Hooberus,
The accounts of the lives of these gods are very mythical, whereas the accounts given in the new Testament are written in the historical.
I misunderstood your point, and with that out look I can agree. Most religous writtings were not in book form, with the exception of the Book of the dead from egypt, but that book really didn't deal with historical data, it was more or less a rule book and what you do if something goes wrong type book. Most of the rest of the writings were in poetry and song, not in a "Story" or "Novel" form like the OT was.
Yes the gospels were not written by Paul, as well as the others you mentioned, that I fully agree with and I think most scholars as well do. But that does not keep it from being Paulien Christianity, most books of the bible (NT) were not discovered or I should say used until later in the 2nd century, with the exception of some of Paul's letters (the Gospel of Mark is also date to the later half of the first century circa 65-75ad). As peacefulpete said Paul and the other writers of the NT books did not quote from the Gospels. An interesting quote from the Sierra Reference Encyclopedia is as follows:
Jesus was not the founder of Christianity as we know it today. Most of theNew Testament doesn't even concern the historical Jesus while the main influence is the Apostle Paul and a Greek convert named John.
Paul never met Jesus in the flesh, he only claimed some strange vision and proceeded to paganize the teachings of Jesus (who preached an enlightened form of Judaism), until he created Pauline Christianity. Because there are no known writings from Jesus, the actual Apostles, or anyone that actually knew Him in the flesh (other then perhaps James), most of what He taught is lost forever.
The beginning of Christianity stands two figures: Jesus and Paul. Jesus is regarded by Christians as the founder of their religion, in that the events of his life comprise the foundation story of Christianity; but Paul is regarded as the great interpreter of Jesus' mission, who explained, in a way that Jesus himself never did, how Jesus' life and death fitted into a cosmic scheme of salvation, stretching from the creation of Adam to the end of time. The doctrines of Christianity come mostly from the teaching or influence of Paul, a Pharisee(?) who rejected his Pharisaic Judaism and converted to Christ. Paul would later be placed over his Jewish-Christian rivals by a Gnostic heretic named Marcion
Now many of the books atributed to even Paul are not by him, they were written by someone else and given his name. The only books that are a match to having been written by Paul are I Corinthians, Romans, II Corinthians, I Thessalonians, Galatians, Philemon, and Philippians.
Now the gospels...... they are another work of fraud, none of them were written by anyone that knew Jesus, The book of Luke is in acutallity a copy of the Gospel Of the Lord with some editing, the Gospel of truth was written by Marcion who was considered a heritic, but in actuality it appears he had a profound infulence on Christianity as well as Paul. His influence is still being debated however. here is a link to his gospel and a comaprison of the 2 gospels (Luke and Lord) http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/3827/Library.html
The Gospel of Mark is the ealries known, but some argue that Matthew was earlier. Mark has been shown to have been edited, the verses after chapter 16 verse 8, have been added and are not found in the earliest copies, so it really makes me wonder what else has been changed. Aside from that Mark never met Jesus.
Matthew really doen't show up on the scene until about the begining of the 3nd century, but there is a reference to it by Eusibeus speaking of Paipius in the early 2nd century refering to Matthew, but this is debated hotly and the Matthew paipius refers to is thought to be the Gospel of the Hebrews not the gospel we now know as Matthew.
John........ This quote sums it up best for most of the gospels:
"As with the synoptics, the real name of the author of John is unknown. Certain similarities between the gospel, letters and Apocalypse that now bear that name led the early Christians to imagine that they had been the work of a single author; and since the redactor of Apocalypse had called himself Ioannes, that name was attached to the unsigned works also. In fact, while the author of Apocalypse had been a Jew whose Greek (Koine) left a lot to be desired, the author of John was a native Greek whose handling of that language was skilled and erudite."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
John is also considered very anti-semitic in many circles, but that is another topic.
Seedy