To conclude this section on the Prefaces to the four Gospels, I will review what we know about their authors and the attributions traditionally linked to them. None of the four Gospels names its author. They circulated anonymously; the names we now use were assigned later by tradition, not by the writers themselves. This chapter argues that these names functioned less as bylines than as claims to authority, each meant to tie a Gospel to the apostolic generation; and that where a name belongs to a minor figure rather than an apostle, that very modesty is better read as the memory of a real contributor than as an invented pedigree.

Papias of Hierapolis (60–130 CE) is the earliest Christian writer known to have linked the Gospels to their traditional authors. He stated that he collected oral traditions from “elders” who knew the apostles. A fragment of Papias’s work preserved by Eusebius says that “Matthew wrote the logia in Hebrew, and each one interpreted them as they understood” (Ecclesiastical History 3.39.16). While the meaning of “logia” is debated, it most likely refers to a now-lost collection of Jesus’s sayings rather than the completed Greek Gospel. I will discuss this further in the section on Matthew.

Modern scholars approach Papias with caution. Eusebius, who preserved much of his work, referred to him as “a man of very small intelligence” (Ecclesiastical History 3.39.13). The tradition Papias recounts, elders who had known and heard the apostles, is hard to confirm, since more than a generation separated the apostles from Papias’s claim of contact with those who knew them.

It remains uncertain whether Papias’s assertions are genuine, exaggerated, or completely fabricated. However, later figures, notably Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 125–202 CE), adopted his attributions. Irenaeus was the first to clearly identify the four canonical Gospels as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (Against Heresies, c. 180 CE). This fourfold naming became the norm by the late second and early third centuries, mainly thanks to Irenaeus and other later writers.

Point 1: How the Gospels Took Shape

Before the names themselves comes the question of how the Gospels developed, since the sequence and style of their composition shaped the credibility of particular apostolic names. Our understanding of how these four Gospels were written remains limited. Scholars suggest dates of origin from 40 CE to the early second century. The Gospels contain clues, such as predictions about the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple, references to cities and locations, and mentions of Roman and Jewish authorities.

The evidence remains debated because there are no first-century copies of the Gospels and only a few second-century fragments. The earliest, a fragment of John called P52, is traditionally dated to the first half of the second century. However, recent paleographic research suggests it may be later (Brent Nongbri, “The Use and Abuse of P52,” Harvard Theological Review 98, 2005), and the more complete copies (P66 and P75) are generally dated around 200 CE. Scribes might have added any dating clues later. Moreover, it is unlikely that each Gospel was created in a single stage; for instance, Luke states his Gospel is a compilation of earlier texts. The other Gospels do not explicitly mention their sources but rely on foundational texts that influenced their narratives.

The Gospels of the New Testament could also be later copies of original manuscripts, which makes their exact origins more difficult to establish. Therefore, I will present the most widely accepted dates for the four Gospels, as determined by modern scholars (for a standard survey of these ranges and the reasoning behind them, see Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, 1997), while emphasizing that these are educated estimates rather than definitive dates.

The traditional dating places Mark’s Gospel in the late 60s or early 70s CE. Matthew, which used Mark as a source, was written between 75 and 85 CE. Luke, also relying heavily on Mark, was composed in the 80s or early 90s CE. Lastly, John, which I argue was aware of Luke and wrote many sections in response, was likely composed in the 90s or the early second century. 

Most of Mark’s content is found in Matthew and Luke, supporting the idea of “Markan Priority,” which holds that both used it as their principal source. Mark Goodacre’s The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze is a clear, accessible overview of the evidence and debates. Markan Priority does not by itself settle how the material Matthew and Luke share beyond Mark, the so-called double tradition, is explained: most scholars posit a lost sayings source (Q), while Goodacre himself dispenses with Q and argues that Luke drew directly on Matthew (the Farrer hypothesis, defended at length in his The Case Against Q, 2002). I set that debate aside here, since the naming of the Gospels does not depend on its outcome. Note: I agree with Markan Priority, so my future essays will start with Mark, then proceed to Matthew, Luke, and finally John.

