Roland

Few Bible scholars still take seriously the notion that the four canonical gospels were actually written by the men whose names are attached to them. Still, many evangelical Christians still cling to the notion that the early Church fathers knew what they were talking about when they assigned the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to the works.

It is for those who still believe that there is some reason to accept that antiquated notion, therefore, that I have composed this article, intending to show that it defies credibility for one to continue to subscribe to that belief.

First of all, let’s begin with Matthew and John since, of the four, they are the only ones thought to be actual members of the original twelve apostles who lived with Jesus and would, therefore, seem to be privy to the facts of his illustrious life and career. Yet, if this were so, how can we account for the fact that the gospels the two men wrote have very few events in common and virtually none of the sayings of Jesus? I guess we could assume that they just happened to remember, or at least record, different things, but is it likely that John and only John would recall such quotable gems as “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me” or “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life”? That would be like writing a dissertation on the works of Shakespeare and failing to note “To be or not to be” or “Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your ears” in the quote section. Could Matthew have been so dense?

Now, I suppose that it is POSSIBLE (though, I suggest, highly unlikely) that Matthew might not have heard, remembered or cared enough about those statements to quote them, but the real trouble comes when we look at the two remaining gospels to see if they were also written by the men whose names adorn them. The traditional belief is that Mark was a traveling companion to Peter, another of the original twelve. Yet, if this were true, why would Peter’s recollections match up so well with Matthew’s and with John’s hardly at all? And, again, PETER wouldn’t think it fit to cite any of those marvelous quotable tidbits that only John ends up recording? Where were Matthew and Peter anyway when all these great and memorable lines were pouring with such abundance out of Jesus’ mouth – quotes that go to the very heart of the gospel message of salvation? And why do Matthew and Peter seem to remember basically the same sayings and John doesn’t?

Now we come to the fourth gospel – the one according to Luke. It is believed by traditionalists that Luke was a traveling companion of Paul who, as Luke himself claims in his address to Theophilus at the beginning of the work, was intending to provide his own “orderly account” of the events of Jesus’ life. Yet, all he ends up doing, basically, is rehashing Matthew and Mark and completely ignoring most of what is said in the Gospel of John. And, again, not one of John’s great quotes (surely most of Jesus’ “best lines”) makes it into Luke’s account.

Is it even slightly plausible that these men could have had anything to do with the composition of these gospels? I claim it is highly IMPLAUSIBLE to make that assertion and to hold on to that belief. Four different accounts written by four “independent eyewitnesses” to these events would never fall out the way these gospels have, with three adhering very closely to one another in their observations and the fourth going so far off on its own. If these really WERE independent, eyewitness accounts, they should all be a mixture of what we find in the Synoptics and what we find in John. That is the only logical assumption.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John could not have been written by the men tradition tells us were their authors - or, at least, not all of them could.

Paul Baxter

lots of people believe that lemmings jump off cliffs. I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you just gloating that a large number of xian laymen believe something which doesn't have much, if any, proof? Aren't you content that they believe in God?

Roland

What's YOUR point? The whole reason for this site is to debate issues like this one. This is, after all, the INTERNET INFIDELS discussion forum. 90% of the posts on here try to counter the beliefs of theists. That's what the site is FOR!

Vinnie

I hav tackled the issue of GJohn and the synoptics in much more depth here:

http://www.acfaith.com/gjohn.html

I point out numerous instances of contradictions ranging from the temple cleansing, to John the baptist to the widely diverging sayings material.

The problem is if we dismiss John as not being written by an eyewitness we still have all three "synoptic Gospels". These gospels have so much in common (double and triple traditions) that they are lumped together as such.

No material has been brought forth which dismisses any of these works and to be quite honest, only a few posters here would probably be able to challenge a knowledgeable scholar's arguments for Lucan authorship of Luke-Acts.

The only real possibility for traditional authorship is the gospel of Luke but under certain assumptions. Mark is next but I would say its historically certain canonical Mark was not written under Peter's care or directly from Peter's preaching.

Luke is not the fourth Gospel. John is the fourth.

Correct but serious scholars do maintain Lucan authorship. My memory may be faltering but Joseph Fitzmeyer would be one example.

Do you subscribe to the Mark without Q position? Luke copied Mark but added numerous details (the entire double tradition shared with Matthew!), omitted material and altered things.

Thus far you have not presented one evidence against Lucan authorship.

You may say John and Luke are incompatible but that still would not mean Luke did not write Luke as no one claims Luke is an eyewitness. Many might say Paul knew about the HJ and told luke but this evangelical nonsense is nonsense and nothing more. Given the divorce saying in Paul, lack of many clear parallels to Gospel material and missing references and so forth, we have no idea how much Paul knew about the HJ. In fact, Paul was concerned primarily with the risen Jesus.

Regarding Mark we do know two different authors with diverging theologies independently decided to use it as a very major source of their own Gospels within thirty years of its composition. Maybe it embodies a content in general alignment with apostolic preaching???

Agreed! Matthew and John could not have both been written by eyewitnesses.

