Facing the Morally Bad Future

[Epimethean]

"Luke: most likely Lucius Plutarch, a historian who lived exactly during the time of Jesus."

Not most likely at all for reasons previously noted. Conjecture at best, but the real identities of the authors are unknown, and that is what matters here.

[Godscreated]

How do you know they didn't know, they would of had these books and used them, the originals could not be used at all the churches, thus the copies without the authors name, they would have pass on the name of the authors, deceit was not part of the early church, they had an example, Ananias and Sapphira.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and agree they weren't trying to deceive. That could only mean they didn't know who wrote them and simply assumed. The evidence for this lies within the Gospels themselves, which I have pointed out several times:

Matthew & John: 3rd person. An Apostle didn't write them.
Luke: most likely Lucius Plutarch, a historian who lived exactly during the time of Jesus.
Mark: I don't know who exactly, but so far the evidence tells me it was written by some Hellenistic Jewish philosopher.

These were important books to them, however they never knew they would be a part of the scriptures, if they had they might have placed the authors name on the copies. These people and writers did not have a desire to be standouts in their time, it was against the teachings of these very books.

Wait, were they teachings or history that they were writing? You can't have your cake and eat it.

Teachings I think would be the right answer for two reasons:

1) None of the Gospels are written in the way a historian would write them. Have a look yourself by reading some of Josephus' works and comparing.

2) Following on from #1, they have distinct story-telling techniques that the authors used to convey their message.

The genre for these writings is assumed to be historical on a whim, but how can one actually come to that conclusion upon closer inspection of them?

The third person could have been there because the copyist did not want people believing the authors had written the copies, thus being a reason the authors names were not included. Of coarse this is what I think, it does seem reasonable.
The Gospels are for teaching, some history can be taken from them. I do not believe that I said that the Gospels were for history, I know them as teachings for my own personal life.
About Luke, he never claimed to be an Apostle, he was a physician. Do you believe that a historian would have made the mistakes unbelievers say are in Luke?
I've never said historians wrote the Gospels, ( Josephus was a warrior not a historian, he also was a traitor). The writers of the Gospels were not historians, their work does not resemble the work of a historians. They were presenting the life of Christ through His teachings, and I personally believe they did a great job.
Personally I do not know people who look at the Gospels as historical writings, they do see there is a time line of Christ's life through His teachings.

[Epimethean]

"Of coarse this is what I think, it does seem reasonable."

This is your entire MO. The fact that others continually tell you that your thinking is unreasonable seems to have no effect on what really is a solipsistic existence, given your reliance on fantasy as the broker of your reality.

[FallentoReason]

The third person could have been there because the copyist did not want people believing the authors had written the copies, thus being a reason the authors names were not included. Of coarse this is what I think, it does seem reasonable.

By third person I mean the style of writing. Matthew's Gospel doesn't say 'I did this, I did that' but rather 'Matthew did this, Matthew did that'. The original therefore couldn't have been written by Matthew. If you understand this and are still saying the copyist changed it then that is only plausible if the copyist was an 'enemy' to Christianity. Why would a Christian copy it into third person thus making it lose credibility?

The Gospels are for teaching, some history can be taken from them. I do not believe that I said that the Gospels were for history, I know them as teachings for my own personal life.

Fair enough.

About Luke, he never claimed to be an Apostle, he was a physician. Do you believe that a historian would have made the mistakes unbelievers say are in Luke?

He was a good historian because he tells us the purpose of his message and where he got the information. Regardless, it's plausible that he genuinely made that mistake, he was a fallible human like the rest of us.

I've never said historians wrote the Gospels, ( Josephus was a warrior not a historian, he also was a traitor). The writers of the Gospels were not historians, their work does not resemble the work of a historians. They were presenting the life of Christ through His teachings, and I personally believe they did a great job.
Personally I do not know people who look at the Gospels as historical writings, they do see there is a time line of Christ's life through His teachings.

In the bold: just before you implicitly said that Luke was a historian as a means to give him credibility. Was he or was he not a historian?

It seems like you've blurred the line between history and teaching. So how do we know what was actually history? Did Jesus die on the cross?

[Epimethean]

Actually, he didn't claim Luke was a historian, and if he was, he was a poor one. Good grief: For once, I actually agree with something GC said.

[FallentoReason]

Actually, he didn't claim Luke was a historian, and if he was, he was a poor one. Good grief: For once, I actually agree with something GC said.

Well the way he wrote it is rather ambiguous. I assumed he was defending Luke but I think you're right. I completely misread it.

[Godscreated]

Actually, he didn't claim Luke was a historian, and if he was, he was a poor one. Good grief: For once, I actually agree with something GC said.

Well the way he wrote it is rather ambiguous. I assumed he was defending Luke but I think you're right. I completely misread it.

Epi is right, I said he was a physician, and like you said I did it poorly, to often I write things to fast and do not reread them, bad habit, sorry for the confusion.

[FallentoReason]

So, if you were to describe the Gospels in a sentence, what would you say?

[Epimethean]

Jesus is lord, god and savior.

Stupid sentence, but nail, meet hammer.

[FallentoReason]

Also, on a tangent but kind of back on topic with the OP, I've decided that I will try and speak my mind around the Christians in my life. I'm not going to bluntly say I don't believe but I will make it clear I see something different when I read the Bible. This isn't a lie by any means as I haven't thrown out the Bible and labelled it rubbish. I'm possibly more intruiged by it than when I understood it in the conventional way. I genuinely believe that as a philosophy it can greatly change someone's life. No, not through prayer and sitting around waiting for it to come to pass trivially, but by understanding how some of it can be applied in everyday life.

My mission now is to transorm those that believe in the Bible into people that gain confidence in themselves that they can achieve what their heart longs for. The ones that already have the ability to achieve their goals are the ones that pray but don't give credit to their OWN hard work that clearly got them to where they are. I've just had enough of people waiting around for some crazy sign from God to do something. If you want to raise money for the poor, if you want to do mission work, if you want to help the homeless then get up and get going.