Did any author in the New Testament actually know Jesus?

All of the Gospels are anonymous works.The Synoptic Gospels are only Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John is NOT a Synoptic.Mark and Luke do not claim to have met Jesus, in fact Luke was a companion of Paul who never met Jesus during his time as a God in human form.Being honest about the ENTIRE Bible, from a historian's point of view, we do not know for sure who wrote ANY of the books in the Old or New testaments.The Gospels, for example, were named long after anyone who knew Jesus had died. gMat was named by Bishop Papias in 169 CE, and there is a possibility that the gospel he named is not the same one that we have now.Edited by Brian, : added the word 'named'

Your evidence for this is what exactly? How do you know there were no objections at the time?Since there are no contemporary mentions of Jesus anywhere in the extant hostorical record I suggest you are making this up.However, there is evidence from a Jewish source to the true identity of Jesus father. try reading the talmud, it proves () that Jesus' father was a soldier named Panthera.

The thing is, for the fundamentalist, a particular apologetic really doesn't have to be supported by any evidence at all, all it needs to do is to sound good.The quality of apologetics on the Internet is appalling, but all it takes is one 'scholar' to come up with something that sounds plausible and all the fundies clutch at it.Peg doesn't even stop to think that if Jesus' genealogy was on public record then why do matthew and luke's accounts differ so much, they should be identical. I wonder if Peg's imaginary Jewish records included the geneaology of women?Also, with Joseph not being Jesus' father there is no bloodline to David, hence Jesus was no messiah.Fundies mention that Mary was a descendant of David, but that isn't even what the Bible says. The Bible specifically says that Joseph HAD to go to Bethlehem for this imaginary census because HE was descended from David, it does not say that Mary was, and this would be the ideal place to mention that.However, even if we grant that she was a descendant of David there are other problems, the main one being that the messiah would come from David through Solomon, and apparently Mary's link to David is through his other son Nathan, thus Jesus again is no messiah.But we will get embarrassing apologetics about this too. Critical thinking is not part of a fundies nature.

The good thing about this claim is that I can use the Bible to prove you wrong.To begin with NOT everyone had to register at the ”city of their births’ ONLY MEN had to register!Let’s actually look at what ”Luke’ writes:Luke 2:3 And everyone went to his own town to register.So, there we have it, strike one, everyone went to HIS own town to register. It does not say that everyone went to their own town, or his or her own town, it specifically says HIS own town.Then in Luke 2: 4 my point is further supported: So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. Strikes two and three. Joseph went to Bethlehem because it was he that belonged to the house of David. No mention of Mary having to go, no mention of her belonging to the house of David. How obvious does it have to be?Luke even goes on to tell us why Mary went to Bethlehem.Luke 2:5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ALL the emphasis is on Joseph in regard to the census, Mary is ONLY there because she was pledged to be married to Joseph.So there you have it, I don’t expect you to accept the Bible’s word for it though, because you already have your mind made up and you accept so many amateur apologetics as being true that you will never accept anything that contradicts your preconceptions.Luke makes it clear that it was Joseph who was descended from David. The author of Luke obviously didn’t realise that the virgin birth removes Joseph from Jesus’ genealogy and he has effectively removed Jesus from being the promised Messiah.There is a lot more however that proves Jesus was not the long awaited Messiah, but this one point should be enough.Also, as I said before, even if we did accept that we have Mary’s genealogy, which I really don’t think we do have, it is of no use because ”mary’s’ genealogy goes back to Nathan, David’s son, who is not included in the prophecy.2 Samuel 7:12-13 states: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.God makes it clear that it is through Solomon, who built the Temple (House for my Name), that the Messiah will come from.The Messiah will come from the house of David through Solomon, so once again we can see that the Bible itself negates the possibility that Jesus was the Messiah.Jesus, nice guy, but no Messiah.

The problem is that it is Joseph whose bloodline goes back to Solomon and Joseph is not Jesus' father.And don't bother with the garbage about Jesus being adopted and thus descended from David through Solomon because it doesn't work.Although adopting a child is a very noble thing to do, it does not mean that an adopted child is a blood relative.I am going to bow out of this because I have limited time and I feel you are being deliberately obtuse.Nice chatting.

I don't think it is the age of the Book that is the problem, I think DA is on about the history of the construction of the Book.The obvious editings, redaction, and the anonymity of its authors are more of a concern than its age.

What the fck are you on about?

I'm at a loss as to why I'd look at a Gospel to try and disprove that Jesus was God!There are other texts of course that do claim He was only human, had an earthly father, and that His disciples made up stories about Him. But I wouldn't expect these ot make the Canon!Plus, I couldnt care less about Jesus, He was just another in a long line of failed messiahs. His life story is about as boring as it gets.

Jay,You have the wrong end of the stick here.Why I asked what you were on about was because I have no idea where you get these crazy rants: As far as the New Testament document is concerned:
No, you won't find a copy that says Jesus was not Diety made flesh. No, you won't find a none redemptive death of Jesus.
No, you won't find a "no resurrection" copy of the NT.
No, you won't find a "Jesus is not Lord and Son of God" NT. And this nonsense: Hear me again Brian. There is NO ancient "Jesus was just a non extraordinary regular guy that the disciples blew up into a mythological legend" Gospel. You're hoping for something that simply does not exist. From what I posted, which was: I don't think it is the age of the Book that is the problem, I think DA is on about the history of the construction of the Book.
The obvious editings, redaction, and the anonymity of its authors are more of a concern than its age. I don’t know where you get the idea that I am in any way interested in looking for something to undermine Jesus, I couldn’t care less about Jesus.IF, and it is a BIG BIG IF, I ever get interested enough in the life of that particular failed messiah, I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to expect to find anything in the NT to undermine Jesus, the books were hand picked for goodness sakes.However, while we are at it, thinking that thousands of accurate copies of a fairytale make it anything other than a fairytale is just silly.

This is hilarious, you have just proven by the 'principle of embarrassment' that none of the disciples wrote any of the Gospels!Since we do not know who wrote any of the Gospels, they were all anonymous works, and since no author would pen anything that would embarrass them, and the Gospels contain embarrassing things about the disciples, then no disciples wrote any of the Gospels.Well done Jay, you just provided a great argument against the Gospels being written by a disciple.Think my side just split!

Just gets funnier.I haven't even attempted to refute anything, you are actually doing a fantastic job of refuting yourself, all I have done is to ask why you jumped to certain conclusions from what I said.I don't spend much time 'refuting' fundies anymore, apart from my time being very valuable, theres also the fact that fundies don't want to learn anything, they already know it all.

Let's test your personal integrity and scholarship with a question that has a one word answer.You claim: One of the indications that Matthew wrote Matthew is found in Matt. 10:2-5. Now, this question requires a 'yes' or a 'no' answer.Is the Gospel of Matthew an anonymous work?Yes or No?

Whereas someone who was really humble would have placed himself last! Good gift to have that though, being able to read the mind of a man who died 2000 years ago, wonderful.

Is the Gospel of Matthew an anonymous work?Yes or No?

There were no NT texts at Qumran Buz.You really should do your homework instead of being so gullible.