Recently, I’ve been reading and listening to material about the veracity of the gospels. Since the 19th century, there has been a spike in skepticism about the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, with questions that doubt their trustworthiness, including: “Were the Gospels anonymous?”, “Were the Gospels written significantly after the time of Jesus?”, and “Do the Gospel writers claim Jesus was God?” These are just a few of the important questions that people have raised and, while I can only touch on these questions in limited detail in this article, I hope to introduce the reader to an understanding of the Gospels that appreciates the ancient Jewish worldview that grounded the authors and their contemporaries. For more reading on the subject, I highly recommend Brant Pitre’s The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ, from which I will draw material for this piece.
To address the first question, the gospels were not anonymous. The theory of gospel anonymity is that all four Gospels were written in the first century and then repeatedly published without any titles or headings naming the authors until the second century. The great problem with this theory is that zero anonymous copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John exist and, based on our knowledge currently, they never have existed. Rather, as New Testament scholar Simao Gathercole has shown, the ancient manuscripts are unanimous in attributing these books to the apostles and their companions. In fact, the earliest gospel manuscripts we have are from the 2nd century and titled: “Gospel according to Matthew,” “Gospel according to Matthew,” “Gospel according to Luke,” “Gospel according to [J]ohn,” and “Gospel according to John.” Furthermore, the Church Fathers, those early apostolic-era writers and leaders in the Catholic Church, all affirm that Matthew, one of the twelve apostles and a tax collector; Mark, a disciple of Peter; Luke, a disciple of Paul; and John, one of the twelve apostles and the beloved disciple by Jesus at the foot of the cross, wrote the four gospels.
The gospels were written soon after the life and death of Christ. The fact that Jesus’ prophecy about the Temple being destroyed in 70 A.D. was not celebrated, or at least mentioned, as fulfilled by the gospels writers, shows that they were written prior to 70 A.D. Further, in Mark 13, Jesus says to “pray [the Temple’s destruction] will not take place in winter,” but according to accounts, the actual destruction took place in the summer. If it already happened, why would Jesus be depicted as someone who wanted his disciples to pray it did not occur during a different season? That would be very unlikely. Moreover, Luke suddenly stops his Acts of the Apostles during Paul’s imprisonment in 62 A.D., demonstrating that this document was written during or before that year and, if that’s true, then Luke’s Gospel would in all likelihood have been written near that time, rather than in 80 or 85 A.D. as many academics posit. To not include Paul’s martyrdom here, despite the heroic nature of it, would have been like if someone wrote a biography of Abraham Lincoln and did not include any details about his death, but only up to a certain day in 1864. If one were to find a biography like that, all other things being equal, it would be safe to assume that the author was writing without knowledge of what happened in 1865 and, thus, was writing in 1864.
Lastly, we can trust that the gospel writers thought Jesus was God. The Gospel of John very explicitly associates Jesus or the Word as God, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn. 1:1). Matthew, Mark, and Luke less explicitly, but just as clearly depict Jesus as God. The stilling of the storm mentioned in all three of these gospels showcase a storm that terrorizes Jesus’ disciples on the Sea of Galilee, which is subsequently calmed by Jesus. This is no ordinary miracle in the Jewish tradition, as Jesus is controlling what God in the Old Testament has only and repeatedly shown dominion over: the sea and the wind (cf. Job 26:11-2, Ps. 104:1-7, Ps. 107:23-30). Jesus’ disciples’ reaction, saying “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?” demonstrates they understand their own context (Mk. 4:41). Further, in the account of Jesus walking on water, Jesus says “I am,” a phrase reserved for God in the Old Testament and accepts the disciples worshiping him as the Son of God after he performs this. Also, Jesus is repeatedly shown forgiving the sins of people, which is a capacity reserved solely for God in the Hebrew tradition.
These are just introductions to answers for these questions and are by no means exhaustive. I encourage the reader to look deeper into these issues, read Pitre’s book, and find solace in the fact that faith in Christ and His Church and reason through historical analysis and logic have and still today affirm each other.
Featured Image Courtesy of David Moseley via Wikimedia Commons
Max Montana is a senior studying philosophy and theology. When not writing for The Torch, he enjoys reading more about the Catholic faith and philosophy, serving the unborn and mothers in need, and hanging out with friends. Max is honored to hail from the state with many gators and the bishop of the moon: Florida.
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