Board index ‹ Bible

[Con Artist]

we have the scriptures but how we know that the scriptures were oral claims of that specific Apostle?

[jimwalton]

We know who said what because Matthew and John were both disciples of Jesus and were eyewitnesses to what He (and others) said. Mark was a contemporary, may have traveled with Jesus at least a little bit, and was a good friend of Peter, so we have another eyewitness account Luke was a careful researcher who interviewed eyewitnesses. That's how we know who said what in the New Testament.

Sure, the Gospels are anonymous, but...

First, no anonymous copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John have ever been found. They do not exist, and possibly never have (- Brant Pitre).

Second, there are no actual examples in early Christian history of a document known to have been written by someone other than the person to whom it is attributed, which were deemed acceptable by a sizable segment of the Church. We have no evidence at all that early Christianity accepted pseudonymity as a legitimate device in the testimony that exists. (- Craig Blomberg)

It is utterly implausible that a book circulating around the Roman Empire in multiple copies could somehow at some point be attributed to exactly the same author by scribes throughout the world and yet leave no trace of disagreement in any manuscripts—with all four of the Gospels. If the Gospels were truly anonymous, we would expect to find some attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but the same Gospels attributed to others elsewhere. (- Brant Pitre)

“The Gospel writers saw themselves as writing in a genre that did not require a self-identification of an author.” (Bart Ehrman)

I think the evidence is quite strong that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the authors, but that's a much longer discussion.

As far as the letters of Paul, at least seven of them are universally recognized as authentic, so once again we have a first-hand account.

[Yes Man]

Excellent response.

[Young Maestro]

Taken out of context it almost looks like Ehrman supports your view, but he does not.

Just after the sentence you quote he goes on to say John was not the author of John, the gospels were all anonymous, and they were anonymous because they were written and circulated earlier than the noncanonical gospels:

When Mark wrote his Gospel, he felt no need to establish that his book, as opposed to others, was apostolic. There were no others. So too Matthew and Luke: they were continuing a Gospel tradition, started with Mark, that was widely seen in their circles as authoritative, and so did not need to authorize their message by pretending to be an apostle when they were not. In John’s case the text is authorized: the author claims to be basing his account on the traditions passed on by “the disciple Jesus loved.”

He agrees with the scholarly consensus that these are anonymous works that were assigned authors at a later date (to make them more authoritative):

Their point had to do with the message they wanted to deliver, not with their own identity as authorities who could deliver it. There was no need to establish their authority. The authority lay in what Jesus said and did. It was only later when Christians had lots of Gospel accounts before them, with varieties of perspectives represented, that it was important to stress that this, that, or the other Gospel was the one that got it RIGHT. And to do that, readers, editors, and scribes assigned names to earlier Gospels to show that the person delivering the teaching knew what he was talking about.

[jimwalton]

You misunderstood me. I was not asserting that Ehrman attributed the Gospels to their traditional authors. My only claim, and the use of the quote, was to support the position that a lack of self-identification in the work was typical of the genre and would not necessarily be expected, as many people seem to think. In the sense I was quoting Ehrman, I feel I was being legitimate in the use of it to show the point that anonymity is not necessarily to be equated with inauthenticity or lack of authority.

And, as you can tell from my post and position, I disagree with Ehrman, as others also do.