Only one Gospel is generally regarded as having been written by an Apostle (namely, John). Mark and Luke were obviously gentiles, and most Biblical scholars do not believe that Matthew the Evangelist (Gospel-writer) was the same person as Matthew the Apostle.
Sadly, this is what has been taught in high schools – even in Catholic ones – for at least the past 35 years, along with Markan priority (i.e. the theory that Mark’s gospel was written first) and the (related)
Q source theory (which attempts to explain why certain material is found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark). But these novel theories leave a *lot *to be desired.
For one thing, there is not the slightest historical evidence, or even a hint, that
Q or its author ever existed. If
Q had existed, it would have been the most precious scroll of Christianity during the first 50-70 years of the new religion. According to the Markans we owe the preservation of
The Our Father and
The Beatitudes to
Q. Mark did not bother to record them. If
Q had been the key document containing the sayings of Christ, it would have been treasured, copied and passed from hand to hand and read at Services.
Instead, we are expected to believe that the community that produced
Q later lost it, although it was so important that Matthew and Luke, unknown to each other, made much use of it. Then the communities of Matthew and Luke also lost it. It is hard to believe that only two copies were made of
Q and these just happened to be in the possession of the isolated communities in which Matthew and Luke lived and these communities lost them. If more copies were made for many communities, Markans have to explain how all these copies of this key Christian document were lost. Also, how did ‘Q’ disappear without leaving even a vague reference or echo in any piece of Christian or heretical literature?
I recommend
The Authors of the Gospels, which lays out convincing proof that Matthew wrote his eyewitness account first, then Luke wrote his “orderly account”, then Mark wrote his account which was
published before Luke’s (thus explaining the Matthew-Mark-Luke-John order we find in our Bibles), then John. For example:
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (c 150-215) was a pupil of Pantoris, the first great Christian teacher at Alexandria in Egypt. Clement records that he himself had travelled widely, meeting and listening to
truly notable men from all over the Roman Empire ((EH 5, 11)). While Rome was the administrative heart of the Church, her intellectual centre was at Alexandria.
…
The next quotations are of particular importance with regard to the subject of this booklet. They are quoted by Eusebius from Clement
s books.[INDENT]“So greatly then did the brightness of true religion light up the minds of Peters hearers that they were not satisfied to have a once-for-all hearing nor with the unwritten teaching of the divine proclamation, but with appeals of every kind begged Mark, the follower of Peter, whose gospel we have, to leave them too a memorial in writing of the teaching given them by word of mouth. Nor did they cease until they had persuaded the man, and in this way became the cause of the written gospel according to Mark. And it is said that the Apostle, when the fact became known to him through the revelation of the Spirit, was pleased with the eagerness of the men and approved [or ratified] the writing for use in the churches.
Clement relates the anecdote in the sixth book of:
The Outlines [Hypotyposes], and Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, also bears witness to it and to Peter mentioning Mark in his earlier letter. Indeed they say that he composed it at Rome itself, and that he indicates this when referring figuratively to the city as Babylon in these words:
The elect [the church] that is in Babylon greets you and so does my son Mark ((EH 2. 15, 1-2 and RO 166)).
`And again in the same books, Clement states a tradition of the
very earliest presbyters about the order of the gospels; and it had this form. He
used to say that the first written of the gospels
were those having the genealogies. And that the Gospel of Mark had this formation.
While Peter was publicly preaching the Word in Rome and proclaiming the gospel by the spirit,
the audience, which was numerous,
begged Mark, as one who had followed him for a long time and remembered what had been said,
to write down the things he had said.
And he did so, handing over the Gospel to those who had asked for it. And when Peter got to know about it, he exerted no pressure either to forbid it or to promote it … But John, last of all, being conscious that the exterior facts had been set forth in the [other] Gospels, after he had been urged by his friends and divinely moved by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel`. ((EH 6:14, 5-7 and RO 166r)).
In this last paragraph above, Clement of Alexandria clearly sets down which two gospels were the first to be written - Matthew and Luke. He is the only early historian to specifically write concerning the chronology of the Gospels. He said he was quoting the very earliest presbyters [note in the plural]. Other writers did not dispute his evidence.
[/INDENT]
). I agree that the testimony of the Fathers about the priority of Matthew cannot be so lightly disregarded, however, there still remain a few things that I just cannot square through the two-gospel hypothesis and having Matthew write first.