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Tanstaafl ~

T: "And now we get the 'idea' at an even greater distance."

How so? We can pick up a copy of the Gospel of Mark and read the collected memoirs of Peter, who was not at all distant from the events described therein. We can pick up the Gospel of Matthew and read the sermons of Jesus, which Matthew was on the scene to record.

We're distanced by time and space from the events, yes, but we have access to testimony written by people who were in close proximity to the events, and by others (such as Luke) who were in contact with eyewitnesses of the events.

T: "And the people who wrote down the stories were not his closest followers."

You're partly right. Matthew and John were among Jesus' closest followers. Mark was the assistant of Peter ~ a very close follower of Jesus ~ and much of the Gospel of Mark consists of Mark's presentation of Peter's recollections about Jesus, based in part on early oral traditions shared not only by Peter but by the apostles as a group, being components of the message they preached in Jerusalem in the earliest years of the church. And Luke had ample opportunity during Paul's imprisonment to do research for the writing of the Gospel of Luke, including interviewing various eyewitnesses and first-generation Christians, some of whom he specifically names in the course of his account.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock