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Loading...Over the past few weeks I’ve had several people ask me about why the Gospels of the New Testament are attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It’s a great question, and one that I want to do some more intense thinking and reading about myself. So I thought I would lay out some of the basics here in a series of posts, and think aloud a bit about why I think the Gospels got the names they did.
To begin with, it’s important to recognize that the Gospels themselves are completely anonymous. None of the authors identifies himself by name. The Gospels are all written in the third person about what “they” – other people – were doing (including, of course, and principally, Jesus).
There are only a couple of exceptions to the third-person narratives of the Gospels, and even in these cases the authors do not given their own names. The first is in the Prologue to Luke’s Gospel, Luke 1:1-4, where the author says:
Just as many have attempted to write a narrative about the things that have been fulfilled among us, as they were handed over to us from the beginning by eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, so it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for a long while to write an orderly account to you, most excellent Theophilus, so you might know the secure truth about the things of which you have been informed.
There are lots and lots of things that could be said about this opening to Luke’s Gospel. For my purposes here, I’ll restrict myself to a couple of key points:
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A couple weeks ago you wrote a little about Papias. He was one of the first to talk about the Gospels named as we know them today. Was he the very first to mention them by name? I know there are issues about his reliability today, but were there any questions of his reliability, say up to Eusebius? I know Eusebius didn’t think much of Papias’ intelligence (or his orthodoxy), but did he think he was reliable? Maybe a better question is: did any ancient writers question the attributed authors of the Gospels?
Yes, I’ll be dealing with all these issues in the current thread.
I try to point out to fundamentalist friends that “Luke” was dissatisfied with the previous accounts of Jesus which must have included the Gospel of Mark. And that “Luke” makes no claim to divine inspiration, just research. They don’t seem to accept that the author didn’t seem to advocate either divine inspiration or infallibility of other gospels. What do conservative scholars make of the introduction to the Gospel of Luke?
They tend to say that when Luke claims to write an “orderly” account, he’s not being disparaging of what the others before him wrote.
As you write above, “It’s not completely clear if that means that he wants his account to provide the correct chronological sequence for the things that happened, or if, somewhat more likely, he wants to provide a generally more correct version.”
I find the idea that Mark’s gospel is not orderly in the sense of time fascinating, and I believe it’s a hypothesis worthy of further study. Mark 1:1-39 seems orderly enough, as narratives go. Then 1:40-44 (the story of cleansing the leper) seems timeless, in the sense that it could have happened at any point in Jesus’s ministry. It ends with 1:45, “… Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.”
But then, Mark 2 begins with “When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.” Hang on, back to Capernaum, so soon? And Capernaum is his home too, so, how is this hiding out in the country?
Mark 2:23 begins “One sabbath…,” and the self-complete story could have happened on any sabbath. Then abruptly Mark 3 begins with, “Again he entered the synagogue…” Which synagogue? Where?
I could go on. The stories of the early chapters of Mark could easily be rearranged in time, almost as freely as the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas.
Dr Ehrman,
Can you please outline the reasons why modern scholars believe that Luke and Acts were written by the same person?
Thanks,
Andrew
I may post on this. The main reasons are that they have the same writing style and same themes and same theological outlook; and Acts *claims* to be the second volume of the two-volume work (read the first few verses of Luke then the first few verses of Acts, and you’ll see.)
Just curious, if Theophilos is a metaphor, what’s your take on why Luke would use a common name as a metaphor? Would the readers catch it?
Because it means exactly what he wanted to say: this book is for those beloved of God.
I’ve always thought of the “Theophilus” double entendre as being like naming a child “Hope” today. We know without thinking about it what both meanings are. Is that a fair comparison for 2000 years ago?
I suppose so!
Who was the first writer we know of to attribute the third gospel to Luke? Do we know for sure that this early attribution had to do with the ‘we’ passages in Acts? Or were there other reasons early on when these books were being named?
Irenaeus. I’ll be dealing with this in the thread I’ve now started up.
Greetings, Dr. Ehrman,
I was curious. Have you written anything on this blog involving the authorship of Mark in similar context to these posts? I have always found it interesting as to why the early church Fathers (particularly Iranaeus) attributed it to Peter’s scribe, and disciple, Mark. I find it kind of random for them to attribute it to Mark.
Thank you
Yes, I’ll be dealing with that in this thread.
Until a couple of years ago I didn’t care much about Luke’s Gospel , my preference was (and in many respects still is) for Mark and Matthew.. All in all “Luke” was the “Gospel of the gentiles”, and I considered it as an elegant, sophisticate and diluted version of Jesus’ accounts – stuffed with theologumena. As long as I realized the “social” significance of Jesus’ mission, I slightly changed my mind.. Besides the thick theological layer of Luke’s gospel, I think that the author really had access to damned good sources (as he claims in his Prologue).
I have got the impression that one of the reasons for assuming that the gospels originally circulated without author annotation is that the church fathers quote from them without author attribution. Are there many such undisputed quotations prior to the assumed date of the Muratorian Canon?
I’ll be dealing with this in the thread! But basically, it’s MF and Irenaeus — so late second century.
I’ve been reading Adela Collin’s commentary on Mark, and she concludes, based off of the fact, reportedly, that most books of the gospels size and nature would have had a name, and the fact that there was never any dispute among the Early church, about who the authors were, in these texts, that they probably were associated with the traditional authors from near the beginning. Was there ever any debate over which author wrote what?
