Critics
of the New Testament often claim that the names of the authors of the Gospels were
added after they had already been in circulation in the Church. Instead of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they say, the real authors were anonymous
Christians who relied on hearsay and legend rather than eyewitness testimony.
But is there evidence for this claim?

First
it should be noted that even if the earliest copies of the Gospels did not
contain the names of their authors that would not disprove the traditional
authorship of those texts. The works of the ancient Roman historian Tacitus
often do not bear his name but very few historians have ever questioned that
Tacitus wrote them. We know Tacitus is the author of these works because other
ancient writers, like St. Jerome, identify him as the author.

St.
Augustine dealt with the charge that the Gospels were anonymous in the fourth
century in his reply to a heretic named Faustus:

How
do we know the authorship of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Varro, and
other similar writers, but by the unbroken chain of evidence? So also with the
numerous commentaries on the ecclesiastical books, which have no canonical
authority, and yet show a desire of usefulness and a spirit of inquiry . . .
How can we be sure of the authorship of any book, if we doubt he apostolic
origin of those books which are attributed to the apostles by the Church which
the apostles themselves founded.

Furthermore,
there is no compelling evidence that the first manuscripts of the Gospels did
lack attribution to their traditional authors. There are no manuscripts that
simply lack titles (as lay critics might imagine) and academic critics say the
variants in the titles of those early manuscripts prove the author’s names were
added at a much later date.xlix However, the usual variant is just the absence
of the word “Gospel,” which leaves a title that begins with “According to . .
.” followed by the author’s name—a name that is never absent from these
manuscripts. Biblical scholar Brant Pitre says, “According to the basic rules
of textual criticism, then, if anything is original in the titles, it is the
names of the authors. They are at least as original as any other part of the
Gospels for which we have unanimous manuscript evidence.”

Another argument in favor of the traditional
authorship of the Gospels is this: if they had indeed been forged, the forgers
would certainly have pretended to be more impressive-sounding authors . This is
what heretics in the second, third, and fourth centuries did when they
attributed their forged Gospels to people like Peter, Philip, and even Mary
Magdalene. Why pretend to be a relative unknown like Mark or Luke? Why would
they impersonate a former tax collector like Matthew whose popularity would
have been only slightly higher than Judas Iscariot’s?

What
about the argument that the Gospels were written at least forty years after the
death of Christ, which would make it difficult if not impossible to accurately
remember the events of his life? Granted, forty or fifty years is a long time
but the events surrounding Jesus’ life and ministry would have left an
indelible mark on the apostles’ memories. Their ability to remember the events
of Jesus’ life would be comparable to a veteran in the year 2016 remembering
what he did during the Vietnam War.

We
also have to remember that our “memory muscles” atrophy as a result of using
electronic recording devices instead (such as when we fail to remember
telephone numbers and rely on the directory in our phones instead). This was
not the case in Jesus’ time and the Jewish Talmud even records how some rabbis
could memorize the entire Old Testament.lii In addition, Jesus was a traveling
preacher who delivered the same sermons throughout his travels, many of which contain
poetic structure or memorable puns. The apostles would have heard his teachings
dozens if not hundreds of times and then repeated it in their own preaching,
thus making the deeds and teachings of Christ easy to remember.

There
is also evidence that the Gospels were written before A.D. 70 because the book
of Acts, which critics say was authored in the mid 80’s, does not mention the
destruction of Jerusalem or the deaths of its main protagonists Peter and Paul.
One plausible explanation is that Luke, the author of Acts, did not record
these events because they hadn’t happened yet. That would place the composition
of Acts in the early 60’s and the Gospel of Luke even earlier. Mark and Matthew
would have been written earlier still, since most scholars believe they predate
Luke. This would result in the first Gospel being written just two decades
after the death of Christ, which is remarkable given that other ancient
biographies, like those of Alexander the Great or the Buddha, were written
centuries after the death of their subjects. From 20 Answers: The Bible