Who wrote the four canonical Gospels?¬† Easy peasy, you say! (or not)¬† Flip open the table of contents, and the first four books are listed directly under “The New Testament”:¬† Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.¬† End of discussion.¬† Short post.
According to tradition, the Apostle Matthew (the former tax collector) wrote the first Gospel; Mark (scroll down) was believed to be a companion of Peter (and perhaps his secretary); Luke (scroll down) was a companion of Paul; and John was¬† the ‘beloved’ Apostle.¬† The problem is that the original Gospels were written anonymously.¬† The names (and the titles) were assigned decades after they were written.¬† Scholars have long wondered why the Gospels were written anonymously when appeal to being an eyewitness (esp. for Matthew and John) could have strengthened their persuasive power.
There are other internal evidences that the Gospels are not eyewitness accounts.¬† The author of Luke begins the book by referring to accounts that were “handed down” to him by eyewitnesses.¬† Bart Ehrman points out (p. 53) that if Jesus was abandoned by his followers, questioned by Pilate and then immediately executed, John could not have witnessed firsthand Jesus’ trial.¬† Also, Jesus and his followers spoke Aramaic, but the gospels were written in fluent Greek.¬† Finally, the majority of contemporary Biblical scholars are convinced that Matthew and Luke copied from Mark (called the “Synoptic problem”–this will be the subject of the next Bible Study).¬† While these arguments are easily dismissed in isolation (Matthew and John may have spent several decades learning literary Greek, for example), taken together (with other arguments as well) they are very convincing.
So who did write the Gospels?¬† We don’t know.¬† However, we can guess at a few things, such as when each gospel was written.¬† There is a general consensus that they were all written between 35 to 70 years after the death of Jesus, with Mark being the earliest and John the latest (HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, Gospels, p. 386).¬† Initially, stories and teachings of Jesus were transmitted orally.¬† Only later were they written down (perhaps as the first generation of leaders and eyewitnesses began dying off).
With this foundation in place, we can begin looking at the special character of each Gospel.¬† Why was it that only the story of Herod’s massacre of the innocents is preserved only in Matthew?¬† Why is Jesus crankier in Mark than in the other Gospels? Why does the crucifixion take place at a slightly (but significantly) different time between Mark and John?¬† These answers and more, in our next installments!
Next week, we’ll take a look at the Synoptic problem: that is, why most scholars are convinced that Matthew and Luke copied entire sections (as well as structure) from Mark, and why you should care.
Let me know what you think about this first installment.  Is it too much, too little, or not at all what you were hoping to learn?
22 responses so far ↓
1 John White // Jan 15, 2007 at 8:38 am
> Is it too much, too little, or not at all what you were hoping to learn?
Goldilocks. That is, “This one’s juuuuust right.”
2 Elise // Jan 15, 2007 at 9:42 am
I agree, just right. Thanks for the links - I haven’t had time to check each one out yet, but plan to do so later.
3 Parker // Jan 15, 2007 at 3:42 pm
That is good, John, Keep them coming.
4 Johnny // Jan 15, 2007 at 10:53 pm
I agree with the others…me likie!
I am interested in what people think is the significance of these facts. What does it mean if the gospels were not written as thought?
For me I find this sort of information liberating. It seems that it should be able to free people from some unhealthy dogmatism. Also, it allows me to appreciate the Bible in a way I am not able to if I am taking a traditional (Bible as grounding for systematic theology) approach.
5 John // Jan 15, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Johnny, you asked the questions that earlier today I was thinking I should have asked. Thank you!
I’m with you on the feeling of liberation. Reading these theories made me fall in love with the Bible again. I found that I could appreciate it on my own terms (primarily as religious history) using the approaches and methodology that worked so well for me in other disciplines.
6 Jonathan // Jan 16, 2007 at 9:57 am
John - good stuff! Even though I haven’t read Misquoting Jesus yet, I’ve heard all these issues before. I wonder - does Ehrmann address prophecies? I am probably jumping the gun on good stuff for later, but that subject is my biggest bone of contention - especially with how Matthew strangely says stuff was ‘fulfilled’ when it in fact appears to have not been a prophecy that was fulfilled at all in the sense I understand it.
