Hello Sheng-Ta Tsai, thanks for responding.

You said:

"No sir. They are not. They are common people. Mark's family might have owned a house large enough to accommodate 12 people, but that hardly meant they were upper class. Housing in that time was cheap enough that non-elites can own one. Matthew was hired by the Roman government, but he is a commoner nonetheless. One does not need to learn to write good Greek to collect tax from Aramaic-speaking people. He just needs to know math, and be able to verbally communicate with his boss using Greek."

Tax collectors were not commoners.

They were despised, but they were wealthy. Typically, they were despised because of how wealthy they were growing by taking money from commoners.

Of course Matthew needed to read and write Greek. He needed to keep records his bosses could check. Do you really think Rome would be content to let someone collect taxes whose work they couldn't check?

You said:

"There is a large gap between being able to talk in Greek and write a short book using Greek. Most high school graduates in the U.S., whose mother tongue is English, can't write something at the same literary level as that of the Gospel of Mark, using English."

Irrelevant, since we're discussing entirely different cultures, languages, styles of education, and requirements for literacy in multiple languages.

You said:

"Not sure why you brought up Luke. He was a gentile and his mother tongue was probably Greek. He is not relevant to my argument."

I didn't bring him up in relation to your argument, but in relation to mine. The Gospel authors weren't peasants or commoners. All had extensive education and opportunity.

You said:

"John may have friends in the priest family, but he was a fisherman, for God's sake! Given that you seem to be well-read at least in the evangelical scholarship, I find it perplexing that you would make such a claim that is so out of tune with what is known about John."

What is known about John is much more than you're letting on.

John's early life in the Gospels isn't that of a simple fisherman.

John is first met as a disciple of John the Baptist, along with Andrew. He goes and stays with Jesus when John points Jesus out.

While Jesus goes into the wilderness, John and Andrew don't follow. Andrew's brother Peter is a fisherman, and Andrew seems to return to him. John goes with him.

When Jesus next encounters them, He recruits them, and they come immediately -- something typically only done if you know the person who is calling you.

It would seem that if John was known to the high priest, this had to happen before he became a disciple of John the Baptist. It's not hard to connect the dots: John comes from a wealthy, well-connected family, such that he is personally known by the high priest, one of the people at the very top of Israelite society.

John leaves this life of privilege to follow John the Baptist. He follows Andrew briefly in fishing, presumably waiting for Jesus to return from the wilderness, then follows Jesus exclusively.