Who Really Wrote the Gospels?

[Michie]

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not just code words for anonymous and unreliable authors.​

Most of us take for granted that the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were in fact written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, respectively. In times past, this would have been the obvious assumption, and questioning this assumption would have been seen as an absurd waste of time.

However, no assumption is safe today, and the identity of the authors of the Gospels is now hotly debated by some scholars.

So let’s take a look at this question. Who did write the Gospels? And why does it matter?

Briefly, we should begin by setting the parameters of the question. When talking about who wrote the Gospels, we should clarify whichgospels we are talking about. There are only four canonical Gospels, those purported to be written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are considered authentically part of the New Testament by all Christians the world over. There are a great number of so-called “gospels.” Among others, there are the “Gospel of Judas,” the “Gospel of Mary,” the “Gospel of Thomas,” the “Gospel of Philip,” the Protoevangelium of James, and many more.

These are all recognized as having been written a century or more after the death of Jesus, sometimes several centuries later, and not attributable to those closest disciples of Our Lord, or even to their disciples. While these facts in and of themselves do not mean that they are unreliable historical records, we know that the authors were not divinely inspired, as the Church has discerned and declared the canon of Sacred Scripture, and the canon is closed. Scripture is public revelation from God, and such public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle (see Dei Verbum 4, CCC 66-67, 73). So these so-called “gospels,” though they may be historically interesting documents, are not part of that canon. The authorship of those documents is not at issue here.

The four canonical Gospels were all written during the first century A.D., most likely in the second half. Jimmy Akin, in his book The Bible Is a Catholic Book, writes that the Gospels “came to be known by these names within living memory of the time they were written, when people were aware of who the authors were, and therefore we need to take the authors’ names seriously.”

Continued below.

Who Really Wrote the Gospels?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not just code words for anonymous and unreliable authors of the Gospels. They were real people, divinely inspired.

www.catholic.com

 

[Wolseley]

Who wrote the Gospels?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
(....hold my horse while I get on.)

 

[Bob Crowley]

Off topic a bit, but while I'm no expert in the history and writing of the Gospels, I'm always intrigued that none of them mention the destruction of the Jewish temple, yet supposedly John was written after 70AD, and possibly others.

Imagine someone was writing about a prophet in Australia (now you hold my horse Wolseley - I'll need it for a fast getaway passing through the Birdsville Races on the way).

This prophet went around raising the dead, healing the blind etc, and he was killed as he predicted. But he also stated that the country would be conquered and not one stone of the Federal Parliament building would be left standing on top of another (except for a wailing wall). And sure enough it happened just as he said it would.

When biographies were written about this Australian prophet some years after his death and supposedly after the destruction of the entire nation and federal parliament, not one word was included in the stories about the said destruction despite being orally transmitted and then composed by Australians.

Pull the other one.

 

[Wolseley]

Off topic a bit, but while I'm no expert in the history and writing of the Gospels, I'm always intrigued that none of them mention the destruction of the Jewish temple, yet supposedly John was written after 70AD, and possibly others.

Two of the Gospels do: Matthew 24 and Mark 13 both mention the (coming) destruction of the temple.

Imagine someone was writing about a prophet in Australia (now you hold my horse Wolseley - I'll need it for a fast getaway passing through the Birdsville Races on the way).

 

[FaithT]

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not just code words for anonymous and unreliable authors.​

Most of us take for granted that the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were in fact written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, respectively. In times past, this would have been the obvious assumption, and questioning this assumption would have been seen as an absurd waste of time.

However, no assumption is safe today, and the identity of the authors of the Gospels is now hotly debated by some scholars.

So let’s take a look at this question. Who did write the Gospels? And why does it matter?

Briefly, we should begin by setting the parameters of the question. When talking about who wrote the Gospels, we should clarify whichgospels we are talking about. There are only four canonical Gospels, those purported to be written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are considered authentically part of the New Testament by all Christians the world over. There are a great number of so-called “gospels.” Among others, there are the “Gospel of Judas,” the “Gospel of Mary,” the “Gospel of Thomas,” the “Gospel of Philip,” the Protoevangelium of James, and many more.

These are all recognized as having been written a century or more after the death of Jesus, sometimes several centuries later, and not attributable to those closest disciples of Our Lord, or even to their disciples. While these facts in and of themselves do not mean that they are unreliable historical records, we know that the authors were not divinely inspired, as the Church has discerned and declared the canon of Sacred Scripture, and the canon is closed. Scripture is public revelation from God, and such public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle (see Dei Verbum 4, CCC 66-67, 73). So these so-called “gospels,” though they may be historically interesting documents, are not part of that canon. The authorship of those documents is not at issue here.

The four canonical Gospels were all written during the first century A.D., most likely in the second half. Jimmy Akin, in his book The Bible Is a Catholic Book, writes that the Gospels “came to be known by these names within living memory of the time they were written, when people were aware of who the authors were, and therefore we need to take the authors’ names seriously.”

Continued below.

Who Really Wrote the Gospels?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not just code words for anonymous and unreliable authors of the Gospels. They were real people, divinely inspired.

www.catholic.com

<<<<< We cannot say with any degree of certainty that every word contained in each Gospel came from the hand (or mouth) of the attributed author. >>>>>>

Yeah, I already read it and some parts like the above I quoted don’t sound definitive…..like it says that, and then above further in the article it says that Matthew Mark Luke and John are PURPORTED to be written by them Rather than are written by them.

 

[FaithT]

Who wrote the Gospels?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
(....hold my horse while I get on.)

We said that in grade school, too.

 

[Solo81]

Off topic a bit, but while I'm no expert in the history and writing of the Gospels, I'm always intrigued that none of them mention the destruction of the Jewish temple, yet supposedly John was written after 70AD, and possibly others.

Imagine someone was writing about a prophet in Australia (now you hold my horse Wolseley - I'll need it for a fast getaway passing through the Birdsville Races on the way).

This prophet went around raising the dead, healing the blind etc, and he was killed as he predicted. But he also stated that the country would be conquered and not one stone of the Federal Parliament building would be left standing on top of another (except for a wailing wall). And sure enough it happened just as he said it would.

When biographies were written about this Australian prophet some years after his death and supposedly after the destruction of the entire nation and federal parliament, not one word was included in the stories about the said destruction despite being orally transmitted and then composed by Australians.

Pull the other one.

But how is the destruction of the Temple of any great significance in terms of salvation or in the words and resurrection of Jesus?
The Apostles were out preaching - fully expecting Jesus to return in their lifetime - and it was mostly in the latter days of their lives- when his return hadn't happened - that they decided to commit certain recollections to papyrus or parchment.
They weren't acting as historians and surely had no inclination that their words would still be doing the rounds, 2000 years after the events happened.

 

[Bob Crowley]

My point is that there are arguments about when the Gospels were written. I think they were all written prior to the destruction of the temple in 70AD as not one of the writers mentions that as past history. Two of them record it as a prediction by Christ but not one of them comments on it as a fact.

This is despite the reality they were all Jews except for Luke and his sources were Jewish. The destruction of the temple was one of the most traumatic events in Jewish history but they're all silent on the issue.

They were historians enough to mention Herod the Great, the census, the sojourn to Egypt, the visit of the wise men, Pontius Pilate, Annas and Caiaphas, Golgotha, Calvary, Judas's suicide, the potter's field, centurions, Zealots, Saducees and Pharisees, Herod Antipas, Salome and the dance of the seven veils.

But they're curiously quiet when it comes to the the actual destruction of the Temple, Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews.

Why? Because it hadn't happened yet.

 

[Solo81]

Good point.