Robert said

Coimbra1982 said

The first time this argument was used or this question was asked was 400 years after the completion of the gospels.
St Augustine said “We have a reliable and continuous chain of custody from authorship to present”.
for instance polycarp which was John’s disciple records that John wrote the Gospel of John while he was in Ephesus We also have papyrus 52 which was found in Egypt as early as AD95.
The chain of custody and the contextual criticism that we have of the New testament is incredibly strong and in fact much stronger than any other book we have from antiquity.
Given the books that I’ve studied from agnostics atheists and Christians I find any argument that we do not know the authors to hold as much weight as those who argue that Jesus never existed It’s an absurd and uneducated argument.  

You may want to discuss the traditions about John, Papias, and Polycarp with Bart ** you do not have permission to see this link **. He’s also a member of this blog, by the way, and very generous with his time in addressing questions about, or challenges to, his scholarly judgments.) They are both far more educated about these matters than I. I wonder how much better educated you are than they that you can judge their arguments to be absurd and uneducated. Once this is established, I am sure Bart would be happy to invite you to give a series of guest blog posts here so that we all might benefit from your insights.   

Robert,

I’m sure you have noticed that I am no Biblical Scholar but a regular person with a lot of curiosity and an eager to learn more and more on this matter. If I have sounded disrespectful, I apologize for it. 

I will read the suggested article. Concomitantly, eventhough I like Bart a lot, I surely don’t agree with him in all of views and I do like other scholars that in my opinion are far more well informed than him. 

Robert said
Unfortunately, we don’t. We can only make reasonable inferences based on the texts of their gospels. The earliest tradition from Papias is probably not reliable. The most I would accept from Papias is that the gospel of ‘Mark’ probably made its way to Rome rather quickly and spread more quickly from Rome to other locations in the Empire. That would readily explain the belief that it was a Roman gospel. That’s not to say it is impossible or even improbable that it was written in Rome; we just don’t know. Some have also made a reasonable case for Syria.

‘Matthew’s gospel makes a clear and decisive effort to rehabilitate Peter as the rock upon which the church is built. Some therefore think it might be associated with Antioch or at least a community that Peter had visited. The community seems to have had a larger contingent of traditional Jewish ‘Christians’, but was at least being encouraged to fully endorse the non-Judaizing mission to the gentiles. 

‘Luke’ was more highly educated than the other evangelists as can be seen by his more sophisticated style.

‘John’ had a much more idiosyncratic and higher, even incarnational, view of Jesus. He was later and non-apocalyptic and may have had some contacts with elements of Thomasine Christianity.

All four evangelists seem to have been within the sphere of influence of Pauline/gentile Christianity, but not necessarily familiar with his writings. I also believe ‘Mark’ was trying to root his community of largely gentile Christians within traditions about the earlier public  ministry of Jesus. Matthew and Luke both added to this tendency by increasing the amount of teaching material they included. John has the most ‘Pauline’ (ie, there highest) christology, ‘though  probably not dependent upon Paul. John seems to be more sectarian than the other evangelists.  

^{Hi Robert,} 

^{A couple of days ago I have shared your thoughts with Mr. Edward Andrews, since he seems to me to be a very conservative biblical scholar and here is what he replied to me:}

^{is higher criticism run amuck.}

^{World-renowned Bible scholars, such as Robert L. Thomas, the late Norman L. Geisler, Gleason L. Archer, F. David Farnell, and the late Gleason L. Archer Jr., among many others, have fought for decades to educate readers about the dangers of higher criticism.}

^{NT textual scholar Tischendorf was a world-leading 19th biblical scholar who rejected higher criticism, which led to his noteworthy success in defending the authenticity of the Bible text. Tischendorf was educated in Greek at the University of Leipzig. During his university studies, he was troubled by higher criticism of the Bible, as taught by famous German theologians, who sought to prove that the Greek New Testament was not authentic.}

^{NT Textual scholar Harold Greenlee writes, “This “higher criticism” has often been applied to the Bible in a destructive way, and it has come to be looked down on by many evangelical Christians.” Greenlee, J. Harold. The Text of the New Testament: From Manuscript to Modern Edition (p. 2). Baker Publishing Group.}

^{Higher critics have taught that much of the Bible was composed of legend and myth. They have claimed that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible, 8th-century B.C.E. Isaiah did not write Isaiah, there were three authors of Isaiah, and 6th-century B.C.E. Daniel did not write Daniel, it was written in the 2nd century BCE.}

^{Higher critics have taught that Jesus did not say all that he said in his Sermon on the Mount and that Jesus did not condemn the Pharisees in Matthew 23, as this was Matthew because he hated the Jews. These are just the highlights, for there are thousands of tweaks that have undermined the word of God as being inspired and fully inerrant.
Higher critics have dissected the Word of God until it has become the word of man and a very jumbled word at that. Higher criticism is still taught in almost all of the seminaries around the world, and it is quite common to hear so-called Evangelical Bible scholars publicly deny that large sections of the Bible as fully inerrant, authentic, and true. Biblical higher criticism is speculative and tentative in the extreme.}

^{After four centuries, higher critics with their higher criticism have ousted the Bible from its earlier status as the fully inerrant, inspired Word of God? Higher criticism has opened the flood gates to pseudo-scholarly works, which has resulted in undermining Christians’ confidence in the Bible. There is utterly no substantial evidence for the claims made by higher critics.}

