Who do you think wrote the first Gospel?

[minichibi]

Based on all the theories you have heard and read, which one makes the most sense to you? Who wrote the first Gospel?

 

[Publisher]

I think there is good evidence for there to be some “Q” document. A “Sayings gospel” of sorts.

I think probably one of the converts of Paul wrote some of the “first gospel”. Paul’s treatment of the eucharist in 1 COR shows that at least the ideas and stories of “the night he was betrayed” had been in circulation prior to “Mark”. “Luke” and “Matthew” used “Mark” and a common source of some sort…“Q” is what scholars dub this missing/hypothetical based on linguistic evidence of the synoptics.

It was probably a Jewish convert of Paul.

 

[po18guy]

While the modernistic “Quelle” theory is currently very fashionable, there is zero hard evidence for it. From the webz the Q source is: “a hypothetical collection of sayings of Jesus, assumed to be…” Not very scientific. Its roots go all the way back to… 1900.

Church tradition preempts it. No one knows exactly when the first Gospel was penned. An excellent guess, from someone who should know, may be found between the covers of Inside the Bible, written by Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ.

This is an excellent introductory reference to each of the 73 books of the bible.

 

[PJH_74]

While the modernistic “Quelle” theory is currently very fashionable, there is zero hard evidence for it. From the webz the Q source is: “a hypothetical collection of sayings of Jesus, assumed to be…” Not very scientific. Its roots go all the way back to… 1900.

Really it is about as scientific as Bible analysis goes…as such it treats the Bible as a literary work independent from the question of faith. Now what you choose to believe about the Bible and “Q” from a faith stand point is entirely up to you.

 

[triumphguy]

I think the Holy Spirit wrote it.

Who penned it… that’s a different question.

 

[patrick457]

Based on all the theories you have heard and read, which one makes the most sense to you? Who wrote the first Gospel?

My opinion needs a little bit of explaining. I believe that Matthew’s lost Logia (as per Papias, aka the ‘gospel of the Hebrews’ as per the later Fathers) may be the first ‘gospel’, although Mark may have been the first of the canonical Greek gospels to have been written. I do not hold to the Two-source theory and so reject the existence of the Logienquelle (aka Q) and postulate that Matthew and Luke did know of each other.

 

[paul_c]

I beleive that Catholic Tradition is correct and the Apostle Matthew wrote the first gospel in Aramaic some time in the 30s or early 40s at the earliest. This new 2 source construct is hard to believe because it requires putting aside 2000 years of tradition of the gospel orders and authorship and believing in a “Q” source that no one has ever seen, mostly because 94% of Mark’s content is shared by Matthew. I think a better explanation of that fact is the theory that Mark was transcribing a lecture by Peter on the gospel of Matthew. This theory dates back to Papias in the 2nd century as I understand.

 

[Nan_S]

My opinion needs a little bit of explaining. I believe that Matthew’s lost Logia (as per Papias, aka the ‘gospel of the Hebrews’ as per the later Fathers) may be the first ‘gospel’, although Mark may have been the first of the canonical Greek gospels to have been written. I do not hold to the Two-source theory and so reject the existence of the Logienquelle (aka Q) and postulate that Matthew and Luke did know of each other.

This is the same history which I heard, and the testimony of one of the Early Church Fathers agrees. This is why the gospels were placed in the New Testament in the order Matthew-Mark-Luke-John.

If the ECF testimony is accurate, it makes sense that Matthew’s Hebrew Logia is first, followed by Mark (which is written out of sequence compared to Greek Matthew and Luke), followed by an expanded Greek version of Matthew which took the place of the Logia.

 

[paul_c]

I think that most scholars today and in the last several decades agree that the earliest of the four gospels in the canon to be written is the one called “Mark”…and the last one written, perhaps 30 or 40 years later, is the one called “John”.
But there may have been other gospels written earlier than Mark that were not included in the cannon. I’d guess the gnostic ones were earlier or at the same time as Mark.

Why would you think any gnostic gospel preceded the gospels currently in the cannon? What would be their motivation to write one before Christianity was established? and why is there no record of them?

 

[patrick457]

I think that most scholars today and in the last several decades agree that the earliest of the four gospels in the canon to be written is the one called “Mark”…and the last one written, perhaps 30 or 40 years later, is the one called “John”.
But there may have been other gospels written earlier than Mark that were not included in the cannon. I’d guess the gnostic ones were earlier or at the same time as Mark.

Really? Like?

