, are also suspect and thus unreliable.

The Canonical Gospels




Most likely for no other reason than to round out the beasts of the apocalypse, John was chosen to be one of the four Gospels. For the sake of cohesive inerrancy, it would have been more beneficial in its absence. Although the author doesn’t venture too far on a tangent from the life of Jesus depicted in the other canon Gospels, there are some distinguished omissions in this account. The most notable absences are the exorcism of devils, the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness, the transfiguration, the virgin birth from Mary, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ proclamations of his return, and every last one of the parables. Scholars agree that the original Gospel of John started at 1:19 and ended at 20:31. Furthermore, they’ve determined that the remainder of the book seems heavily edited and reworked. For these reasons, John fails to be an unquestionably reliable and synoptic source of divine inspiration for the story of Jesus.

Scholars unanimously agree that Mark is the most primitive of the four canon Gospels. Its details are relatively less developed, consequently making this biography of Jesus very brief. Interestingly, Jesus’ primary biographer was obviously a distant Roman who never knew him. In fact, the original version of Mark doesn’t even contain Jesus’ appearance following his crucifixion (16:9-19)! This concession is made in the NIV but left out of the KJV. Even though the author was from Rome, he provided enough minor details to have a fair understanding of his subject. Why, then, would he leave out the indispensable element of the world’s most important story unless he lived during a period without a resurrection rumor?

Since about 80% of the verses in Mark appear verbatim in Matthew, we can seemingly tell that the author of Matthew used Mark as a template when writing his own account. However, he alters many of Mark’s details and adds several stories presumably unknown to its author. The Gospel of Matthew most certainly had a Jewish writer since he strives to correct many of the mistakes arising from Mark’s ignorance of local knowledge. Since we have no clear evidence that the author of Matthew was one of Jesus’ disciples, we can’t rule out the likely possibility of its author simply plagiarizing the Mark account in order to make it more acceptable to residents of the Middle East. It’s far too coincidental for the writings to match so well in some passages and contradict in others for there not to have been some minor transcribing taking place. Thus, we’ll analyze the contrasting details of the two accounts in order to exemplify the unreliability of the latest God-inspired product.

Mark (1:2) makes an incorrect reference to Hebrew scripture by quoting Malachi 3:1 as being the work of Isaiah. The KJV does not contain this error, although biblical translations concerned more with honesty and accuracy than advancing inerrancy leave the misattribution in the text. Needless to say, the more knowledgeable Matthew author doesn’t repeat Mark’s mistake. Mark also claims that only God can forgive the sin of another (2:7), but that’s a direct contrast to actual Jewish beliefs, which hold that other men can forgive sins as well. Again, Matthew drops this statement from the record (9:3). Mark mentions the region of Gadarenes being near a large body of water, but it’s about thirty miles from even a sizable lake (5:1). The Matthew author, realizing that Mark knows next to nothing about local geography, changes Gadarenes to Gergesenes, which is only a few miles from a lake (8:28).

Mark mentions multiple “rulers of the synagogue” even though almost all synagogues only had a single leader (5:22). The Matthew author corrected this phrase so that the reader could ambiguously interpret it as having only one ruler (9:18). Mark records Jesus ridiculing the ancient food laws set by God and Moses (7:18-19), but the author of Matthew, being a Jew, no doubt considered this to be sacrilegious and dropped the passage from his account (15:18-20). Mark also has Jesus misquoting one of the commandments as refraining from defrauding others (10:19). Meanwhile, Matthew strictly adheres to the exact commandments of Moses by omitting this curious deception rule but including the “love one another’’ summary commandment (19:18-19). The author of Mark strangely refers to David as “our father” (11:10). This is something no Jew would ever do because all Jews weren’t descendents of David. Seeing as how Abraham and Jacob would be the only individuals referred to in this manner, the desire for accuracy forces the Matthew author to correct another one of Mark’s blunders (21:9).

