Why think Hebrews is canonical?

Cameron Bertuzzi recently posted a video asking Protestants a few questions about Hebrews. I've addressed the questions before, but I'll summarize my answers here and provide links to some of my older material on the issues involved and more recent updates.

A Good Way To Think About Papias

He's one of the earliest extrabiblical sources who comments on Christianity, he addresses some significant issues, and many people think (probably correctly) that he had met the apostle John. But he's also highly controversial, in a lot of contexts, and there are widespread disagreements about how to interpret him. You can access an archive of our posts about Papias here.

What I want to focus on in this post is a good way to think about Papias in an important context in which he's often brought up, the authorship of the gospels (and related issues, like the origins of the gospels more broadly). He's often treated as if he's an isolated figure in the context of gospel authorship. He'll sometimes be referred to, wrongly, as the only individual who named any gospel authors before Irenaeus did so. (See here for a correction of that mistake.) People will try to undermine his credibility by various means, suggesting that we therefore don't have any reliable sources on gospel authorship in the earliest generations of Christianity, that he doesn't cause much of a problem for the hypothesis of the original anonymity of the gospels, etc. But Papias is connected to other sources in this context:

- He names a predecessor he got at least some of his information on gospel authorship from, a man he refers to as "the elder" (in Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).

- The reason why people like Eusebius could quote Papias is that he wrote some material that was still extant in later generations. And the best explanation for why he wrote about gospel authorship is that he thought his audience was interested in the subject.

So, although Papias is just one individual, he relied on at least one earlier source on issues of gospel authorship (the elder), and he wrote about gospel authorship for an audience he probably thought was interested in the subject. Interest in and information about the authorship of the gospels (and other matters pertaining to the origins of the gospels) predate Papias and are present in some of Papias' contemporaries, not just Papias. It's helpful to think of him in connection with those other sources, the elder and the audience for whom Papias wrote.

Neglected Evidence For The Authorship Of The Fourth Gospel

A neglected line of evidence for the fourth gospel's authorship is how closely John 19:35, 20:31, and 21:24 align with what Jesus said about the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the work of the apostles, and other issues in John 14-17. What the author of the document says in the passages I cited from John 19-21 seems to allude to Jesus' earlier comments in chapters 14-17. The implication is that the author of the fourth gospel is fulfilling what Jesus predicted. He's suggesting that he's one of the apostles Jesus was addressing in chapters 14-17.

What should we make of John 19:35 and the third-person language of the gospels?

Not every part of the gospels (and Acts, which is a continuation of one of the gospels) is written in the third person (e.g., Luke 1:1-3, Acts 16:10, John 1:14, 21:24-25). But most of the language is third person. Why the third-person language if some of the authors were eyewitnesses?

More Evidence That Irenaeus Attributed The Fourth Gospel To John The Son Of Zebedee

It's sometimes claimed that Irenaeus thought the fourth gospel was written by some other John, often referred to as John the Elder. I recently saw Tom Schmidt link a good article on the subject from Charles Hill. Here are some portions of Hill's argument, though the article includes a lot more:

Four of the five unequivocal references to the son of Zebedee [in Irenaeus] are found in a single chapter [of Against Heresies]: book three, chapter twelve. The last of these comes in 3.12.15, where Irenaeus says, “Thus did the apostles, whom the Lord made witnesses of every action and of every doctrine – for upon all occasions do we find Peter, and James, and John present with Him – scrupulously act according to the dispensation of the Mosaic law ...” The natural question arising from this statement would be, why would “all occasions” not include events recorded in the Gospel according to John? Irenaeus did not isolate John’s Gospel from the others as a maverick, renegade, or borderline-orthodox Gospel, but interpreted all four in the light of each other. So, when Peter and the rest reclined at supper with Jesus on the night he was betrayed, and Peter motioned to the disciple next to Jesus, the disciple whom Jesus loved – whom Irenaeus knows as a man named John –, why wouldn’t this John be the same John who is “upon all occasions” present with Peter and James as witness of every action and doctrine of Jesus (Jn 13:23–25)? Or, when Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved – whom Irenaeus knows as John – ran together to the tomb upon receiving Mary’s report (Jn 20:2–10). Or, when Jesus after his resurrection met seven of his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias and “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved [the disciple Irenaeus knows as John], following them” and asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” (Jn 21:21). How is anyone supposed to think that this John is another John, and not the one that is found with Peter and James on all occasions?...

