Hi David,

Your response reveals the sort of problems to which I allude in my articles.

You will undoubtedly have more confidence in the early church than I do. For you it consisted of genuine people seeking the truth. For me it was in charge of the narrative and, as the expression goes, the winners write the history. It's quite a long time since I read this material, but from memory Papias, Irenaeus, and also Eusebius, don't gave a great reputation for the truth among alternative scholars, but are claimed to have been writing propaganda. Can you name these “historical documents from early church history” which make these claims? Also who wrote them, and any other relevant information?

Mark's reliance on the testimony of Peter is possibly one of the stories the church created. If that were true, we would then be faced with the uncomfortable question, was Peter completely unaware of the Sermon on the Mount (as indeed was John)?

We are retreading a familiar argument. Believing Christians like you will want as much possible to follow the official narrative. Those who are suspicious of this narrative will tend to believe the alternative scholars. Here's an example from wikipedia: “The New Testament also includes two general epistles, First Peter and Second Peter, that are traditionally attributed to him, but modern scholarship generally rejects the Petrine authorship of both. Nevertheless, Evangelicals and Catholics have always affirmed Peter's authorship, and recently, a growing number of scholars have revived the claim of Petrine authorship of these epistles”.

The quote continues: “Outside of the New Testament, several apocryphal books were later attributed to him, in particular the Acts of Peter, Gospel of Peter, Preaching of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, and Judgment of Peter, although scholars believe these works to be pseudepigrapha”. That would seem to be evidence that several works were falsely attributed to Peter. Why not therefore Mark's Gospel? You will find the fact that the Church claimed this more impressive than I do.