Robert said

The authors of all four canonical gospels did  ot consider their own names to be important when writing their texts. This only became important when later people collected their writings together in a single scroll or book.

  

How do you explain the universal acceptance of the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the authors of the four gospels if the names only became important to people a century and a half later?

Robert said
Where do you get the time frame of 150 years before any of the gospels were collected together? I’m not disputing that, just curious. Is it based on your own ridiculously early dating of the gospels?

I meant late second century as the supposed dates for when the names were added to the gospels – to mid first when they were written.

Anyway the description of an early dating of the gospels as “ridiculous” displays an unwarranted certainty. Early datings of the gospels pose zero historical difficulties

The earliest of any extant attributions are given by Papias, regardless of whether he was speaking of our gospels of Mark and Matthew, is dated to sometime between 110-140 and the the earliest extant attribution of all four canonical gospels by Irenaeus comes around 180-200. The real authors were not around at this time to contest these attributions. That these attributions were accepted without dispute in no way proves that they were accurate. 

  

Also the idea that the gospels spread anonymously throughout the empire before someone somewhere proposed names for them which were universally adopted is what should be described as historically ridiculous. The only reasonable historical account is that the names of the gospels were passed on as they were being copied.

Robert said
No, the use of ‘Levi’ in Mark and Luke, and the change to ‘Matthew’ in the gospel of Matthew has no bearing whatsoever on the order in which the the gospels were written. The most common scholarly view is that Matthew and Luke redacted Mark’s gospel independently of each other so following this view Luke simply would not have known of Matthew’s change. According to Bren’s Neo-Griesbachian theory, long rejected by the overwhe majority of critical scholars, Luke would have known both Matthew’s and Mark’s gospel and chose follow Mark instead of Matthew on this point.

  

No Luke wrote after Matthew but before Mark. Mark chose to follow Luke’s honorary title for “Matthew”.

Robert said

If this is the only reasonable opinion, then surely it must be the view of all critical scholars. Is it? No. Is it even the predominant opinion? No, again. Is it an extreme minority opinion? Ding, ding, ding! Yes! So there must be other reasonable opinions, right?  

Let’s hear one. What is a reasonable historical account for how all four names of the gospels came to be universally accepted by christendom if these names were only added to gospels after they had spread throughout the empire.

JAS said
I have always assumed that the gospels were written somewhat regionally and named after people who lived more or less in the tradition of each of the names that came to be associated with what was finally written.

 

This would be fine if it means the supposed names travelled round as the gospels were being copied. What can’t be said is the names were added later to match where the gospels came from. If people a century later knew where the gospels came from there’s no reason to doubt they knew who (or what community) wrote them.

Robert said

First of all, let me note that you’ve completely avoided the question about how many critical scholars agree with your very early dating of the gospels. Why do you always avoid such questions? You claim your position is the only reasonable one, and yet you fail to even acknowledge that it is not shared by scholars. This is an obvious warning sign to anyone reading your posts.

I always read these as rhetorical questions. Is the assumption not that I’m always arguing against majority scholarly opinion? 

As for a reasonable hisorical account for how all four attributions of came to be universally recognized by christendom, I think I’ve already given you my answer. I think the anonymous works only needed to be differentiated once multiple gospels were known, being compared, and eventually compiled in a single manuscript. Once this started to occur, scribes then copied the attributions they found in their master copies. The first need to differentiate among gospels would have most probably occurred when the first two gospels (Mark and Matthew) started circulating together. Scholars estimate the ‘according to Matthew’ attribution to date as early as prior to 100 (Luz) or as late as 125 (Davies & Allison). This corresponds roughly to the timeframe when Papias would have shared his view of the origins of the gospels of Mark and Matthw (110-140) and it is Papias offers us the first known use of the ‘according to Matthew’ moniker that would later become the format of the ascriptions in the manuscripts. We do not have any record of a gospel being attributed to Luke until much later by Irenaeus and in the Muratorian Canon and these date to about the same time that we start to see manuscripts with these attributions. Bovon: “Why anyone would happen upon the name Luke remains a riddle. Perhaps a student of Paul’s was desired fro this work. …”  The attribution of the fourth gospel to John also dates to the same period in some of the same texts.   

So the gospels of Luke and John had their names added to them only at some point in the late second century. Where is your explanation in the above of how these attributions became universally accepted if this is case? The only thing I see is what is highlighted in bold. Are you suggesting that the master copy of all scribes had “Luke” and “John” attached to them?

Bovon: “Why anyone would happen upon the name Luke remains a riddle. Perhaps a student of Paul’s was desired fro this work. …” An even bigger mystery is why everyone would accept that name. You haven’t offered an explanation for this.

The first need to differentiate among gospels would have most probably occurred when the first two gospels (Mark and Matthew) started circulating together.

Mark and Matthew began circulating together at the time Matthew or Mark copied their gospel from Mark or Matthew. Was at this point there was a need to differentiate the names?

You’ve made no attempt to address the historical problem. Four anonymous gospels spread throughout the Roman empire. Subsequent to this, the four anonymous gospels all have names attributed to them which are universally accepted. What is the explanation for this acceptance? Did one person attribute the name Luke to an otherwise anonymous gospel and everyone else just accepted it?