Anyway, I was actually curious what both you and Johnny meant by saying that because the traditionally held ideas of the authorship of the gospels is questionable due to sketchy evidence that you find that this is liberating? I apologize in advance for the stupid question because I feel like my mind is gone since the surgery and I am operating on 20% of my original thinking ability
What is liberating about it? I am not at all interested in a debate, I’m just curious 
My only guess is that because of these issues, the gospels are no more than interesting reading for people interesting in religious history, but are not to be taken seriously, or to be believed as historically accurate. This is a sensible conclusion to make…
but… this leads me to another interesting subject which has intrigued me lately - in light of the fact that modern thinking requires physical evidence before believing in something as a fact, what can be done with events in the past that are only available to us via word of mouth (or written account) with no external evidence beyond that? Is it possible that they can be legitimately believed? The reason I ask is twofold - I have been reading up a little on 18th and 19th century philosophy, and the question came up there. Johnny, I know for sure you’re any expert in this, and you’ve talked about related subjects before on your old site (evidentism?). Secondly, this ties into the study of the Gospels and has its own implications on how we should treat them.
So I was just curious about what you guys think. I know you both love philosophy, and have probably read a lot on this subject - I’m just a beginner in it, so I wanted to pump you both for info on it…
7 Watt Mahoun // Jan 16, 2007 at 11:26 am
Thanks, John.
You know, I remember the idea which held me strongly to the literal truth of the scriptures regardless of any higher criticism…that God shepherded the words through all the vicissitudes of history to arrive exactly as he would have them in the LDS version. In light of this belief and with the added belief in personal revelation I had no problem ignoring the problems presented here.
But all it took was the disintegration of my LDS faith for the whole house to come down, NT and all.
So I don’t share your love of the scriptures for the same reason that I could not continue to love anything that betrayed me so completely. Sure there’s beauty there which I could continue to appreciate…but the intermingled treachery tempers any adoration I may be otherwise tempted to offer.
8 Matt Bowman // Jan 16, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Jonathan - I’ve heard somewhere that Matthew refers to prophecies that seem to appear nowhere else in Judaic writings. Is that what you’re referring to?
As to your question, it reminds me of Rahner’s classic distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith; his conclusion is simply that neither can be truly reached through the tools of empiricism and historical research. They are thus essentially inseparable, both dependent upon the testimonies of Christ’s first believers. The Christ of faith thus relies on faith, not on research, for its verification. For Rahner, a Jesuit, this was enough.
There’s more here:
http://users.adelphia.net/~markfischer/Rahner650.htm
I find it fascinating to compare the Jesus of Mark with the Jesus of John - the first, haunted, urgent, frantic; the second, serene, otherworldly, mystical. I’d love to have the time to read and think some more about the intellectual currents that fed into the construction of each of these figures. The character of Christ has been of longstanding debate in Christianity, and it’s interesting to think about the variety of possibilities the Gospels offer.
9 Johnny // Jan 16, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Jonathan,
Glad you asked…I find this idea liberating because it allows the one to approach scripture for its narrative qualities rather than searching for correct dogma. Moving the focus from dogma to narrative seems to open up new possibilities for both the believer and unbeliever alike. I do not consider myself a believer, but I still find the narratives of the gospels wonderful. I also think that it frees people like me (those concerned with theory) to see religious texts as practical works devoted to how one should live one’s religion, rather than as a theory about God etc.
As for evidentialism I find the debate fascinating and am still figuring out where I stand, although I did post a quick quip about it recently. I think that you can get a good overview of the subject if you look in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(free and online). Look up both “The Epistemology of Religion” and “Fideism” to get some helpful summary of contemporary positions. I myself gravitate toward the Wittgensteinian position, although I don’t think it is explained that well on that site.
10 nee // Jan 17, 2007 at 2:24 am
For me the disturbing thing is how much faith is put in something because “the Bible tells me so”. When the belief system came crashing down for me, scriptures became incredibly suspect as well - even after learning more about their history. I used to use the history of the Bible as a defense to those who would attack the Book of Mormon. I suppose that was a byproduct of hearing so many Sundays how the Book of Mormon was more correct.
I now view portions of scriptures as good things in that some useful principles are taught. However, I find more value in them from a historical perspective than a spiritual one.
Historically, the scriptures reveal much about culture and for that I’m glad they’ve been preserved though much less glad how they’ve been misrepresented and canonized.
Spiritually, I find they paint a portrait of a rather cruel deity who is ultimately unpleaseable and wants to make sure you know it but that you never stop trying to please them anyway. Whether this is a misrepresentation due to the conditioning of the writers or the actual nature of this deity I do not know. I’m slightly envious of people who do not take the scriptures literally at all. While I view them less literally now than say a year ago, it’s a long process to overcome years of my own conditioning.