Point 2: The Four Evangelists

Point 2a: Who was Mark?

Tradition, starting with Papias of Hierapolis and later church writers, attributes the authorship of Mark to John Mark. He was a companion of Peter and Barnabas and might be the individual referenced in Acts 12–15, as well as in Colossians 4:10, Philemon 1:24, 2 Timothy 4:11, and 1 Peter 5:13. Combining these references under one name, “John Mark,” is an interpretive choice, as the texts mention a “Mark” but do not explicitly confirm they refer to the same person. Tradition also links him to the young man in Mark 14:51–52, though the text itself offers no such identification.

The Gospel of Mark was written by a Greek-speaking author, likely around 70 CE. The Gospel shows awareness of the unrest in Jerusalem in the late 60s and of the eventual destruction of the temple that resulted from it, which is why 70 CE is the most common dating for Mark.

The author of Mark tailored his Gospel for a community well-versed in Jewish scriptures and Roman culture. The Gospel frequently explains Jewish customs and translates Aramaic phrases, indicating that its readers were probably a mixed or predominantly Gentile audience.

Linking this Gospel to John Mark is intended to ascribe it to Peter’s authority in the Christian faith. Tradition indicates that the Gospel embodies Peter’s teachings, documented by his disciple and assistant. The Gospel’s origin is anonymous, without first-person narration or direct sources.

Its tradition mainly depends on Papias’s account, in which he says that an elder described Mark as Peter’s interpreter, who documented his memories, though somewhat chaotically. Papias also concedes that the account was incomplete. Even if Papias’s assertions about the author are correct, additional work was needed to transform John Mark’s rough notes into the organized Gospel we have now.

Christian tradition holds that Nero executed Peter in Rome in the late 60s. If that is correct, it would make sense for one of his disciples to feel that Peter’s teaching should be formalized into a cohesive Gospel. However, the evidence for Peter’s martyrdom in Rome is itself thin, which weakens even this rationale.[1]

Still, the fact that church leaders settled on Mark at all could be taken as evidence of either his authorship or his contribution. He was a minor figure, not an apostle, and an inventor seeking authority would have had little reason to choose him over other, more prominent names. It is plausible that a genuine memory of John Mark composing material survived, and that the Petrine connection preserved in 1 Peter 5:13, together with the interpreter tradition Papias reports, gave that memory the apostolic weight the name alone could not carry. This is not an endorsement of Mark as the author, but an explanation for why John Mark would be chosen as the “According to” when assigning someone to it was important to early Christians. Why a minor name was worth choosing at all, rather than reaching straight for an apostle, is the broader question Point 3 takes up.

Point 2b: Who was Matthew?

Tradition traces the author back to Matthew, the tax collector and one of the Twelve apostles, as identified through Papias and Irenaeus. This identification links him with Levi, mentioned in Mark and Luke, though this connection is a harmonizing hypothesis not directly confirmed by the texts. The internal evidence supporting this is limited: the Gospel itself is anonymous, with the only explicit clue being in Matthew 9:9, where the author substitutes the name Matthew for the Levi found in his source, Mark (Mark 2:14). The earliest external reference is Papias’s assertion that Matthew wrote the logia in Hebrew. However, as discussed earlier, this phrase is ambiguous and likely refers to a collection of sayings rather than the Greek Gospel known today as Matthew.

The Gospel known as Matthew was written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. The author was well-versed in the Greek Septuagint translation of Hebrew scripture. He wrote for a community exploring the relationship between Jesus’s movement and Jewish tradition. The author also heavily relied on Mark, reproducing most of Mark’s story. This dependence is strange for an eyewitness apostle: it is hard to see why one who had witnessed the events would lean so heavily on the account of someone who had not.

