Kenneth: Not only were the books of the NT written by people with different beliefs, its clear that the writers didn't even understand each others beliefs and that the later Roman scholars who actually founded what we call Christianity misinterpreted most of these writings.
Furthermore, it's pretty clear that vastly different agendas were at play, with some writing expressing genuine belief while others display overt deception. For example, the "Gospel of John" was clearly written with the express intent to misrepresent the work. This is clear because the author makes multiple claims like, "I saw this with my own eyes, I swear". But obviously they didn't see these things with their own eyes.
This is very different from Mark which makes no effort at all to portray the narrative as literal history, and in fact drops a multitude of clues that its all symbolic allegory. So whereas it appears that "Mark" was making no attempt to writing what would be considered a biography, later writing built on Mark's story to intentionally try and construct what appeared to be a biography.
This should be no surprise really, because in fact this was extremely common in Rome at this time. There was a actually a huge semi-underground market in anonymous prophetic literature. Stories like the Gospels, as well a writings from supposed real prophets, were produced anonymously and sold to middle-men who made copies of them and sold them to wealthy patrons who would study them, believing them to actually be divine literature that could be used to predict the future. This wasn't small-time either. In fact senators, governors and emperors were among the patrons.
This market is likely how the Gospels came into Roman hands. In fact, the most sacred texts in Rome, the Sibylline Books, came from this market and were housed in the temple of Apollo until they were accidentally destroyed by a fire, and then a new set was reacquired. These texts were consulted by special Roman priests under the direction of the Senate to advise on Roman policy.
So, there was a market for prophetic texts of unknown provenance in Rome at this time, and generally the people who produced such works were presumably just using it as a way to make a living. It was similar to how Indian gurus work today, doing things like magic tricks to fool people who donating money to them. It's not for some grand plan, its just their means of making a living. I suspect strongly that's why the Gospels of Matthew and John were written. Luke appears to have been written by one of the scholars who was commissioned by a wealthy patron to investigate the Gospel stories, thus he produced for him what he thought was a revised and corrected account, having worked from Mark, Matthew and the letters of Paul.
So, I suspect that the writers of Matthew, John, and possibly Luke weren't actually even Christians, they were just professional producers of prophetic literature who were trying to make a buck on the market. It's hard to say about Mark exactly what his intention was.
Kenneth: Not only were the books of the NT written by people with different beliefs, its clear that the writers didn't even understand each others beliefs and that the later Roman scholars who actually founded what we call Christianity misinterpreted most of these writings.
Furthermore, it's pretty clear that vastly different agendas were at play, with some writing expressing genuine belief while others display overt deception. For example, the "Gospel of John" was clearly written with the express intent to misrepresent the work. This is clear because the author makes multiple claims like, "I saw this with my own eyes, I swear". But obviously they didn't see these things with their own eyes.
This is very different from Mark which makes no effort at all to portray the narrative as literal history, and in fact drops a multitude of clues that its all symbolic allegory. So whereas it appears that "Mark" was making no attempt to writing what would be considered a biography, later writing built on Mark's story to intentionally try and construct what appeared to be a biography.
This should be no surprise really, because in fact this was extremely common in Rome at this time. There was a actually a huge semi-underground market in anonymous prophetic literature. Stories like the Gospels, as well a writings from supposed real prophets, were produced anonymously and sold to middle-men who made copies of them and sold them to wealthy patrons who would study them, believing them to actually be divine literature that could be used to predict the future. This wasn't small-time either. In fact senators, governors and emperors were among the patrons.
This market is likely how the Gospels came into Roman hands. In fact, the most sacred texts in Rome, the Sibylline Books, came from this market and were housed in the temple of Apollo until they were accidentally destroyed by a fire, and then a new set was reacquired. These texts were consulted by special Roman priests under the direction of the Senate to advise on Roman policy.
So, there was a market for prophetic texts of unknown provenance in Rome at this time, and generally the people who produced such works were presumably just using it as a way to make a living. It was similar to how Indian gurus work today, doing things like magic tricks to fool people who donating money to them. It's not for some grand plan, its just their means of making a living. I suspect strongly that's why the Gospels of Matthew and John were written. Luke appears to have been written by one of the scholars who was commissioned by a wealthy patron to investigate the Gospel stories, thus he produced for him what he thought was a revised and corrected account, having worked from Mark, Matthew and the letters of Paul.
So, I suspect that the writers of Matthew, John, and possibly Luke weren't actually even Christians, they were just professional producers of prophetic literature who were trying to make a buck on the market. It's hard to say about Mark exactly what his intention was.