The Gospels
Aramaic was the spoken language of the Jews of Palestine. Consequently, it is believed that Jesus and his disciples spoke and taught in Aramaic.30 “The earliest oral tradition of Jesus’ deeds and sayings undoubtedly circulated in Aramaic. However, the four Gospels were written in an entirely different speech, common Greek, the spoken
30 Aramaic is a Semitic language which gradually supplanted Akkadian as the common tongue of the Near East in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. It later became the official language of the Persian Empire. Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the language of the Jews; portions of the Old Testament books of Daniel and Ezra are written in Aramaic, as are the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. Its period of greatest influence extended from 300 BC until 650 CE, after which it was gradually supplanted by Arabic. (The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 1, p. 516)
language of the civilized Mediterranean world, to serve the majority of the Church, which was becoming Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) instead of Palestinian. Traces of Aramaic survive in the Greek Gospels. For example, in Mark 5:41, “Taking her by the hand he said to her, ‘Tal’itha cu’mi’; which means ’Little girl, I say to you, arise.’ ” and Mark 15:34, “And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘E’lo-i, E’lo-i, la’ma sabachtha’ni?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ ”31
The New Testament Gospel of Mark, though considered by Church scholars to be the oldest of the Gospels, was not written by a disciple of Jesus. Biblical scholars concluded, based on the evidence contained in the Gospel, that Mark himself was not a disciple of Jesus. Furthermore, according to them, it is not even certain who Mark really was. The ancient Christian author, Eusebius (325 C.E.), reported that another ancient author, Papias (130 C.E.), was the first to attribute the Gospel to John Mark, a companion of Paul.32 Others suggested that he may have been the scribe of Peter and yet others hold that he was probably someone else.
The same is the case with the other Gospels. Although Matthew, Luke and John are the names of disciples of Jesus, the authors of the Gospels bearing their names were not those famous disciples, but other individuals who used the disciples’ names to give their accounts credibility. In fact, all the Gospels originally circulated anonymously. Authoritative names were later assigned to them by unknown figures in the early church.33
| Books | Authors |
| Gospel of Matthew | Unknown34 |
| Gospel of Mark | Unknown35 |
| Gospel of Luke | Unknown36 |
| Gospel of John | Unknown37 |
| Acts | The author of Luke38 |
| I, II, III John | The author of John39 |
31 Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 3, p. 654.
32 The Five Gospels, p. 20, and The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 14, p. 824. For references to various Marks in the New Testament, see the following: Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5; 15:36-41; Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 24; and I Peter 5:13.
33 The Five Gospels, p. 20.
34 “Although there is a Matthew named among the various lists of Jesus’ disciples…the writer of Matthew is probably anonymous.”The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 14, p. 826.
35 “Though the author of Mark is probably unknown…”The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 14, p. 824.
36 “The Muratorian Canon refers to Luke, the physician, Paul’s companion; Irenaeus depicts Luke as a follower of Paul’s gospel. Eusebius has Luke as an Antiochene physician who was with Paul in order to give the Gospel apostolic authority.” The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 14, p. 827.
37 “From internal evidence the Gospel was written by a beloved disciple whose name is unknown.” The
New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 14, p. 828.
38 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 14, p. 830.
J.B. Phillips, a prebendary of the Chichester Cathedral, the Anglican Church of England, wrote the following preface for his translation of the Gospel according to St. Matthew: “Early tradition ascribed this Gospel to the apostle Matthew, but scholars nowadays almost all reject this view. The author, whom we can conveniently call Matthew, has plainly drawn on the mysterious “Q”,41 which may have been a collection of oral traditions. He has used Mark’s Gospel freely, though he has rearranged the order of events and has in several instances used different words for what is plainly the same story.”42 The Fourth Gospel (John) was opposed as heretical in the early church, and it knows none of the stories associated with John, son of Zebedee.43 In the judgement of many scholars, it was produced by a “school” of disciples, probably in Syria in the last decade of the first century.44