AUTHENTICITY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS

Agnostic and Bible critic, Bart Ehrman, had written:

·       “The four Gospels... are all anonymous, written in the third person about Jesus and his companions. None of them contains a first-person narrative ("One day, when Jesus and I went into Capernaum..."), or claims to be written by an eyewitness or companion of an eyewitness.” (Book Cover; "Lost Christianities")

However, the testimony of the early Church Fathers for the traditional authorship of the four Gospels is quite compelling:

·       The early church unanimously accepted traditional authorship for the Four Gospels. Matthew is accredited with the First Gospel by Papias, bishop of Hieropolis (c. A.D. 120) and Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul (c. A.D. 175). John Mark is accredited with the Second Gospel, Luke is credited with the Third, and John is ascribed with the Fourth Gospel by Papias and preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea (A.D. 260-340). In addition, John is ascribed with the Fourth Gospel by Irenaeus in his work Against Heresies. The church unanimously accepted Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the authors. If one is to claim otherwise, there should be a great deal of evidence. No such evidence exists outside of modern skepticism. https://bellatorchristi.com/2016/11/14/reasons-why-one-should-accept-the-traditional-authorship-of-the-gospels/

Jonathan McLatchie argues for their authenticity because:

·       …the gospels are ascribed to such minor characters as Mark and Luke — neither of whom, by any accounts, were themselves eyewitnesses. Had a forger wanted to acquire credibility for his writing he would undoubtedly have attributed it to someone like Peter, Thomas or James (as the later second and third century Gnostic gospels did). https://crossexamined.org/wrote-gospels-2/

This makes the traditional attributions of these two Gospels to Mark and Luke seem quite authentic, without any attempt to deceive. The same can be said about all four Gospels, which never explicitly mention the name of the author. It seems that they had nothing to prove. Why not? Probably because they understood that what they were writing was actually the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, to assign their name to their Gospel was to usurp what belongs to Jesus alone.

The much later Gnostic gospels, all written at least 100 years after the crucifixion, had all been falsely ascribed to one of the Apostles. Why? To attempt to deceive the early church into accepting them as Scripture! However, this was almost an impossible task because:

1.    Their late date

2.    The Church Fathers would not attest to their authenticity.

3.    Even the Gnostic philosophers never quoted them.

4.    Even the competitive Gnostic gospels never call into question their traditional ascription; nor do they contest their contents. Instead, they try to fill in the blanks left by lack of content about Jesus’ childhood and His post-resurrection teachings. This gives us the impression that the four Gospels had been extensively accepted as Scripture, perhaps even incontestable.

5.    In many respects, their theology seldom reflected that of the Old or New Testaments.

McLatchie adds:

·       Actually, there is some compelling evidence (both external and internal) that Mark penned the eyewitness accounts of Peter. For example, Justin Martyr, writing around A.D. 150, spoke of Mark’s Gospel as “the memoirs of Peter.” He suggested that Mark wrote down his material when he was in Italy (which concurs with other early tradition which indicates that the gospel of Mark was penned in Rome for the benefit of the Christians there. Iraeneus (writing approx. A.D. 185) referred to Mark as “the disciple and interpreter of Peter.” Most famously, Papias, the bishop of Hieropolis (writing approx. A.D. 140) wrote:

·       “And the presbyter [the Apostle John] said this: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord’s sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some sayings as he remembered them. For one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements.”

We should be hesitant about accepting Ehrman’s judgments on the Scriptures in light on his many inconsistencies. For example, he also wrote:

·       The oldest and best sources we have for knowing about the life of Jesus…are the four Gospels of the NT…This is not simply the view of Christian historians who have a high opinion of the NT and in its historical worth; it is the view of all serious historians of antiquity…it is the conclusion that has been reached by every one of the hundreds (thousands, even) of scholars. (“Truth and Fiction in the DaVinci Code,” p. 102)

The early dating of the Gospels is an important question. If they had been written by eyewitnesses, especially by the Apostles and their associates who had been martyred refusing to renege on what they had written, then these Gospels must be regarded are highly credible. Besides this, it would have been far more difficult to fabricate the accounts of Jesus’ life if many witnesses were still alive.

It is of note that the Magdalen fragment of the Gospel of Matthew is dated by some at 60 AD while others are placing this fragment at a later date. Fragments of what is believed to be the Gospel of Mark have been found in the Qumran caves and dated 50 and 68 BC. It will be interesting to see if consensus is ever reached regarding these fragments. They might argue for a much earlier dating of the Gospels.