Who wrote the four Gospels?

What the Gospels say about themselves

The Gospels do not open with a signature, as Paul's letters do. Luke comes closest. He addresses a man named Theophilus and explains his method: "Many have undertaken to compose an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by the initial eyewitnesses and servants of the word" (Luke 1:1–2, BSB) [1]. He presents himself as a careful compiler of eyewitness testimony, not as an eyewitness himself.

John's Gospel ends with a note about its source. It points to "the disciple whom Jesus loved" and says, "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who has written them down. And we know that his testimony is true" (John 21:24, BSB) [2]. The "we" suggests that others vouched for the beloved disciple's testimony. The text does not name him.

What the early writers said

The names come from outside the texts. Papias, a bishop in Hierapolis in Asia Minor in the early second century, is quoted by the church historian Eusebius. According to Papias, Mark had been Peter's interpreter and wrote down what he remembered of Peter's teaching, though not in order, and Matthew arranged the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew language [3].

Around AD 180 Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, named all four [4]. He said Matthew wrote for Hebrew readers in their own language, that Mark, Peter's disciple and interpreter, put Peter's preaching in writing, that Luke, Paul's companion, recorded the gospel Paul preached, and that John, the disciple who had leaned on Jesus' breast, published his Gospel while living in Ephesus [4].

What the manuscripts say

Where the oldest manuscripts preserve a title, it takes the form "Gospel according to Matthew" and so on, or the short form "According to Matthew" [5]. A papyrus now in the Vatican Library, known as P75 and also as Papyrus Bodmer XIV–XV, is the oldest manuscript that preserves the full title "Gospel according to Luke" [6]. It is usually dated about AD 175 to 225, though one scholar, Brent Nongbri, has argued for a fourth-century date [6]. Simon Gathercole of Cambridge catalogued the titles in the earliest manuscripts [6], and the historian Martin Hengel pointed out that no evidence shows these Gospels were ever known by other names [5].

How scholars weigh the evidence

On the question of authorship, scholars divide into broad camps. Many critical scholars hold that the Gospels were written anonymously and that the names were attached in the second century, when churches needed to tell several Gospels apart [5]. Others argue that the titles go back very early. Richard Bauckham, in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, argues that a uniform title for all four would have been hard to establish once the Gospels were widely copied, so the names were likely attached from the time the books first circulated together [5]. Many scholars in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions hold that the names given by Papias and Irenaeus are reliable, while others in the same churches separate the traditional names from questions of how the Gospels were composed and edited. Even where scholars agree that the titles are early, that settles when the names were attached, not by itself who wrote the books.

The debate is sharpest for Matthew and John. Matthew's Greek Gospel draws closely on Mark, which leads many scholars to doubt that an apostle and eyewitness would depend so heavily on another writer [7]. Papias's remark about the Hebrew language adds a puzzle, since no Hebrew or Aramaic Matthew survives. For John, scholars discuss whether the beloved disciple is John the son of Zebedee, as Irenaeus held, or another disciple, and how many hands shaped the final text [4][2].

How the first three relate

Matthew, Mark and Luke share so much material, often word for word, that they have been called the Synoptic Gospels since the 1780s, from a Greek word for "seen together" [7]. Explaining their relationship is called the Synoptic problem [7].

The solution most scholars accept is the two-source hypothesis, developed in Germany in the nineteenth century. It holds that Matthew and Luke both used Mark, and that they also shared a second source of sayings, now lost, called Q from the German Quelle, "source" [7]. No copy of Q has ever been found [8]. Some scholars, including Austin Farrer, Michael Goulder and Mark Goodacre, accept that Mark came first but argue that Luke used Matthew, which removes the need for Q [9]. Others hold that Matthew came first, the order most early church writers assumed [9].

Dates in brief

One summary of modern scholarship, from the St. Paul Center, gives Mark around AD 70 to 75, Matthew around 75, Luke around 80 to 90 and John around 90 to 100 [10]; other surveys place Mark as early as AD 65. These are scholarly estimates, not dates the texts supply. Those dates rest partly on the view that Mark came first. Some scholars argue for earlier dates. Jonathan Bernier, in Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament (2022), accepts that Mark came first but places all four Gospels before AD 70, inferring from the way Acts ends, before Paul's death, that Acts was written then, and that Luke wrote his Gospel before Acts [10].

What this means for the reader

The Gospels do not sign their names, and the tradition that does name them is early and consistent. What scholars debate is how close that tradition stands to the writers. When a reader meets a claim about who wrote a Gospel, it is worth asking whether it rests on the text, on the early church writers, or on a modern reconstruction.