The notion that the four "gospels that made the cut" to be included in the official New Testament were written by men named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John does not go back to early Christian times. The titles "According to Matthew," etc., were not added until late in the second century. Thus, although Papias ca. 140 CE ('Common Era') knows all the gospels but has only heard of Matthew and Mark, Justin Martyr (ca. 150 CE) knows of none of the four supposed authors. It is only in 180 CE, with Irenæus of Lyons, that we learn who wrote the four "canonical" gospels and discover that there are exactly four of them. Thus, unless one supposes the argument of Irenæus to be other than ridiculous, we come to the conclusion that the gospels are of unknown origin and authorship, and there is no good reason to suppose they are eye-witness accounts of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. It is clear that the gospels of Matthew and Luke could not possibly have been written by an eye-witness of the tales they tell. Both writers plagiarize (largely word-for-word) up to 90% of the gospel of Mark, to which they add sayings of Jesus and would-be historical details. Matthew and Luke contradict each other in such critical details as the genealogy of Jesus - and thus cannot both be correct. It is significant that it is only these two gospels that purport to tell anything of Jesus' birth, childhood, or ancestry. Both can be dismissed as unreliable without further cause. We can know nothing of Jesus' childhood or origin!
Mark is the oldest surviving gospel. Attaining essentially its final form probably as late as 90 CE but containing core material dating possibly as early as 70 CE, it omits, as we have seen, almost the entire traditional biography of Jesus, beginning the story with John the Baptist giving Jesus a bath. If written between 70 CE - 90 CE, that is 40-60 years after the time of Jesus! How accurate could the story be? Also, the oldest of the gospels is the shortest! Whereas the gospel of Luke takes up 43 pages in the New English Bible, the gospel of Mark occupies only 25 pages - a mere 58% as much material! Stories do indeed grow with the retelling. The gospel of John was compiled around the year 110 CE. If its author had been 10 years old at the time of Jesus' crucifixion in the year 30 CE, he would have been 90 years old at the time of writing! What a memory he must have had! Even according to the Gospel stories, Jesus was surrounded by terrorists. Simon Magus was known as Simon Zelotes (the Zealot) to acknowledge his role as a commander of the Zealots, the ‘freedom fighters’ who advocated a war against the Romans. Another description is Simon ‘Kananites’, a Greek word meaning fanatic. This was translated into English as Simon the Canaanite! Judas ‘Iscariot’ derives from the word Sicarius, which meant assassin. There was a terrorist group called the Sicani or Sons of the Dagger, and this name comes from the word, Sica, meaning curved dagger. Sicarius became the Greek, Sikariotes, and this was later mistranslated into English as Iscariot. The Zealots-Sicani would raid Roman supply caravans and ambush their soldiers very much along the lines of terrorist groups like the IRA in Northern Ireland.
