The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Mudhammam]

Ah, but Nestor, I'm not buying into your assertion that the authors used Jesus as their mouthpiece.

However, let's pursue this for a moment. You've read the thread and know my positions, but I need to know yours.

1. Who are the authors of the gospels?
2. When were they written approximately?
3. What was their motivation for writing?

Mark - Unknown, 65 - 75 AD
Matthew - Unknown, 75 - 90 AD
Luke - Possibly someone named Luke who knew Paul, 75 - 90 AD
John - Someone in the "Johannine community," a network of churches in Asia Minor, 90 - 100 AD

I usually go with a dating that is somewhere in the middle of conservative and liberal scholars, as that seems to be a safe bet considering the arguments for and against earlier or later dates.

While all of the questions you posed admit of only speculative guesses, determining motivation is probably the most uncertain, but I see the purpose of the Gospels as primarily setting forth the theological ideas circulating amongst the early churches, with an eye to the virtuous life as embodied by the ideal godly man, whom they believed was exemplified by Jesus. Like myths that came before them, they use allegories and miraculous signs to convey their beliefs about the relation between man and deity, with a sort of Herodotean view of history, employing a narrative structure as a means to express their conceptions of truth in a manner that the average first-century listener will remember when the story is being read in front of a private audience.

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I should also note that Mark is almost certainly the earliest, as all of the other Gospels (with the greatest exception in John) adhere to a similar format and often expound on ideas in that gospel, Matthew and Luke borrowing entire sections as well as mirroring each other to a substantial degree that one must have either been correcting the other's work (such as in placement or ordering of events and sayings) or they were both using an earlier common source (the Q hypothesis).