Cretinist

Donald Morgan says in <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/intro.html" target="_blank">this</a> article:

"Many biblical authors are unknown. Where an author has been named, that name has sometimes been selected by pious believers rather than given by the author himself."

Richard Carrier says in <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/NTcanon.html" target="_blank">this</a> article:

"The Gospels cannot really be dated, nor are the real authors known. Their names were assigned early, but not early enough for us to be confident they were accurately known."

I need some more indepth info on this please.

Sojourner553

try this:

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/NEWTEST.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/NEWTEST.TXT</a>


also referenced as Section III, Chapter II in:

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html</a>

Cretinist

Thank you.

If anyone has anything else to input or links to provide, please don't hesitate to do so.

Peter Kirby

The four names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are clearly ascribed to the four canonical Gospels by Irenaeus of Lyons c. 180 CE.

Justin Martyr, writing 150-160, knows of certain gospels termed 'memoirs of the apostles' but does not refer to any of them by name. This suggests that the gospels had not yet acquired their present titles.

Papias c. 130 refers to Matthew writing the oracles (or sayings) of the Lord in the Hebrew language. The description of canonical Matthew as a mere collection of sayings does not fit. This suggests that the Gospel of Matthew as known to us had not yet acquired the title "According to Matthew," which allows Papias to have a different writing in mind.

The fourth gospel goes to great lengths to conceal the name of the beloved disciple (or, at least, not to mention it explicitly). Thus, it seems quite unikely that the author would have defeated his efforts from the start by placing the words "According to John" at the top.

The very concept of a title "According to X" seems to presuppose that there was more than one gospel in circulation and that they had to be differentiated by supposed name. Thus, if Mark was the first gospel, there would be no need to make such a differentiation, and indeed the beginning of Mark is suggested by the words, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

The only one of the four gospels that I think may have originally stated a title with the author's name is the Gospel of Luke. This is because a recipient is named (Theophilus) and because the author in the prologue states that there have been many attempts to make an account about Jesus, which would require that the author find some way to differentiate his own gospel.

best,
Peter Kirby

Tercel

Hi Cretinist,
Basically, all the copies of the gospels we have are headed with the titles: "According to XXX".

However it is doubted by some (especially by skeptics) that these titles were on the original manuscripts.

As Peter Kirby has noted, it is a rather strange title to have unless it is known there is more than one Gospel around that needs to be distinguished. On the other hand, if there were earlier Gospels or forms of Gospels floating around than the 4 standard ones, then it would seem not intrinsically impossible for those (or at least something similar) to be the original names of the Gospels.

I must object to Peter's interpretation of Justin Matyr's statements:
"Justin Martyr, writing 150-160, knows of certain gospels termed 'memoirs of the apostles' but does not refer to any of them by name. This suggests that the gospels had not yet acquired their present titles."
Martyr was writing an Apologetic to the Pagans. The Pagans would not have had a clue what he meant by "Gospels" (the word itself means "Good News"), so he uses the term "memoirs of the apostles", which his reader could have understood in terms of an analogy with the "Memorabilia" of Xenophon which he quotes elsewhere. He notes however that the Christians call these memoirs Gospels: "...the Apostles in their memoirs that are called gospels..." (I Apol., lxvi, 3). He also tells us that these memoirs were considered scripture and read in Church along with the writings of the prophets. And that these memoirs were composed by the Apostles and those who followed them. (Dial., ciii)

I don't think the point Peter raised against the Gospel of John as having its original title carries much weight. The name of the "beloved disciple" is pretty easy to guess and thus, I think, clearly supposed to be already known. If it's an attempted cover-up, then it's the world's worst.

I agree that the G. of Luke was probably titled originally, for the reasons Peter mentioned, but also because it takes the form of a more learned work and should have the author's name on it somewhere. If not in the work, then surely in the title.

ex-preacher

I attended conservative seminaries and was taught from the start that none of the gospels had titles originally. You seem to assert here that most non-skeptic scholars think the original manuscripts had titles. Please cite your evidence. It is worth noting that the conservative New International Version omits titles to the gospel texts.

<strong> This is weakened by the fact that even diehard conservatives recognize that neither Mark nor Luke were apostles. Further, common sense and modern scholarship have dealt a death blow to the notion that Matthew was written by an eyewitness.

<strong> Strange then, that so many scholars have concluded that the apostle John was not the author of the fourth gospel. Even the conservative Word Biblical Commentary on John concludes that the author was not the apostle John.

Vorkosigan

The name of the "beloved disciple" is pretty easy to guess

Sure, it's easy to guess. It's just difficult to be right.

