The first 4 books of the New Testament are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The word "gospel" means "good news" and the "good news" of all 4 gospels is the testament they give to the life of Jesus. They are considered the most authoritative sources for his teachings and life, and are the most important books in Christian scripture. But what is the source of their authority? This post will be a critical examination of gospel authorship.
Traditional attribution has it that the Gospels were written by their namesakes, Matthew (the tax-collector disciple of Jesus), Mark (the secretary of Simon Peter), Luke (the physician travelling companion of Paul), and John (Jesus' beloved disciple). Indeed, the apostlic association of those authors was an important factor in determining the canonicity of the gospels. However, modern critical biblical scholarship does not support the traditional attribution for any of them.
The Traditional Ascription of Gospel Authorship
So, how did the traditional attributions of authorship arise? To understand that we must review a little history of the early Christian Church. Historians consider this perid to be between the death of Jesus (c. 33 CE) and the First Council of Nicea (325 CE). That period can be subdivided into the Apostolic period in which Jesus' apostles were still alive and the post-Apostilic period where they weren't. Thus, the Apostolic period would start c. 33 CE. When the last apostle died is subject to debate. The figure I will use is c. 90 CE. The post-Apostolic period, then, would be between c. 90 CE and 325 CE.
The gospels, with the possible exception of John, were written in the Apostolic period. None of them have claimed authorship. In other words, Matthew does not claim to have been written by Matthew; Mark does not claim to have been written by Mark; Luke does not claim to have been written by Luke; and John does not claim to have been written by John [1]. It is not until the post-Apostolic period that we get the first indications of the traditional authorship.
Papias (c. 65 CE - c 155 CE) writing in the early 2nd century is credited with attributing the authorship of Matthew and Mark. Unfortunately the only writings of Papias that survive today are the ones that were quoted by other Ante-Nicene Fathers[2]. The reason for this is that Papias does not seem to be well thought of. Church historian, Eusebius of Casarea, writing in the 4th century CE referred to him as "a man of small mental capacity".
Papias claimed to come by his information 3rd hand. He said that whenever any "Presbyters" (elderly church officials) came by, he would ask them for direct quotes from the Apostles. Here is what Eusebius quotes him of saying concerning the gospels of Mark and Matthew:
Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements. Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could
However, this presents us with a few problems:
(1) Papias implies that Mark is not arranged chronologically, but the Gospel of Mark most certainly is chronologically arranged.
(2) Papias says that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, internal evidence (to be discussed later) strongly suggests the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek.
(3) Papias says that Matthew collected "oracles" or sayings, but the Gospel of Matthew is a narrative.
These problems have caused some scholars to express doubt that Papias was talking about the same Gospels of Mark and Matthew that we know today. But in any case, once we look at the existing evidence for the traditional attribution of authorship for Matthew and Mark we find that it is not strong.
Let's now look at the third gospel, the Gospel of Luke. Irenaeus writing c. 170 CE is the first to attribute the authorship to Luke the traveling companion of Paul. This seems to be done on the basis of an inferrence. Both the Gospel of Luke and Acts were written by the same person. They both refer to a person named "Theophilus" in the salutation, Acts apparently refers to the Gospel of Luke in the salutation (Acts 1:1-2), and the Greek is similar in style between the two. Much of Acts deal with the activities of the apostle Paul. It is mostly written in the 3rd person. However, in a few places (Acts 16:11-17, 20:5-15, 21:1-18, 27:1-29, and 28:16) the author switches to the first person plural. These are the so-called "we passages" of Acts. Irenaeus felt like these passages could have occurred when Luke was also present. For instance Acts 27:1-29 & Acts 28:16 refer to Paul's imprisonment in Rome. The Pauline epistle, Philemon is thought to have been written while Paul was imprisoned there and it mentions Luke as though he were with Paul at the time.
However, Luke is not mentioned in Acts. Besides Philemon (above), Luke is only mentioned two other times; (1) in Colossians and 2 Timothy. Modern critical scholarship considers both of those to be forgeries (evidence for that to be presented in an upcoming blog). So biblical support for Luke being present during the "we passages" is mostly lacking. This too is very weak evidence.