Whether the author was Matthew the tax collector, a later disciple of his, or someone unconnected to him cannot be established from the text itself; what the text establishes is the apologetic project the author pursued: presenting Jesus as the fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures and the Jesus-movement as the true heir of Israel, an argument he wanted his readers to accept. Why, then, the name Matthew rather than another?

The most economical explanation is that a genuine collection of sayings associated with him, as described by Papias, fed the tradition and drew his name toward a finished Gospel. Whether Matthew himself had any hand in the work, and why his name became attached to this Gospel, is not preserved for us today. It may have been a matter of location, with a group of Christians who both possessed this Gospel and claimed a connection to Matthew, or some other reason now lost to us.

Matthew’s case differs in kind from the association of the first Gospel with Mark. With Mark, the tradition reached Peter’s authority only by proxy, crediting a minor associate who set down the apostle’s preaching; here, the name belongs directly to a member of the Twelve, so no intermediary is needed to reach the apostolic generation. The move is not to borrow a giant’s weight through a lesser associate, but to attach an obscure call story to a name already on the apostolic roster, whose place among the Twelve lent the book a credibility no minor name could claim.

The renaming at 9:9, where the Levi of Mark and Luke became Matthew, suggests a community deliberately binding the book to a named member of the Twelve, trading a tax collector’s modest profile for the authority of an apostolic signature. The same hand reinforces the tie at 10:3. Alone among the Synoptic apostle lists, this Gospel labels its member “Matthew the tax collector,” carrying the occupation from the 9:9 call story into the roster of the Twelve and welding the two figures together.

Point 2c: Who was Luke?

Tradition, largely derived from the Pauline letters and second-century church writers, identifies Luke as a physician and a traveling companion of the apostle Paul. The strongest internal evidence for this claim is the so-called “we-passages” in Acts, narrative sections that abruptly shift from third person to first person plural, as if the author were present with Paul. Whether this reflects an authentic eyewitness, an embedded source, or a literary convention remains debated.

The author of Luke–Acts demonstrates skills consistent with an educated Greek writer from the late first century who worked with sources and chose to present his work in the register of historical inquiry. Whether he was Paul’s companion, a physician, or neither, the text does not say; what it does show is the stance he wanted his readers to recognize.

As with Mark, the choice of Luke is telling precisely because he was not an apostle. A community inventing an author from nothing had little incentive to credit a minor companion of Paul; the more plausible reading is that the we-passages and Paul’s own mention of Luke (Colossians 4:14) made him the natural figure to anchor a two-volume history to the apostolic generation without overreaching for an apostle’s name.

Yet the same minor status that makes Luke a plausible choice can just as easily be read against the attribution. If the claim is that he codified a tradition Paul endorsed, his obscurity is offset by the authority conferred by his association with Paul. The broader logic behind that move is addressed in Point 3.

Point 2d: Who was John?

Traced through Irenaeus in the late second century, tradition identifies the author as John, the son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve. It equates him with the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved” who appears in the Gospel itself. Even this external line is unstable: Eusebius, reading Papias, takes his roster of authorities to name two different Johns, the apostle and a separate figure he calls “John the elder,” leaving open which John the later tradition actually had in mind (Ecclesiastical History 3.39.4).

The internal hook is more explicit than in the Synoptics. The Gospel ends with a note (John 21:24) claiming that the Beloved Disciple is the one who has testified to these things and written them down, the closest any canonical Gospel comes to an internal authorship claim. Even so, the figure is never named, and the verse refers to him in the third person, while a separate “we” vouches for his testimony, suggesting community editing rather than a single signature.

Identification with John of Zebedee is even harder to sustain from the text: the sons of Zebedee are named only once in the Gospel, at 21:2, and even there only in the appendix, never in the body and never as the Beloved Disciple. Further, the “Beloved Disciple” is set in contrast to Peter throughout the Gospel. As with many aspects of the Gospel of John, the Beloved Disciple is just as easily read as a literary device rather than as a record of a historical figure. The figure functions as a stand-in for the people the author(s) regarded as proper Christians.

