The Gospel Accounts Are Anonymous

My opponent makes a number of errors that are in need of correction. Let us analyze his text. First, my opponent says that the Abomination of Desolation (desolating sacrilege) is the erection of the Zeus statue in 160 AD. This is ridiculously errorful. The erection of the Zeus statue in 160 AD completely fails the Daniel prophecy quoted by Matthew and Mark, which is the fact that the world must end within 5 years of the Abomination of Desolation [1], and this did not happen within 5 years of the Zeus statue. There can be no connection. Furthermore, this connection is spuriously vague at best, as statues were always being built. So we can see it fails for two incontestable reasons. Mark and Matthew do not presuppose the first generation of Christians are dead -- rather imply that they are alive by referencing them throughout scripture. All Gospels are a biography of 30-33 AD of Jesus ministry, and reference nothing more. Now, it can be entirely refuted that the Gospels can possibly date after the first century, as Ignatius, who died around 103 AD and wrote in the last first century quotes both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke [2], Clement of Rome in the first century quotes Matthew and Mark [3]. We have a fragment of the Gospel of John dating towards 120 AD [4], confirmed through paleography and papyrology, with an absolutely maximized date of 135 AD, and thus is inconceivably close to the original from about 96 AD, and we even have a fragment of the Gospel of Mark from 90 AD [5], which was confirmed by over three dozen Scholars dating it (notably including the renowned Craig Evans) completely refuting any idea that these Gospels are late and out of the lifetime of the Apostles . My opponent attempts to dispute that Clement of Rome was written in the first century by claiming that it has dates of ranging far into the second century, however people who hold this view are minuscule in the academic community, the consensus is in fact 95-96 AD, and the dating is undeniable as we have clear evidence for it being dated to this. This is because Clement of Rome references a Roman widespread persecution of Christians, that was after Nero. Scholars have concluded this was under the persecution under Domitian, who died 95-96 AD, and thus our verifiable evidence strongly issues that it was written from 95-96 AD [6]. While I'm on the topic of Clement -- my opponent says we have no reason to believe Paul was martyred, but that is ridiculous. To date, virtually all existing Scholars attest to Paul's martyrdom, as it has the highest evidence of any martyrdom out there. Virtually all early Church writers, including Clement from the first century [7] reference Paul's death. Next, my opponent continues to reinstate that Bar Kochba was said to do miracles. There is one major problem however. My opponent seems to think that because Bar Kochba died in 130 AD, that the myth of miracles he did also dates to 130 AD, however this is highly in error. The only two ancient documents that attribute miracles to Bar Kochba are the Book of Ezra and Jerome, Against Rufinus [8]. This is extremely problematic, as Against Rufinus dates to the FIFTH century [9], and the Book of Ezra nearly the MID-FIFTH century [10]. These myths could not possibly date to the time of the Gospels, and thus doing something as ridiculous as trying the date of the Gospels with the life of Bar Kochba is erroneous. To validate these myths as early, they must be from the seocnd century, but as we have seen, this is simply not true. We have very early references to Bar Kochba such as from Justin Martyr and Eusebius, and yet they say nothing on Bar's miracles, showing this to be a likely fourth century invention. One could try to interpret the Babylonian Talmud in Ta'anit to claiming miracles with Bar, but it also dates from the 4th-6th century [11]. The dates of Matthew and Mark are incompatible in dating with Bar Kochba's mythologies. My opponent says that because the audience of Matthew knows what rabbis are, and thus Matthew does not explain what they are, it therefore means that rabbis are shown as common in Matthew. However, this is false, Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience as I have shown in my previous arguments, and a Jewish audience would be easily familiar with what a rabbi is. Furthermore, to assume Matthew would explain what a rabbi is, is simply ridiculous. The Gospel of Matthew is a Graceo-Roman Biography, not a first century definition sheet. My opponent claims that again, Luke-Acts uses Josephus material, but if you go to his source, there are a number of problems. One, it both admits that the author of this is not an expert, and that this hypothesis is not accepted in the Scholarly community. Secondly, it even quotes the following; "Now, story parallels alone do not prove that Luke used Josephus, but that isn"t all that is available to us." Thus, without conclusive evidence, we can entirely reject it. Furthermore, we have no reason to believe it wasn't Josephus who used Luke-Acts rather than the other way around. Implying it must be Luke-Acts from Josephus is unwarranted and unjustified. Last, this is not peer-reviewed, and one of shis links sources is Richard Carrier, who is one of the most repudiated Scholars in the academic field for his bad work and has no professorship whatsoever in any academic institution. He uses John 4:21 to prove John references a Samaritan Temple on Mount Gezirim, but this literally only references a talk with a Samaritan women about worshipping devilish things on a mountain. The appearance of a 'temple' is non-existent, it's a fabrication, and no one should take this seriously. Once again, a fragment of John dates to 120 AD, and my opponent even says that the temple he is talking about was constructed in 140 AD, and so by no stretch of the imagination is there a connection. My opponent claims Papias from 120 AD cannot confirm Matthew's authorship because petros/petra does not work in hebrew in Matthew 16:18. First of all my opponent has no rebuttal for Papias confirming Mark's authorship as well. Secondly, both Petros and Petra have a Hebrew equivalent [12] and I have not seen any Scholarly papers showing this is impossible. Conclusion: The overwhelming evidence suggests that the authorship of the traditional Gospels is accurate. We have seen from my original post that the entire early Church unanimously attributes these writings to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, with no variation in authorship, and it even is able to identify forgeries in the name of Apostles [13] such as the Laodicians and the Alexandrians text, thus showing they are very credible on this. My opponents rebuttal draws down to saying they cannot be the authors as the writings are too late, but as we have seen, this is based on 5th century mythology, a fabricated mention of a 'temple' in John 4:21, and a disregard of first century quotations of these Gospels and manuscripts from 90 AD of the Gospel of Mark and 120 AD for the Gospel of John. Vote Pro. 1. https://www.biblegateway.com... 2. http://www.ntcanon.org... 3. http://www.biblequery.org... 4. https://www.jw.org... 5. https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org... 6. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com... 7. http://www.ccel.org... 8. http://www.livius.org... 9. http://www.fourthcentury.com... 10. https://www.insight.org... 11. https://www.britannica.com... 12. http://www.jesusandtheprofessor.com... 13. http://www.ntcanon.org...