That brings us to the fourth and final canonical gospel, the Gospel of John. Again, it was Irenaeus (c 170 CE) who was the first to attribute authorship to John. Eusebius of Casarea says that Irenaeus got that information from Polycarp under whom he studied. Polycarp supposedly studied under John. Furthermore, some have inferred Johanine authorship because that particular gospel makes numerous references to Jesus' "Beloved disciple". If such a disciple were to have existed then he must have been an important one. From the other three gospels the impression is given that Jesus' three most important disciples are the fisherman, Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. The Gospel of John mentions Peter and James by name, but makes no mention of John. Could John be using "beloved disciple" as a euphemism for himself in the Gospel of John. Some people think so.
However, the traditional attestation of authorship has been contested for about as long as the claim has been made. Numerous other people have been purported to have been the author. Furthermore, there is strong internal evidence that John was unlikely to have been the author (to be presented later in this blog).
So the evidence that arises from the earliest sources does not appear strong as to the authorship. But while not strong, nothing has yet been presented that suggests traditional ascription of authorship is wrong. Other than the Gospel of John, none of the early church leaders disputed authorship. And even for the Gospel of John evidence that other putative authors wrote it is even worse than the evidence that John wrote it. So unless there is evidence that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were NOT the authors of the gospels, isn't it better to tentatively assume they were, even with the poor evidence we do have? Normally I would say, "yes". But there is evidence that they are not the authors of their respective gospels. I have already alluded to it above. That evidence lies internally within the Gospels themselves.
A Closer Look at the Gospels
If one reads all 4 Gospels then one notices that three of them (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) have similar pericopes[3], similar chronology, and even agree nearly word-for-word at several points. The other one, John, is quite different in style, its chronology is hard to reconcile with the others, and there is not the large overlap in pericopes. This has led biblical scholars to refer to Matthew, Mark, and Luke as the SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. "Synoptic" means having the same view. It is also a problem that needs an explanation.
The Synoptic Problem
The word-for-word agreement found in many pericopes is surprising. For one thing all the gospels are written in Greek, but Jesus would have spoken Aramaic. His words would need to have been translated into Greek. One would not expect independent translators to come up with the exact same phraseology. But that is what we often get in the synoptics. This has led scholars to propose that the synoptics are NOT independent sources. They feel that one of them must have been used as the source for the other two. That would mean that one was written before the others. That one ... the first one ... would be the source for the other two. But which one?
Markan Priority
The vast majority of biblical scholars think that the first one was Mark. The evidence for that belief is:
(a) Mark is the shortest Gospel. The idea here is that Mark being written significantly before the others, the theology behind Christianity was more primitive. The authors of Matthew and Luke then would have added to the Markan pericopes details that would support their theological beliefs. It is easier to understand why Matthew and Luke would have added to Mark than it is to understand why Mark would have intentionally left out important details (such as Jesus' birth narrative).
(b) Virtually all of Mark is included in Matthew or Luke. Matthew and Luke each have material found nowhere else[4]. The easiest way to see this is that Matthew and Luke copied Mark and not the other way around.
(c) There are many places where Matthew and Mark seem to agree and Luke is in disagreement. There are many places where Luke and Mark seem to agree and Matthew is in disagreement. But there are very few places where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark. Again this suggests that Matthew and Luke independently changed the wording in Mark instead of Mark copying from one of the others.
(d) Mark is written in the worst Greek. The Greek for Matthew and especially Luke is much more polished. It is easy to see that Matthew and Luke would want to "smarten up" Mark's Greek, but it is hard to see why Mark would want to "dumb down" Matthew or Luke's Greek.
Thus, the overall evidence suggests that Mark was the first Gospel. This hypothesis is called MARKAN PRIORITY.
The Two-Source Hypothesis
There is a further complication that needs to be discussed. There are certain sayings of Jesus' that both Matthew and Luke have that are not found in Mark. Strangely though, Matthew and Luke will insert these sayings into different pericopes. How do we explain that? In the early 1800's German biblical scholars developed an hypothesis that has become accepted by a majority of critical biblical scholars of today. They proposed that besides Mark, Matthew and Luke shared a second source. That source would have been one that includes only sayings attributed to Jesus. Matthew and Luke then would have inserted the sayings in pericopes where each deemed appropriate. This "sayings source" is lost to us today. The German scholars gave it a code name -- Q (from the German word "quelle" meaning "source"). At first this two-source hypothesis was criticized for (1) not having a copy of it in existence, and (2) no "sayings gospels" were known. That criticism was somewhat mitigated with the discovery in 1914 of the Gospel of Thomas. While the Gospel of Thomas is not "Q", it is a gospel that contains only sayings attributed to Jesus. It shows that such Gospels were in existence at the time.