The Gospel According to John is the work of a highly skilled Greek author (or authorial circle). For this writer to be John of Zebedee, one must accept a great deal. A fisherman working the northwest shores of Galilee would have had to gain expert-level training in Greek writing and composition, as well as in the Hellenistic Jewish and Greco-Roman philosophical currents that shape the Gospel’s prologue. The New Testament itself cuts against this picture: Acts describes Peter and John as “uneducated and untrained men” (Acts 4:13), with the first term, agrammatoi, pointing specifically to a lack of literary schooling. It seems much more likely that the attribution to John of Zebedee is a looser connection or a later attribution the text itself cannot support.

The primary reason for connecting the work to John of Zebedee is that the Gospel was written late, probably in the 90s CE. John of Zebedee was considered the youngest of the disciples, and thus the only one of Jesus’s original followers who was not martyred and who could plausibly still be alive at that late stage to write a Gospel. The John attribution rests on the thin logic that he was the one still alive to write it, rather than on any tradition that he went to school, became an accomplished philosopher or theologian, and then wrote a Gospel and other works preserved in the New Testament canon.

Whether the author was John, the son of Zebedee; another John; the Beloved Disciple as a historical figure; or a community that traced its tradition back to one of these cannot be established from the text itself. What the text establishes is a Gospel written from a markedly different vantage point from that of the Synoptics. Unlike Mark and Luke, John was an apostle, and the reasons for his name’s choice are not hard to discern. The colophon at 21:24, the formal closing note of the Gospel, all but invites identification with the Beloved Disciple, and, as already noted, John’s reputed long life left him the one member of the Twelve who could plausibly stand behind so late a Gospel. Together, the hook and the longevity, more than any external testimony, are what drew his name to the text.

Point 3: Naming and Authority

An anonymous Gospel raises an obvious question: if the four books circulated for decades without authors’ names, why were names attached to them at all? The premise is not universally granted. Martin Hengel argued, and Simon Gathercole has recently pressed the point, [2] that the title “according to” may have been attached early and uniformly enough that the Gospels were never truly anonymous in circulation (Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, 2000; Simon Gathercole, “The Titles of the Gospels in the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts,” ZNW 104, 2013).[3] The majority view still holds that the names came later, but the timing is genuinely contested.

Granting the majority premise for the moment, the answer has little to do with the motives a modern reader might expect. There was no royalty to collect and no byline to defend; these were communal texts, copied and read aloud in worship rather than sold as literary property. What was at stake was authority. By the second century, several Gospels were in circulation; they did not always agree, and rival teachers, such as Marcion, and various Gnostic schools were promoting their own accounts of Jesus. In a contest for authority, the decisive question was not who wrote most elegantly but which version of the story could be trusted.

Names were supplied to lend trust. Calling a Gospel the work of Matthew or of Mark, Peter’s interpreter, was to claim that it reached back to the apostolic generation, to men who had known Jesus or had known those who had. This is the logic that drives Irenaeus’s insistence on exactly four Gospels, each tied to an apostolic source (Against Heresies 3.11.8): the names were a defense of orthodoxy, a way of marking which books carried the church’s memory and which did not.

Attribution, on this reading, was less an act of forgery for gain than a claim about pedigree and reliability[4], made in an age that valued the authority of tradition over an author’s originality. This logic also resolves the puzzle left open by Point 2 about Mark and Luke. Crediting a minor associate of Peter or Paul, rather than reaching for an apostle outright, bought credibility at the cost of prestige, which is exactly why the choice is better read as the preservation of a real memory than as a bid for borrowed authority.

