Who Really Wrote the Gospels?

Catholic Education Resource Center ^ | 2003 | Fr. William Saunders

[Salvation]

I thought this would be an interesting discussion.

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[Salvation]

Three different ways to be an author:

**First, the author was clearly the individual who actually wrote the text with his own pen.

Second, the individual who dictated the text to a secretary or scribe was still considered the author.

Third, the individual was still considered the author if he only provided the ideas or if the text were written in accord with his though and in his spirit even though a "ghost writer" did the actual composition.**

[Salvation]

**new evidence points to the authorship of the traditional authors.**

Any comments?

[dsc]

"I thought this would be an interesting discussion."

I found it a blessed relief, after some of the whacko stuff we've seen recently. Thanks for posting it.

[dsc]

"Any comments?"

"Father Reginald Fuller, an Episcopalian and Professor Emeritus at Virginia Theological Seminary, with Dr. Carsten Thiede, have analyzed three papyrus fragments from the 26th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew; the fragments date the year 40, which would indicate that the author was an eyewitness to our Lord's public ministry."

So, we have hard proof that the Gospel of Matthew was penned not "hundreds of years" after Our Lord's Resurrection, but earlier than the year 41.

Gee, I, I somehow missed the media furor that must certainly have created. I presume all the skeptics have stopped asserting the late authorship of Matthew, and are appropriately chagrined and apologetic.

[Salvation]

**I found it a blessed relief, after some of the whacko stuff we've seen recently.** LOL! One of the reasons I posted it!

[Salvation]

**So, we have hard proof that the Gospel of Matthew was penned not "hundreds of years" after Our Lord's Resurrection, but earlier than the year 41.**

Very true.

And we know that Luke traveled with Paul (Acts of the Apostles -- so he got some of his knowledge from Paul, but may have also known Jesus personally. Remember Paul was persecuting the followers of Christ.

[Jeff Chandler]

I remember reading about a linguist who was translating the Gospel of Matthew from Greek into Hebrew. He was astonished to discover that the Greek rendered into Hebrew of a poetic form common to Scripture, indicating that the Greek was actually translated originally from Hebrew! That would most certainly date Matthew within 70 years of Jesus' death and resurrection.

[Salvation]

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[dsc]

"...indicating that the Greek was actually translated originally from Hebrew!"

That's very interesting. I didn't know that.

"That would most certainly date Matthew within 70 years of Jesus' death and resurrection."

And now the Dead Sea Scrolls have pushed it back to AD 40.

I'm beginning to believe that the 20th century was one in which Satan was particularly strong, but that now his power is waning.

[Sloth]

the teacher said that the Gospels were written by the early Church community probably between the years 200 and 300

Foolish. The author of Luke, who also wrote Acts, was personally present for some of the events portrayed (e.g., Acts 16:13 -- "And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there."

[Desdemona]

The notion that the Gospels are the product of the early Church community in the third century is "strange" indeed.

Yes, since one critereon of inclusion in the New Testament was that the books had to be written within 100 years of Christ's death and ressurection.

[attagirl]

Thanks for posting this. I'd read about 5 yrs. ago that Matt. was now believed to be the first gospel written, but I didn't know that it was based on Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship.

I'll have to remember the name Papias (c. 130), Bishop of Hierapolis who indicates that Matt. was the first to compile a collection of Jesus' sayings in the Aramaic language.

I'd say that's more compelling than having some Johnny come lately from the 20th century saying Q or Madame X wrote a gospel which others were based on long after Jesus ascended.

And, yeah--no media acclamation of this. At least not on the order of finding some box with Jesus' brother's name inscribed on it--or whatever (hoax that it was).

[Salvation]

Luke rarely uses "we" in his narravtive in Acts. Usually "we" was used in references to boating and surviving storms.

Luke ususally writes in the third person.

But I agree that he was there for some of the incidents in Acts. Just wanted to point out that the "we" was a kind of writing with a history for that day.

[RobbyS]

The thing to remember is that Crossan et al have an "agenda" as we like to say. That is to discredit the writings of the New Testament. That is why the so-called "Gospel of Thomas" is said, with a shred of evidence to back the assertion, to be the "first" gospel. This kind of thing has been going for for more than 200 years, so that the historical foundation odf Christianity might be undermined.

[Havoc]

You should go read Michael Crichton's recent article on junk science. There is not a shred of supportable evidence of any factual kind that supports Matthew having been written originally in anything other than greek. Nor was there a need for it to be written in other than Greek. The claim that it was written in Aramaic arose out of a need to support another claim that has since been surrendered. It also arose out of an ignorance of Chaldee. Marvelling about poetic nature is cute; but, it isn't science nor is it factual. I'll underscore that it's cute cause it's just the sort of thing you say when you want someone to buy something without support or make it more likely that they may. And this is exactly the sort of thing that Crichton attacked and attacked with clarity.

Responsibility and credibility go hand in hand. The earliest known texts found have all been in Greek. No first century text has ever been found in Chaldee. And the point that was trying to be made by saying it was is lost in the facts surrounding the language. Some people need to do a better job on homework.

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP

[Jeff Chandler]

Some people need to do a better job on homework.

You don't have to get snippy about it. I was merely sharing something I read, not professing to be an expert on the subject.

[Dajjal]

Contemporary Catholic Biblical Scholarship
By Msgr. Michael J. Wrenn
A good summarization of the work of Robinson, Tresmontant, and Carmignac on dating the four Gospels before 70 AD, written in Hebrew (and why the second gospel ought to be called the Gospel of Peter, which Mark collated and translated into Greek).