I can now hear the child’s hymn which will be stuck in my mind all day I suspect. “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so….” If only it really were that simple to “know” something. No one ever taught me about the Council of Nicea as a youth in Sunday school or confirmation classes.
I think what you posted is ‘just right’. Keep it up! It’s refreshing to read and prompts me to cogitate as well in my own mind about what these things mean to me.
11 Jonathan // Jan 17, 2007 at 7:58 am
Matt and Johnny - thanks for the info! I will check out the sources you both cited. Of course, in my own personal beliefs, I would lean strongly towards Rahner’s thinking (at least in what you mentioned), but that’s just me. I can understand why others can’t ‘take it by faith’ due to other issues, as John began listing in this post.
Although what is interesting in my experience and in what I am seeing in other people’s comments on this post is that issues with the gospels are not the first cracks that appear when a person’s faith is being lost, but something else… something like the lack of supernatural verification of its truth, or something relating to that very foggy and murky area. It appears that the believability of the gospels hinges not on historical evidence, and not on me just wildly putting my faith in something I know nothing about or fully understand, but rather by a very real feeling or sense of their authenticity from crystal clear divine revelation alone. I guess in saying this, I am leaning more towards Anselm’s understanding for how truth that cannot be proven scientifically can be believed with ample evidence. Anyway, just where I’m at presently, which may change tomorrow.
Johnny - I really agree with you! That’s a great way to read the gospels! How can I apply this to living my life?! It’s quite apparent that the Pharisees of Jesus’ time didn’t do this very well with the Old Testament, which he harshly and repeatedly criticized them for. You can’t read past the infamous Sermon on the Mount, with hyperboles and all, to see that Jesus is quite interested in how we should be living, and that the ultra-religious will fail miserably if they continue in their dogmatic ways, thinking that their many laws and rituals will save them.
On a side note, I wanted to make sure I was using the word ‘dogmatic’ in the sense that everyone else is. I keep using it, but in the back of my head, I am hearing Fezzik from the Princess Bride saying ‘I don’t think that means what you think it means…”
I am thinking of dogmatism as being an arrogant and assertive holding to religious principles that are not apparent or provable. Often times I think of these principles as not even being in the Bible, but people think them up first, and then re-interpret scripture to back them up later, rather than following the rational, exegetical approach were you draw truth out of the Bible, not push your beliefs into it. Dogmatic beliefs originate from some personal or cultural source outside the Bible, but because the Bible is generally though of as authoritative, Dogmatic-behaving people use it as a tool to lend credibility to their otherwise unsupported and unauthoritative ideas or principles. However, I always thought the basic tenants of a belief system would not fall into this category. What comes to mind is Paul’s description of gray area issues in the Christian life. Here are examples of what I would consider dogmatic and non-dogmatic beliefs:
Christian dogmatic beliefs:
- Drinking anything alcoholic is a sin
- Not dressing in your best on Sunday is a sin
- Not going to church is a sin
- Using birth control is a sin
- Disagreeing with religious authority is a sin
- Doing work on Sunday is a sin
Christian non-dogmatic beliefs:
- Jesus is the son of God
- God created reality / universe / world
- etc.
It is an arrogant attitude coupled with either ignorance, or worse - a deliberate and knowing bastardization of scripture. Do I have it right, or am I using the term wrong? I would hate to be misrepresenting myself.
12 Jonathan // Jan 17, 2007 at 8:18 am
Oh forgot about the weird prophecy thing… Here are a couple of confusing examples:
When Jesus and his parents came out of Egypt, Matthew says this fulfilled the prophecy found in Hosea:
Huh? Not talking about the Messiah, or at least I hope not, because ‘Israel’ was behaving badly.
This also happens with Matthew saying the virgin birth mentioned in Isaiah was a prophecy that Jesus would be born a virgin, which has very little support within the hebrew (the term for young woman was used, NOT virgin) and little support contextually - it was a prophecy about a women bearing a child and it would grow to maturity in due time - proof that that Damascus would not invade Judah… nothing whatsoever to do with a virgin birth of the Messiah, which has no relevance in this dialog at all.
13 Elise // Jan 17, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Jonathan - I have a lazy request. Can you give the references for Matthew referring to Isaiah’s mention of a virgin birth and the actual verses you noted, which prophecy about a “young woman”?
