All four canonical Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are formally anonymous: not one of them names its author anywhere inside the text.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, internal texts
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Who Wrote the Gospels?
Who Wrote the Gospels?
The current answer
The four Gospels never name their authors. The famous names were attached about a century later, and scholars still debate whether they stick.
What remains uncertain
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The names sit in the titles, "The Gospel According to Matthew," and titles of that kind are superscriptions, headings added by scribes and editors, not part of the narrative the author wrote.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Gospel titular superscriptions
The earliest apparent reference is Papias of Hierapolis, writing around 110 to 130, whose work survives only in later quotations by Irenaeus and Eusebius.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Papias, preserved in Irenaeus and Eusebius
The traditional Gospel authorships and precise dates remain subjects of scholarly disagreement.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Papias; Irenaeus; Eusebius; Luke 1:1-4
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