The Anonymous Gospel Manuscripts
January 30, 2016 at 5:33 pm
(This post was last modified: January 30, 2016 at 5:38 pm by athrock.)
Among the many theories floating around the Interweb are the notions that the authorship of the gospels is unknown, that they were published anonymously, and that the assignment of authorship to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John came much later.
Apart from the obvious question of why the Early Church would ascribe the writing of a gospel to a hated tax collector (Matthew), a Gentile (Luke) and a young man who wasn't even present (Mark) rather than the "pillars" of the Church such as Peter or James, another question comes to mind:
Where are these anonymous manuscripts?
If the gospels were in circulation for many years before they were ascribed to the authors whose names they now bear, shouldn't there be copies of the original documents bearing no name at all? And shouldn't some existing manuscripts show evidence of having been altered to include the authors' names later as was the case with the word "Chrestianos" in Tacitus' Annals?
And if the gospels were written and circulated anonymously throughout the near East, North Africa and the Mediterranean basin among dozens if not hundreds of local churches, wouldn't that require some effort by someone to ensure the standardization of these new names of the gospels on every single flyleaf of every single manuscript in every single church in all of Christendom? If so,
When and how was this naming accomplished, and is there any written record of this project being ordered, undertaken and completed?
Do skeptics have documentation of such a project found in the writings of an Early Church Father? Wouldn't Pope Clement, St. Ignatius, or St. Irenaeus have known of such an event and mentioned it AS A TRIUMPH OF CHURCH UNITY and as a SIGN OF THE APOSTOLIC ORIGIN of the gospels?
Surely they would. So...why the silence?
Apart from the obvious question of why the Early Church would ascribe the writing of a gospel to a hated tax collector (Matthew), a Gentile (Luke) and a young man who wasn't even present (Mark) rather than the "pillars" of the Church such as Peter or James, another question comes to mind:
Where are these anonymous manuscripts?
If the gospels were in circulation for many years before they were ascribed to the authors whose names they now bear, shouldn't there be copies of the original documents bearing no name at all? And shouldn't some existing manuscripts show evidence of having been altered to include the authors' names later as was the case with the word "Chrestianos" in Tacitus' Annals?
And if the gospels were written and circulated anonymously throughout the near East, North Africa and the Mediterranean basin among dozens if not hundreds of local churches, wouldn't that require some effort by someone to ensure the standardization of these new names of the gospels on every single flyleaf of every single manuscript in every single church in all of Christendom? If so,
When and how was this naming accomplished, and is there any written record of this project being ordered, undertaken and completed?
Do skeptics have documentation of such a project found in the writings of an Early Church Father? Wouldn't Pope Clement, St. Ignatius, or St. Irenaeus have known of such an event and mentioned it AS A TRIUMPH OF CHURCH UNITY and as a SIGN OF THE APOSTOLIC ORIGIN of the gospels?
Surely they would. So...why the silence?
