The Authorship of the Gospels

So, the best evidence for the Book of John being written are about 50AD, we have quotations from it, in reconstructed codexes (The Signs Gospel it’s called, which is constructed by scholars, shows even they believe it has early authorship). Which dates to about 50AD.

So… when you read the Book of John, you really see Christ from the perspective of the people of that day. Making it kind of obvious that it’s a witness account. As it sort of remains skeptical of Jesus at first, and you start to wonder if Jesus is a lunatic—but given the miracles, you can’t say that He is.

And then at the end, you see Christ for Who He is, fully aware, fully salient, fully realized in His ministry, and you can only come away from that thinking that the Book of John is really dealing with a man’s faith. Particularly the Writer John.

So… it also could be that Papias dictated the book of John from John, as some fragments of Papias suggest this happened. Which pushes the date of the Book of John to about 90AD. But, the fact remains that it’s a witness account, as it doesn’t elevate Jesus, but rather gives you the notions of the time period, as a man come from Galilee, and possibly a Samaritan, it doesn’t mask Jesus. It gives us the outsider’s perspective very well, and then we come to see that Jesus is the Christ. When Jesus is sitting and teaching His disciples in 14–17, we see a salient teacher, and in the Synoptic Gospels we see a very salient teacher. Which, Matthew, Mark and Luke wrote those, as we have in fragments of Papias and also the book of Acts reason to believe that those were written through eyewitnesses too, and those could be written as early as 35AD, as we have quotations from the book of Mark from that time period. Which means, that the Gospels could be written within a decade of Christ’s resurrection.

So, there’s very good reason to trust all four gospels, as it’s closer in time, being written, than even Plutarch or Herodotus are to their subjects. The Gospels are more reliable than any historical text we have in print, being that it’s all from first-hand sources, and witnesses, and not people removed a generation or two later. And we know this, because again Papias tells us that Mark heard his Gospel from Peter while he was in prison, Matthew wrote his in Hebrew (Aramaic) and certain puns show up in the text showing this is likely. And then Luke travelled with Paul, who’d have met James, Mary, Joseph, Peter, and Jude and other apostles and witnesses.

So, the gospels are handed down to us through eyewitnesses, as it says in Luke.