If you look at my posts previously in this thread you will see some of the evidence. One of the evidences concerns the question I have been asking you, to which I have not yet seen a specific answer: If the Gospels were not originally identified as to the author, as you claimed, why is there no other surviving tradition of another author for the Gospels? If the Gospels did not receive their titles early inevitably a multiplicity of titles would have arisen as people speculated about who had written them, a problem which would have only gotten worse with the passage of time and increasing number of copies being circulated and being given different titles by different libraries and collectors.
Moreover, as I have asked you before, how did these anonymous writers convince the early church that they knew what they were writing about? How could the early church accept them as authoritative unless they knew who had written them and that the writers knew what they were writing about? And how in the world did these anonymous writers manage to bamboozle first and second generation eyewitnesses that their anonymous writings were authoritative? Why was there, as far as we know from the surviving evidence, no speculation about who had written these "anonymous" Gospels?
If you are going to make a claim, as you did, that the Gospels were not originally identified as to the author then the burden of proof to provide positive evidence for the claim is on you. You need to explain how to overcome the foregoing critical problems inherent in your claim.
Was it given the Church imprimatur?
Yes. These writings came to be recognized as inspired revelation of God which is the source of their authority, and in the first 2 centuries of the Church apostolic authenticity and/or authority was the criteria for deciding to keep or reject a particular writing.
Where does Jesus explicitly name Daniel as the author?
Cordially,
If you look at my posts previously in this thread you will see some of the evidence.
Some of the evidence, sure. But let us look at a good place of analysis. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1988/who-wrote-the-bible-part-4 uses these sources:
The Literary Guide to the Bible, edited by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, Belknap Press, 1987
The Gospel of John, by William Barclay, Westminster John Knox Press, 1975
The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, by Robin Lane Fox, Knopf, 1992
The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins, by Burton Mack, HarperSanFrancisco, 1993
Testament, by David Morell, Warner Books, 1993
The Synoptic Gospels, by Keith F. Nickle, John Knox Press, 1980
The Historical Figure of Jesus, by E.P. Sanders, Penguin Books, 1993
The Catholic Encyclopedia - online at www.newadvent.org/cathen/
in order to arrive at this:
As with the Old Testament, we just don't know who wrote most of the New Testament. Tradition has assigned the Gospels and most of the Epistles to certain authors, all of whom were important figures in Jesus' life or the early days of the faith. It was important for the early church to believe the authors wrote the works attributed to them, since their eminence lent the writings authority. But since we don't have the original signatures, none can be verified except through textual clues.
The first generation of Christians didn't see any need for a permanent written record of the sayings and stories of Jesus. Jesus' return and the restoration of the Kingdom of God on earth were imminent--why bother preserving stories if the world was about to end? Stories were simply passed along orally, primarily as a means of preaching and convincing outsiders. But as the first generation began to die off and hopes for the Second Coming dimmed, there was a need to preserve Jesus' words and deeds for posterity.
Quite a few collections of stories about Jesus circulated in the early church, among them The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary, and the Secret Book of John. Some of these gave very different and in some cases conflicting accounts of the gospel and, most importantly, of Jesus' alleged resurrection. Some argued for the physical resurrection, with the mantle of leadership falling on those who had experienced it firsthand: the apostles. Others said the resurrection was a spiritual event that anyone could experience. Some thought this latter "heresy" would have led the church away from an organized entity into a situation where anyone could judge the truth for themselves. As Elaine Pagels points out in The Gnostic Gospel, this was no trivial matter. The decision on which interpretation was "correct" was central to the future of the church.
We'll return to the question of how the "canonical" books of the New Testament were determined in the fifth and last installment of this answer. For now we'll just say that Iraneus, the bishop of Lyons in 180 AD, decided that the validity of any work had to be judged by whether it was "apostolic." That is, it should have been written by or for one of the twelve apostles. But, as Pagels goes on to say, regardless of whether the names given to the Gospels are those of the actual authors or merely reflect a claim to apostolic authority, "we know virtually nothing about the persons who wrote the Gospels."
It was important to note that the Gospels were written by either eyewitnesses or with their input, but at a much later date than Jesus' Incarnation. Another conjecture is that the Q source may have been written by a community or group of writers who were eyewitnesses, and used by the Gospel writers as a source much later. And think of this: why would Matthew (traditionally the tax collector and Apostle and eyewitness) need to use Mark (a non witness) as a source?
Where does Jesus explicitly name Daniel as the author?
Matthew 24:15-16
Wrong. Your NIV source says:
15 “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’[a] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
This does not say, neither does it say anywhere that Daniel wrote the Book of Daniel.