Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
Do you mean random followers or are you suggesting that Yeshua's closest disciples are responsible for penning the gospels? I had to mull your above comment over for a minute because I was under the impression scholars (did not) associate "all" of the NT gospels to those they were named after.
Herman N. Ridderbos writes (Matthew, p. 7):
This means, however, that we can no longer accept the traditional view of Matthew's authorship. At least two things forbid us to do so. First, the tradition maintains that Matthew authored an Aramaic writing, while the standpoint I have adopted does not allow us to regard our Greek text as a translation of an Aramaic original. Second, it is extremely doubtful that an eyewitness like the apostle Matthew would have made such extensive use of material as a comparison of the two Gospels indicates. Mark, after all, did not even belong to the circle of the apostles. Indeed Matthew's Gospel surpasses those of the other synoptic writers neither in vividness of presentation nor in detail, as we would expect in an eyewitness report, yet neither Mark nor Luke had been among those who had followed Jesus from the beginning of His public ministry.
Francis Write Beare notes (The Gospel according to Matthew, p. 7):
But the dependence of the book upon documentary sources is so great as to forbid us to look upon it as the work of any immediate disciple of Jesus. Apart from that, there are clear indications that it is a product of the second or third Christian generation. The traditional name of Matthew is retained in modern discussion only for convenience.
As I said before, for some of these writings we have no idea who wrote them or what the religious affiliation was of the writer so I think it's amaturish to suggest they were jewish or even taught by Yeshua considering scholars say they weren't. I'm not saying (ALL) of the NT gospels but in the case of Mark and Matthew I don't think we are at the point of accepting they were Jews who were taught by Yeshua. Were they Jewish? Maybe. They, to a degree, were "familiar" with Jewish customs but again, they could have been Hellenistic Jews.
Randel Helms writes concerning Mark 11:1 (Who Wrote the Gospels?, p. 6): "Anyone approaching Jerusalem from Jericho would come first to Bethany and then Bethphage, not the reverse.
Dennis Nineham argues, that 'Mark did not know the relative positions of these two villages on the Jericho road' (1963, 294-295). Indeed, Mark knew so little about the area that he described Jesus going from Tyrian territory 'by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee through the territory of the Ten Towns' (Mark 7:31); this is similar to saying that one goes from London to Paris by way of Edinburgh and Rome. The simplist solution, says Nineham, is that 'the evangelist was not directly acquainted with Palestine' (40)."
Robert Eisenman writes (James the Brother of Jesus, p. 56): "From the same internal textual considerations already noted, it is possible to show that Mark, too, was written after the fall of the Temple in 70 CE. The whole nature of its anti-Jewish polemic and opposition to the family and brothers of Jesus on the one hand and its pro-Peter orientation on the other distinguish it as having appeared after the destruction of the Jerusalem centre - in particular, after the attempt by the Roman Community to represent itself as the legitimate heir to Jesus and the Messianic movement he represented, however absurd, historically speaking, that might have seemed to any objective observer at the time."
Eisenman comments (op. cit., p. 56): "There are, in fact, several veiled references to events of this kind in the Gospel of Mark, for instance, in the introuduction to the Little Apocalypse, where Jesus is made to predict the utter destruction of the Temple (13:1-2) and in the Apocalypse itself, when the Pauline Mission is anticipated (13:9-10) - but, even more importantly, in the depiction of the rending of the Temple veil at his death (Mark 15:38 and pars.). This veil was more than likely damaged in the final Roman assault on the Temple or in the various altercations and the turmoil preceding this. Josephus specifically refers to it, along with its replacement materials, as having been delivered over to the Romans after the assault on the Temple. It was doubtless on display in Rome, damaged or otherwise, along with the rest of the booty Josephus describes as having been paraded in Titus' Triumph."
Even though Mark is considered the earliest of the four gospels there is no indication he was a follower of Yeshua. It appears he was more likely a follower and interpreter of Peter.
The writer of the book of Luke I covered. He wasn't a Jew. He's classified as a gentile and he was a follower of Paul. He didn't know Yeshua but outright says he received his information from thos who said they knew Yeshua. Although I do admit him being Jew or Gentile is still debatable amongst scholars and theologians. It's clear, even though he was a writer, he didn't seem to have known Yeshua.
The other books scholars are in agreement they were Jewish and may have been written by the ones who bare their name (i.e. James, Jude, 1st Peter,). It is believed 2nd Peter has a different author than the first. Some others still have question marks as to the writers of (i.e. 1st John, 2nd John, 3rd John). It is believed 2nd and 3rd John have the same author. But there is still debate that the Gospel of John and 1st John have the same author.
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