why are the books of the bible named after his "crew" when none were written by them?

Answer 1

True, they were written after the fact and not by the apostles themselves. Each named book is suppose to represent that person's viewpoint. Of course, we know that much was lost in translation.

Answer 2

They say "The Gospel according to John" or whoever. But considering the events took place in the Middle East, where did they come up with these names??? Wouldn't it be more likely that it be called "The Gospel according to Abdul"? They used Middle Eastern names elsewhere in the bible, so why not in the names of the books?

Answer 3

Most scholars today agree that the letters of Paul (or at least the early one - some question the later pastoral epistles) where written by Paul himself. Those were written between 48 AD and Paul's death in 67 AD.

Paul gives a direct quote (in 1 Corinthians 11) from the Gospel of Luke. 1 Corinthinas appears to have been written in the spring of 55 AD. For Paul to quote from Luke, the writing would have had to be in existence by that time.

Plus, you will find at least 12 other times in which the writings of Paul and the gospel of Luke share shorter phrase and terms. So either the author of Luke was very familiar with the writings of Paul and wrote his gospel and reworded Jesus to quote from Paul multiple times, or (which makes more sense) Paul had a copy of Luke available to him from as early as 53 AD, when the first phrase appears.

If you read through the gospel of Luke, you will discover that of the1151 verses, Luke has 389 in common with Matthew and Mark, 176 in common with Matthew alone, 41 in common with Mark alone, leaving 544 peculiar to himself. The material in common with Mark is usually word for word identical. 466 of the 662 verses of Mark are repeated in Luke.

So either the details about Jesus are so well established and well documented that whoever wrote Mark and Luke "hundreds of years later" got them word for word the same. (Yet not a single copy of those documents exist today). Or the more logical explanation is that Luke had a copy of Mark that he "borrowed" from. (Read Luke 1:1-5 in which the author states that he took much of his material from an earlier accounts).

So there is solid textual evidence to show that "Mark" had to be in existence prior to 53 AD, or Luke could not have copied from it to create that book that Paul was quoting in 53 AD.

The same argument can be used for Matthew's gospel, as again Luke quotes from it 176 times. And those handful of places were Luke varies from Mark, he is word for word identical with Matthew. Since it is hard to quote a book 176 times before it is written, Matthew had to also exist prior to 53 AD.

Note that "Mark" refers to himself within his own gospel in Mark 15. The author of the gospel of Luke is also the author of the Acts of the Apostles. There are too many similarities of style and wording for it to be otherwise. Within Acts, the author refers multiple times to himself, using "we", etc. Paul in his letters also refers to Luke traveling with him on those occasions.

So there is no historical or textual reason why the original apostles could not have been the authors of the books which bear their names. Rather, the historical and textual evidence shows that three synposis gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) where all in existence, and well enough know to be quoted, by 53 AD, within 20-25 years of the resurrection of Jesus.

Having been written that early, while the original apostles were still alive, if these books were "fakes", everyone would have known it and denounced them. Yet not a single denouncing of the gospels has been found, not even amoung the surviving writings of early heretics. Rather they also quote from the same gospels as their soruce for their teachings.

Answer 4

I can only say that they were written to keep the brainwashed and the newly converted Pagans under their control...
Blessed Be...)O(

Answer 5

It's the "posse" of the imaginary god, why should the posse be any different than the god?