No, your example is extremely poor. To come close, run through the teacher and student thing, insist it must be orally transmitted, but then wait at least four generations, then ask that fourth generation to relate what they believe the message was.

The synods were a good example, but put on your thinking cap for this one. The people involved in those synods predetermined what the guidelines were, then either accepted, rejected, or revised what documents they had before including them in a bible.

@ JoC

When did I say "most scholars"?

And now your dishonesty is reaching new lows even for a theist apologist. I am sure a moderator can tell whether you changed your first line in your post....that I copied from your original and used in a blockquote. If you have stooped to that well.......If I am wrong then I apologise...lets see what the moderators say.

What we have for the canonical gospels is wide and unanimous external attestation.

Papias from Hieropolis writing in 125 AD
Irenaeus of Lyons writing in 180 AD
Tertullian in Carthage writing in 200 AD
Clement of Alexandria writing in 180 AD

All agree on the authorship of the gospels.

Look at the dates JOC...they agree with the authors because that is when the authorship was assigned. Also when many of the interpolations and forgeries were perpetrated. The Christian ball was rolling and all sorts of snake oil salesmen were on board by the mid 2nd and 3rd Century with the Pauline Church just attempting to consolidate its power.

The Bishop of Rome in 492 CE decalerd many books and texts anathema, among them all the gnostic gspels, the Ebionite, Marcionite, Syriac and other texts anathema. This list later evolved into the index where the Roman Church sought to suppress and destroy independent thought and scientific discovery.

All the gospels are anonymous. If you have contemporary proof of authorship please present it and claim your Nobel prize for history.

If you have another explanation for this wide and unanimous attestation for the authorship of the gospels, I'd like to hear it.

You have made several claims for authorship of the gospels and other books in the NT...now please prove the claim. Or at least provide more evidence than the wishful thinking you have provided so far.

There is no evidence for the claimed authorship of the gospels, Epistles, Peter, John etc. None. If you got it, not empty claims without foundation then present it. I will be first to congratulate you as you ascend the podium in Oslo.

Oh and do not lie about your posts contents that is frowned upon by the mods. At least use the (edit:???) to show when you have changed a post.

(Edit tags)

JoC,

"The early church simply had certain requirements which it had to decide on and some works were not considered scripture."

"Bel and the Dragon" made it. "Susanna" made it.

"In fact, the church until today, has lot of books it considers as written by the apostles"

The same church that used to sell splinters of the cross, and bones of Jesus and saints, for a modest finders fee obviously.

"the four canonical gospels are said to be contemporaneous accounts of Jesus' life and ministry, the recollections of four of his apostles (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). But careful analysis of these texts suggests otherwise, since from a historian's perspective they seem to be responding to issues and events relating to life in the Holy Lands decades after Jesus' death. Moreover, given their different and sometimes conflicting accounts of his life, we have no choice but to conclude that some of them must contain some degree of "invented history." Worse yet, discoveries in the sands of Egypt have "recovered" evidence of diverse approaches to Christianity, especially in the very early stages of its evolution. These so-called Gnostic gospels paint a very different picture of Christ from the one which orthodox Christians in the day envisioned, and following in their wake, most Christians today do also."

https://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&Civ/chapters/13XITY.htm

"scholars cannot speak—certainly not with any sense of comfort—about the original stimulus producing this religion. That is, no contemporary Jewish or Roman account constitutes primary, external evidence of the actual events of Jesus' life. The closest we come is a brief mention by the Roman historian Tacitusrecounting Nero's cruelty to a sect called Christianos, in the eyes of most Romans at the time a pathetic mob of doom-speakers. To Tacitus, that is, the emperor's savage recrimination against this demented, benighted cult was unwarranted and only served to prove that Nero was a savage and deranged bully, not that Tacitus felt anyone should sympathize with Christians. His point seems to be that civilized people should be ashamed to stand by and watch a sadist butcher morons."

