The Anonymous Gospel Manuscripts

[Aractus]

This may be the most stupid question I've heard in a long time concerning ancient literature. Well, of course, every original piece of literature ever written is well preserved and cared for. What are 2000 years after all to some piece of papyrus penned down somewhere in the Middle East or Greece?

And, it's not some saying the have been attributed to these men. It's quite a few scholars holding that opinion, since Mark sounds better than Shmuel, the camel herder, telliing tall tales on some trade route. The question, why the ancient church(es) took these persons to be role models, is equally naive. Their role makes them ideal role models for conversion stories to present to followers.

Actually, none of the NT books would have been canonised if their authorship/supposed-authorship wasn't accepted by early church leaders, with the possible exception of Hebrews. This is exactly why other gnostic gospels were rejected - because they were known/believed to be pseudonymous/forgeries. So the fact that three out of the four gospels have wrong author-attribution is extremely important to the question of their legitimacy as a part of Christian literature.

Following the fall of the central church authority in Jerusalem by 70AD however, the early Christians found themselves without the means to reliably authenticate gospels and letters that were circulating. We know with at least three out of the four gospels that they failed at this. Luke-Acts they probably got right (or close enough anyway). All Paul's main letters they got right as well. James and Jude appear to be authentic also (with scholars noting that the James that wrote James may or may not be James the Just), but they got 1-2 Peter wrong. Of all the books of the NT besides revelation, 1-2 Peter have the worst credentials for even being written in the first century, let alone having correct authorship.

Hebrews is extremely well written, scholars say it has the best use of Greek in the NT, and was written by someone with detailed knowledge of Pauline theology. This has led people (including scholars) to speculate that it might have been Luke who wrote it - or some other close associate of Paul - or even Paul himself by dictation to a skilled scribe. All are possible, especially the latter because Paul is known to have travelled quite a bit, thus why he used different scribes for different books and not just one that he took with him (in fact, we could further speculate the scribes might have been provided by the churches he was visiting to send his letters). In Acts 15 James & the church authorities sends scribes (Judas Barsab′bas & Silas) with Paul and Barnabas to write and deliver the message they agreed upon at the council, so it's actually quite a likely explanation. What is clear though is that (like the pastorals) Hebrews is closely associated with Paul, if not actually Paul himself.

Anyway it's not a stupid question, it's a question that's been asked now for 1900 years. What Christians however don't want to accept is that modern scholars (even going back in "recent" centuries) have found very differently to what the early church fathers thought in the second, third, fourth, and fifth centuries. But even in those early centuries there are examples of doubters as well.