[This is one of many topics that upsets manipulators. Read about other topics they can't stand.]
After reading this article [that was sent to me], it should make one wonder WHY did someone go to such trouble to hide who really wrote what and WHY.......
[Stargods] Weird Bible Fact!
You know the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John right. Well I just found out that they are anonymous scriptures and nobody knows who wrote them. -Rick-
"No one knows where the names of the gospels came from. They were not original to the gospels. The earliest Church Fathers, when they referenced these texts at all, simply called them things like "memoirs of the Apostles." They do not appear to have had names attached to them until some time in the mid-to late second century. After that point, Church Fathers began a guessing game as to who the names might relate to.
They of course, seriously wanted the gospels to be written by those close to the stories. Unfortunately, at least two of the gospels, Mark and Luke, were already carrying the names of non-apostles, in fact men not named in any of the gospels. The gospels carrying the name John and Matthew were quickly assigned to the disciples by those names. Later, even the Church Fathers admitted doubts about the Gospel of John, and determined it was probably written by some noted elder named John from Ephesus. The gospel carrying the name Matthew became the sole gospel that the Church Fathers could coherently conjecture as having been from a disciple, so it became the Church favorite (and placed in first place in the canon). Today, this is almost universally rejected as the author of Matthew borrowed slavishly from the Gospel of Mark, and no disciple who had actually been there would be copying from someone that wasn't.
The name Luke was only noted one place in all the NT literature, and that was the name of a companion of Paul's. Thus the Fathers determined to make him the author of that gospel. Mark was the most common name in the Empire, and there were numerous Marks running around. In time, the best "spin" became a companion of Peter, noted in one of the late pseudononymous letters attributed to Peter.
The facts are that we do not know when or by whom these names became attached to each gospel. We can see via the early literature how the names eventually became associated (by guess, conjecture) with people in the NT literature, but we have no information that these were anything but after-the fact guesses.
Modern scholars, except the most conservative Christians, almost universally accept that the gospels are anonymous, and the traditional names are simply used today as an identifier."
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