Mark also gets the traditional date for killing the Passover incorrect (14:12), but the Matthew author settles the mistake by omitting the phrase from his own work (26:17). The very next verse in Mark has Jesus ordering two of his disciples to locate a man bearing a pitcher of water (14:13). In Jewish culture, carrying pitchers of water was the work of a woman. Naturally, Matthew must drop this phrase as well (26:18). On the night of the crucifixion, Mark says that it’s the time before the Sabbath (15:42). Being a Roman, the author was obviously unaware that the Jewish day begins with the evening. Thus, the evening following the crucifixion wasn’t the night before the Sabbath; it was the start of it. Matthew must yet again omit one of Mark’s divinely inspired statements in the transcription (27:57). Unaware that the Sabbath had already arrived, Mark’s account has Joseph of Arimathaea buying linen to wrap around Jesus’ body (15:46). Because it was a sin to make purchases on the Sabbath, Matthew must consequentially drop that detail as well (27:59). Finally, Mark mentions “the fourth watch of the night” (6:48). The Jews actually divided the night into only three watches, while the Romans made the division into fourths.

The author of Matthew makes a few additional minor corrections from Mark’s account, but I trust that you get the point I’m attempting to convey. However uncomfortable it may feel, the divinely inspired author of the earliest Jesus biography, who seemingly invented details out of thin air, knew very little about what he was writing.

The Gospel of Luke begins with a surmised admission that the author didn’t personally experience any of the details contained within his account because he alleges the presence of eyewitnesses but fails to notify himself as one. Like Mark’s Gospel, Luke was probably narrated by an individual residing far from Jerusalem because he commits several translational errors when converting Old Testament Hebrew scripture into Greek. Additionally, in a manner similar to the way in which Mark was penned, Luke’s author goes into extensive detail on his explanations of local phenomena but not those pertaining to Rome. Following the lead of Matthew’s author, Luke’s consistent duplication of Mark’s verses seemingly indicates that he also relied heavily on that text when making his report. However, researchers soon discovered that they could not find 230 verses common to Matthew and Luke in the more ancient Mark.

The two more recent authors couldn’t have derived identical verses from a sole source void of necessary information. Consequently, we can only surmise the hypothetical existence of an even earlier document used by all three authors as a template. This deduction would eventually become known as the Q hypothesis (from the German Quelle, meaning source). The canonical appearance of quotes from Thomas’ Gospel reinforces the theoretical existence of Q. While Thomas was completed around the same time as John, it offered an entirely different perspective on the mystery of Jesus. Even though the Thomas account is nothing but a series of Jesus’ sayings, it may help to explain the origin of other Gospel material. Thus, it’s quite possible that a primitive set of quotes served as the foundation from which the Gospel legends arose. In such a scenario, the early Jews may have actually known a man who traveled about and shared his philosophies with a number of audiences. This individual may have even been executed for his heretical teachings. His followers would then collect these teachings on paper, only to later subject them to decades of human hyperbole.

mazaje:

The authors never said who they were. . . and the fact still remains that they were unknown. . .

Chrisbenogor:

Eh no wahala when we will get to those documents we will talk about them, you need to understand I am saying the books did not originally have authors thats the point here I am not bothered yet by what they say simply put the authors are unknown.

DavidDylan:

this is pretty daft. There are thousands of ancient documents where the authors don't specifically indicate themselves as the authors. Surprisingly no one questions authorship of the documents . . . except of course when it comes to the bible.
As usual you have gone to copy and paste long tomes you don't have any idea about. I can equally paste websites specifically providing strong evidence of the authors of the gospels especially the books of Mark, Matthew and Luke.

so the books just appeared like magic without authors?
you can "say" whatever you wish, you're flat out wrong.

The authors are "unknown" to you because as long as they are known it puts another dent in your frustrated attempts to delegitimise the bible.

DavidDylan:

The funny thing about mazaje's poor copy-paste job is how disconnected it is from his earlier argument.

the argument is on authorship of the gospels but his write up is on a totally different subject entirely! SOURCE!

Chrisbenogor:

What are you ranting about self david, did the authors of those books state who they were or were they deduced?

mazaje:

Its is very relevant what i copied and pasted clearly showed that the people that were believed to have written the books were not the people that wrote the books. . . . . . .

DavidDylan:

where did it "clearly show" anything about authorship? 

arguing with you people is an exercise for the idiot . . . anyone hoping to have an serious[b] intellectual discourse [/b]with you is in for a shocker.

Lady these are the things I say christians ought to know. I suppose you do not know about the document Q either and the synoptic problem of the gospels.
The catholic church  as usual just ascribed the names to those people. In summary we do not really know who they were.

I am done with you.

now i can go back and read up on all the action i've been missing

~Lady~:

Anyway, this is the reason why Sacred Tradition is really important, even thought some people because of their pride refuse to acknowledge it (Not you Chris), but the reason we know who wrote what is because of Sacred Tradition and because these writings were kept and used. They weren't just floating around. The ones that were floating around were the ones that were questioned and not included.
So because Catholics (early christians) kept to what was taught to them, they knew who taught what and in what way. Each author has his own style of writing, especially to the people he was writing to. Because we know who these people were talking to and what they talked about and their style of teaching we are able to tell who taught what and where. So the writers of the gospels were very well known.

Yeah some people say that the early christians weren't "organised religion" when in fact all the information we know of today was kept well because they were "organised"

if they weren't "organised" we wouldn't have the info we have today. plain and simple. someone had to have documented it. their organisation may be different and considered disorganised in our day but in their day they were well organised.
If everyone realised what sacred tradition is we'll able to counter people who bring up issues to try to break the faith, and bring up falsifications and non-facts just because they saw it and decided to believe it. Basically non-christians (this would be you Chris, ) and those who claim to be christians but don't know a thing about Christ and his teachings

Chrisbenogor:

David I think its having an intellectual discussion with you that is difficult. I have been screaming focus, it does not change the fact that they did not have authors I do not expect anything I only say the original authors are not known how hard is that to admit!

@lady
Lol your reply made me laugh, after many shots of vodka I hope I can make some sense, My dear I am not overtly concerned about what the message says my own is that the original authors are not and were not known simple

sacred tradition bla bla bla bla . . . the JEWS kept accurate records and because of them we know those who wrote what. this back-door attempt by Italians who morphed into a religion of fraud to usurp jewish history is pathetic.

~Lady~:

So the Jews kept the New Testament?

~Lady~:

Oga if anything, you should know that Genesis is sacred tradition. Did Adam, Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jospeh, and all write what happened to them, did they write Genesis?

~Lady~:

The Bible is sacred tradition, stay there deluding yourself.

what of the old testament? The Italian usurpers who call themselves catholics today wrote and kept them?
Much of the New Testament was written by Jews. It stands to reason many of these people must have kept copies for themselves to preserve

Whose tradition? roman catholic tradition? Why are the roma catholics so gungho about essentially Jewish history? why are they the ones now telling Jews what Genesis means?

Based on what facts? Stay there deluding yourself.

The original authors did not say who they were.

Viable:

Dear Icoman, now that you know, you should reject outright their key unbiblical doctrines including the change of God's holy sabbath day from saturday the seventh day to sunday the first day of the week. See daniel 7; 25  daniel prophesied about the coming of the papacy and the things the papacy will do.

1. And he shall speak great words against the most High

2. and shall wear out the saints of the most High

3. and think to change times and laws:

About  think to change time and laws, check it out in  'A DOCTRINAL CATECHISM BY STEPHEN KEENAN' page 174.

question: Have you any other way of proving that the church (ROMAN CATHOLIC) has power to institute festivals of precept?

ANSWER: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her- she could not have substituted the observance of sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptual authority.

QUESTION: which is the sabbath day?

ANSWER:Saturday is the Sabbath day.

QUESTION: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

ANSWER: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (AD 364) transfered the solemnity from saturday to sunday (see also  the convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine page 50, third Edition)

The prophecy of Daniel in Daniel 7;25 fulfilled here. The changed of the day of worship from saturday to sunday was don by the same Catholic Church.

That shows that the change is man made. So JESUS SAYS IN MATTHEW 15;8, 9. THAT ALL THOSE WHO OBEY MAN MADE LAWS INSTEAD OF THE LAW OF GOD ARE WORSHIPPING GOD IN VAIN.

Now, that you have known that the same authority you called a "modernised way of idolatry", also changed the sabbath day of God, what are you waiting for? reject them and their man made day of worship. Say to hell with popular opinion. God does not care about popular opinion.

Col. 2:16-17

Colossians 2:16-23 (New International Version)

16Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

finally Igot it the hypocrite bobbyaff is amember of the hypocrital seventh day adventist church

As viee has requested, I've offered that no credible discussant can defend the Papcy from the Bible. NO? Then let's see how you connect that to the Apostles

Funny enough, Nigerian churches seem to be the worst, how can 3 churches DIFFERENT be in one building? What happened to ONE God? Please, before you start jumping on Catholics, you need to sort out the other problems churches face.