LeonMire

I understand why early Christians would attribute Gospels to "firsthand" witnesses like Matthew and John, disciples of Jesus. But why would anyone attribute a Gospel to Mark and Luke? They would have based their Gospels on second-hand knowledge, either from Peter or Paul, and that doesn't seem like a very strong argument for authority, especially when there are Gospels supposedly written by Peter himself floating around. Why wouldn't the early Christians have attributed it to someone more prominent, like another disciple, instead of these obscure figures?

Johnny Skeptic

Well, I question the entire process of why only a selected group of writiings were chosen for the New Testament Canon when surely there were some other writings that were rejected. Doesn't Mountainman believe the Eusebius had great influence over which writings were chosen for the canon?

Peter Kirby

The most obvious answer is out of favor here: dudes known as Mark and Luke, respectively, were known to have written them.

Later on, the only way to get a shot at authority for a Gospel is to claim an eyewitness apostle for its authorship (think of all the apocryphal Gospels, now think of how many of them are attributed to someone other than an apostle).

Peter Kirby

Yes, but he is in a fantasy world of his own creation. His Eusebius is not historical, and he (mountainman) has simply turned a lark into a crusade, as Roger Pearse has once shown. No doubt he would express umbrage at that opinion. He doesn't just tilt at windmills; he goes at them full-bore.

Toto

I think that Mark's name came from Papias. There was an early record of someone named Mark writing things down from the apostles' mouths, so this name was used for the gospel.

Irenaeus deduced that Luke wrote the third gospel and Acts. He thought that the "we" passages meant that Acts was written by someone who had traveled with Paul, and picked Luke's name from Paul's letters as someone who seemed to have traveled with Paul at those times.