The Gospel According to Anonymous.

[Katzpur]

they are not annonymous. The writers are very well known. The gospels are named after them...Matthew, Mark, luke, John.

How do you know this, Pegg? Is it because the gospels are named after these individuals that you are convinced that they are the actual authors? What actual evidence can you provide to substantiate this claim?

Bart Erhman has no idea what he's talking about.

Actually, I'm not a huge Erhman fan myself, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he has no idea what he's talking about. That's kind of an overboard reaction, IMO. You disagree with him so, regardless of his qualifications, "he has no idea what he's talking about"?

 

[Breathe]

For me, a religious text is about the message it teaches and the spiritual values and truths, as well as the good moral character it encourages one to develop, the giving of charity it tells the believer to do, and the altruism it encourages. Those are important to me. Not who wrote it.

To go outside of the example of Christianity for a moment, this is why I give a lot more weight to Tathāgatagarbha Sūtras spiritually than I do many other Buddhist scriptures, as they speak of things which make sense to me and which fit in with my experiences more; I don't go by some sūtras because they are seen as 'more authentic' because some of them, ontologically, don't agree with my own experiences.

Back on to Christianity: I don't know who wrote the texts. None of us do. Not personally. We can have a guess as to a little bit about the author.

I can like a person's post here without ever having met them personally, or without knowing their life history or details; for me it is the same with religious scriptures. That's how I see it.