"For the historian, insurmountable difficulties surround Jesus himself. Too little information about the actual man in his day can be verified and too many people care about the interpretation of Christ's life and teaching, a situation which leaves historians with no real hope for achieving consensus. The gospels themselves only exacerbate the problem, since they entail numerous difficulties starting with the very language in which they were published. For all practical purposes, then, Christianity enters history with the appearance of Saint Paul whose writings are the earliest datable Christian documents. In the next three centuries, as the new religion slowly spread across the Roman world, it becomes easier and easier to track its development up to its consummate political triumph, Constantine's conversion in the early fourth century. Research on the evolution of early Christianity and the complex path it followed up to its eventual domination of the West has uncovered an unparalleled wealth of diverse perspectives on Christ, many of which were branded heresies and subsequently disappeared from the historical record. But now archaeology has brought to light several of the texts composed by authors later denounced as subversives. These so-called Gnostic Gospels demonstrate the immense creativity of early Christians and the rich abundance of possibilities inherent within the religion itself."

"At the very heart of Christianity lies the life of Jesus Christ, which from nearly every perspective imaginable involves complications of some sort. Believers can choose to focus on Christ's human suffering or divine transcendence, theologians are left to debate the specific details of his resurrection and, without any contemporary portraits to go by, artists have little or no guidance in depicting him. Most problematical of all, an array of accounts now known as the Gospels ascribed to various disciples connected with him, present different and sometimes incompatible recollections of his teachings. But of all those struggling to situate him in some kind of framework, historians perhaps face the most intimidating challenge of all, trying to figure out what-really-happened in the wake of Jesus' life."

"Indeed, the first century CE presents an excellent example of the difficulties encountered in dealing with the various types of histories. As "remembered history," for instance, the four canonical gospels are said to be contemporaneous accounts of Jesus' life and ministry, the recollections of four of his apostles (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). But careful analysis of these texts suggests otherwise, since from a historian's perspective they seem to be responding to issues and events relating to life in the Holy Lands decades after Jesus' death. Moreover, given their different and sometimes conflicting accounts of his life, we have no choice but to conclude that some of them must contain some degree of "invented history." Worse yet, discoveries in the sands of Egypt have "recovered" evidence of diverse approaches to Christianity, especially in the very early stages of its evolution. These so-called Gnostic gospels paint a very different picture of Christ from the one which orthodox Christians in the day envisioned, and following in their wake, most Christians today do also."

"With all this, savvy historians tend to steer a wide course around Jesus himself. Particularly given the yawning vacuum of external sources for primordial Christianity, scholars cannot speak—certainly not with any sense of comfort—about the original stimulus producing this religion. That is, no contemporary Jewish or Roman account constitutes primary, external evidence of the actual events of Jesus' life. The closest we come is a brief mention by the Roman historian Tacitusrecounting Nero's cruelty to a sect called Christianos, in the eyes of most Romans at the time a pathetic mob of doom-speakers. To Tacitus, that is, the emperor's savage recrimination against this demented, benighted cult was unwarranted and only served to prove that Nero was a savage and deranged bully, not that Tacitus felt anyone should sympathize with Christians. His point seems to be that civilized people should be ashamed to stand by and watch a sadist butcher morons."

"Likewise, the Jewish historian and general Josephus also notes the existence of early Christians, but he was active several decades after Jesus' life and thus cannot serve as an eyewitness to the central events lying at the heart of Christianity. Also, he writes in the aftermath of the Roman holocaust which destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE and inaugurated the infamous diaspora, the Romans' general eviction of the Jews from the Holy Lands. Like Tacitus, then, Josephus' primary attention seems to rest not on Christianity itself but the plight and political crises facing his own people in his day."

"It's a fair question to ask if Jesus even knew Greek, and yet that is the language in which his words are recorded.

Whether or not he did, one thing is clear, the reason the authors of the Gospels chose to write their accounts of Jesus' life in Greek. As the international language of science, philosophy and commerce, both intellectual and economic, the Greek tongue would in those days have reached a much wider audience than Aramaic or Hebrew. The result is that the gospels seem unlikely to represent the actual words spoken by Christ"

...and that's a site where the bias is in favour of Christian beliefs.