 

[Nan_S]

I beleive that Catholic Tradition is correct and the Apostle Matthew wrote the first gospel in Aramaic some time in the 30s or early 40s at the earliest. This new 2 source construct is hard to believe because it requires putting aside 2000 years of tradition of the gospel orders and authorship and believing in a “Q” source that no one has ever seen, mostly because 94% of Mark’s content is shared by Matthew. I think a better explanation of that fact is the theory that Mark was transcribing a lecture by Peter on the gospel of Matthew. This theory dates back to Papias in the 2nd century as I understand.

I also think Q is a revisionist scholar’s construction. I’ll never figure out why they spend so much time rationalizing a document the Early Church Fathers never knew about, while completely ignoring Matthew’s Hebrew (Aramaic?) gospel.

 

[patrick457]

I’ve already said it someplace else (like most of the time) but no serious academic, even the most ‘liberal’ one, would dispute that the canonical gospels are the earliest surviving gospels in existence. Heck, The idea that Thomas already existed in the 1st century in the form(s) that we have it today is, in reality, in the very small minority. At best, what people - even many of those in the so-called ‘early’ camp - think that the ‘core’ material (a portion out of the 114 sayings attributed to Jesus recorded in there) of that gospel may have already been in circulation during this time or before, but many think that Thomas as a literary work did not come into existence until much later.

All in all, we only know of at least nine gospels which were composed before AD 175, and one of these (the Protoevangelium of James) does not, strictly speaking belong to the ‘gospel’ genre at all. Excepting the Protoevangelium of James, these other eight gospels are (based on William Petersen’s list):

Gospel of the Ebionites (c. 125?)
Gospel of the Egyptians (c. 125?)
Gospel of the Hebrews (c. 125?)
Gospel of the Nazoraeans (c. 125?)
Gospel of Thomas (c. 140?)
Gospel of Peter (c. 150?)
The ‘Egerton Gospel’ (c. 150?)
Gospel of Judas (c. 170?)

Now Petersen in another publication proposes (contra to the opinion held by many) that the Gospel of the Nazoraeans and the Gospel of the Ebionites, and possibly the Gospel of the Hebrews as well, are all different names for the same work, which would bring the number of ‘rival’ gospels down to eight or seven.

 

[patrick457]

I also think Q is a revisionist scholar’s construction. I’ll never figure out why they spend so much time rationalizing a document the Early Church Fathers never knew about, while completely ignoring Matthew’s Hebrew (Aramaic?) gospel.

Trivia: Matthew’s Logia was the original inspiration for Q. The earliest scholars to theorize a written source for the Synoptics actually identified this source with the work Papias talked about. Q in German is sometimes called Logienquelle, for pete’s sake.

 

[po18guy]

I also think Q is a revisionist scholar’s construction. I’ll never figure out why they spend so much time rationalizing a document the Early Church Fathers never knew about, while completely ignoring Matthew’s Hebrew (Aramaic?) gospel.

Tracing back only to the beginning of the 20th century, I believe the impetus for this theory was to trace all scripture, not via the Oral Tradition, but to a written source. The doctrine of sola scriptura implies written proof before anything will be believed, while simultaneously dismissing even the concept of the oral Tradition. However, this merely transfers the problem to a much earlier time, and hangs its credibility upon the authenticity of this unknown and undiscovered written source. Its plausibility increases only with one’s desire to believe it. It is a postulation that attempts to make an end-run around Catholic and Orthodox Tradition. So far, the only problem with it is that, beyond the stage of ideation, it does not exist. I see it as a form of Christian Darwinism that lacks only that fabled “missing link”

And, is it not also odd that “scholars” do not appear to know that which interviewers do - that eyewitness accounts routinely (and are expected to) vary in terms of content, detail and sequence of known events, while also agreeing on others?

 

[patrick457]

Tracing back only to the beginning of the 20th century, I believe the impetus for this theory was to trace all scripture, not via the Oral Tradition, but to a written source. The doctrine of sola scriptura implies written proof before anything will be believed, while simultaneously dismissing even the concept of the oral Tradition. However, this merely transfers the problem to a much earlier time, and hangs its credibility upon the authenticity of this unknown and undiscovered written source. Its plausibility increases only with one’s desire to believe it. It is a postulation that attempts to make an end-run around Catholic and Orthodox Tradition. So far, the only problem with it is that, beyond the stage of ideation, it does not exist. I see it as a form of Christian Darwinism that lacks only that fabled “missing link”

And, is it not also odd that “scholars” do not appear to know that which interviewers do - that eyewitness accounts routinely (and are expected to) vary in terms of content, detail and sequence of known events, while also agreeing on others?