Some evidence which does not state "eyewitnesses did not write all four Gospels" but which focuses on them indivudally:

Mark was not written under an eyewitnesseses care as evidenced in another thread.

If Matthew was an eyewitness why draw from the non-eyewitness Gospel of Mark (see discussion of Mark!!!)
which was heavily redacted and also, why draw from a heavily redacted sayings document with stages as those formulated by recent Q scholars? It makes little sense for an eyewitness to use such developed material when he or she was present.

The portrait in the synoptics of Jesus who speaks of the kingdom of God and speaks of God rather than himself and who speaks in parables is extremely better attested historically than the Johannine picture (Q and Thomas!). This rules out John being written by an eyewitness and there probably never was an original composition of John.

Lucan authorship? Thats more complex to me but I don't consider the question too important so I have not immersed myself in the relevant literature. I just know that most scholars dismiss it but that quite a few serious scholars would accept Lucan authorship. Of course, lets not get into the we passages in Acts

Vinnie

sodium

That's an interesting point. Is there a list of sayings in common between John and the Synoptics. It does seem far fetched to believe that John (by which I mean merely the author of John's gospel) was working from the same original batch of sayings as the other gospel writers, but selected a completely different set.

Of course, John may have wanted to stress different issues, but is there really that rigid a way to divide the sayings? I just flipped around and found these sayings,

"Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son"
John 14:13 (RSV)

My Bible refers me to, Mt 7.7
"Ask and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened."

So, here, we have a similar idea, but conveyed with totally different words. If both writers are drawing from the same original sayings-set, it seems like just luck that neither used the other's saying. Even if some historical accident brought the one saying to Matthew and the other to John, it should still be just luck that they ended up with different sayings. So, I'm also curious about how often this kind of thing occurs.

Paul Baxter

I suppose my only point, which I admit I didn't make at all clear, is that although lots of people accept the traditional author names, nothing of any import at all hangs on the NAMES of the evangelists. Other than the later ascribed titles, there's not much to say about the particular names of the writers. Matthew and Mark in particular have almost nothing to argue for any author in particular.

To go another route (the converse of what I said before) scholarly type Christians generally don't care what the names of the evangelists were (outside of historical curiousity and hypothesis). And I've seen evidence, on the other hand, of people in this forum just assuming the names of the traditional authors. Of course, since we don't know, most just use the old names instead of inventing new ones (or modify them reasonably to something like "John the evangelist").

To simply pick on popular, unscholarly opinion seems a bit like bullying, which is what I was pointing to with the lemming analogy. Why not argue with a stronger position instead of a weaker one?

Roland

Vinnie: No material has been brought forth which dismisses any of these works and to be quite honest, only a few posters here would probably be able to challenge a knowledgeable scholar's arguments for Lucan authorship of Luke-Acts.

Roland: Maybe my original point wasn't stated as clearly as it should have been. I guess my point was that ALL the gospels could not have been written by the four men assigned to them. I'm not trying to make the case that NONE of them could have been. I sort of mentioned that in my last sentence but I should have made it clearer.

Vinnie: The only real possibility for traditional authorship is the gospel of Luke but under certain assumptions. Mark is next but I would say its historically certain canonical Mark was not written under Peter's care or directly from Peter's preaching.

Roland: I agree.


Vinnie: Luke is not the fourth Gospel. John is the fourth.

Roland: Sorry, by "fourth" here I wasn't referring to its place chronologically, but rather "fourth" in my argument.


Vinnie: Do you subscribe to the Mark without Q position? Luke copied Mark but added numerous details (the entire double tradition shared with Matthew!), omitted material and altered things.

Roland: Here, too, I may not have been as clear as I could have been. I do subscribe to the Q position. I was speaking of this from a traditionalist's viewpoint, one who already accepts that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the gospels. To THAT person, it would not have mattered who wrote which gospel first because they would all be independent from one another. I was trying to point out that it is illogical to hold that position given the obvious dependency of the Synoptics on each other.


Vinnie: Thus far you have not presented one evidence against Lucan authorship.

Roland: Again, that really wasn't my point, as evidenced by the last sentence of the article. Thanks for pointing that out, though.

Vinnie, thank you for providing such a thorough response. The point of my article was to try to provide rational reasons for why all four of these people could not have composed the gospels assigned to them based on several factors. Your responses have given me much to think about.No material has been brought forth which dismisses any of these works and to be quite honest, only a few posters here would probably be able to challenge a knowledgeable scholar's arguments for Lucan authorship of Luke-Acts.

Roland

Vinnie -

I apologize for my incompetence with the editing function here. Sometimes I can get it to work and sometimes I cannot.

Roland

To clarify my position and the point of my article:

I was not trying to show that EACH individual gospel couldn't have been written by the specified person, but that WHEN ALL FORU WORKS ARE PUT TOGETHER, the odds that they ALL were written by the assigned authors drop precipitously. Whole books have been written on the subject of gospel authorship. This article was intended as a way for people to stand back and see the lack of coomon sense and logic in accepting the COLLECTIVE assigned authorship of the canonical gospels.

I hope that's a bit clearer.