No, there wasn’t. The question would be why they aren’t *called* by these names for another century, if they had them that early.
Prof Ehrman
1. I’ve read speculation that the nativity story in Luke might not have been part of the original gospel. Are you satisfied the prologue was part of the original gospel?
2. That “many” is tantalizing. Obviously Luke knew Mark. Do you think Luke knew Matthew? (Or some version of Matthew?)
thx
I think the nativity story came with the second edition; but 1:1-4 was from the first, initially leading directly to what is now 3;1.
No, I think Luke did not know Matthew, but used Q for material also found in Matthew.
This is going to be a very helpful series of posts. Thanks.
Of the many things that you have taught me over the years, the most helpful has been the list of 8 observations showing that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. You presented this material in a recent Great Courses lecture series. This information was so helpful. It changes everything. It also explains why there are so many contradictions in the Gospels.
The idea that the author of Luke sought to improve the Gospel of Mark also is quite helpful in that it shows that even the author of Luke did not interpret the Gospel of Mark in a literal way.
How common was it for authors to writte anonymously in Antiquity? Why would “Luke”, after so much research, not sign his book? Is there a hypothesis to explain the gospels anonymous status or would that be mere speculation?
Yup — see today’s post! You’re one step ahead of me, as usual….
Per your earlier posts, chapters 1 & 2 of Luke were probably written by someone other than the person who wrote the rest, and those chapters are what links Luke to Acts. So when people talk about authorship, to which section are they referring?
No, the birth narratives do not link Luke to Acts. Luke 1:1-4 do. See Acts 1:1-2.
It’s interesting that in the sayings gospels, Q written perhaps in the 60s has a few perfunctory references to disciples without naming them while Thomas written in its final form at maybe the turn of the century is attributed to Thomas and names some disciples though in verses that may be late in the process. Do these two documents sort of bracket the time frame when who the disciples were and who the texts are attributed to became important? I think most people date the attribution of who wrote the gospels to a later time in the 2nd century.
I’m not sure what you’re asking in your first question: Christians were attributing names to Gospels long after Thomas. On the NT Gospels, I agree — that’ll be the theme of the thread I’m pursuing now.
Looking forward to this series!
Sorry I’m late again .. lots of tutoring of the most adorable Maya kids 🙂 all who had exams last week … were the authors (whoever they were) writing in dangerous times? (sorry if once again I’m betraying my ignorance regarding events of that era). Why would they have needed or chosen to use code names? (I’ll start catching up).
We don’t know whether their own communities were experiencing persecutions or not. But we have no record of any Christian getting in trouble with the authorities for writing a Christian book.
1) Why do you regard the authorial claim at Acts 1.1 any differently from that at 2 Peter 3.1? Isn’t associating a book one wrote today with one that already has a certain degree of acceptance a classic forger’s technique?
2) How do you account for the stylistic differences between Luke and Acts? For instance, no instance of εφη is secure in Luke (indeed, if one accepts the Farrer Theory — which I know you don’t — one inevitably has Luke replacing εφη with other verbs of saying in his redaction of the double tradition; and this must be an open question even with the Q Theory); indeed the only time that Luke securely uses φημι is one of his few blunders into the historic present (7.40, avoiding the absurd ο δε διδασκαλε ειπε ειπε). Acts on the other hand likes εφη about as much as Matthew does. It seems odd for an author to turn around and say, “actually, I rather like that silly pretentious word ‘quoth’ after all”.
1) I don’t recall seeing that as a classic forger’s technique. What do you have in mind?
2) φημι is used eight times in Luke, so he doesn’t avoid it (seven of those are εφη). It occurs in Acts more probably because there are more speeches Acts (about half the uses are in chs. 22-26).
Hey, Bart! What do you think about the greek word ‘parédosan’, used in Luke 1:2? That word is composed by ‘para’ (which means beside) and ‘didomi’ (which means to give’). So I was wondering whether adding ‘beside’ to ‘give’, would indicate that the action is done with certain closeness between the giver and the receiver, or not. The only text, besides Luke, on which I’ve found the word ‘parédosan’ (meaning: handing down a tradition), is in Plato’s Philebus 16c. In this text, it reads that the “ancients handed down a tradition”, but the text doesn’t say to whom they handed this tradition. I mean, ‘parédosan’ isn’t followed by ‘hêmin’ (which means us) as in Luke. Straight to the point: do you think the syntax (not the date on which Luke was written) of Luke 1:1-2 rules out completely the possibility of Luke (and the other gospel writers he mentions) having received the traditions from eyewitnesses? If so, why?
Paradidomi is a common word in Greek, and simply means “handed over” or “passed along.” It is sometimes used in a technical sense to refer to a tradition that a person has passed along or handed over to someone else. It does not necessarily suggest the the people to whom the tradition was passed were personally acquainted with the ultimate source of the tradition In this case, the author is telling us that the traditions involved were first circulated by “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word,” which are two separate groups. Stories of Jesus started with those who were with Jesus, they were then passed along by those who preached about them, and Luke and others living later have now heard them. I guess it owuld be comparable to saying: “previous generations have taught us” or “as we have learned from our forebears” or “as our ministers have told us….”