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This is 40 years after the death of Christ, give or take. Thirty-five or forty-five years was a decently long lifespan at the time, so you have a full generation passing between the death on the cross and the writing of Mark. Where is the fantasy in this? The other Gospels were composed even later, Matthew and Luke both drawing from Mark.
Two of the three references you gave for the date and authorship of Mark's Gospels quote Papias on Eusebius' authority. The same sources give a date of 97 or 98 for John's Gospel and say that he wrote it late in life. Actually, I guess the date is attributable to Irenaeus, who is only a two person link from John, having known Polycarp, who was appointed to his bishop's position by John (again, according to Irenaeus, who would be the closest source).
It is a widely attested tradition that John lived past 90 years. 40 years or so may have been an average lifespan, but that is not because people were old and near death at 40 back then. Disease and infections often caused people to die before old age. Polycarp was martyred at age 86, so it's not like old age was unusual. I don't think anyone doubts Peter's martyrdom date, somewhere in the 60's AD, and that would have made him at least 50, probably somewhat older.
A quick search turned up this site about the four Gospels:
Page not found – Religion Online. He says, "We can be fairly certain that the author was the Luke mentioned by Paul as a physician and as one of his early associates." He gives the date as 80-90, and he doesn't mention the authorship of Matthew, although I do agree that most scholars don't think Matthew wrote the Gospel attributed to him.
But as far as I can tell, that's the only one. Mark was supposed to have seen Christ, according to the same early church sources you gave. I can't imagine why anyone who thought Mark wrote Mark would not think Mark was some sort of eyewitness to his ministry, though not a central one, of course.
Here's that web site's comments on John: "Irenaeus, at the end of the second century, speaks of the disciple John as living to an old age in Ephesus and writing the gospel. But other early sources speak of another John, known as the elder, who lived at Ephesus, and suggest that he was the author. And so the evidence is inconclusive. The gospel may have been written by a disciple of the disciple John; it may have been written by the other John the elder, who was perhaps some kind of follower of the disciple John; or it may have been written by an unknown teacher of Ephesus who himself felt that he possessed a strong apostolic authority."
I have to back up a bit, because I equated "none of the authors met Christ" with "none of the Gospels are authored by the persons their attributed to." My mistake, based on an assumption I was working with (Luke's gospel attributable to Paul, Mark's to Peter).
Anyway, nothing you wrote looked real new to me. I'm pretty friendly with the writings of the second century, and I may attribute too much authority to Irenaeus as concerning John's Gospel, which I believe John wrote. As it is, it appears to me that Luke and Mark were likely the authors of their Gospels, even according to your sources. Matthew I knew didn't write that one. He is occasionally suggested as the author of Q, although I can't imagine how anyone would be able to know that, either.
Of course, if a scholar is going to quote Eusebius and Irenaes (Papias' writings don't exist; we only have Irenaeus' and Eusebius' quotes of him) to agree that Mark wrote his Gospel, then wouldn't that suggest that Matthew wrote a Gospel, too, since they are just as firm about Matthew having written one?
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Get off the subject? Even more funny. Seems we've been discussing biblical accuracy and it is a concern.
Well, I apologize. One more time I got people mixed up. It was Brian Johnston who first threw out a bunch of complaints about things I never addressed and specifically said I didn't want to address. I only stuck with this thread, because I felt you were constantly reading my posts differently than I put them up, and you were asserting things authoritatively that just aren't so cut and dry as you made them out to be. The combination of addressing a subject I didn't bring up, and then throwing out the things you threw out did irritate me, but now I see that it was two people. Brian apparently dropped it when I asked him to.
I guess I'd better get a lot more careful about reading the names on the posts. That's embarrassing.
Like I said. I apologize, but I still am quitting this thread that I never wanted to talk about, anyway.
Either way, this is still my last post on a subject I care very little about.
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