I mentioned earlier that the only way one could argue that John the Evangelist, if he was not one of the twelve, could in some sense be called an apostle “sent” by Jesus [as Irenaeus believed to be true of the author of the fourth gospel], would be by arguing that he was present among Jesus’ disciples when Jesus gave his sending commission in Jn 20:21: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” – although here the word πέμπω and not ἀποστέλλω is used for Jesus’ sending of the disciples. But if John was present that evening, and only members of the twelve were present, then John was one of the twelve – that is, one of the ten remaining. Again, this is how both Irenaeus and the Marcosians read the Johannine Great Commission. It is also how Cyprian, in the middle of the third century read it: “And again, in the Gospel, when Christ breathed on the apostles alone, saying, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost ...’”

(n. 75 on 53, 60-61)

The Cumulative Effect Of The Pre-Irenaean Sources On Gospel Authorship

I've sometimes linked a collection of resources I put together on the best and earliest evidence for the authorship of the gospels. A mistake that can be made when evaluating that kind of evidence is to view the information in too isolated a manner. There's a cumulative effect to the evidence, and sometimes two or more things take on an added significance when considered together, a significance they wouldn't have if considered individually.

The Maturing Of Matthew And John

I want to expand on some things I said in my last post. When somebody like Bart Ehrman refers to the unlikelihood that the average first-century Jew without much of an education, an ancient fisherman like John, etc. would compose a document like the gospel of Matthew or the gospel of John, there are other factors involved that are being neglected.

The Ehrman/Licona Debate On Gospel Authorship

Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona recently debated the subject. I listened to the debate while doing something else and didn't take notes, so I'll just be summarizing some points that have come to mind after listening to the debate. Mike had some good things to say, but I want to supplement what he offered.

Early Interest In Mark's Authorship

When critics of the traditional gospel authorship attributions discuss the subject, they sometimes distinguish between the two earlier gospels, which they consider to be Mark and Matthew, and what they take to be the latter two, Luke and John. They'll concede that there are significant internal indications of authorship in the latter two sources, such as the "we" passages in Acts and the reference to the author of the fourth gospel in John 21:24. But it's suggested that we don't have anything like that for the other two gospels.

The Gospel Authors' Witness To Each Other

We often think of the evidence for the authorship of the gospels in terms of internal evidence and external sources of the patristic era, like Papias and Irenaeus. But we should also think in terms of the testimony of earlier sources, including the evidence the gospel authors provide for each other.

Matthew As A Source On Jesus' Childhood

The authorship of the gospel of Matthew has important implications for issues related to the childhood of Jesus. The gospel says a lot about his childhood, including in chapter 3 and beyond. The apostle Matthew would have been in a good position to have had a lot of reliable information on Jesus' background. But the evidence for his authorship of the gospel has been largely neglected, including among conservative scholars. You can find a collection of articles we've written about that evidence here. See the comments section of the thread for notes about how the collection has been updated over the years. For example, I added a link a few years ago to an article about the significance of Matthew's living and working in the area of Capernaum. More recently, I added a link to a post about evidence for Matthean authorship in the lists of Jesus' disciples in the Synoptics and Acts. That post also discusses the significance of the use of Hosea 6:6 in the gospel of Matthew. And I added a link to a post about evidence for the financial interests of the author. See the collection of links for more evidence of Matthew's authorship of the document and responses to objections.