I’ve heard this prophecy/fulfillment quoted many times in my life but never actually looked it up. Now I’m curious. I’m sure I could find it eventually, but if you have the scriprure references readily available……
14 Matt Bowman // Jan 17, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Elise:
The Matthew is 1:22-23:
22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23″The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”‚Äîwhich means, “God with us.”
The Isaiah is 7:14:
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
The Hebrew word is question is ‘almah.’ The Septuigant, a Greek translation of the Old Testament, rendered this as ‘parthenos,’ or ‘virgin.’ It appears that the word ‘almah’ had connotations of virginity, but in its baldest form, means simply ‘young woman.’
Now, this should be taken with the knowledge that I’m in no sense a scholar of ancient langauges.
15 John // Jan 17, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Thanks, Johnny and Jonathan, for adding discussion-worthy questions to this post.
Jonathan (#7) said:
Ehrman’s approach to this, and one that I that I’ve adopted as a historian, is to look at past events in terms of probabilities. The more reliable pieces of evidence (especially if they are from independent, corroborating and relatively unbiased sources) the stronger the probability that an event is historic fact. Events that can be validated by multiple disciplines or approaches get bonus points (e.g. textual analysis, anthropology and archeology).
My personal motivation for studying all this is mixed. To me, Jesus and Paul are the subjects of a great mystery. I feel that the truth of each has been obscured by nearly 2000 years of doctrinal and political accretion. They are powerful symbols, and I get a rush from sifting and scrabbling through textual and historical layers to get at the probably reality beneath.
I suppose it’s also my way of reclaiming Jesus for my own, by making him fit into my pretty rational worldview. In this sense, I think I can relate to where nee and Watt are coming from.
I do have to say, however, that through my studies I’m finding that I like this Jesus guy, partly because he seems so human (Mark’s Jesus is my favorite) but also because he was pretty radical. And I like radical.
16 Elise // Jan 18, 2007 at 8:40 pm
John - I agree that it is so interesting to sift and scrabble through the layers of the past (especially the religious past), trying to find the reality beneath.
I sometimes wonder what people two thousand years in the future from today would think of Americans, religiously. The remnants from a Catholic Cathedral would lead one to very different conclusions than remnants from the Crystal Cathedral, or of an LDS temple. The writings of Jesse Jackson would leave very different impressions of Christianity than would the writings of Joseph Smith, Martin Luther, Gordon B. Hinkley, Pat Robertson, Rick Warren, or any of the Popes. I imagine that it wouldn’t be much easier for our descendants in a couple thousand years to figure out what we’re thinking than it is for us to figure out what our ancestors a couple thousand years ago were thinking.
17 Jonathan // Jan 24, 2007 at 7:52 am
John and Elise -
I agree with the both of you - tradition has often taken the place of the Bible in importance for religious belief for many religious people. I like to think the other way around - traditional thinking and beliefs are completely suspect until I can verify them with the Bible. The primary source of Christianity is the Bible, not any church’s official doctrinal statement.
18 Elise // Jan 24, 2007 at 8:04 am
I agree with you, Jonathan, that the primary source of Christianity is the Bible. Fallable? I think so. Misquoted? Absolutely. It’s errors and biases are worth looking into, but nonetheless it is the primary source. Still a believing Christian myself, I find I can actually appreciate the Bible more through studying its fallacies and “misquotes”, so to speak. BUT, in my experience, a lot of Christians use the Bible as the church’s official doctrinal statement in a very literal way. And get deeply offended at the suggestion that their literal interpretation of the English words they are reading may not be 100% correct.
Jonathan, if we lived in the same city, I would want to start a “Christian believers in a rational, not-afraid-of-science, open-minded Bible study.” I really like your approach to your faith.
19 Miko // Jan 24, 2007 at 9:07 am
Jonathan (#6): I find it liberating to know that the “authors” of the gospels are fluid because it helps validate some what some of my research has revealed (I knew there was a theory that John was Mary M. before the Da Vinci Code, thank you very much…) as well as raise the non-canonical gospels up. I really like reading the Gospel where Jesus is a kid (kills his friend, then brings him back to life; plays with clay dolls & brings them to life), it made him more real to me as an historical figure.
