How do we know who wrote the Gospels?

Skeptics say, “We don’t know who wrote the Gospels.” But is that really true? Listen and learn as Frank outlines 5 reasons why we have very good external evidence that the four gospel accounts were written by the names traditionally ascribed to them. You might want to take some notes!

📚 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀

🤝 𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧 𝗖𝗥𝗢𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗫𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗗 (𝗧𝗔𝗫-𝗗𝗘𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗕𝗟𝗘) 🤝

👥 𝗦𝗢𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 𝗠𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗔 👥

🗄️ 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗖𝗘𝗦 🗄️

🎙️ 𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗦𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗕𝗘 𝗧𝗢 𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗣𝗢𝗗𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗧 🎙️

#GospelAuthors #Apologetics

[Ryanjoned]

10 years clean and sober by the grace of God to God be the glory and honour completely clean

[rockandsandapologetics]

J Warner Wallace goes into it differently, saying that the writers also had students who became teachers who had students and so on. In legal terms there is a clear chain of reference from the most modern teacher to the earliest writer, that at least proves the validity of the Gospels. The Gospels were the first books to be discovered as books for our New Testament. Each Gospel reaches a different audience. Matthew was written to the Jews. Mark was written to the Gentiles. Luke portrays Jesus as the Son of Man. John portrays Jesus as the Son of God. We're told the manuscripts were in Greek, but were the originals in Greek? Luke most certainly was in Greek as it was his language. Matthew was most likely in Greek because, as a tax collector he had to know Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. If Peter had written his gospel it most likely would have been in Aramaic, but he had the help of John Mark, cousin to Barnabas, and it's highly likely he paid to get a higher education which would have included Greek. This leaves us with John, who critics say had the most basic form of Greek. But, like Peter, he was a fisherman and knew Aramaic, not Greek. In his writings he includes Hebraic forms of writing. Most of us are familiar with Jesus' discourses with Nicodemus. After telling Nicodemus he must be born again, the Pharisee asks Jesus how that's supposed to take place. In John 3:5-8 Jesus replies, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ If you look at that you will see Jesus said the same thing twice, but in a little different way. First He says, "unless you are born of water and of the Spirit, " but the 2nd time he says, "That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." This is Hebraic poetry, and is the way Jews would speak to each other. Another place we find this is in 1st John 5:7-8, In the Modern English Version it says, "There are three who testify in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and the three are one. There are three that testify on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are toward the one." Here John speaks of an eternal trinity that lives in Heaven, and an earthly likeness of that trinity that lives on earth. The problem is in the modern translation of these verse. I'm going to use the NIV to show you how the Hebraic poetry is dropped out. These verses in the NIV say, "For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement." Do you see it? John, by the power of the Holy Spirit penned the most beautiful proof of the Trinity, and when translated into Greek, it was largely removed. There's even a footnote that "explains" this deletion, "Late manuscripts of the Vulgate testify in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the (not found in any GREEK manuscript before the fourteenth century." Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John, references the New Testament 47 times, even though it had yet to be compiled. In fact in the one letter (epistle) he wrote (to the Philippians) Polycarp referenced 18 New Testament books. He believed just what John taught him, and taught his pupils and church in Smyrna. His students went on to teach the same things and their students taught the same things. For 200-300 years the story remained the same, because the eyewitness accounts (Gospels) were true.

[adamary]

Imagine writing a book with a group of people which took so much time, hard work and costs your life, then people care who wrote what instead of reading the message lol I would cry.

[jakey]

Are the Gospels anonymous? It depends on what you mean by anonymous. It’s true that the authors of the Gospels don’t directly identify themselves in the text of the gospels. In that sense, they are anonymous. But from this fact it doesn’t follow that we don’t have good reason for identifying the authors.

First, the authorship of the four gospels was unanimously attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John by the middle of the 2nd century. If there really was confusion over authorship, we’d expect multiple names to be attributed to the Gospels. As is the case with the Book of Hebrews. This is significant since the gospels spread throughout the Roman Empire, yet wherever we look the historical records show the traditional names as the only names.

Now if these aren’t the real authors, why would the early church choose these names? For example, why attribute a gospel to Mark? Why not to Peter? Or someone who would give it more credibility?

Here’s why….even though they knew the source of Mark’s gospel was Peter, they were serious about attributing it to the correct author. Second, the manuscript evidence points to the traditional authorship. Historian Craig Evan states, “In every single text that we have where the beginning or the ending of the work survives, we find the traditional authorship. There are no anonymous copies of the gospels and there are no copies of canonical gospels under different names. Unless evidence to the contrary should surface, we should stop talking about anonymous gospels.”