Evidence For Luke's Authorship

Michael Jones (InspiringPhilosophy) recently released a good video on the subject. We've written a lot about it as well. You can click on some of the post labels below, like the Luke one and the Authorship one, to find relevant posts. For example, here's a post about how the widespread traveling of the author of Luke/Acts makes it harder to dismiss the widespread identification of that author as Luke. And here's one about the importance of what early Roman sources reported concerning the authorship of Luke and Acts. Here's one about the best and earliest evidence for the authorship of the gospels in general, not just Luke.

Examples Of First-Century Sources Passing On Information To Second-Century Sources About New Testament Origins

When skeptics put forward hypotheses in which second-century Christians speculated about New Testament origins without having received much information on those issues from their predecessors, those hypotheses aren't just highly unlikely in the abstract. They're also contrary to the testimony we have from multiple first- and early-second-century sources. So, one way you can respond to such skeptical claims is by citing such testimony. Here are a few examples.

What if Papias wasn't referring to the canonical gospels?

It's become popular to argue that when Papias attributed some documents to Mark and Matthew, he wasn't referring to the canonical gospels we have today. Here's a response I recently wrote to that objection in a YouTube thread:

Thunder In John's Writings As An Indicator Of Authorship

Mark 3:17 tells us that Jesus referred to the sons of Zebedee as Sons of Thunder. To my knowledge, thunder is referred to several times in the New Testament, and the only references outside Mark 3:17 are found in the writings attributed to John the son of Zebedee (John 12:29, Revelation 4:5, 6:1, 8:5, 10:3-4, 11:19, 14:2, 16:18, 19:6). And many of those references could easily have been avoided. John is describing multiple details about something, and the thunder aspect could easily have been left out. He's describing what something sounded like, and he could easily have compared it to something other than thunder. Or he could have just not included the passage to begin with. Even where a reference to thunder seems too difficult to avoid once a particular passage is being included, we still have to ask how easily the passage could have not been included. There's the issue, for example, of why God chose to reveal himself in the context of thunder so much in the book of Revelation. That seems more coherent if the recipient of the revelation was the son of Zebedee. For reasons like these, I don't think the prominence of thunder in John's writings can be dismissed merely by an appeal to necessity, as if anybody writing in such a context would have needed to refer to thunder. If these documents were authored by the son of Zebedee rather than some other John or were intended to be perceived as authored by the son of Zebedee without his having written them, then that helps explain the prominence of thunder in the documents. It's a further line of evidence against views like Richard Bauckham's, in which some other John was the author or purported author.

Why were the early sources so confident about gospel authorship attribution?

A neglected aspect of the evidence for the authorship of the gospels is how much more prominent the authorship of the gospels was than the authorship of other documents. And that greater prominence suggests that the early sources' gospel authorship attributions have greater significance.

What communities did the early Christian documents come from?

1 Corinthians 15 often comes up in the context of Easter. A lot of attention is given to the state of the Corinthian church at the time, what circumstances Paul was addressing there, and so on. But we should keep in mind that a document sent out involves at least two communities. In addition to the community in the location the document is sent to, like Corinth, we should also think about the community in the location the document came from.

1 Corinthians seems to have been written by Paul while he was in Ephesus. So, in addition to his expectation that the Corinthians would be familiar with the resurrection appearances he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15, there's also a likelihood that the Ephesians would have heard about those appearances in the context of Paul's composition of 1 Corinthians. To the extent that they'd heard about the appearances before then, the circumstances surrounding Paul's letter to the Corinthians would have reinforced what the Ephesians had heard previously. And they would have had opportunity to get further information from Paul about the appearances and related matters.

Look at 1 Corinthians 16, all of the individuals and multiple churches mentioned there ("the churches of Asia" in verse 19, etc.). Or look at the similar comments in other New Testament (and extrabiblical) letters.

