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New Re: "...or whether it was just a borrowed pseudo-name"
Interesting. That makes them sound like the [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki|Bourbaki].
Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective allonym under which a group of mainly French 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics, beginning in 1935.
Alex

When fascism comes to America, it'll be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross. -- Sinclair Lewis
New Not exactly the same thing
The Bourbaki group intentionally set out to use a pseudonym so that a group of authors could speak in one voice on a topic that was too big for any one to cover on their own.

The Gospels are different. Each was written originally as a seperate work and only combined latter. They don't share a consistant voice and a vast amount of Christian writing is dedicated to trying to make the story contained within consistant across all four.

More over, it is likely that it wasn't the author of the works that named the Gospels. Only the Gospel of John identifies the author, and even then only by the name 'Beloved Disciple.' It is probable that some, if not all, of the books only gained their names in latter tradition.

Jay
New Since we're into comparative religions...
...it might also be noteworthy to suggest that very few religious texts stand on a firm authorship ground (unless we are discussing L Ron Hubbard). Most of the Torah was written down well past the time of Moses. Genesis in particular has two creation stories, and also some weird subtexts that are seemingly along the lines of greek type mythology.

The Quran might seem less susceptible to redaction, but its authorship is not particularly well established. With Mohamed being supposedly illiterate, it's unlikely he wrote the text. More likely that his followers wrote it down sometime during and/or after his death. Though there seems to be some thought that the authorship was purely divine - which means that its basically unknowable - we know its Gods word because God wrote it type of reasoning.

You'd probably find similar problems with the Hindu and the Buddhist texts as well - supposing one were inclined to a methodical objective analysis. But such literary analysis problems aren't likely to phase the believers, since leaving the question open usually lends a certain quality of mysticism - something that never seems to hurt in that line of business.

If you are a believer in one of the historical based religions (Christianity, Judaica, Islam, etc...), then I'd think that you'd have to admit that God mostly acts through man. And anytime you enter man into the equation, you pretty well have skewed history very much on the side of imperfection.
     Translated "Gospel of Judas" to be released after Easter. - (Another Scott) - (6)
         Catholic Church must be in fits about this stuff - (JayMehaffey) - (5)
             Not really - (ChrisR) - (4)
                 Interesting++ essay. Thanks. -NT - (Another Scott)
                 Re: "...or whether it was just a borrowed pseudo-name" - (a6l6e6x) - (2)
                     Not exactly the same thing - (JayMehaffey) - (1)
                         Since we're into comparative religions... - (ChrisR)

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