>>18137875
>random books written under pseudonyms
If so then most of the pseudonyms they picked sucked ass big time, and wouldn’t have been useful for forging the claimed authenticity of the texts.
>Mark
Not mentioned by name once in the Gospels and only *possibly* mentioned as “John Mark” in the book of Acts as a wandering scribe with Paul. This guy is obscure as shit and not claimed as a direct witness to Jesus, so why was his name chosen to authenticate a text about the lifetime of Jesus?
>Matthew
By the Gospel’s own admission Matthew was a Jewish tax collector for Rome, which the Jewish audience the gospels were directed at would’ve hated with a passion, especially in the decades after Jesus lived, when Judea was crushed by Rome. Why would they trust someone who was essentially allied with their main political enemy, a traitor to their people and cultural religion, as an authentic eyewitness?
>Luke
The only reason we know who this guy is at all is because of the authorship claim of him writing this gospel and the book of Acts. Otherwise we’d have no idea who this guy is, as he’s mentioned only 3 times in passing by Paul’s letters (only twice if you count 2 Timothy as inauthentic) as a traveling physician with Paul. Again, this guy is super obscure. Why would his name be used to authenticate the texts, especially when, as you mentioned, Luke’s gospel explicitly claims to be a secondhand account?
>John
Within the text itself, the claimed eyewitness writer goes by the vague pseudonym “the beloved disciple”, and takes great pains to hide his identity. The gospel was written very late into the generation that claimed to see Jesus as eyewitnesses, and by this time there were other gospels directly claiming to be from famous disciples like Peter, Judas, Thomas, etc. So why not follow their lead and directly forge into the text that it was written by John himself, and not use a vague pseudonym?

(Cont’d)