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Were the Gospels Really Anonymous?
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- čas přidán 19. 02. 2019
- Dr. Brant Pitre discusses the authorship of the Gospels. Were they written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, or were they originally anonymous. What does the internal and external evidence suggest about this debate?
Find more Bible studies by Dr. Brant Pitre at catholicproduc...
Visit Dr. Pitre's website at www.brantpitre...
When I read Dr Pitre's book, I was shocked to find how easily these widely accepted "theories" are debunked. The Anonymous Theory, as well as the Documentary Hypothesis, are taught as authoritative in almost all seminaries and universities.
Ding ding ding.
The documentary hypothesis in its earliest form existed for a simple reason: it was believed Moses was illiterate.
Maybe you can explain why the gospels of Matthew and Luke contain 85% almost verbatim of the gospel of Mark?
@@CatholicProductions iiiiíiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
@@sidepot Mark came earlier and these ones were written to improve on Mark, so they must have what Mark has and also improve on what he left out.
Thank you again Dr. Petri...I always look forward to learning something new or expanding my knowledge from your videos...the sign of a great teacher!
yes the gospels are anonymous
Wonderful video! But I noticed one little error. Dr. Pitre correctly quotes from Irenaeus' Against Heresies in this video but when someone was making the slide to insert with the text, they wrote "Ignatius" as the author of that quote and of Against Heresies rather than Irenaeus, the correct author. So what Dr. Pitre says is correct but the slide they insert has the incorrect author attributed. :) Thank you so much for all your hard work on this! It's truly an inspiration!
Thanks for all your trouble on writing all those books and on studying all those that we don't dare to. And thank you for sharing so much here, for all of us who have ears and want to really listen. God bless you
Great video; I'm Orthodox and I love these insights.
PRAY that Our Churches are united!
God bless you Dr Brant Pitre
Dr. Brant Pitre is amazing and explains this so well! Thank you for defending and explaining the Faith!
Thank you Dr. Pitre. Please publish more of these videos to combat the vast flood of misinformation consumed by CZcams viewers.
this video is part of the misinformation. None of the Gospels say who the author was. They are all written in the third person. None of them claim to have personally observed ANYTHING that they described. The "earliest manuscripts" contain attributions because they are from +100 years after the gospels were written. ALSO the relevant question isn't when they were attributed, it is WHO WROTE THEM, of which there is no evidence whatsoever This guy's "arguments" are a joke.
@@scambammer6102 The fragmentary Rylands Papyrus of John’s Gospel dates to within thirty years of the apostle John's death in 100 AD. That it is a copy, and that it was found far distant from either Palestine or Ephesus, indicates that the work had already been in wide circulation prior to the that manuscript being produced. Of the thousands of surviving fragmentary or complete gospel manuscripts there is not a single example of attribution to anyone other than the traditional authors.
"Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered... he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities, but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings... Matthew put together the oracles in the Hebrew language"
(St. Papias, Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord, c.110 AD)
"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome... After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia."
(St. Irenaeus Against Heresies, 3.1, c.180 AD)
@@scambammer6102 There is plenty of evidence. You can research the evidence that originally led the Gospels to be unanimously attributed, or you can continue to believe the anonymous theory which has no evidence.
The idea that a skeptic would believe an early follower of Jesus over someone who can independently verify that information is laughable. Anyways, John claims to be from John, or at the very least, recompile his writings.
Polycarp, a student of John’s, quotes the Gospels in the early second century, so a century couldn’t have passed between the Gospels and the manuscripts.
It is absurd to claim something for which there is evidence, even if dubious, has less evidence than an unsubstantiated theory.
@@keng8894 "There is plenty of evidence" he says, and then produces none. FYI humans have been "believing" stupid shit forever. How could anyone believe in Zeus if he wasn't real? That's YOUR fg "argument" lol.
Polycarp was born 40 years after alleged jesus died he didn't know shit about anything.
I said the earliest MANUSCRIPTS dumaz nobody knows what non-extant alleged manuscripts said derp. You don't even understand your own argument lol.
This lecture REALLY helped me learn a lot. Thank you so much!!
You are a great educator Dr. Pitre, thanks for imparting your knowledge, God bless you.
Loved this one! Will be buying the book soon!
Why not buy T. Freke's book 'The Jesus Mysteries' also ..... highly recommended and show's you where all these great 'biblical' sayings actually came from.
I am a recently-baptized Orthodox Christian and Pitre's book casually destroyed basically all of my doubts about the trustworthiness of the gospels.
Then you need to be more critical, because his arguments are dubious at best.
@@StudentDad-mc3pu It’s pretty simple: not a single manuscript has verifiably been shown to be anonymous. There is unanimous attribution from heretics, from Proto-Orthodox and pagans. And there is no counter tradition in early Christian witnesses or in the manuscripts the way there is with Hebrews.
What evidence do you have that four books circulated anonymously for 100 years before all magically getting the exact same four titles, thousands of times across the Roman Empire?
