Prior to 250 AD or so, the 4 Gospels were anonymous and later affixed by tradition

[joe370]

diggerdomer

;7228414]Non-Catholic Christian belief prior to this time? No, such a thing is self-contradictory.

Prior to Christian divisions there was simply the Christian faith.

This kind of reasoning is what makes no sense to me. It is as if you are suggesting that the Catholic church was not the church (teaching the Christian faith) - that existed from the 1st century to the 4th century. Is that what you are suggesting?

 

[Acadiana_Tiger]

Prior to 250 AD or so, the 4 Gospels were anonymous and later affixed by the tradition of the CC, so why reject tradition and still believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the living witnesses that authored the Gospels?

And a really good question would be "at what time did the Church determine that the Gospels were more than simply “Memoirs of the Apostles” (Justin Martyr’s 2nd Century reflections on the Mass and the Eucharist)?

The Bible is NOT self-authenticating. The Bible is authenticated by the Church, which is the work of Jesus Christ. Christ, through his Church, authenticates the Bible. Otherwise we are left to having no reason to believe that the Bible is nothing more than apostolic memoirs of doubtful authorship. But with the Church’s infallibility, authorship is not critical (in otherwords, because the Gospel of Luke was determined to be infallible, if we find some historical reason to believe that it was really Luke’s disciple who wrote the Gospel, that does not affect what the Church has determined the Gospel to be.)

 

[abucs]

For me Matthew dates very early and i have no reason to doubt it was Matthew who compiled it, probably with the help of the other apostles.

Luke’s gospel and the subsequent Acts was written to someone so the author was known. The ‘we’ passages in Acts also show that the author was known.

Mark reads like a speech given by someone who was there drawing from Matthew and Luke. Don’t know who gave the speech but i have no reason to doubt second century bishops who said it was Peter giving the speech and Mark compiling it from the notes.

John wrote three letters to Churches as well as the Gospel so he was known as well. John’s Gospel also looks to be self referential in mentioning those occassions when John’s character is involved as ‘the apostle Jesus loved’. The last chapter of John does look like it was written by John’s scribes just after his death as an addendum.

The belief that all gospels circulated anonymously is not credible in my opinion.

(To say nothing of the Christian community reaction to the Gospels. The anonymously circulating gospels does look to be politically motivated garbage which is at best, looks like a bad guess with no support).