So it’s just false to say we know Matthew didn’t write Matthew. Or it’s false to say we know Mark didn’t write Mark. No, all the best available evidence points to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the actual authors. So we have every reason to say we know they wrote the gospels that bear their names.

[thomasharp]

I didn't come to believe based on science or manuscript research etc. I challenged what the Bible says with obedience. Turned from hate to love, drinking and drugs to sobriety, fornication to nothing outside marriage etc. Who makes that stuff up? It's from a holy God. It doesn't get anyone power it gets you outcast. But it gives you power over sin. God desires righteous people nothing less. He died for our sins, was buried, and resurrected.

[johnboehmer]

Wow, thank you for this information! I ignorantly just accepted the claim that these authors were not the actual authors of the Gospels, simply because I heard it from three or four atheists. It really helps to research before believing anything is true. Misinformation is everywhere!

[torreyintahoe]

There is no debate among historians that the authors of the gospels are anonymous.

[WarriorBongSociety]

I came for the talking donkey but stayed for the biblical scholarship. Bravo Sierra Frank!

[haggismcbaggis]

Ehrman says, "...what we can say with certainty is that the Gospels are quoted in the early and mid-second centuries by proto-orthodox Christian authors, who never identify them as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

That is especially significant when we come to Justin around 150-60 CE, who explicitly quotes these books as “Memoirs of the Apostles, ” but does not tell us which apostles they are to be associated with." So, one of them is wrong about this. It would be helpful if Turek actually quotes Justin Martyr.

[icarojose]

many people don't know that Mark and Luke aren't between the 12 disciples, but they became more famous than most disciples like Nathanael. If they are made up names, why would they give the names of random people instead of the name of the apostles ?

[Ryanjoned]

God Will make a way for you where there seems to be no way hes a friend that sticks closer than a brother amen

[hansdemos]

As far as I know, it is not "skeptics" who say "We don't know who wrote the Gospels", but the vast majority of New Testament experts, the vast majority of whom are believers.
All the points in Dr. Turek's PowerPoint slide basically say the same thing; namely that we should trust the attribution of these anonymous documents by people living a century or so after they were written, without any insight in why those people made those attributions. I have no doubt they believed what they said about who wrote what, but that doesn't mean that they were right, or that we should just follow what they believed.
At the end, Dr. Turek calls the anonymous authorship idea "mythical". That is nonsense. None of the gospels names its author, which is kinda the definition of being "anonymous", and at the end of the Gospel according to John, the actual authors even claim to have heard what they wrote down from John, which of course means that John himself was definitely not the author.
I am a layman in these matters, so I tend to follow the academic consensus in these matters, but the bullet points on Dr. Turek's slide are clearly insufficient to support the notion that the traditional attribution of the authorship of the Gospels is true.

[festushaggen]

We know the same way we know anyone wrote anything in history. It's just that when it's the Bible, it's discriminated against and not allowed the same liberties the others are.
As Frank alluded to though. if you're trying to deceive people, you don't choose Mark and Luke as authors. You choose the names of apostles we all know and you write it in a way that paints a better picture of them and using the same words as the others do. Much as our politicians and mainstream media do today.

[onbored]

well, there already was a gospel of peter so they had to use a different name?

[Bananas]

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter who penned the Bible, every word is God breathed, and that’s all that matters.

[Clticlord]

why do so many people say the writers are anonymous then?

[incredulouspasta]

Let's look at Frank's earliest source for gospel authorship. Papias mentions Matthew and Mark. Unfortunately, his description of those books doesn't match the gospels we have. He describes Mark as an unordered collection of the sayings and deeds of Jesus, as Mark remembers them from Peter, leaving nothing out. But OUR Mark isn't an unordered list of recollections. It has carefully arranged literary structure (e.g. Markan sandwhiches). About Matthew, Papias claims it was originally written in Hebrew. Our Matthew was originally written in Greek. It seems like the gospels Papias is referring to have been lost to history.

Frank confidently asserts that the best evidence points to traditional authorship, but he overlooks many problems with this view. This is called confirmation bias: focusing on the evidence that confirms your view, and ignoring or rationalizing the evidence against your view.

[Cryptosifu]

So, all of the authors were able to read and write Koine Greek? See, that's where I would start the debate. Remember, most of the apostles were fishermen, right? So, would they possess the skills, or even need to possess the skills of knowing and understanding Koine Greek? I'd be interested to hear other people's perspectives. Thanks.

[Peter-wltm]

The unanimous historical testimony of the early church is, that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. To turn a blind eye to the historical testimony/ evidence, is to choose to be willfully ignorant and intellectually dishonest.

[StudentDad-mcpu]

We have no idea who wrote any of the Gospels - they are anonymous texts whose authorship was ascrobed more than 70 years after their composition.