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Essay on Authorship of Matthew, Mark, Luke
The authors of virtually all of the gospels are unlikely to be the same as the names attributed to them. In effect, all of the gospels including Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Thomas, Peter, Mary Magdalen, et al can be said to be forgeries. They were written by some unknown author who was writing down supposedly what was said or taught by the more notable figurehead. Such authorship was not necessarily intended to deceive, but may have been more the case of a celebrity having someone else do the arduous task of actually writing down the teachings in some cases an act of admiration or humility. In the latter case, to have signed one's own name to the teachings of, say, Matthew might have been considered an act of hubris, and in some sense, a false attribution.
It is generally assumed by many scholars that Jesus had siblings. The idea of his having a twin brother is not necessarily questionable unless of course one has the public relations job of attempting to cast a wholly unique and extraordinary character to the principal character in one's story. A twin brother might likely have as great a claim to fame as the other and this possibility does not bode well for a contrived philosophy which demands the highest level of exceptionality for their deity.
Ehrman has noted that, “The name Thomas is an Aramaic equivalent of the Greek word Didymus , which means ‘twin'. Thomas was allegedly Jesus' identical twin, other-wise known as Jude (Mark 6:3), or Didymus Judas Thomas.” The idea of a son of god sharing pre-birth space with a mortal may seem illogical, but does have at least one other example that of the Greek god Heracles (the Roman Hercules), whose mortal twin was Iphicles.....
