Facing the Morally Bad Future

[FallentoReason]

I would have thought that without the originals no one could even suggest who wrote them. The exception of course is the early church. Where did they get the evidence for the authorship? They didn't... It's just 'tradition', which my ex youth pastor kept reassuring me is 'very reliable'.

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?