Not a jot or tittle.
@@StudentDad-mc3pu you Haven't read his Book and you Haven't read Simon gathercole who currently published a paper addressing that theory which i didn't find any respond yet to his argument
Actually Luke did have a personal visit from Jesus as he was one of the two men mentioned on the road to Emmaus after the crucifixion. Mary who knew Jesus the best guided Luke and allowed him to include some detail on Mary and he was the only gospel writer given this privilege. Luke was so close to Mary he fashioned a statue of Mary which was buried with him. This statue found its way via Constantinople to Rome to Seville in Spain and finally was buried next to the Guadalupe river in Extremadura. It was dug up in 1329 and is behind the amazing story of the Lady of Guadalupe Mexico who appeared to Juan Diego at Tepeyac hill in 1531.
Were the gospels really anonymous YES
This was an excellent short clip. But the problem is that the early Fathers say that Mathew wrote in Hebrew(Aramaic?) and the gospel we have today is in Greek. The majority view of scholars today is that Mathew used Mark as a source. Why would he need to do so ? Is the gospel we have today a translation of Mathew's original Hebrew gospel or is it a Greek version of his sayings'oracles put into gospel format following the pattern of Mark? So many questions, so few definitive answers.
I love this. This is a very strong argument for the reliability of the Gospels. In my channel too , I have video on skeptics misleading people about this subject. In truth its the skeptics that are speculating. It really shows a strong prejudice against christianity in academia. Specifically towards the bible. This bias that nothing can be trusted in the bible.
Thank you for articulating this argument. I'm enjoying this channel. God bless.
It’s so refreshing to hear this because I was constantly hearing that nobody knows who wrote the gospels and therefore they could all be lies. There are other books that deny Jesus ever existed and our society is only too willing to believe this too.
Just found your channel this is great resource for Catholics. The argument you make here seems to me solid. It seems to me that it's the secular scholars making speculations based on their bias that christianity is false.
It is not a bias idiot. You are the ones with extreme bias. We like things such as credible evidence. Even of these were written by the alleged authors, it still is not sufficient to prove the super natural. When you have these gospels of Matthew and Luke containing 85% verbatim the words of the book of Mark, it is highly suspect. Plagiarism is okay with you I suppose.
@@sidepot it is a bias moron 🙄. Because it's based on naturalist view. Then these bibical scholars dont even take the fathers into consideration. Thats not doing history. Yeah it doesn't prove the supernatural. Never said it did. Well yeah they borrowed from each other so what.
@@deusvult9372
That’s not borrowing from each other you moron. It’s flat out plagiarism. Authors of Matthew and Luke didn’t copy or borrow from each other. They both copied almost verbatim from the author of Mark. Many historical mistakes were corrected in the book of Matthew and the book of Luke enhanced many of the stories.
How could it be also that only one talks about all the saints of old raising from the dead and walking into the city?
@@sidepot how do you know Mark didn't copy Matthew and just made a shorter version of the gospel? What if luke copies Matthew and added his own sources and corrected The birth narrative...
@@deusvult9372
All the evidence points to those authors copying from the book of Mark. There is also another unknown source that was also copied by the authors of Matthew and Luke.
Your question is ultimately irrelevant and just subterfuge. The bottom line is you have three gospels with words that are copied through all of them.
That is evidence that these are not complete individual accounts.
Now what is your next question dumbass?
What we do have is an eye witness account of the writing of the gospels, the biography of Mary, the blessed virgin mother of Jesus. Between 1655 and 1665 Mary revealed her story to a religious sister called Mary de Jesus of Agreda (Spain). It was this Mary of Agreda who helped the conversion of Aztec tribes in Mexico and central America by bi-locatimg over 500 times between 1620 and 1631.
Mary's book was published under the title of "Mystical City of God" available from Amazon.com in book or kindle. The writing of the gospels appears in book 8 of this 3 volume work and is contained in chapter 9 between sections 557 to 565. Mary describes how at the first council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) she was instructed to prompt Peter to chose four gospel writers to record the story of the church. So Peter chose first Matthew, then Mark, then Luke and finally John. Mary guided the writings and died 2 years before John started his gospel, which explains why John's gospel was so different.
This is worth delving in to. Thank you for sharing!!
Yes. This was absolutel an argument from absense. We have AMPLE evidence that the original manuscripts were anonymous - that there were no 'cover pages' (as this novel invention is very recent) and that even the early church fathers were not sure who wrote these texts. No only that, but we also know two of the Gospels were copied from the third and that the fouth gospel bares almost no relation to the other two.
Dr Pitre and others in various books answer all of these points, actually. What he's responding to here is the very widespread contention that the four gospels circulated for over a hundred years (roughly 100-200 CE) among different Christian communities with no indication on the manuscripts as to who the authors were. That's what he means by "anonymous": no indication on the manuscript as to who wrote it. His point simply is that there is no evidence for that, because all the complete gospel manuscripts that have survived have , that is, titles written at the top of the first page, or sometimes on the last page, which read "Gospel according to ____." And what's really a problem, is that this theory of the anonymous gospels has been presented as unquestionable for decades in university history and religion departments, even though there is no manuscript evidence for it.
Sorry, word missing from line 5 above--it should read "...manuscripts that have survived have 'superscripta,' that is, titles..."
@@joehay5094 Ah, ok. Still, there is no evidence that the text of the ORIGINAL manuscript had a title page or was anything other than anonymous. The epistles start with the author identifying themselves, this does not appear in any Gospel. There is plenty of internal evidence as well that these are, in no way, eyewitness testimony or the testimony of an eyewitness transcribed.
This video gives a compelling explanation of who/why wrote the epistle to the Hebrews: "Sit thou on my right hand, Talk 3 who was the epistle to the Hebrews written for". "Sit down on my right hand, Talk 1 Why did Luke write his gospel to Theophilus" tells us who Theophilis was. I thank you as well as the gentleman who created these videos for your desire for answers and research and sharing knowledge...WOW
WRONG!!! You conveniently left out Papyrus 1, the earliest Page 1 of Matthew, which has no author name on it. Plus, the earliest church fathers never mentioned names.
I'm having problems with the "chain of custody". It means I have to accept that men into their 60's in the first century would still be alive and well enough to be able to write these books, using the Greek language. It could be possible, if Matthew was as educated as Dr Pitre seems to think, but what about the other three gospels? The more likely scenario is that people very fluent in Greek wrote it from the stories they were hearing. I didn't catch Dr Pitre address this issue even tangentially.
Regarding Matthew, where Dr Pitre spent a lot of time on, I would have to accept that Matthew waited about 40 years before writing his gospel down, and then do it directly into Greek, in direct opposition to what is generally accepted by biblical scholars on both sides of the faith, that the gospels were written directly into Greek by educated men who wrote down the circulating stories.
Also, biblical scholars agree that a lot of Matthew is taken from Mark. Why would Matt need to do that if he was a witness? I'm just not seeing the love.
The timeline just doesn't support the "gospels are not anonymous" view. I didn't hear Dr Pitre address this point, which could be really cool if he did.
Greek was one of the lingua franca -- if not *the* lingua franca -- of the Roman Empire, especially if you consider that the Romans conquered what was once part of the Hellenistic Empire. It is not at all that surprising that men in their 60s in the first century would be able to understand and communicate in it fluently. Just as you could go to Sweden or Germany and reasonably expect someone to communicate with you in English, it is equally reasonable to assume that a sizeable chunk of the Roman Empire could read and write in Greek especially since that's how different cultures with different languages had been communicating with each other prior to the arrival of the Romans. I mean, there's a reason that Greek was one of the languages used in the inscription above Jesus' head. There was an expectation that at least some passersby would be able to understand it either as well or better than the Latin or Hebrew inscriptions.
Regarding your second objection, what's surprising about Matthew waiting for 40 years? The Early Christians very clearly expected Jesus to come back within their lifetimes. Writing things down for people to read would have been an inefficient (and expensive) method of spreading the Gospel, especially when you consider that the vast majority of the populace couldn't read or write. That's like expecting eye witness accounts of World War II to be written in hex code accessible only by a quantum computer; not everyone has the skills or resources to avail of that. This is why the primary method of spreading the Gospel was by word of mouth; this was why the eye witnesses themselves travelled everywhere and deemed it a core task for the Apostles. It would make sense to start writing things down if you want *future generations* to hear from eye witnesses when they are no longer around to pass on the Gospel verbally. Around the 40-year mark is also when a number of the Apostles have already been killed, so the need for the remaining eye witnesses to write their account down (at least, those who could) became more pressing.
Your third objection is an odd one. If the events actually happened, we would expect two eye witnesses to corroborate each other about those same events. It would be particularly suspicious of two eye witnesses *did not* corroborate or at least occasionally told the same story. The fact that some of the stories are not exact copies of each other lends credence that these are actually eye witness testimonies. If they were exactly alike in their telling of every single event, then we would suspect plagiarism to be involved. That's not what we see in the Gospel accounts.
Finally, what timeline are you talking about? In your comment, you didn't outline any timeline other than the "40 years before writing his Gospel down" bit -- an objection which I've already addressed.
I hope this response proves helpful.
@@daenithriuszanathos9306
Thank you for the reply. I didn't know anyone had responded.
If I may; you stated that "Greek was one of the lingua franca -- if not the lingua franca -- of the Roman Empire, especially if you consider that the Romans conquered what was once part of the Hellenistic Empire. It is not at all that surprising that men in their 60s in the first century would be able to understand and communicate in it fluently" and "it is equally reasonable to assume that a sizeable chunk of the Roman Empire could read and write in Greek". But then you state "when you consider that the vast majority of the populace couldn't read or write." I checked and literacy was at best 10% in the ancient world. Jesus & the boys spoke Aramaic, not Greek. I think it's more reasonable to assume that the stories were passed around in Aramaic, embellished and had added stories by an unknown amount of storytellers, and then written down in the latter half of the first century. They used the Greek language to write them down, but there's no reason for us to assume that they were always and only passed around in Greek, and that the original writers were even associated with Jesus's actual ministry. I mean, there are 30 to 60 or more years where they were being passed around by word of mouth. It's logical for us to assume that most of these people did so in the language they were comfortable in. That's how I would do it. There's not a snowball's chance in hell that the history nor the divinity claims are more plausible than just fiction, given the timeline.
Jesus dies...approximately 33 CE
Word of mouth stories...approximately 30 to as much as 70 years after the crucifiction.
Written down in a final form approximately between 30 to 70 years after the start of the word of mouth stories.
If I understand you correctly, are you saying that the 40 year or so time between the events and the writings, even assuming that Matthew did last 40 years and did write his gospel, present no issue with the veracity of the writings?
Also, you stated: "the eye witnesses themselves travelled everywhere and deemed it a core task for the Apostles."
What eyewitnesses? My understanding is that the biggest proponent of early Christianity was Paul. He was no eyewitness. The gospel of Peter was kept out. Now that guy is clearly an eyewitness, but his resurrection story was so absurd that the early church kept it out of the New Testament.
"we would suspect plagiarism to be involved. That's not what we see in the Gospel accounts."
But biblical scholars do see plagiarism involved. They have determined that much of Matthew is from Mark, which is the earlier gospel. Mark didn't write about the zombies but Matthew did. If Matthew was an eyewitness, why copy at all? "Most scholars agree that it was used by St. Matthew and St. Luke in composing their accounts; more than 90 percent of the content of Mark’s Gospel appears in Matthew’s and more than 50 percent in the Gospel of Luke. Although the text lacks literary polish, Mark is simple and direct, and, as the earliest Gospel, it is the primary source of information about the ministry of Jesus."
Thanks for trying. I really enjoyed this
@@daenithriuszanathos9306 'Fluently' - no. The Greek in these books demonstrates the grammar and vocab of a native greek speaker - in fact, greek from either Rome or Turkey.
Tell the truth dude .
Not really convinced that we "should have anonymous copies". All our early copies are fragments. We begin having fuller copies only in the beginning of the third century (papyrus Bodmer II), so only from the time they were already circulating under the four names.
@Onnie Dixon He has several quotations which resemble gospel passages, but he doesn't use the names ascribed to them mb-soft.com/believe/txs/matthew.htm
@Resurrected Eyes Ministries I am not really convinced by this, because if we look at early Christian writings, the authority of the purported author is incredibly important. It is no accident, that some of the pseudopauline Epistles explicity claim to have been written by Paul, or that II Peter makes this claim about Petrine authorship. You want apostolic authorship because that gives your document authority.
Anyway, even if we grant your argument, even if the listeners had background knowledge on the origin of the text that we don't have, we simply don't know what it was, and the text itself doesn't tell us.
Amazing teacher
This is a very humble comment. I read Dr Pitre´s book and as I understand He said that the gospel were never anonymous, and expose his reasons to believe that. He doesnt say that they were written by Mark ,Matthew, Luke or Jhon, the authors may not be them BUT they were attributted to them from the beggining. Were Mark Matthew Luke or Jhon the real authors? probabily not... all we know they were written WITHIN the lifespan of those that were eyewitnesses of Jesus of Nazareth (well, considering the first one arising about the early 60´s, that is very possible). For believers thta is enough eveidence . To historian that is accurate too and if they find a copy of a gospel with the beggining of the manuscrript intact AND without author thenthey were always anonymous. But so far every copy found, that includes the beggining of the manuscrript have an author . If you have othr information please send it to Dr Pitre :)
@Brian Farley Exactly what I think! :) I cant say that is true (never in History...) but it is highly possible....
Ok this gets off to an appalling start. Yep you look at the cover and obviously that could be a fake cover, but they to say that that the next stage is to look for external evidence is simply ridiculous.
Just read the book, does the author identify themselves within the text; does the author write in the first person; does the author say that they were an eyewitness to anything in text. Does the author provide sources for information that he couldn't have witnessed.
Do that for the gospels, combined with the fact that much is verbatim copied from Mark and it is beyond obvious that the gospels are anonymous.
Literally nothing you said means that the gospels are anonymous
@@fatstrategist "That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence".
Literally nothing that you said means that the gospels are not anonymous.
@@fatstrategist Read Matthew 9: 9-10. No one would describe the most important day of their life, like that.
Just read the gospels and try to find a single phrase that allows you to identify the author. You can't, because there is nothing to identify the authors. The names were added way later, fact.
@@downenout8705 "That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence"
That's exactly what I did, no? Dismiss your baseless claims?
@@downenout8705 "Read Matthew 9: 9-10. No one would describe the most important day of their life, like that."
If you're writing in the third person, and the document isn't even about you, I'd probably write it the same way.
"Just read the gospels and try to find a single phrase that allows you to identify the author."
Mark 7:32-37 shows that the author of Mark had knowledge of Aramaic, which would be characteristic of Peter, whom was Galilean (and also who dictated the writings of Mark). I feel like you're gonna move the goalpost on this one and say something like, "Well his name wasn't on it, therefore he didn't write it!"
"The names were added way later, fact."
Actually, we have evidence to believe the opposite, that names were REMOVED from the Gospels as time went on! This is because people who actually witnessed these events died, and could no longer attest to the things they saw.
i think he taught that one of the authors of john was actually lazarus. he would have been super literate.
i also watched dr. bergsma on his video about the dead sea scrolls. the man carrying water that they followed was most likely an essene - very literate scribes. and he argued john mark, the gospel writer was the man who ran naked was also an essene.
my biggest question is: were all the gospels written before the fall of jerusalem in 70AD? it seems very likely to me. Luke might have written his gospel and acts after the council of jerusalem when he went with paul in 50AD because the emperor claudius expelled all the jews from rome.
Do you have any further videos on Q?
Perhaps at some point in the future I can ask Dr. Pitre to dedicate an extended presentation on Q and the Synoptic problem. Right now he has quite a bit on his plate. Thanks for asking though!
@R Hopzing he makes up facts. Its just silly to watch
@R Hopzing If you like spotting logical fallacies then sure, check out a Richard Carrier video. Would make a great drinking game for philosophy undergrads.
@@CatholicProductions Adding to the request: please do a video on the source hypothesis! Love and thanks!
At Pentecost, all the fishermen Apostles got enlightened including The tax collector Apostles, Matthew 10:17-24,The Holy Spirit will give you the words that you need to speak.
This whole topic challenges my faith often, so I was looking forward to watching this video when it was recommended to me.
There are some good arguments here, many of which have made myself. But it also makes a straw man out of the counter argument, saying there isn't a shred of evidence to their point. That sorta hyperbole discredits the whole video.
"All the internal evindence"? The author of Luke explicitly identifies himself as a later historian, *not* as a contemporary: "1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." That's very clear evidence against the tradional authorship
@Brian Farley The point is: It doesn't say that this is the guy who wrote the book, at the same time the prologue to the Gospel very clearly says the writer is a later historian, to whom the story has come down, and that before him, many have already produced written accounts. Does this sound like a companion of Paul to you?
@Brian Farley Luke 1:1 talks about the things that "have come down to us from the eyewitnesses that were there at the beginning" (καθὼς παρέδοσαν ἡμῖν οἱ ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται ). And it does not say that two books were written before it, but that "many" (polloi) had done so before.
Does this sound like being written by a contemporary or by a later historian? Also why would a contemporary make extensive use of a another book, clearly modifying and extending it, when he has his own account? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Sure Paul mentions a Luke several times. But I don't see how you get from there to 1. the assumption that it is the same Luke mentioned in Acts and then it seems like a huge leap that this is the author of the gospel who never identifies himself.
There is no disput about Luke and Acts being from the same person. But we don't know this person's identity. That the whole point. And given the prologue of Luke, it is clearly not a contemporary.
@Brian Farley You probably know that there are several proposed explanations for the three "we" passages. The explanation that the author was an eye-witness suffers from the weakness that his account of Paul's life widely differs from Paul's own accounts. You would think that if the author personally knew Paul and spent time with him, his version of the story would be closer to Paul's own.
Where does the author of Luke say that ".he says he talked to the eyewitnesses of the events surrounding Christ."? Kindly provide a verse reference.
@Brian Farley So where does the author of Luke say that he spoke to eyewitnesses? Please give a reference.
I found Dr. Brant Pitre’s video wholly unconvincing. He loses credibility right from the start when he says there are no anonymous copies of the gospels. But the gospels are anonymous precisely because none of the authors identifies themselves (or their sources) by name. That is the very definition of anonymous. The fact that later believers attributed the gospels to individuals (i.e. The Gospel According to X) does not make them any less anonymous.
Dr. Pitre argues that we should accept the attributed names because we have no evidence that other names were ever considered. It is a weak argument. We can date the attribution of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to the latter part of the second century. Those names appear in the writings of influential late second century theologian Irenaeus. It is hardly surprising that once influential figures accepted the attributions, a consensus quickly developed. Once a consensus developed, those names were included in the preface of every gospel by every scribe. The vast majority of our gospel manuscripts are dated hundreds of years after the second century, long after the attributions were not just a consensus, but accepted as orthodox. That we have no surviving manuscripts attributing the gospels to other authors proves nothing. It most certainly does not prove that the attributions are correct.
I find this video unconvincing. I'd never buy the book. I agree with your assessment.
This is just a taste. Read his book "The Case for Jesus" he discussed in length the veracity of the Gospels, totally destroys Ehrman and others claims that the Gospels are anonymous.
@@SaintCharbelMiracleworker
Well, there are barely any historians left who would even try to make a case for the traditional authorship, so I doubt that someone who holds such a fringe position would destroy Bart Ehrman who represents the consensus of historians.😂
@@ramigilneas9274 Ignatius was willing to die for his faith, he lived with the apostles.
Based on this nature, what are the odds he wouldn't know that the gospels were not what they claimed to be? Would he accept anonymous gospels?
Bart makes the early church look careless in what they were willing to die for.
@@koppite9600
What makes you think that Ignatius knew the same as we know them today?
Maybe he only knew an early version of the gospel of Mark... and simply called it the memoirs of the disciples.
Or to make it short... we barely know anything about Ignatius... especially sbout what he knew and believed.
As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he rose and followed him” (Matt. 9:9). exactly how I would write about my conversion
Maybe if you were writing the book in third person and didn’t want to break the flow of the book.
Even better...
You wouldn’t write your own version of the story.
Instead you would copy the version of a guy who wasn’t there but got his information from someone who saw it.😂
21st Century Jesus needs to use a divine MS Word and write his own autobiography and publish it in every language and available free as a download.
so you're debunking Q theory
One hypothesis is that Mary was the Q source.
You know how I know who wrote the book of Revelation? It says "I, John" in the first verse
Baphomet the Sabbatic Goat Okay folks, any book in history that isn’t signed means the author is anonymous, don’t be ridiculous. These are biographies, not signing autographs. Plus, you wouldn’t be able to test the signatures anyway and trace them back so wouldn’t accept that either. Accept the facts already.
And Luke said that he got his information from others and wrote the gospel of Luke. Bible scholars made up lies about Q source.
@@sliglusamelius8578 Most of Luke is word for word copied from Mark. If anything Luke is a liar, not biblical scholars.
@@tomasrocha6139
Luke literally said in his opening paragraph that his gospel was derivative. How does that make him a liar?
@@tomasrocha6139
If Luke drew on mark, that doesn't show Bible scholars to be correct about a putative Q source, it only proves that he drew from mark. Pay attention.
Hey, to anyone watching this later, Polycarp was NOT a disciple / student of John, nor was Iraneus a disciple of Polycarp. We have 1 single work attributed to Polycarp extant today, and it mentions nothing of John. We also have, some time later, a biography written about Polycarp, which yet again does not mention John. The "Polycarp was a disciple of John" concept is a legend; and it shows. Either Dr. Brant Pitre was not aware of this, or he is being disingenuous, but for the people who care about the truth, do not take his word for it, but rather, go and read what these people wrote themselves.
When you wrote about the biography, you probably meant the "Martyrdom of Polycarp", preserved by Eusebius. Nevertheless, we have earlier records of Polycarp. Irenaeus and Tertullian said that Polycarp had been a disciple of John (Adversus Haereses III.3; De praescriptione hereticorum 32.2). It's worth to mention that Irenaeus was direct Polycarp's disciple.
Internal evidence proves the gospels were not divinely inspired.
How so?
This claim ignores the accepted fact that the gospels were written several decades after the supposed time of Christ and it’s assumed that the real apostles were gone by then.
no, it in fact, doesn't. They were all written within 70 AD, and on the early side, at that. They were most assuredly still alive in a 40 year time frame.
The gospels are not anonymous.. they were written , redacted and compiled by the catholic church
Based on marcions canon… the father of the new testament
According to the definition of "anonymous", yeah, they were.
internally anonymous does NOT equal anonymous. That was very common for Greco-Roman biographies, which is pretty much what the NT is. If you're genuinely thinking that counts as to if it is actually anonymous, be ready throw out all of the other ancient documents that don't attribute the author internally, but we know who wrote them.
@@JustGav86 The word "anonymous" is attributed to a work where the author doesn't identify themselves. The authors of the gospels didn't identify themselves, ergo, they were written anonymously. Keep dancing around, you're embarrassing yourself.
@@bibleburner8426 Again, internally anonymous does NOT equal anonymous. Many other ancient documents, my favorite being Julius Caesar, not only wrote in 3rd person, but didn't acknowledge himself, yet we know he wrote it. The churches would not have accepted the works if they had not known who the authors were, hence why they threw out all the non-canonical gospels. They identified the writers outside of the writings with tags on codex's or scrolls, this was common practice. Plus, these were put in early church libraries, so they had to have a label on it to know where it came from and who wrote it. And, let's say for arguments' sake they did circulate anonymously. There would be variations from across different regions, whether you like it or not. The book of Hebrews is an example of an anonymous writing, not the Gospels. Since you're the one making the claims, it's kinda on you to bear the evidence that they were anonymous. This idea is extremely fallacious and goes against any bit of actual reasoning, so I'll be waiting for that evidence!
@@JustGav86 What is it about the definition of "anonymous" don't you get? There is at no point in any of the gospels where the author identifies himself. This makes them anonymous. Being able to externally determine the authors' identity does not change their anonymity, nor does it change the definition of "anonymous".
@@bibleburner8426 oh, but it does. idk about you, but I can't seem to recall many books that state within the text who the author is unless it's in the header or beginning, which ironically, is what the gospels do. Externally identifying them does, in turn, cancel out any claim that they were anonymous. There isn't even any evidence to back up the claim that they ever were. I gave you examples of many other similar ancient writings who don't identify the author in the text that are extremely similar to the NT. You wanna throw those out, too? (Xenophon, Josephus, Polybius, etc.)
So, one person 100 years detached from the event said that another person claimed to have known a person who claimed to know someone who claimed to be the son of god...
This is very unreliable evidence.
except it wasn't 100 years. The 1st Gospel written was Mark. And it was in writing within 30 years after the crucifixion. Which also means it was probably circulating before that time. Even the smallest introductory college course on the subject will reveal this.
So it isn't so much that the evidence is unreliable as much as its your own misunderstanding and ignorance.
@@garrettwisner2072 I was not talking about when the gospels were written, I'll concede that.
I am saying the authorship was attributed 100 years after. Thus, they remain anonymous.
There’s a manuscript of Matthew dated to the year 66 AD by physical evidence.
@@sliglusamelius8578 can you provide some information on this? Google is coming up short on any manuscripts in the 1st century
@@sliglusamelius8578 Not true. Check your facts. The earliest fragments of COPIES of manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel are from the 2nd century. See Dr. Pitre's book "The Case For Jesus" page 16.
Man, I really hope Bart erhman debunks this kid
This guy keeps on making claim after claim without evidence. The gospels had no names, therefore it was anonymous by definition. Later people attributed names to them.
Now, the whole truth!
The gospels of Matthew and John are written in the 3rd person. In John 21:24 is said that the testimony of the beloved disciple (his testimony) is true. If you're the author of a book you refer to yourself as I.
Not if you're writing a narrative account, which is what the gospels are.
@Brian Farley It was common for those who didn't have access to the original authors.
@Brian Farley Really? Put here a link to text of one of those letters so we can see the authors talking in the 3rd person.
@Brian Farley Hilarious! You stopped before he started referring to himself in the 1st person.
4
I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.
10
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
11
My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.
12
What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
14
I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so no one can say that you were baptized in my name.
@Brian Farley It's over mate! I showed Paul talking in the 1st person. That totally refutes your argument. Good bye.
The earliest gospels are written in koine Greek. Doubtful any of the 4 apostles knew greek
Certainly not the good greek of Mathew or Luke.
Critics are full of nonsense theories.
6:00 "The beloved disciple" is never identified. Claiming that he is John is speculating.
@Brian Farley So could you please give a reference, as to where in the Gospel it says that John is the beloved disciple?
@Brian Farley So to sum up, he "beloved disciple" is not named, you infer his identity from the traditional title attached to the gospel.
@Brian Farley Actually no, there is no verse in John saying that the beloved disciple was John, and I guess, that there is a literary reason for keeping this a mystery. I think there are six passages which use the phrase, but never do they point to an identifiable person. The only persons who are explicitly said to be loved by Jesus are Lazarus, Martha and her sister.
@Brian Farley the verses you referenced do not name John. They don't. It is only when you already accept the traditional attribution, which is disputed, to say the least, you get there. It is of course /possible/ that he is meant, but we have no way of knowing. He could also have meant Lazarus, Mary Magdalene or someone who remains nameless. BTW, the latter does not seem implausible - there is, we can guess, a reason, why "the beloved disciple" is never named. The author apparently wants to keep it a mystery and then use this mystery man (or woman) as his key witness.
@Brian Farley The one thing which is clearly rejected by most modern scholars is that an actual contemporary of Jesus could have written John. It is dated to a time where any contemporaries were dead, it was written in a language which they did not speak, it paints a very different portrait of Jesus than the synoptics, including by the way the crucifixion account. The synoptics and John disagree on the time and day and of course on everything he said while being crucified. Therefore I don't think that anything written in Matthew's account can be used to make inferences about John's...
Not only are they anonymous but they are so clearly accounts of traditions and sources and in no way eye-witness accounts.
This is the smartest guy i ever met
Scrroogle!
Gospels were written by greek speaking people. Jesus language was Aramaic.
No one who would have went that the actual Jesus if he was real wrote anything down so there's no one writing stuff down who was around the supposed Matthew Mark Luke or John
Because they were handcuffing the book so if they had copied the original the what we would call the first written down gospel that's how they kept the story mainly saying really got some weak evidence
Yeah there's a huge flaw with that argument just because a book has an author's name there's no way to tell if that author really wrote that book or someone should put their name to it so that's a really crappy argument
The manuscripts were circulating with the names on them. If wrong, Christians would not have accepted them.
Debate Bart Ehrman
Wouldn't be fair to subject Bart to that.
@@SaintCharbelMiracleworker yeah true. Bart would annihilate them
@@mrtruth5952
How about you tell your proofs genius.
@@sliglusamelius8578 how about you do your own research, genius
@@mrtruth5952
I did genius.
