Drawn details and motifs from Homer’s Odyssey, Mark also draws from the Greek mythologies, the Greek translation of the Jewish Old Testament known as the Septuagint as well as contemporary traditions about Jesus. ibid.
We will see Mark improve the scenes and motifs he copies from the Odyssey. ibid.
Mark takes Homer’s hidden identity technique to its limit. ibid.
The number of parallels between the Cyclops’ tale and the tale of the demon-possessed man are many and they are unique as well as sequential. ibid.
Mark treats the Sea of Galilee as if it were the Mediterranean. ibid.
A woman meets a stranger; the stranger is recognised; some liquid is spilled; the woman anoints the hero; the scene shifts immediately to the hero’s enemies [Homer cf. Mark]. ibid.
The strange case of the inseparable James and John ... said to be brothers ... They are always referred to together and in the same order ... and even speaking together. ibid.
Was Matthew recording exactly what Jesus said or was he simply lifting phrases from the Book of [Psalms &] Isaiah? ibid.
Matthew copies the Septuagint verbatim ... This caused Matthew to create the hilarious prophecy fulfilment of Jesus straddling two donkeys at the same time [cf. Zachariah]. ibid.
Numerous other parallels and blunders we could list. ibid.
The entire 21st chapter of John is a later addition by someone other than the original author. ibid.
If we could create a narrative showing Jesus ascribing immortality to one of his disciples, then as long as that disciple was alive, Jesus’s prediction would still be alive and valid. The 21st chapter of John accomplishes this. ibid.
There is no extant copy of John without the 21st chapter. ibid.
The Gospels have been heavily embellished and edited over time. ibid.
Verses 9-20 of chapter 16 [Mark] were a later addition to the story. ibid.
Luke 22: 43-44 were never part of the original Gospel ... Jesus’s blood is likened to drops of blood falling. ibid.
I John 5:7 [For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, The Word, And the Holy Ghost: and these three are one] was inserted into that epistle at a later time ... John 5:4 was never part of the Gospel of John. ibid.
Inserted later: Luke 24:12 and Luke 24:51. ibid.
Clear embellishment and later re-modelling. Even entire scenes and chapters. ibid.
Hundreds of years of copying. ibid.
The practise of tomb veneration is ubiquitous. ibid.
There was never a Jesus of Nazareth at all. As I’ve intimated thus far in this series, the historical Jesus did not exist until Mark brought him down to Earth in his Homeric allegory written sometime shortly after the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 C.E. and only after the Gospel story gained wide circulation in the 2nd century did the absences ... become problematic for the Church fathers. ibid.
The ubiquitous motif of the hero. ibid.
Modern Biblical scholars cannot be actually sure who really wrote them. Jesus Was a Buddhist Monk/Did Jesus Die? BBC 2015
The Ascension doesn’t appear in the original form of the Gospels. ibid.
New Gospels, lost Gospels, emerge from numerous archaeological digs. The Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. And even the Gospel of Judas ... The Gospel of Peter claims to reveal the facts behind the resurrection of Jesus. Biblical Mysteries Explained: Lost Gospels, Discovery 2008
I say nothing of the moral difficulties and perversions involved in revelation itself; though even in the Christianity of the Gospels, at least in its ordinary interpretation, there are some that are so flagrant that they almost outweigh all the beauty and benignity and moral greatness that so clearly distinguish the sayings and character of Christ ... Is there any moral atrocity that couldn’t be justified by the imitation of such a Deity? And could we possibly adore such a being without frightfully distorting the standard of right and wrong? Any other of the outrages to the most ordinary justice and humanity involved in the common Christian idea of God’s moral character sinks into insignificance beside this dreadful Hell-focused idealization of wickedness. John Stuart Mill, The Usefulness of Religion 1874
Most Biblical scholars have come to agree that the first of the Gospels to be written was the Gospel of Mark in approximately 70 A.D. Bible’s Secrets Revealed I: Lost in Translation, H2 2014
Their multiple authors – none of whom published anything until many decades after the Crucifixion – cannot agree on anything of importance. Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great p111
The scribes cannot even agree on the mythical elements: they disagree wildly about the Sermon on the Mount, the anointing of Jesus, the treachery of Judas, and Peter’s haunting ‘denial’. Most astonishingly, they cannot converge on a common account of the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. ibid.
It’s the Lindisfarne Gospels. Books were rare. Neil Oliver, Sacred Wonders of Britain III, BBC 2013
Jesus’ youth and upbringing – a period about which the Gospels tell us almost nothing at all. Robert Powell on the Real Jesus of Nazareth e1, H2 2018
Only two Gospels – Luke and Matthew – tell the story of Jesus’ birth. ibid.
What does Luke say about the three wise men? Nothing at all. ibid.
Today the Lindisfarne gospels are considered one of the world’s greatest art works. Dr Janina Ramirez, Treasures of the Anglo Saxons, BBC 2010
What was contained in these lost Gospels? What made them so threatening that they had to be banned or destroyed? No-one knew for nearly two thousand years. But in 1886 the Gospel of Peter emerged from the sands of the Egyptian desert. Other astonishing discoveries followed in the twentieth century. Melvyn Bragg, The King James Bible: The Book that Changed the World, BBC 2011
The Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi was given a Carbon 14 test ... 300 – 400 A.D. ibid.
A collection of 27 compositions, 21 of them letters. All originally written in Greek. We don’t have a single page, nor even the smallest scraps of the original writings. All we have are copies of copies, written many years afterwards. Who Wrote the New Testament? I: What is Truth? 2003
‘Scribes are adding and even deleting.’ ibid. comment
Clearly there are problems regarding Matthew. It’s obvious that well over half his work is borrowed from Mark. ibid.
Luke set out to write the big Jesus story. ibid.
The Gospels were all written anonymously. ibid.