So What Does It All Mean?
What it means is that traditional authorship for Mark and Matthew is highly in doubt. Mark was supposedly born in North Africa. Therefore his native language should have been Greek. Furthermore, he was employed as a translator for Simon Peter, so why was his Greek so bad?
Matthew was a disciple of Jesus. He should have been a witness to the events. It doesn't make sense that he would have used a second-hand source like Mark as well. Nor for that matter is there any reason why he should have used a source like "Q" for his sayings. Nothing in Matthew suggests the author had first-hand knowledge of Jesus.
Luke is not ruled out as the author of the Gospel of Luke, but everything within it also suggest that his sources lie somewhat distant from Jesus as well. The questioning of Lukan authorship comes more from interesting discrepencies between his other book, Acts, and the accepted Pauline epistles. These suggest that whoever the author was, he was not as close to Paul as has been claimed.
Here are examples of discrepencies:
Acts claims that Paul studied under Gamaliel. Gamaliel was a member of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin. Paul was born in Tarsus, which happens to have been a major center for Jewish learning. It is much more likely that he studied there. In none of the Pauline epistles does Paul ever claim the authority of Gamaliel even where such a claim might have benefited him
Acts claims that after his conversion and a stay in Damascus the Jews tried to kill him but he escaped by being let down the wall in a basket. From there he went to see the disciples in Jerusalem (Acts 9:19b-30). However, Paul says that he escaped from King Aretas, a Nabatean not a Jew, by being lowered in a basket(2 Corinthians 11:32-33). Furthermore in Galatians (1:13-17), Paul says after his conversion he DID not go to Jerusalem, he went to Arabia for 3 years. Arabia would have been controlled by the Nabateans at that time. It is unlikely that he would escape from the King of the Nabatean's guards only to run straight into more dangerous territory. So it is likely the basket-lowering escape came some time after that. Acts claims that Paul was a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37-38, 22:22-29, 23:27). However, Paul never claims that and in fact, boasts of having received lashes and stonings, punishments that were forbidden to Roman citizens (2 Corinthians 11:24-25).
So to summarize on the authorship of the Gospel of Luke ... We know that whoever wrote Luke also wrote Acts. There are a number of discrepencies between Acts and the undisputed Pauline epistles. This suggests that whoever wrote Acts did not know Paul all that well. Luke was supposed to be a traveling companion, physician, and confidant of Paul. Thus, it is unlikely that Luke wrote Acts, and therefore unlikely that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke.
That brings us to the fourth and final Gospel ... the Gospel of John. What is the evidence that John, the beloved disciple did not write it? That main part of the evidence lies in the major differences between it and the Synoptic Gospels. The Synoptic Gospels have Jesus' ministry in Galilee, an area in North Israel. Jesus goes to Jerusalem only at the end of his ministry. Everything within Jesus' ministry fits well within a time frame of a single year. The Gospel of John, on the other hand, discusses Jesus' ministry as though it were primarily in Jerusalem. His ministry lasts at least 3 years. And the Gospel of John shows no signs of knowing hardly any of the pericopes of Jesus found in the synoptics ... even the ones in which the synoptics say that the disciple John was explicitly present.
Finally, the Gospel of John contains some sophisticated theology. It is John that tells us that Jesus and God is one and the same person (John 1:1-17). Such theology probably did not develop until the early part of the 2nd century. It is unlikely that John was alive at that time. Indeed, if the "beloved disciple" is supposed to be John, the Gospel of John suggests he wasn't at the time it was written (John 21:20-23)
Thus, with the poor evidence supporting traditional ascription of authorship, and the somewhat better evidence against it, we are forced to reject traditional authorship of the gospels. So if Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn't write them ... who did? That informtion is long lost to history. But the internal evidence suggests that none of them are eyewitness testimonies to Jesus. None of them can even be reliably placed as second hand information concerning Jesus. There is certainly enough distance between the Gospels and a historical Jesus to cast doubt on any miraculous events associated with him.
NOTES
[1] However, the Gospel of John does claim to have been written by a disciple (John 21:24).
[2] The term "Ante-Nicene Fathers" refer to leaders of the early Christian Church.
[3] A "pericope" is a short biblical story.
[4] There is a twist that I will deal with shortly concerning the sayings source "Q".
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