Why do scholars agree that the four Gospels could not have been written by eyewitnesses?

Answer 1

A: It is traditionally assumed that the four New Testament gospels were written by the apostles whose names they now bear. Matthew and John are known as two of the disciples of Jesus and would therefore have been eyewitnesses to the events in the gospels, while Mark and Luke were companions of Paul.

However, the gospels were originally anonymous and were only attributed by the Church fathers to these apostles later in the second century. Ian Wilson (Jesus: The Evidence) agrees it can come as quite a shock to discover that no-one can even be sure who wrote the gospels. He says that despite the versions printed in our Bibles long having borne the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, these names are mere attributions. The consensus of scholars is that the gospel accounts could not have been written by eyewitnesses to the events they portray.

The Church Fathers soon realised that there was a literary dependency among, at least, the synoptic gospels, such that two of them must have been copied from a third. They decided that Matthew's Gospel came first and that Mark and Lukewere copied from it. Modern scholars agree in principle with the Church Fathers, but say that Mark's Gospel was actually first, and that Matthew and Luke were copied from it. John's Gospel was inspired by Luke, with some material taken direct from Mark. Had either author of Matthew and John been an eyewitness, or for that matter the author of Luke, they would not have had to rely on Mark for everything they knew about the life and mission of Jesus. Nor would the authors of Matthew and Luke relied on the hypothetical 'Q' document for further sayings material attributed to Jesus - they would have provided their own versions of what Jesus taught, in their own words.

This leaves only the author of Mark's Gospel as a possible eyewitness, although Christian tradition already says that he was not an eyewitness. Mark's author shows a lack of familiarity with the geography of Palestine and with Jewish customs of his time. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that Mark seems to depend on traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek, but also sees the possibility of some material coming from the somewhat earlier letters of Paul. For example Brown points to Mark's "he declared all foods are clean" ( 7:19) as resembling Romans 14:14: "I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself." Mark 14:22-24 was likely based on 1 Corinthians 11:24-25. Dennis R. MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) believes that Mark's gospel is an imitation of the Homeric epics (Iliad and Odyssey) and that these are the Greek traditions that Brown identified. He also identifies a number of mimesis flags that could indicate that certain passages were derived from Homer.

A final issue with Mark's Gospel as a historical source is based on its framework structure, which consists of a parallel structure so elegant that it could not have been a record of events in the order they really occurred. If the events described in Mark's Gospel really were witnessed by its author, we could expect the author to want to tell us of them just as he remembered them happening, whereas the chiastic structure requires him to have altered the sequence and importance of events. The last 24 hours of the life of Jesus also forms a secondary chiastic structure, broken up into eight segments, each of exactly three hours (2).

There is also the issue of the long delay before any of the gospels was written. Jesus is said to have died around 30 or 33 CE, yet Mark's Gospel was not written until approximately 70 CE, and the other gospels were, of course, even later. If the author of Mark, or indeed any of the other authors, was an actual eyewitness, we could expect him to want to write down everything he remembered about Jesus before it was too late and his memory began to fade or he died of old age or any other cause.

Footnotes

(1) A parallel structure is a literary sequence in which an opening set of events is contrasted with another, parallel set of events that mirrors the first. Mark's Gospel as a whole consists of a parallel structure and then contains a smaller chiastic structure (a circular structure similar to a parallel structure) around the last day and the crucifixion.

The major structure of Mark:

• The opening set begins with John explaining the coming of Jesus, followed by the baptism and the voice of God from heaven, and ends with Jesus predicting his death.
• The contrasting structure begins with the Transfiguration of Jesus and the voice of God from heaven, and ends with the crucifixion, followed by the young man explaining the departure of Jesus.

Within these major milestones we find other pairs such as 9:1 and chapter 13:

• 9:1: Jesus told the disciples that some of them would not taste death until they saw the kingdom of God coming with power.
• chapter 13: Jesus described the end of the world and his second coming, on clouds of glory, within the lifetimes of some of those to whom he was speaking.

Note that Mark originally ended at 16:8, with the young man telling the women that Jesus was risen and they fled, telling no one, with no resurrection appearance of Jesus. Verses 16:9-25 form what is now known as the "Long Ending" (there was also, at one stage, a "Short Ending") and were added to the Gospel at a later stage, to provide resurrection appearances and to more or less harmonise it with the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Therefore, verses 16:9-25 do not form part of the framework structure of Mark's Gospel.

(2) The last 24 hours of the life of Jesus is broken up into eight segments, each of exactly three hours, with the opening set beginning on the evening of the Last Supper and ending with the trial before the high priest and other senior priests and elders. The second set begins with the trial before Pontius Pilate and ends on the evening of the crucifixion.

• Mark begins the story "when it was evening" (14:17). In this ancient world without electricity, that would mean when the sun went down, or approximately 6 pm.
• Mark knew that the duration of the Passover meal was three hours and that it concluded with the singing of a hymn. So at the end of his segment he noted, "And when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives". It was obviously about 9 p.m.
• Mark then has Jesus and the disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane, where his closest disciples, Peter, James and John, were not able to remain awake. "Could you not watch one hour?" Jesus asked. The process was repeated two more times. The disciples could not watch one, two or three hours. It was now midnight.
• The act of betrayal, the darkest deed in human history, came next, occurring at the stroke of midnight.
• Jesus was led away for a trial before the high priest and other senior priests and elders. This governing body then judged him, on the basis of his messianic claim, to be worthy of death. It was 3:00 a.m.
• The watch of the night between 3 am and 6 am was called cockcrow. Mark now inserted his account of Peter's threefold denial of Jesus, once each hour until the cock crowed, marking the end of that phase of the night. That makes it 6 am.
• "As soon as it was morning", which would be 6 am, Jesus was led by the chief priests, scribes and elders to Pontius Pilate for judgement.
• Mark told his readers once again that this drama has been shaped liturgically, saying, " It was the third hour," or 9 am "when they crucified him".
• When "the sixth hour had come" (12 noon), darkness covered the whole earth, reflecting the betrayal at 12 midnight.
• After three hours of darkness, Jesus said "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
• At 3 pm, Jesus gave up the ghost. Jesus was buried in the final period from 3 to 6 pm, before the sun went down.
• That brings us to 6 pm on Friday evening, reflecting the beginning of the passion on 6 pm on Thursday evening.