Bede

Luke, companion of Paul, almost certainly wrote Luke and it may not have been anonymous at all as Peter () pointed out a few weeks ago.

John is almost certainly derived from the beloved disciple who was most probably John son of Zebedee.

Precisely because Mark is a nobody and non-eye witness we can go with the name. Clearly no one has tried to increase the reputation of the gospel by pinning an apostle's name to it.

And Matthew. Well, I've always been a fan of his having compiled Q and the author of the Gospel taking over the apostolic name attached to his major source.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Biff the unclean

If John O' Zebedee, brother of Jim, wrote John then who wrote The Acts of John? AoJ is the only gospel IIRC that is written in the first person and actually makes the claim that the attributed author actually is the author. But AoJ is Gnostic and anathema. It says that Jesus' feet never touched the ground and that your hand would pass through him sometimes when you tried to touch him, and sometimes not.

Yuri Kuchinsky

A nice bunch of bald assertions, Bede...

Quote:

Precisely because Mark is a nobody and non-eye witness we can go with the name.

Since we know nothing about who wrote Mark (or where), therefore the canonical attribution is correct... Hmm... OK.

Quote:

Clearly no one has tried to increase the reputation of the gospel by pinning an apostle's name to it.

I guess we should be thankful for this!

Quote:

And Matthew. Well, I've always been a fan of his having compiled Q and the author of the Gospel taking over the apostolic name attached to his major source.

There was no Q. (One bald assertion deserves another...) :banghead:

Best,

Yuri.

Vorkosigan

LOL.

Doctor X

Others have noted Bede's claims without, and often contrary to, evidence.

I would hope a "companion" to Paul would at least do a better job at describing the events that led to his "Mein Kampf" aka Galatians. . . .

At least Q has evidence for its existence. . . .

--J.D.

Vinnie

Did Mark copy down the eywitness preaching of Peter?

No!

This question was settled in here.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...=Papias+Vinnie

Still though, it is very possible that an unknown "mark" did actually write GMark.

Vinnie

Iasion

Greetings Haran,

Thanks for your reply :-)

A possibility, but extremely unlikely in my view -
All of the earliest Christian writings are completely WITHOUT reference to any evangelists.
If they were so well known - how on Earth did they BECOME so well known?

Presumably through early Christian writings which are ALL now lost;
whilst somehow ONLY the documents which FAIL to mention any evangelists survived !
This sounds like special pleading (and perhaps an argument from silence :-).

Consider the list of earliest Christian writings which do NOT mention any Evangelist :
Hebrews, 1 John, Colossians, James, 2 Thess., Revelation, Barnabas, Clement, Didakhe, Jude, 2,3 John, Aristides, Hermas, Marcion, to Diognetus, 2 Clement, (3) Pastorals, 2 Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, Justin Martyr, (7) Ignatiana, (2) Polycarp, anti Montanist, Teatise on the Resurrection, Julius Cassianus, Acts of Paul, Theodotus, Minucius Felix, Tatian, (2) Athenagoras, Theophilus, Polycrates.

Thats over 40 books by about 20 authors who do NOT mention any evangelist.
But if the evangelists were really "so well known" that 40 books fail to mention them, surely that would mean there must have been roughly as many or more works which DID mention them, but are now lost - I cannot accept that argument - it beggars belief to think that ALL the early works which mentioned them were lost, but ONLY those which didn't, survived.

Alternatively, if the evangelists were "so well known" by Oral Tradition, why on earth do over 40 earliest Christian works FAIL to mention that Oral tradition?

No,
I think the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence is that the Gospels were only named in late 2nd century (probably by Irenaeus.)

Yes,
they do,
but (as Vinnie noted)
the earliest such mss are from c.200 (e.g. the much discussed P75 which ends G.John and starts G.Luke)
which doesn't argue either way.

A perfectly reasonable request - some authorities who agree include :
Kurt Aland
Raymond E. Brown
E.P.Sanders
New Jerome Biblical Commentary
Richard Carrier
From memory, I think Metzger agrees, but I could be wrong - indeed that is the very point of the post, and I look forward to debate on this issue.

Iasion

Vinnie

Authorities for what? I thought it was common knowledge that the vast majority of critical scholars do not accept traditional authorship? This is old news. What gives???

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

Ias,

I thought Theophilus (of Antioch) mentions GJohn....

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

1 Clement goes out of his way to mention Peter and Paul, as Christians who were steadfast all their lives.

Presumably Peter and Paul were also well known, but that does not stop Clement naming them.

Clement does give some quotes similar to the Gospel (perhaps he heard part of the Gospels read, and was quoting from memory, or was paraphrasing), yet he never names any Gospeller.