You mean the 19th century. The theory was first formulated in 1838 by Christian Hermann Weisse and popularized in 1863 by Heinrich Julius Holtzmann.

 

[po18guy]

You mean the 19th century. The theory was first formulated in 1838 by Christian Hermann Weisse and popularized in 1863 by Heinrich Julius Holtzmann.

Right you are! I focused on the work that BH Streeter did around the turn of the last century - but he proposed the “four document” theory to supplant the “two document theory” which was in addition to the “Q” source theory. This begs the obvious question of whether or not there was a “three document” theory(!) I am beginning to sense the application of some pretzel logic here.

 

[Zooey]

I also think Q is a revisionist scholar’s construction. I’ll never figure out why they spend so much time rationalizing a document the Early Church Fathers never knew about, while completely ignoring Matthew’s Hebrew (Aramaic?) gospel.

Whenever this subject comes up, I always say that Matthew Aramaic is the real gospel on which the imagined “Q” is based.
After all, since Matthew Aramaic was out there; why wouldn’t the other Gospel writers make use of his work? (Yes, I also believe that Matthew Greek is based on Matthew Aramaic, too.).
The best part about this is that it has the virtues of (A) simplicity&(B) recognizing both traditional scholarly opinion & more modern ideas as having value. I think that the modernists want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, just because they can.

 

[adrift]

I believe that Catholic Tradition is correct and the Apostle Matthew wrote the first gospel in Aramaic some time in the 30s or early 40s at the earliest. This new 2 source construct is hard to believe because it requires putting aside 2000 years of tradition of the gospel orders and authorship and believing in a “Q” source that no one has ever seen, mostly because 94% of Mark’s content is shared by Matthew. I think a better explanation of that fact is the theory that Mark was transcribing a lecture by Peter on the gospel of Matthew. This theory dates back to Papias in the 2nd century as I understand.

I have never heard this theory. It is a very possible theory. I believe the rest of what you wrote also.

I wrote this in another thread but it is appropriate to this thread a well

This is my own opinion on scholars. They wish to make a name for themselves, which isn’t going to happen by going a long with the status quo. They cannot accept the traditional rendition, no name in that. As a result, they now claim the tradition of Matthew being first is wrong. Give it another thousand years and the scholars will say that today scholars had it wrong. It is my understanding that Mark being written first was arrived at without considering the traditional reasons that Matthew came first. I prefer the traditional rendering.

 

[patrick457]

I think there is good evidence for there to be some “Q” document. A “Sayings gospel” of sorts.

I think probably one of the converts of Paul wrote some of the “first gospel”. Paul’s treatment of the eucharist in 1 COR shows that at least the ideas and stories of “the night he was betrayed” had been in circulation prior to “Mark”. “Luke” and “Matthew” used “Mark” and a common source of some sort…“Q” is what scholars dub this missing/hypothetical based on linguistic evidence of the synoptics.

It was probably a Jewish convert of Paul.

The problem with the common formulation that Q was a ‘sayings source’ a la Thomas is the fact that ‘double tradition’ material (material which Matthew and Luke both share but not Mark; aka ‘Q material’) may actually presuppose a sort of narrative structure.

Also, the presence of the so-called ‘minor agreements’ between Matthew and Luke (points in Matthew and Luke where the two agree against or beyond Mark precisely within their Markan verses) are a problem to the theory, more specifically the claim that Matthew and Luke did not know each other’s gospels. This is how the Q theory works: it accounts for the similarities and, at the same time, the differences between the two by postulating a mediating written source from which Matthew and Luke could have drawn from. To put it simply, they share some similar material (the ‘double tradition’) because they drew from the same work; at the same time they handle their material differently because no one knew that the other was writing.

 

[triumphguy]

I wish people would stop saying that all scholars want is to make an name for themselves.
That is an anti-intellectual prejudice. It is insulting. It is wrong.

Scholars study out of passion for their subject and because they want to advance study in their area.

We are Catholics! We are supposed to use our intellects. Now an intellectual can be wrong, but this does not make the intellectual endeavour wrong.

Our Pope is an intellectual, and he is consistently challenging us to use our intellects.

As one of my best theology profs kept telling the seminarians: Christ died to take away our sins, not our brains.

And the intellect is not the natural enemy of Tradition either. Tradition should hand on (tradere) the Truth, and truth is what the intellect seeks.