by jimwalton » Thu Jul 23, 2015 12:41 pm
It has been well established by scholarship, both Christian and secular, that Paul most certainly (far beyond a reasonable doubt) wrote Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Evidence is strong that he wrote Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians, though some debate this. What is most debated is 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus. That's nowhere near a legitimate crack in the armor.
I have been studying the authorship of the gospels deeply for about a year now (I'm actually thinking of writing a book. Well, I've started to write, having done the research. I've looked at the ancient documents, the ancient attributions, quotes from the gospels in ancient works, the manuscripts, fragments, and uncials themselves.)
All the gospels are anonymous. It was the nature of the genre, just like modern novels. Authors don't put their own names in novels, whether historical or fictional. I'll have to be brief about the gospels here. There's too much information for this format.
MATTHEW. There is no ancient copy without his name on it. The early church fathers were unanimous in attributing it to Matthew. There has been no debate over authorship until modern times. There are a few arguments against his authorship (It doesn't sound like an eyewitness; an eyewitness would not have to access information from another source). Those pale in contrast to the arguments in Matthew's favor:
- The author seems to have been a highly educated Jew.
- The author was familiar with technical aspects of the Jewish law.
- The author was a conservative-minded Jew.
- The gospel uses material that details Messianic titles (such as “The Prophet,” and “the Righteous One”) that were already archaic in the time of Jesus. This would give credence to an early writing date by a close follower.
- The interest of the Gospel in the Law, in ecclesiastical matters, in oral interpretation of law and custom, would come most readily from a man trained in the legal disciplines, or from one who had been in constant touch with men so trained. Matthew the Jew, who was also a tax collector, fits that profile.
- The preservation of sayings of Jesus about the Law, and about some of its interpreters and interpretations, would be precisely the kind of interest we might expect from someone who was probably a Levite.
- The gospel’s parables reflect interest in the spiritual history of Israel as God’s chosen people.
- Mark is not necessarily a source. Recent scholarship has called into question both the traditional view that Matthew got his material from Mark, and even got it from Q. Some scholars now are positing that Matthew was written before Mark. Though Matthew is often accused of stealing much of his content from Mark, the contrast between Matthew and Mark is characteristic of their stories from start to finish.
The archaic expressions, interest in ecclesiastical matters, carefully recorded statements of Jesus about the Law, a conservative type of eschatology, together with an already dying method of commentary, all serve to convince us that we are dealing with an author very similar to what we would expect Matthew to be like. There is no evidence from the first century that it was ever doubted that Matthew was the writer of Matthew, and we have little reason to doubt it either.
MARK. Again, the early church fathers were unanimous in attributing the writing of it to Mark. There is substantial evidence that Mark could have been the author.
- The early church fathers unanimously recognized Mark as the author.
- It doesn’t make sense that anyone would have pasted the name of Mark on a gospel if he were not the author. What makes more sense is that they would have attributed it to Peter or James if they were trying to ascribe credibility to the work. There is no reason anyone would have attached Mark’s name to the book unless he had actually written it.
- The use of Aramaic words and phrases in the book are evidence that the author lived in Jerusalem.
- The use of biblical quotations and allusions to prophecy imply that the author was Jewish.
- The gospel has similarities to items and emphases that also occur in Paul’s writings, attesting that the author was possibly well acquainted with the apostle Paul.
- The quality of the Greek in the book is only average, consistent with what can be expected from Palestinian Jews of the era.
- The Gentile orientation of the gospel could be evidence that it was written by someone familiar with the Gentile world. (Peter is believed to have been in Rome from AD 55-60 [an argument by W.T. Manson], and that Mark was there with him.) The gospel has Latin words transliterated into Greek (Mk. 15.39), and Jewish customs are explained as if a Gentile audience may be unfamiliar with them (Mk. 7.3-5)
There is substantial evidence that Mark could have been the author.
LUKE.
- The uniform testimony of the early church is that Luke was the author.
- There are numerous technical medical terms in the gospel, consistent with Dr. Luke (Col. 4.14) as the author.
- The Greek in Luke has a high quality consistent with a Gentile author.
- His knowledge of Palestinian geography and customs betrays that he is not a Palestinian.
- He claims not to have been an eyewitness, but to have gotten his information from others, which is consistent with Luke.
- The author was well educated.
- The author was acquainted with both Old Testament literary traditions and Hellenistic literary techniques.
- The title “According to Luke” is on the oldest extant manuscripts.
There is little evidence offered from scholarship that Luke was not the author.
JOHN. I have six listed reasons that John was not the author, and 15 that substantiate that he was. (I'm not sure you want me to list them all, or this post is going to be ridiculously long, though I can do that if you wish.)
The upshot is that the evidence is quite strong that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the authors of the 4 gospels, and that they were written within about 30-40 years of the life of Jesus (which, to us, compares back to 1975 or 1985. Do you think we could write a reasonable biography of Ronald Reagan as President, or of the Watergate break-in of the 1970s?). Some would put the writing of Mark in the late 50s (which has historical evidence to support it), and Luke and Matthew in the early 60s, and possibly John by the late 60s. (While most scholarship puts John later than that, it is aggressively debated.)
I don't want to go on and on. (Well, I do! but I won't...) There are a bunch of vocal minimalists out there, but they don't have the weight of evidence in their camp. I have made lists of the extant manuscript evidence for the gospels, and the quotes from early sources. It's pretty impressive (Those can be in subsequent posts, as you wish), but far from conclusive. What we have to do is infer to the most logical conclusion, which is, evidentially speaking, the traditional viewpoint. No crack in the armor here.