Embellishments in the Gospel of Mark.

[fredd bear]

The q hypothesis states that there was a -greek-..not jewish, source.  I suppose I can understand why people get this mixed up in the context of "jewish christians" in a heavily hellenized part of the world.

-and it remains the case that you are basing your "no doubts" on a hypothetical document that no one has, no one mentioned, and no one decided to keep.  The foundation of which is based upon attempting to construct a non christian non jewish jesus, who was a wandering cynic offering smart sentences to anyone who struck up a conversation or offered a meal.

Does that sound like the guy you're convinced of?

Many Jews spoke Greek; the author of the Gospel of Matthew was a Jew.

 Another recovering catholic here

"Many Jews spoke Greek; the author of the Gospel of Matthew was a Jew."

 I didn't know that. I was taught no one knows who the authors of the Gospels were. That the names were ascribed arbitrarily and that the Gospels were written in Greek.

Although the historicity of Jesus has not been established ,most historians agree Jesus probably existed.  That is also my position.

I find your hypothesis about Jesus interesting. Be most interested in your source. 

My position is that the New Testament is mostly myth, especially the epistles; several are already seen as forgeries, and the rest as suspect.

Imo Jesus was  a pretty ordinary wondering Rabbi, of which there were many at that time in Judaea. He upset the wrong people and got himself crucified. There is a lot of doubt about what he actually taught and what claims he made. The new testament is not a reliable source 

What is known is that Jesus founded a small Jewish sect. IE Initially one HAD TO BE a practicing Jew. That meant observing the mizvot of the Law of Moses, AND the mitzvah of the bris .(circumcision) Gentiles were NOT admitted.

Then along comes Saul. It's he who founds the religion later known as Christianity. He does that by first eliminating all of the commandments  dealing with ritual, especially the bris  and dietary laws. He  then admits gentiles.

A minor point: worth checking actual Jewish tradition about prophecy of the Messiah. The Christian claims are a travesty.

Eg 'Mashiach (Messiah) does NOT mean saviour . It means 'anointed'   IE King. The messiah is to be a warrior king in the tradition of David. He is most certainly NOT divine, and will not die young.

To claim that Jesus is the son of God AND to worship him is/was a monumental heresy to the jews.An offence for which Jesus could have been stoned. Jesus would have been acutely aware of this. I think it's unlikely he would have had made such a claim. Just about everything written in the gospels is suspect as history

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Below a bit of what I've managed to find  about the authorship of Mark after a very quick search. Admittedly, it's only Wikipedia. I'd be grateful if you could point out any factual errors (and cite your sources)

Authorship and genre

The Gospel of Mark is anonymous.[8] It was probably written c. AD 66–70, during Nero's persecution of the Christians in Rome or the Jewish revolt, as suggested by internal references to war in Judea and to persecution.[4] The author used a variety of pre-existing sources, such as conflict stories (Mark 2:1–3:6), apocalyptic discourse (4:1–35), and collections of sayings (although not the Gospel of Thomas and probably not the Q source).[9] It was written in Greek for a gentile audience, and Rome, Galilee, Antioch (third-largest city in the Roman Empire, located in northern Syria), and southern Syria have all been offered as alternative places of composition.[10] Early Christian tradition attributes it to John Mark mentioned in Acts, but scholars generally reject this as an attempt to link the gospel to an authoritative figure[5]


The Gospels represent a form of Greco-Roman biography.[11] Interpreters differ when it comes to understanding what purpose Mark had for writing the Gospel. Among some of the proposals include that Mark strictly had a theological agenda,[12] that Mark was written in order to distance Christianity from political connotations in light of the Roman-Jewish War,[13] or that Mark was responding to imperial Flavian propaganda.[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark