Series: Who Wrote the Gospels, Pt. 3 - The Theory of the Anonymous Gospels, Problem #2 - The Anonymous Scenario is Incredible
In Pt. 2, we looked at the first reason to doubt this theory - no anonymous copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John have ever been found.
In Pt. 3, we will consider the second reason New Testament scholar Brant Pitre believes the theory of the anonymous gospels is "almost completely baseless" - the anonymous scenario is incredible.
Pitre explains:
"The second major problem with the theory of the anonymous Gospels is the utter implausibility that a book circulating around the Roman Empire without a title for almost a hundred years could somehow at some point be attributed to exactly the same author by scribes throughout the world and yet leave no trace of disagreement in any manuscripts. And, by the way, this is supposed to have happened not just once, but with each one of the four Gospels.
Think about it for a minute. According to the theory of the anonymous Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew was 'originally' the Gospel according to nobody. This anonymous book was copied by hand, and recopied, and recopied, and circulated throughout the Roman Empire for decades. Likewise, the Gospel of Mark, which was also 'originally' the Gospel according to nobody, was copied and recopied and circulated for decades. And so on for the third anonymous Gospel, and then the fourth anonymous gospel. Then, sometime in the early second century AD, the exact same titles were supposedly added to not one, not two, not three, but all four of these very different, anonymous books. Moreover, this attribution of authorship supposedly took place even though by the second century the four Gospels had already been spread throughout the Roman Empire: in Galilee, Jerusalem, Syria, Africa, Egypt, Rome, France, and so on, wherever copies were to be found.
This scenario is completely incredible. Even if one anonymous Gospel could have been written and circulated and then somehow miraculously attributed to the same person by Christians living in Rome, Africa, Italy, and Syria, am I really supposed to believe that the same thing happened not once, not twice, but with four different books, over and over again, throughout the world? How did these unknown scribes who added the titles know whom to ascribe the books to? How did they communicate with one another so that all the copies ended up with the same titles?
Moreover, the idea that it would have taken almost a hundred years for the titles to be added completely fails to take into account the fact that from the moment there was even more then one Gospel in circulation, readers would have needed some way to distinguish them from one another. In the words of Graham Stanton:
'[A]s soon as Christian communities regularly used more than one written account of the actions and teaching of Jesus, it would have been necessary to distinguish them by some form of title, especially in the context of readings at worship.'
Now, we know from the Gospel of Luke that 'many' accounts of the life of Jesus were already in circulation by the time he wrote (see Luke 1:1-4). So to suggest that no titles whatsoever were added to the Gospels until the late second century AD completely fails to take into account the fact that multiple Gospels were already circulating before Luke ever set pen to papyrus, and that there would be a practical need to identify these books.
Finally, if things happened the way the anonymous theory proposes, then why aren't some copies attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, but other copies attributed to someone else-for instance, Andrew, or Peter or Jude? If the Gospels really got their titles from scribes falsely adding them to manuscripts up to a century later, we would expect to find both (1) anonymous copies-which, as we've already seen, don't exist-as well as (2) contradictory titles, with some scribes attributing one copy of a Gospel to Matthew and another attributing the same Gospel to Peter or Jesus or whomever."1
It is for this reason Pitre concludes that the theory of the anonymous Gospels suffers from a "lack of logic"2 and "simply does not pass muster when it comes to basic criteria of historical plausibility."3
In our next post in the series, we will consider the last reason that Pitre finds the theory of the anonymous Gospels implausible.
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnote:
1. Brant Pitre, The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ, p. 18-20.
2. Ibid., p. 22.
Related Posts
Series: Who Wrote the Gospels?, Pt. 1 - The Theory of the Anonymous Gospels
Series: Who Wrote the Gospels?, Pt. 2 - The Theory of the Anonymous Gospels, Problem #1 - No Anonymous Manuscripts Exist
Article: Who Wrote the Gospels? by Timothy Paul Jones
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