Apologetics Corner

Can we trust the Gospels to be accurate and reliable?

It is technically true that the Gospels are anonymous, in that none of the Gospel writers name themselves outright. It is however, a huge and academically unviable leap to assert that the ‘real authors’ of the Gospels are unknown, thus making their content unreliable.

There was never any argument in all the Early Church, that the Gospels were written by anyone else but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. For example, Papias, writing in circa 90-110 A.D, confirmed that Matthew and Mark wrote their respective Gospels. This clear assertion was furthered by Irenaeus, who stated:

Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus in Asia. 

On reading this statement by Irenaeus, it must be remembered that he was a student of Polycarp, a man who was a student of the disciple John himself. Irenaeus had a still fresh trail of knowledge and insight on Scriptural matters, that came directly from one of the Gospel writers himself!

As Craig Blomberg, professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary and author of The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, observed, there is zero evidence that the authorship of the Gospels was ever in doubt in the Early Church. Indeed, as Blomberg notes, if the Gospels were invented and not accurate, reliable eyewitnesses of Christ’s earthly ministry, names such as Peter or James would have been selected to strengthen the legitimacy of claim. Furthermore, why would anyone looking to invent the contents of the Gospels, attribute one of them to a formerly deeply hated tax collector that was Matthew, unless it were the truth?! Using such men as Matthew, Luke and Mark to write the Gospels actually gives credibility to their reports, as these would not be the names used if tricksters were looking to peddle a lie.

Every New Testament manuscript bearing the title of the Gospels ever discovered, all bear the four names seen in the Bible, that being Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There has never been found any other name written atop an ancient manuscript that contains the Gospel accounts, that differs from what we use today.

So, we can see the wealth of historical evidence heavily favours the assertion that we have the accurate, reliable eyewitness accounts of the Gospel message, just as God intended us to have. Those who look to bring this into question do so on the back of extremely flimsy hypotheses and no evidence to back up their scepticism. Praise God that His Word is pure and can be trusted to lead us to life eternal through His blessed Son and our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.