Vorkosigan

Tercel

Sorry, I did sort of mis-imply that.
My complaint is that too often I see straight out statements that the Gospels are anonymous and that their titles were attached in the second century etc. All that may be true, but it is speculation, not fact.

No it isn't. Mark and Luke were supposed to be companions of Peter and Paul respectively. And Matthew and John were supposed to be disciples. Thus when Justin says that the gospels were composed by the Apostles and those who followed them, it seems perfectly likely he is referring to the Gospels of Matthew and John (and possibly Peter) as composed by apostles and the Gospels of Mark and Luke as composed by those who followed apostles.

The question here is not: "Did the apostle John write the Gospel of John?". But rather: "Did the original Gospel of John have John's name in the title?"
The Gospel of John portrays itself in the text as being by John (if in a somewhat roundabout way). Hence I see no reason why John's name could not have been in the title. Also since it is generally agreed that GJohn was the last of the 4 Gospels to be written, it seems entirely possible that a name would have been used to distinguish it from the others.
(As to the completely different question of whether John actually wrote GJohn, I happen to think it entirely possible that he was responsible for a significant part of it. However that is not the question at issue here.)

ex-preacher

The four canonical gospels are anonymous. This is a fact. None of the gospels contain a claim by the author that he/she was an eyewitness. This is a fact.

If you can prove otherwise, please do.

Peter Kirby

Tercel writes: As Peter Kirby has noted, it is a rather strange title to have unless it is known there is more than one Gospel around that needs to be distinguished. On the other hand, if there were earlier Gospels or forms of Gospels floating around than the 4 standard ones, then it would seem not intrinsically impossible for those (or at least something similar) to be the original names of the Gospels.

I suppose it is possible that there were other gospels "floating around" before the Gospel of Mark. That would preserve the possibility of original titles at the expense of giving priority to non-canonical materials. (Just the possibility, of course. I think that the title of Mark is indicated in the first verse.) This raises other questions. Why didn't these gospels survive; or if they did, which are they - the Gospel of Thomas, perhaps? And, assuming that being written by the apostles or followers of apostles is the criterion for canonicity, why were these writings excluded from the canon?

Tercel writes: He also tells us that these memoirs were considered scripture and read in Church along with the writings of the prophets. And that these memoirs were composed by the Apostles and those who followed them. (Dial., ciii)

What Justin doesn't do is attach a name to any of these gospels, other than referring to an episode in Mark as belonging to the memoirs of Peter. There would have been nothing preventing Justin from mentioning the gospels by name in an apologetic work, particularly in the Dialogue with Trypho in which the opponent is portrayed as having some knowledge about the story of Jesus. That Justin does not mention the gospels by title suggests the plausibility if not the certainty that the present titles had not yet been attached.

Tercel writes: I don't think the point Peter raised against the Gospel of John as having its original title carries much weight. The name of the "beloved disciple" is pretty easy to guess and thus, I think, clearly supposed to be already known. If it's an attempted cover-up, then it's the world's worst.

With Vorkosigan, I think it is easy to guess but hard to know that you've guessed right, since a number of possibilities have been suggested.

There is the possibility that the beloved disciple was a disciple that is not mentioned by name in other literature.

There is the possibility that the beloved disciple was Lazarus. This is the guess of Vernard Eller, who thinks it to be unlikely that the writer had John bar Zebedee in mind.

<a href="http://www.hccentral.com/eller8/" target="_blank">http://www.hccentral.com/eller8/</a>

There is the possibility that the beloved disciples was James the Just. This is the learned conclusion of Frank McCoy, defended in several articles.

<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/9917" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/9917</a>
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/9921" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/9921</a>
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/9928" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/9928</a>
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/9933" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/9933</a>

There is the possibility that the beloved disciple is Mary Magdalene, as propounded at this web site.

<a href="http://www.beloveddisciple.org/" target="_blank">http://www.beloveddisciple.org/</a>

There is the possibility that the beloved disciples is Thomas, as suggested by James Charlesworth and disputed here.

<a href="http://ramon_k_jusino.tripod.com/charlesworth.html" target="_blank">http://ramon_k_jusino.tripod.com/charlesworth.html</a>

Then there is the possibility that the beloved disciples is John the apostle, which is the tradition of the church. But this is only a possibility.

Finally, the idea that the anonymity of the beloved disciple is "an attempted cover-up" is not the point at all. Perhaps the author wanted it to be obvious to the immediate audience that the beloved disciple was to be identified as John. That is not the point. The point is that the author had a literary strategy of leaving the beloved disciple unnamed, for whatever reason, as shown by the text of the fourth gospel. Thus, it is unlikely that the author would have made this literary strategy come to nought by putting "According to John" at the top.

best,
Peter Kirby