^{Supporters of higher criticism say, “just because some have gone too far, or some have abused the method, this does not negate the benefits of using it.” Recently, textual scholar Daniel B. Wallace commented that there is a “little [saying] about the three countries that do biblical studies: Germany, Britain, and the United States. It has to do with new views, new theories, and new hypotheses about all sorts of issues. ‘the Germans create it, the British correct it, and the Americans corrupt it.,’ which I think is pretty accurate.” The gist of what Wallace was saying is this, the Germans scholars created a new way of interpreting the Scriptures that cast doubt on God’s Word, the British scholars improved it to the point of being useful, and then American scholars corrupted it. This could not be further from the truth. The Americans could not damage something that was already damaged. The Germans and the French scholars of the late 16th-19th centuries are the forefathers of the enormously destructive higher criticism, which was adopted by the rest of Europe. In the 19th-20th centuries, American Bible scholars latched onto this poisonous subjective historical-critical method of biblical interpretation like a baby going for his mother’s milk.
People listen to that foreboding feeling in the back of your mind. Or, the higher critic might argue, “you can take the good parts of higher criticism and leave the parts that undermine the Bible.” This is like saying, “you can remove the 75% poison from the water before drinking it, trust me.” There is a way to remove the bad parts for sure, entirely abandon what is known as the subjective historical-critical method of interpretation, and return to the old objective historical-grammatical method of biblical interpretation.}

^{Unexplained Does Not mean Unexplainable}

^{Yes, what Papias says might be questioned by Eusebius but there are two possible reasons for this. Eusebius’ skepticism may have stemmed from his anti-chiliastic view as opposed to that of Papias (and Irenaeus) who strongly affirmed a physical reality of the millennium (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.12-13). Or, it may have resulted from Papias’ alleged preference for oral tradition rather than authorized books as his sources (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.4; cf. also Robert M. Grant, ed., “An Introduction,” in vol. 1 of The Apostolic Fathers, A New Translation and Commentary [New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1964], 86). What we do know is that every second-century writer that ventures an opinion on what Papias touches on agrees.}

^{Unrealistic Expectations Are Unhelpful Expectations}

^{It is funny how people like Ehrman look at historical evidence through one lens (balanced, reasonable, objective) when it is secular history but then turn up the requirement the level of proof needed the moment we enter a discussion about the Bible, Israel, and early Christianity.}

^{LAST NOTE: This is biblical criticism, biblical studies, canon, not really textual criticism, so you know, we are not going to be debating these issues day in and day out because this group is about textual studies. There are many books on this subject. We are well aware that the vast majority of Bible scholars are of the subjective historical-critical school and have abandoned the objective historical-grammatical method.}

Robert said
Yes, indeed, there are many conservative thinkers who fundamentally oppose critical scholarship. But, you know what, critical thinking is a good and responsible use of our God-given intellect (presuming there is a God, of course), and I encourage you not to abandon your own gifts and curiosity. They will serve you well in life.  

Thanks Robert,

I will continue and definitely I will not abandon the curiosity that I have and lots of questions that I often do. I won´t stop expressing my views and I think everyone should be free to investigate things for oneself and use the brain that was given by God.

I once heard prof. Ehrman saying during a debate with Prof. Mike Licona; “Don´t take my words for granted, investigate for yourself and compare things, compare the facts, compare the evidence and ask questions.”

Well, I´ve learned since then.

Robert said
Yes, indeed, there are many conservative thinkers who fundamentally oppose critical scholarship. But, you know what, critical thinking is a good and responsible use of our God-given intellect (presuming there is a God, of course), and I encourage you not to abandon your own gifts and curiosity. They will serve you well in life.  

Here is the latest that I have read about this issue:

We do not have the originals (Yes I already know that, but that doesn’t mean you can start making all sort of assumptions), so we do not know if they identified themselves or not. Also, the author of the epistle to the Hebrews does not identify himself either.

Manuscript Evidence for the Gospels

What do we discover when we look at manuscripts of both secular codices and The Greek New Testament Gospels codices? What we find is that be it secular or Gospels, the author’s names appear at the beginning of the text and at the end of the text. This holds true if a text has more than one work in it.

The Greek New Testament manuscripts during this period conform to this method. In the Codex Sinaiticus (330-360 C.E.), the Codex Vaticanus (300-330 C.E.), two of our earliest and most trusted codices, and the Codex Alexandrinus (400-440 C.E.), the name Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are found at the beginning and at the end of their particular gospels precisely as one would expect them to be according to the custom of the time. Moreover, we find exactly the same with two of our earliest Greek New Testament papyri manuscripts, P75 (175-225 C.E.) and P66 (110-150 C.E.).

So, our earliest and most trusted manuscripts of the Gospels have only these names on them. In other words, there is no discrepancy in finding any other names. From the second century, we have manuscripts with names of the evangelists on them, which were copied only decades after the author’s had penned their perspective Gospels. There is no secular writing that is dated even remotely this close to their perspective originals, as the secular sources are centuries removed. So, once again for emphasis, the earliest Greek New Testament manuscripts with the Gospel author’s name on it are Luke on P75 (175-225 C.E.) and John on P66 (110-150 C.E.).[4]

Michael Kruger talks about the widespread nature of this evidence, “What we find is incredible uniformity across the board for the titles of these gospels, Matthew’s Gospel is called ‘Matthew’; Mark’s is called ‘Mark’. It is amazingly consistent, something we would not expect if the titles were added later.”[5]

Lastly, there are no manuscripts of the Greek New Testament manuscripts from the early historical period or any historical period that have names on them other than Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. This is precisely what should be expected if the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had no dispute about them.