TomboyMom

In a different forum, I said: A Christian replied:
Actually, the only reason I know that this is the common view among contemporary scholars, (which I actually do know how to spell) is that you'all told me so, in the basic questions sticky above, which comprises my total education on the subject. Can you help me answer his question? Thanks.

Ruhan

The view that the Gospels were written by eye witnesses is only held at seminaries and theological universities where the belief in original authorship is one of the criteria for employment.

The main scolars such as Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, Bruce M. Metzger or anyone teaching at non religious Universities all view the Gospels to have been written by other authors. You literally have to ignore a mountain of textual evidence to reach a different conclusion.

Here is some more info on this:

http://www.atheistoolbox.com/fcb4.php

Codec

I'm no scholar of the bible, but its my understanding that IF you take the gospels to be written by who they are purported to be (and that is a huge if) and the associated history then:

1. Mark got his information from St. Peter in Rome - so 2nd hand at best, and a fair time after the events. There are certainly doubts about his geographical knowledge.
2. Matthew at best might have been an eye witness. However he copied a lot of Mark, word for word sometimes - why would an eye witness do that?
3. Luke was not an eye witness (I think - I'm a little hazy on his life history pre acts) but might have associated with those who were - particularly Paul (who was no eye witness to Jesus but was to his own adventures!).
4. John - at best an eye witness, but rather unlikely.

Against all that, the dating evidence seems to indicate ~70AD onwards. So most of them would have been pretty old by then.

hatsoff

Did the authors have direct communication with eyewitnesses? Maybe. I doubt Matthew or Luke did, since they relied on an already-second-hand source. The authors of GMark or GJohn may have drawn on first-hand testimony, but without sufficient evidence it's impossible to arrive at any firm conclusions.

As for eyewitness authorship, you can discard Mark and Luke. So we need to look at Matthew, then John.

Of course, it's pretty much impossible to quantify with any precision the scientific consensus or lack thereof concerning these things. There's just no satisfactory way to measure opinion. However, it is fair to say that virtually every single non-Christian scholar believes Matthew did not write the Gospel which bears his name. In the Christian scholarly community, there is a great deal of division. Christian scholar Richard Heard, for example, says this:
The tradition that the apostle Matthew wrote our first gospel, or an Aramaic gospel of which the Greek is a translation, went unchallenged from the middle of the second century to the nineteenth century, but can no longer be defended with any confidence. The main reason for this lies in the fact, now generally accepted, that the first gospel is not a translation from the Aramaic, but was composed originally in Greek on the basis of at least two written Greek sources, Mark and Q. The comparatively few narrative additions made by the evangelist include some more suggestive of legendary accretion than the pen of an apostle (e.g. 17: 24-27, 27: 51-53), although much of the teaching material peculiar to Matthew is universally recognised as of high value.

Daniel Wallace, on the other hand, has this to say:
Although there are some difficulties with Matthean authorship, none of them presents major obstacles, in spite of some scholars calling Matthean authorship “impossible.”

I think it's fair to say that within the non-Christian community, there is an overwhelming consensus against Matthean authorship, whereas in the Christian scholarly community there is no clear (to me, anyway) majority either way.

I know much less about GJohn, so I'll leave that for another fellow to answer.

TomboyMom

Aren't these two sentences contradictory? Did you maybe leave out a "not"? Or am I having reading comprehension problems?

Amaleq13

There is no question in your quote but I think it might be a good idea for your response to focus on the "But all scholarship I'v found worth reading agrees..." portion. You might offer the suggestion that he may be limiting his knowledge by limiting his sources to whatever he finds "worth reading". That sounds rather insular. Even Christian sources (eg The Catholic Study Bible) are willing to admit that such a claim is difficult to sustain and that it is not the generally held view in modern scholarship.

hatsoff

Yup, I meant to say they believe he "did not" write it. Typos are my enemy. I have now edited the original post to read correctly.

andrewcriddle

Mark and Luke may well have written the Gospels attributed to them however they are unilkely to have been eyewitnesses

Matthew and John would have been eyewitnesses but are unlikely to have written the Gospels attributed to them (at least in anything like their present form).

Andrew Criddle

jgibson000

Could you please name the seminaries and "theological universities" that have/use this reputed criteria for employment

Didn't Metzger teach at the Princenton Divinity School?

Jeffrey Gibson

jgibson000

Better yet, you might ask him just what this scholarship actually is. That is to say, ask him for the names of the scholars whose works he's been reading and what the criteria he uses for determining what is and what is not worth reading actually are.

Jeffrey Gibson