dadroz:
Anyway, the last book of the New Testament, Revelation, was written in about A.D. 90 by John, of course when he was VERY old, just before he died. As for the hundreds of other writings that people have labeled gospels and assigned to Philip, Thomas, Judas (curious that he was able to write after he hanged himself), you're right, they're a bunch of bull. 1) The last book of the NT, Revelation, was not the last of the books to be written. Both several of Pauls letters, as well as the Gospel of John, are younger than Revelation.
2) Paul wrote some of the letters (ascribed to him), himself. Other, later letters were written by others.
3) The John that wrote Revelation is not the same as the John that used to hang around with Jesus.
No serious historians, Christian or otherwise, have any reason to doubt that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by who they're associated with or at least an amanuensis (scribe/secretary) who accompanied them. As far as we know, Luke wrote Acts, Paul wrote to the Roman church, the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Perhaps Paul, but many scholars say Luke, wrote the letter to the Hebrews, James wrote James, Peter wrote his two letters, John wrote three letters, Jude wrote Jude, and John wrote Revelation.
4) You claim that "no serious historian, Christian or otherwise, have any reason to doubt that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written by who they`re associated with or at least an amanuensis who accompanied them". But on the other hand, this is exactly what all (aside from some theologically un-trained Bible fundamentalists) serious historian, christians and otherwise, claim to be the case, regarding most of the texts. The Gospel of John, for example, was a product of the Johannine community. No serious historians believe that it was written by John, or even some who knew John personally. It came from that community, no more, no less. The same is the case with other texts, in particular several of Pauls letters, which were written long after his death (and weren`t really "his" letters, but they came from the christian community of Paul, and was in coherence with his thought and views).
Of course anything after A.D. 90 would be ridiculous to associate with disciples of Christ, which is a huge factor in the fact that any other books were rejected by most churches.
5) The time in which the texts were written, hasn`t got much to with whether they were dismissed or not. The texts that were dismissed, were dismissed because they adhered to a different school of thought/christianity than the one that eventually were victorius in this "battle" over christianity. The gnostics lost, that`s all.
If you can find the records of votes for the canon, very few churches voted against Matthew to Revelation, and very few voted for any other writings.
6) The Revelation of John just barely made it into the canon at Nicea.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
<-----Self-portrait, after reading this response....