Why be good?

[pocaracas]

So we agree that people thought there had been such a Peter, over a hundred years before any of that was written...

Ignatius wrote within 50 years of that...not 100.

Do we have those writings, properly dated?
Or do we have an account of that Ignatius' wrote, hundreds of years after the fact?

also, there's this guy: http://www.bible.ca/history-ignatius-for...-250AD.htm

How come there's no other record of him at Rome... say... by some roman contemporary record-keeper?

There is. Read on.

First, Peter says in 1 Peter 5:13, "She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark." “Babylon” was an early Christian reference for “Rome,” so Peter and Mark are sending their greetings from Rome (not from the ancient city of Babylon).

Wait, Randy... Babylon is the other way... South-East from Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon

Second, this is also the testimony of the Church Fathers, who testify that Mark is Peter's disciple and interpreter in Rome. St. Irenaeus, writing c. 180 A.D., says:

Back to over a hundred years after the fact, huh?

Eusebius says the same thing, as does St. Jerome:

Two hundred years after the fact.

Now consider this: Rufus, the son of Simon of Cyrene, was a Christian living in Rome. So was Simon's wife. We know this from a seemingly throwaway line in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans,  "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too." (Rom. 16:13)

Where was this Paul writing from?
How did he know this Rufus?
How many other Rufus were there in Rome?

This explains why Mark would choose to mention that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Rufus and Alexander: those wouldn't have been random names to his original readers, but actual people that they knew. This detail is significant for several reasons.

Wait a minute...
Paul talks about a Rufus.
Mark talks about a Rufus, son of Simon of Cyrene.

Are those two the same Rufus?

First, it's another indication of the historicity of the Gospel: anyone doubting the veracity of Mark's account could go ask Rufus and Alexander.

Sure... way back then they had investigative reporters like news reporters, nowadays, who follow up on tons of alleged UFO sightings.
People claim they saw something. It's true that they did see something... but did they really see an ET spaceship?

Second, it shows unintended internal evidence for historical reliability of the New Testament accounts: by comparing multiple sources (Mark and Paul), a more coherent picture emerges. IOW, the writers are unintentionally supporting the overall gospel story because their stories frequently dovetail like this.

Or one built on the previous knowledge of the other.
Like fanfic.

Finally, it points to something momentous and beautiful: Simon of Cyrene's encounter with Jesus the Cross brought about his conversion and the conversion of his whole family.

Wait a minute, wasn't this Simon of Cyrene in Rome?
And what did he convert to? He saw a dying (or already dead) man nailed to a cross. There was no christianity, then...

I feel like I keep going back and forth into and out of the fairy tale.

Are there curious nuggets in the gospels? yes.
Could they have been put in there unintentionally and, by chance provide a great tale? yes.
Could they have been added intentionally so as to provide the impression of a great tale? yes.

At the end of the day, we can't be sure of anything.
If only there was an actual real-life god who could settle this for once and for everybody...