20 Jonathan // Jan 24, 2007 at 10:08 am
Elise- it would be so much fun! I’m constantly trying to find more people like us, but they are kind of rare
You’re right about many Christians using the Bible to backup their own beliefs which never came from the Bible at all, but from some weird tradition - this twisting of scripture to make it back up what you already believe (originating outside the bible) is called eisegesis as opposed to exegesis, which is a process of understanding the original text in it’s own context, devoid of your own pre-conceived notions. It’s easier said than done, of course, and it is still a challenge for me, but it’s the best way to read the Bible - you learn something rather than just re-interpreting what it says within your own biases and tradition. Even knowing the dangerous of an eisegesis approach to bible reading is a good first step towards reading it better, even if we aren’t perfect.
Many times in my experience, if not all of the time, biblical literalists and traditionalists are just blindly riding the doctrinal/worldview wave du Jour of their denomination or movement - they are like clones or copies - unable to think for themselves, but really arrogant about it. When you really get down and drill them hard - showing them using exegetical reasoning that they might be missing something, they are pretty closed minded and won’t listen.
When reading the Bible, it all comes down to a humble attitude and a strict adherence to the exegetical interpretative philosophy (at least in my best understanding)
21 Jonathan // Jan 24, 2007 at 11:09 am
Miko,
I agree with you that it is tremendously important to believe that Jesus was human (even as a Christian too).
What intrigues me is your statement that in reading the extra-biblical books, it made you see Jesus as being more real and human. This means that sometime before you read that, you didn’t feel that he was. This is not the first time I’ve heard this - The first time I heard this was from the director (writer?) of the film “The Last Temptation of Christ” - he said that he struggled terribly to understand Christ’s humanity, which was one of the main reasons he worked on the movie. It tried to bring out his human characteristics - doubt, anger, confusion, sexuality, etc. because it made Jesus more real.
I guess my question was this: did the canonical gospels themselves do a bad job communicating this to you? If the answer is yes, I think you are probably right. I’ve been reading a lot of commentary on the gospels, and also reading up on the philosophy of religion, and one thing I took away is that each author couches the historical story of Jesus in light of a purpose - and that purpose was not usually to show Jesus’ humanity so much as communicating a message to the intended audience that this was the Son of God. Unfortunately, there are SO MANY other sides of Jesus that I would love to know more about, but that information wasn’t useful to communicating his main message, and so it is left for us to just guess. Sadly, this just ‘guessing’ has led to a million weird beliefs about him - gnosticism and Calvinism to name a few. But I think I can guess why we were left without most of the details, and why the danger of leaving stuff out was worth the risk…
My way around this problem, as soon as I realized that it was one was this: as much as I lament why God couldn’t give us better reading material about Him, I realized later what the gospels were for (from my humble perspective) - Just to get us acquainted with God - like a first date. That was the author’s intent. The reason that not a lot more info was available was seen ahead of time by God and was on purpose - He always intended that you need to take the next step and ask Him out on the second date. Only then will you understand Him in the way you are really craving. He never intended to give us all the answers, but wanted to keep the mystery alive so we would chase Him and find out (All my metaphors are romantic/sexual on purpose BTW) God always intended that most information about Him could only be gotten though a real relationship alone. He never intended for people to understand him by scientific observation, rational deduction, or otherwise. It’s more like a marriage than an subject of detached intellectual study - one that engages the full person, the mind as well as the heart to achieve understanding.
Anyway, just how i’ve come to see it recently.
22 Jonathan // Jan 24, 2007 at 11:40 am
Elise - oh sorry -
I forgot to add another thought - often times, my arguments on certain topics I have with other Christians often come down to the level of textual criticism and the meaning of Greek words. In many cases, such as women being elders in church (or that they should be silent), drinking wine, etc. I will leave the English behind and dive into the realm of Greek/Hebrew and the existence of scribal ‘glosses’ (marginal additions) and other textual criticism oddities. Oh, and there is also the area of study of the surrounding cultures that influenced the writers and the people in the story themselves that play an important part in understanding the text as well. So if a discussion gets serious, I usually pull out these resources:
1. Textual criticism background (glosses, bible translation into English (literal vs. dynamic equivalence etc.), regional source material inbreeding, newer text vs. older but based on worse copies, etc.)
2. Greek/Hebrew meaning of words / semantics based on usage in context within and outside the bible during the same time period. - Requires an exhaustive concordance and a Greek dictionary that references literary works with the words used in context (bible or otherwise)
3. Exegetical understanding of a passage. Which also is used in conjunction with a good historical background around the setting of the story or of the time the passage was written.
4. Background on surrounding cultures and their impact on bible characters and authors.
All of these are areas are wonderful resources for bible interpretation, but to the close-minded, are useless.
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