I don't care if the apostles were fisherman or illiterate. I believe that the Holly Spirit descended on them and gave them the Holly wisdom that enabled them to speak in tongues, become literate enough to write the Holly Gospels and even much smarter than Bart Ehrman himself
I like your comment. Let me add that illiterate people in ancient times could write by hiring a scribe. I am not certain, but I suspect that many towns had scribes who offered their services. People could write and read letters and other documents using scribes.
Sounds like you're not very smart
Answering the title cold: Yup... No evidence to the contrary till Iranaeus. Otherwise Justin, Polycarp and Ignatious would have used the names... And they rather conspicuously don't. 'Memoirs of the apostles' being Justin's prefered term. Whilst he happily treats the Acts of Pilate as an authorative christian text, and names Plato when he cites him, etc
The first time we hear of Mark and Matt is from Papias... Who unfortunately quotes material not in either extant text of Mark and Matt...
However once Iraneous of Lugdnum gives the 4 texts names.... Everyone subsequent to him uses those names.
Which seems, self evidently a slam dunk... They were anonymous til Iraneous.
Responses to the video.... Claiming we do not have anonymous MSS of the gospels is factually incorrect since there are numerous anonymous fragments from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries. However since the only complete gospel MSS we have date from well after Iraneous... It's misleading to even make this claim in the first instance.
The scribes knew to add the same titles, because they were scribing, post Iraneous of Lugdnum... If you can find a pre Iraneous scribe, or any author pre Iraneous giving a name other than Papias's dodgy references... Feel free.
How is scribes reading Iraneous 'coincidence'?
It's really not clear why you imagine the anonymity of Hebrews is relevant one way or another.
Likewise... What does 'forged' mean in this context? The names don't confirm or refute the authenticity of the content one way or another. The texts can be anonymous and 'authentic' at the same time. For given values of 'authentic'. Given none are eye witnesses to anything.
Too many holes here.... Bored at 5 mins in....
☯☯
Someone claimed, that someone claimed, that someone claimed to have been someone who allegedly was close to a famous figure at the time.
Someone claimed that the simple answer, the attribution of the gospels to the credited authors [100% of mss] is not true and therefore there must be a Q source and a "community of believers" who wrote the gospels. Occam's razor: Mark wrote Mark, Matthew wrote Matthew, Luke wrote Luke, and John wrote John.
Jesus happened, deal with it.
I'm just paraphrasing what this guy is saying to show that he does not have a point. Saying why something else is wrong doesn't prove his point.
@@metaphoricalparadox5138 It does, entirely destroys the weak argument that the Gospels were written anonymously.
@@SaintCharbelMiracleworker
No. Proving 1 argument wrong does not prove yours is right.
Example: I say "I believe Bob killed Jane because his fingerprints are in the knife."
Then you say "I believe Jane committed suicide"
Then you prove to me that those are not bob's fingerprints.
You proved me wrong about the fingerprints, but that that does not mean Jane committed suicide. You still have to prove YOUR case. Maybe bob wore gloves, maybe there was someone else who could've done it, maybe bob paid someone to do it, etc.
Proving someone else wrong does not prove you're right.
@@sliglusamelius8578
Occams Razor: The stories about Jesus are mostly fiction.
My favorite gospel is John .... John 21 in fact where the boys are out fishing and Jesus calls the number of fish. Except ... that story originated from Pythagoras who walked the earth a few hundred years before the J man. The magic number 153 identifies this as plagiarism and pretty poor plagiarism at that. Turn the other check .... do unto others, riding into town on a donkey .... the palm leaves, healing the sick and raising the dead ........ unfortunately all done before the J man even appeared (supposedly) in the 'holy' lands. So nothing original here.
problem here is, people read the bible and stop right there, and question nothing.
They are quite content to believe its contents knowing full well that a bunch of guys sat around a table and decided what goes in and what stay's out.
The Bible is simply a book written by man ....for the control of man. Buyer beware.
This is purely argumentive.
None of the original gospels exists, so there is no evidence to support the claim.
The scholarly consensus is that the gospels are anonymous and not eye-witness accounts.
This is what you would read in a college textbook and even Christian Apologists like Lee Strobel agree that the gospels are anonymous.
According to the book, The New Testament by Stephen L. Harris "The titles by which we now know the Gospels ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, however, did not become part of the New Testament tradition until more than a century after they were composed. Until the late second century CE, Christian writers generally cite the Gospels anonymously" (24).
According to The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, "It's important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous" (22).
I suggest one google the top 10 careers of a psychopath, #8 is Clergy.
Case solved.
Dr Pitre never used the word "Original" in this Presentation.
Show me any manuscript of Early history that haven't been Attributed to their respective authors.
Yes, they were. And I'm sorry, the bible is not history.
DeityFree Dee nice.
So the Gospels were anonymous and you're just gonna ignore any and all evidence to the contrary. Well that makes you willingly stupid. But you do sound like an atheist and everyone knows at this point Atheism and stupidity are synonyms.