I should have added that to my characterization. I might see, or remember, the history slightly differently. My memory is that putting the name "Joe" to something a writer, say "Fred," was penning was not considered wrong or theft if it was Joe's words that he was recording.
Authorship in general was not what we think of today. A writer could leave the name off or put the name of whose work or teaching he was telling. I believe it was considered worse to put one's own name to it in these cases.
I addition so much of these biblical and other works started as oral histories and we have "as told to as told to as told to" attributions required for complete accuracy.
I believe one of the main things the NT books have going for them in this regard is they are written much closer to the actual events than other writings - relatively of course.
I want to emphasize again that our view of "history" as a field or endeavor of writing is not much known at this time. We have to be somewhat careful reading our assumptions of biography or non-fiction back into these works.
Yes, of course. Most history in those days were narratives based on narratives. And we know what happens when we have a group of people and we give the first person a simple fact and let every person pass it on to the next person. By the time you come to the last person the story doesn't even resemble the original.