Orthodox_Freethinker

Are you claiming that the Church just arbitrarily cherry-picked Gospels while casting out others? For a Gospel to be canonical, it had to have been written by an Apostle or disciple of an Apostle. This is what the testimony of the early Church has shown us. The burden of proof is on the one who claims otherwise.

Are you speaking of the Gnostic gospels which were written decades after the Canonical Gospels?

Please support this claim. Otherwise, I will trust the early Church fathers on this one.

Peace.

Julian

The canon history is long and convoluted, even the church fathers didn't agree. Check it out: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/NTcanon.html
We do not know when those gospels were written, some show evidence of being as early, maybe earlier, then the official ones. Gospel of Thomas could easily be one of the very earliest gospels we have. Gospel of Peter is also quite early. Both bear the names of disciples so shouldn't they be in the bible? You might call them gnostc but then so is Gospel of Mark.
Sorry, but no. All the reasons why we know that the gospels were not written by the names attached to them are well-known and do not need to be repeated here. Now it is up to you to present stronger evidence in favor of your position. So far, all I have ever seen from christians is a feeble appeal to tradition. Can you do better?

Julian

Orthodox_Freethinker

You are actually using Internet Infidels as a source on the New Testament canon? One might as well search ICR for information on evolution.

If you really want to learn of the history surrounding the New Testament:
The Emergence of the New Testament Canon
Daniel F. Lieuwen
http://www.orthodox.net/faq/canon.htm

Or it could have just as easily been written in the second century. I would prefer the majority opinion on this one.

All the excuses for not believing their authorship are well-known and easily accepted by those who have the philosophical inclination to do so.

Peace.

Julian

I see, so the fact that Carrier (who, according to you, doesn't know shit) uses Bruce Metzger (who must obviously also not know shit) as his source means nothing to you? What better source can you get than him, I wonder?
Not just as easily but it would be hard to prove, either way. How come you keep saying the majority? Do you have access to some polls that I don't know about? Why would someone write a logia in the second century?
You are not big on evidence, are you? You assert and assert, yet you produce no evidence. Who cares about philosophical inclination? I care about facts. Show me something, other than tradition, that shows that the names attached to the gospels come from reliable information from the 1st century.

Hint: You won't be able to, because it doesn't exist.

Julian

Toto

The testimony of the "early" Church is not actually very early, is it? It dates to the late 2nd century, or perhaps earlier in that century if you accept the second hand testimony of Papias (which very few scholars do without reservation.)

Since you are asserting that the Gospels were written by apostles or disciples, you bear the burden of proving that assertion.

That particular article is by Richard Carrier, who is a PhD candidate in ancient history at Columbia. As he says there,

Orthodox_Freethinker

"There is currently much debate about when the text was composed, with scholars generally falling into two main camps: an early camp favoring a date in the 50s before the canonical gospels and a late camp favoring a time after the last of the canonical gospels in the 90s. Among critical scholars, the early camp is dominant in North America, while the late camp is more popular in Europe (especially in the U.K. and Germany)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_...#The_late_camp

The Jesus Seminar does not comprise the majority of New Testament scholarship.

You are underestimating the importance of historical tradition. As I've said before, the authorship of the Gospels would have been challenged if there was reason to do so.
There is also internal evidence in favor of their authorship but isn't sufficient without the testimony of early church history.

Peace.

Julian

Based on that it is impossible to say how many are in each camp. It does seem like both estimates are in the 1st century, wouldn't you say?
What internal evidence? The internal evidence show clearly that it wasn't an eyewitness, such as an omniscient narrator, geographical mistakes and so on...

In Denmark we have a very old and strong tradition about a certain statue. It is of Holger Danske and it is said that if Denmark is ever threatened he will come back to life and throw out the invaders. You think that is true based on the strong tradition?

Tradition doesn't mean anything when those who uphold it stand to gain from it. Those people must provide evidence.

Julian

Orthodox_Freethinker

Why don't we have a record of anyone who disputed the authorship of the Gospels?

Why would the early church need to put into writing the identities of who wrote the Gospels before they were widely circulated?

Using Internet Infidels as a sole source is unjusfitied no matter who wrote the article.

Peace.

Julian

I'll give you a hint: Who copied all the books in the west for more than 1000 years?

What happened to the critics of christianity that we know about? Like Celsus and Porphyry?
How do you know that they did? How do you know to what extent they were circulated? Most scholars I read don't know much about this topic.
It was a trivial history of the canon. Nothing in there was really disputed. Judge the article and not the server it came from.

Julian

Toto

Why don't we have a record of the gospels before the middle of the second century? That might have something to do with it.

And why are the gospels anonymous? Why did Irenaeus have to speculate about who wrote them? Is there any evidence other than Irenaeus' speculation?

The normal method of writing is for an author to sign the document, or announce his identity in the document along with the source of his authority - if the gospel of Mark had started, "I, Matthew, a/k/a Levi, son of XXX, write this history based on what I saw. . . " you might have something of a case. But it doesn't say that.

The article is not a single source. It is a handy reference to the scholarship. Have you even looked at the article? Did you notice that it references some of the same sources that the article you posted also lists?