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Originally Posted by awareness
Well thought out considerations bro VIW. Thanks.
But seems to me there's lots of conjecturing going on; by Nigel, the scholars, Nee & Lee, and even yourself bro VIW. There's never going to be certitude or consensus concerning the gospels, of content or publication. Only faith reconciles it.
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Actually, what VIW helped me with was a question that is worth asking: how did the gospels come to be written? Obviously we're not going to come up with certitude, but still it is profitable to make conjecture. The order of composition, and whom is dependent upon whom, is pointing to that, I believe.
How did the testimony of Jesus' life, work, and person transit from oral to written tradition? Nigel's study, the Synoptic Problem, VIW's comments, all could be helpful. They don't have to solve a problem, but rather shed some light on it. Good enough.
Possibly there were 4 critical factors in the evolution of the written gospel tradition. (1) First of all, they already had "scriptures", what we call the OT. (2) The oral tradition was aimed at showing that Jesus the Nazarene was the sought-after and hoped-for Messiah predicted in the OT. All the speeches in Acts point to this kind of "referential" view. Also see Acts 17:11 "The noble Berean Jews eagerly searched the scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true". (3) You had letters (epistles) being composed. Church tradition, and logic, say that this would be fairly early in the process. So there were already written NT documents existent. (4) Out of this, the gospels began to formulate themselves (I am supposing here).
For (4) see e.g.
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Luke 1:1-3 "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus;…"
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So we are not nit-picking here. And definitive answers don't need to tumble out of the closet. More light is good enough. I was really helped by VIW's thinking.