BoNey

Can you give me some names?

Peter Kirby

You can start with the names of the authors of these books:

http://www.eblaforum.org/library/bcah/ntreference.html

regards,
Peter Kirby

Joan of Bark

Good list, Peter. Now if I could just stop wasting time with trivial pursuits such as eating, sleeping and working, I might get around to reading them all.

Lunawalk

If my questions have been raised earlyer in this thread I sorry. How did you know that the authors of the gospels are unknown instead of being written by matthew Luke mark and John.

My second question is there evidence of the persecution by Jews soon after Jesus' death as portrayed in the book of acts.

Awmte

How about Peter Kirby's www.earlychristianwritings.com. The site has a pretty comprehensive listing of (pretty much) all extant texts with tentative datings. As a layman, I found it incredibly enlightening.

Amaleq13

It is inferred from the fact that the earliest (ie before the mid-2nd century) apparent quotes from the texts either fail to attribute them to a particular author or appear to attribute different titles (eg Memoirs of the Apostles or The Gospel).

gregor

Awmte

Actually, Peter (and now Joe) post assumed dates of original authorship, not (AFAIK) dated extant copies.

Julian

Amaleq13 touches on this above but to flesh it out a bit. The first references we have to the gospels come from the 2nd century. All those references are nameless. It is not until the end of the 2nd century that we see names attached to them. It is also hard to determine which gospels are referred to in the nameless manner described, the wording does not always conform to what we have today.
Not much outside of the bible. It is likely, though, that there would have been some conflicts between the two belief systems, the existence and extent of which we are unable to ascertain. Paul relates that he has difficulties with the apostles of the Jewish christianity, but they were still christians. It also seems that the christians were expelled form the synagoges at some point.

Remember that Acts is mostly likely from the earlier parts of the 2nd century.

Julian

Doug Shaver

Because people who claim to know who the authors were cannot support their claim with a cogent argument.
For any proposition P, anybody who says "I know P" is the one with something to prove.

Lunawalk

Thanks everybody for your answers. I always wondered why crictics said the gospels were anonymous I started reading the case for christ by Lee Stobel.One of his experts admited that the gospels were strickly anonymous but he accepted early church legends.

In reguards to the relations between Christians and Jews after Jesus' death. they appeared to an sect of Judism until the Jewish War. So was Acts invented to create distance between the two groups and curry favor with the Romans?