Problems For The Anonymous Gospels Hypothesis

I've argued elsewhere that Papias was a disciple of John the son of Zebedee, that the elder he cites when discussing a document by Mark was John, and that the Markan document is our gospel of Mark. Notice, though, that even if we grant the skeptic's position on all three of those issues, the fragment of Papias in question (cited in Eusebius, Church History, 3:39:15) is still problematic for the idea that the gospels circulated anonymously until sometime in the second century. Even under the skeptic's scenario, we have two individuals (the elder and Papias) who lived at least part of their lives in the first century and were likely at least contemporaries of the apostles showing interest in the authorship of a document similar to our gospels. That's problematic for the notion that authorship attributions for our gospels didn't originate until the second century. Furthermore, just after the passage in Eusebius cited above, he goes on to quote some comments from Papias on something Matthew wrote. Again, even if we reject Papias' status as a disciple of John the son of Zebedee (or another disciple of Jesus named John) and assume that the Matthean document in question isn't our gospel of Matthew, we still have Papias showing interest in identifying the author of a gospel-like document.

Or go back to the gospels themselves. Why does the fourth gospel tell us who wrote it (John 21:24) if there wasn't interest in that subject at the time? Notice that the inclusion of such a passage in the document indicates the author's expectation that his audience should be given that information, would be interested in it, etc. And the lack of such a passage in the other three gospels doesn't prove a lack of interest in authorship, since authorship can be communicated, and surely was communicated, in so many ways (document titles, a tag attached to a document, writing on the spine of a codex, writing on the cover of a codex, an oral report, etc.). There's no need for a passage like John 21:24 to identify a document's author. But there is such a passage in John 21, which is a problem for the anonymous gospels hypothesis.

Let's move on to another, related issue. Given that gospel authorship seems to have been discussed early on, how much interest was there in the subject? Did these sources just mention authorship as if it's a subject of only minor importance, as an incidental detail, for example? Or do these sources seem to have had a larger degree of interest in authorship?

We're talking about multiple sources bringing up the authorship of multiple documents in multiple contexts. There are at least two sources involved, Papias and his elder. I think Papias' elder is the author of the fourth gospel. But if you're agnostic on that subject or doubt that the elder is the author of that gospel, then you should either be open to the involvement of more than two sources or should conclude that more than two are involved (Papias, the elder, the author of the fourth gospel). Papias refers to at least two documents, one attributed to Mark and another attributed to Matthew. I've argued that he also refers to John as the author of a gospel. See the sixth paragraph here for a summary of the argument. For further discussion of it, go here. And the fourth gospel itself shows interest in its authorship, so we have at least three documents involved even if we think Papias only refers to two in his extant fragments. Lastly, notice that these sources bring up authorship in multiple contexts. Papias brings the subject up when citing what the elder reported, when discussing Matthew, and (I've argued) when alluding to the gospels in the process of listing several apostles. The elder brought up Mark's authorship in whatever context the elder was in when he made the remarks Papias cites. And the fourth gospel brought up authorship in its own context (multiple times if you include other material in the gospel, particularly 19:35). The fact that authorship is brought up by multiple sources concerning multiple documents in multiple contexts makes more sense if there was more rather than less interest in gospel authorship. It's not just some incidental detail, like what the weather was like when Jesus taught in a certain town or what food he ate with his disciples in John 21. The fact that authorship keeps coming up so often suggests that it was of higher rather than lower importance to the people involved.

Furthermore, look at the language used in the context surrounding the authorship comment in John 21:24: "and we know that his testimony is true". The author is expanding on what was just said, to underscore the reliability of the testimony his audience is receiving. That makes more sense if he thought what he just said (about authorship) was more rather than less significant. Several years ago, Charles Hill wrote an article on John 21:24 that makes a lot of good points. Go here to read some excerpts from the article and my comments on it. Read the comments section as well, since I provide a link to an online version of Hill's article there and make some further comments about the article. As Hill explains, 21:24 has an important place in the fourth gospel, one that's best explained if the authorship of the document had a lot of value to the author and his audience.

So, it looks like multiple first-century sources were discussing the authorship of multiple relevant documents in multiple contexts and that they considered authorship a significant issue.