We should think of at least two communities when considering a document like 1 Corinthians. That's true not just with regard to the contents of the document, but also other issues involved, like authorship and genre. That means a larger number of people, accordingly, would have been well informed about such issues from the start. It's not as though a matter like who wrote 1 Corinthians, the gospel of Matthew, or 1 Peter, for example, would have been well known only to the author and the original recipients of the document. There likely would have been at least two communities who were well informed from the beginning. These documents were a means of informing multiple groups, typically groups that were some significant distance apart geographically. So, there was some diversity built into the circumstances at the outset. For more about topics like these, see here.

How The Author's Travels Support The Authorship Attribution Of Luke/Acts

I've written before about how Acts ends with a "we" passage that places the author in Rome and how some of the earliest evidence we have for Lukan authorship comes from sources closely connected to that city. Something else to note about the authorship of Luke and Acts is that multiple sources in multiple locations should have been in a good position to know who wrote the documents. The "we" passages in Acts, which suggest participation by the author in the events in question, are evidence that the author traveled widely. And he apparently was writing Acts as he traveled, doing preparatory work for writing while traveling (e.g., gathering information from people, taking notes), or some of each, given the nature of the details in the document. (For evidence to that effect, see here, here, and here.) So, people in a large number and variety of locations should have had significant evidence regarding who wrote Acts (and the gospel of Luke). That includes being in a good position to falsify an incorrect authorship attribution. That's especially true given all of Luke/Acts' references to times, places, individuals involved, etc. I've argued that some of Luke's material on Jesus' childhood likely was acquired in the context of Acts 21. So, it looks like the authorship of the third gospel, not just Acts, is also directly connected to his travels in the "we" passages. Attribution of the third gospel and Acts to Luke was widespread and seems to have not faced much opposition. That makes more sense if the attribution is correct than if it's incorrect. That's true not only as a general principle, but even more so in light of the author's travels.

Irenaeus' View Of The Gospels Was Shaped By Many Sources

It's common to suggest that all or some large percentage of gospel authorship attributions among the patristic sources can be traced back to Papias. There are a lot of problems with that sort of argument, like the ones discussed here.

In that post, I discuss some of the sources who probably influenced Irenaeus' beliefs about who wrote the gospels, such as Pothinus and the gospel manuscripts Irenaeus read or heard about. Since Irenaeus was a church leader and traveled widely, think of how often he would have read gospel manuscripts, had them read by somebody else in his presence, heard other people mention the authorship of the documents in one context or another, etc. Look at how often he draws from the gospels in his writings, such as in Against Heresies. Or consider how often the gospels would have been read aloud during church services he attended or presided over. Think of how many of the doctrinal controversies, moral disputes, and such that occurred in his day involved material in the gospels and would have involved discussions of the gospels. See this post for a discussion of how Polycarp, one of Irenaeus' mentors, would have influenced New Testament authorship attributions in a variety of contexts. See here regarding a Roman source Irenaeus cited on gospel authorship. And see here for links to posts about other relevant sources. One of the ones listed there is the heretic Ptolemy, who attributed the fourth gospel to a disciple of Jesus named John and is quoted by Irenaeus doing so (Against Heresies, 1:8:5).

Irenaeus did have access to the writings of Papias, but he doesn't say that he got his gospel authorship attributions from Papias, and it's absurd to suggest that Papias was his only source on the topic. Given the nature of Irenaeus' life (when he lived, his relationship with Polycarp, his relationship with Pothinus, his roles in church leadership, his widespread traveling, his access to what Papias wrote, etc.), he had to have been influenced by a large number and variety of sources on issues like gospel authorship, and those sources are likely to have been independent of one another to some degree. There's no reason to begin with a default assumption that they all were dependent on Papias, nor is there any reason to think universal dependence on Papias is equally possible or likely. Rather, it's highly unlikely.

Why doesn't Justin Martyr name the gospel authors?

Critics of the traditional gospel authorship attributions make much of the fact that Justin doesn't name the authors of the gospels. And he fails to name the authors even though he cites the documents so often (or similar documents, depending on your view of what he was citing).