Point 3a: Names that Rose and Fell

The selection of names was not a one-way process in which every apostolic attribution stuck. Several books claimed prominent authorship, enjoyed real popularity, and were later set aside as the canon hardened. Four examples show that mechanism working in reverse, whether a book was actively rejected for its content or allowed to fade as the fourfold pattern hardened.

The Gospel of Peter, attributed to the chief apostle, was openly read in the church at Rhossus in Syria until Bishop Serapion of Antioch examined it near the end of the second century. Finding that it could be read to deny that Jesus genuinely suffered on the cross, a docetic tendency, he withdrew his approval. He forbade its use (as reported by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.12). It rose on the strength of Peter’s name and fell because that name could no longer protect its content.

The Apocalypse of Peter, also bearing Peter’s name, was among the most widely read apocalypses of the second century. It appears in the Muratorian Fragment, an early canon list[5], and it was esteemed by Clement of Alexandria; yet the same fragment records that some would not have it read in church. As the canon solidified in the third and fourth centuries, it was quietly dropped, and Eusebius lists it among the disputed and rejected books (Ecclesiastical History 3.25). Few works traveled so far on an apostolic name and then disappeared so completely.

The Gospel of Thomas, ascribed to the apostle Didymus Judas Thomas, is a collection of sayings rather than a narrative. By the second century, it circulated in Greek, as the Oxyrhynchus fragments show, and remained influential in Syrian and Egyptian circles. Still, its esoteric cast and lack of a passion narrative placed it outside the fourfold pattern Irenaeus was defending. Marginalized as the canon closed, it survived only in fragments, and a single Coptic manuscript was recovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945.

Finally, the Acts of Paul was composed in the second century to celebrate the apostle’s deeds and included the popular story of Paul and Thecla. Tertullian reports that its author, a presbyter in Asia, was removed from office for writing it, even though, by his own account, he had done so out of love for Paul (De Baptismo 17). The book retained a devotional following but was never granted authority, a reminder that affection for an apostle was not equivalent to a credible claim to his authorship.

In each case, the pattern is the same as for the canonical four, only with the opposite outcome: content, theology, and usefulness in worship, not the prestige of the name, decided whether a book stayed.

Read alongside the canonical four, the books that rose and fell reveal a single mechanism running in both directions. A name reached back toward the apostolic generation and opened the door; what kept a book inside was whether its content, its use in worship, and its perceived link to genuine memory could carry the weight the name claimed. Matthew and John bore apostolic names directly, and internal hooks, the renaming at 9:9 and the colophon at 21:24, pulled those names onto the text. Mark and Luke bore the names of minor figures, which is the very reason their attributions read better as preserved memory than as bids for borrowed authority. In every case, the name was the opening move in the argument for a Gospel’s authority, not the close of it.

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[1] The martyrdom tradition rests almost entirely on a single ambiguous line in Clement of Rome, who writes only that Peter, after “bearing witness,” went to his appointed place of glory (1 Clement 5:4). The Greek participle (μαρτυρήσας) can mean either “having testified” or “having been martyred.” Later writers such as Eusebius read it as martyrdom under Nero, an addition consistent with a broader second- and third-century tendency to portray the leading apostles as martyrs.

[2] Simon J. Gathercole, “The Titles of the Gospels in the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 104, no. 1 (2013): 33–76, is the fullest recent statement of the minority view that the “according to” titles were attached early and consistently.

[3] Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ, trans. John Bowden (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000); Simon Gathercole, “The Alleged Anonymity of the Canonical Gospels,” Journal of Theological Studies 69, no. 2 (2018): 447–476.

[4] Bart D. Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), treats attribution to an authoritative name as itself a polemical tool, reinforcing the point made here that a name functioned as a claim to reliability rather than a bid for profit.

[5] The date of the Muratorian Fragment is itself contested. Geoffrey Mark Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), argues for a fourth-century Eastern origin rather than the traditional late-second-century Roman date, which would weaken its value as early evidence here.