text: I find your comments plausible for Mark, since, if I remember what I read when working of Mark, one interpretation was that Jesus' Galilean disciples were throughly trashed because there was a Jerusalem faction struggling for leadership. But why would that carry over to Luke, Matthew, and then to John, who seem to have distinct theological agendas? Still, there remains Brandon's Jesus, the Zealot, which does see struggles for secular power afoot. Still, if Jesus and John were involved in a secular struggle, it does not seem to appear in the early church communities, which by the end of the century are accommodating more or less fully to Greek philosophy and Roman ethos. i.e., Colossians, Ephesians, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and John. 
  What I particularly like about Meier is his careful consideration of each periscope. What i find pleasing about Dunn is his attention to the structure of oral tradition (who said Q was a written document?). I am @mac.com