The truth according to Bart D. Ehrman

[Aractus]

http://www.usefulcharts.com/religion/old...ripts.html

This useful chart shows us that we've only found fragments for early 2nd century documents, so they likely do not include titles in any language.

Seven new papyri have been discovered, including (for the first time) a first century fragment. They have not yet been published.

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I've never understood this argument. What, someone was willing to just make up the book but were too scrupulous to include a false name?

The problem with the argument is two-fold. Think about heretical Gospels - who do they choose for their titles? Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter. They mainly use prominent church figures, mostly disciples. Choosing "Mark" or "Luke" to represent your heretical work would be futile - their names would not be recognized or accepted late in the 2nd century. The only reason we know of these two figures is because they wrote the books. Furthermore Luke writes both his books to Theophilus - someone we know nothing whatsoever about (aside from the fact that he received the letters from Luke). If you were making a forgery why address them to some unknown?

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If Mark was actually written by the disciple Mark, I would believe more of the book. Not the supernatural parts, but the historical stuff would be coming from someone who was a first-hand witness. That would be a big improvement, credibility-wise.

There was no disciple "Mark". This is why we look at it today and see it as authentic and not as a forgery like the "Gospel of Peter" which tried to use one of the disciple's names for its credibility.