Anniversary Post #2: Why Were the Gospels Written Anonymously?

[00:00:01] Anniversary post 2 why were the Gospels written Anonymously? [00:00:08] Written by Bart Ehrman, Read by Ken Teutsch Here is the second of my anniversary posts given in celebration of the 14th year of the blog. [00:00:19] Unlike the snarky first in the series, this one is meant to be strictly informative on an issue that I regularly get asked about by people who come to realize that that the Gospels were not originally circulated in the names we now know them by, but they weren't called something else. They were anonymous. But why? [00:00:40] Here was my answer from April 2013, and it's pretty much what I think now in April 2026. [00:00:48] It is always interesting to ask why an author chose to remain anonymous. Never more so than with the Gospels of the New Testament. In some instances, an ancient author did not need to name himself because his readers knew perfectly well who he was and did not need to be told. [00:01:06] That is almost certainly the case with the letters of First, Second and third John. These were private letters sent from someone who calls himself the elder to a church in another location. It is safe to assume that the the recipients of the letters knew who he was. [00:01:23] Some people have thought that the Gospels were like that books written by leading persons in particular congregations who did not need to identify themselves because everyone knew who they were. [00:01:34] But then, as the books were copied and circulated, names were still not attached to them. As a result, the identities of the authors were soon lost. Then later readers rightly or wrongly, associated the books with two of the disciples, Matthew and John, and with two companions of the apostles, Mark, the companion of Peter and Luke, the companion of Paul. [00:01:59] Another option is that the authors did not name themselves because they thought that their narratives assumed greater authority if told anonymously. If the Gospel stories about Jesus are claimed by a particular author, then in some sense they seem to lose their universal appeal and applicability as being one person's version of the story rather than the version of the story. [00:02:23] There was one reason in particular for thinking that this is what the Gospel writers had in mind. It involves the way these narratives are written. In all four Gospels, the story of Jesus is presented as a continuation of the history of the people of God as narrated in the Jewish Bible. The portions of the Old Testament that relate the history of Israel after the death of Moses and the are found in the books of Joshua, judges, 1st and 2nd Samuel, and 1 and 2 kings. [00:02:53] All of these books are written anonymously. These books take the story of God's people from their conquest of the Promised Land to their ups and downs under charismatic rulers called Judges and then under a series of kings. [00:03:11] This biblical history includes a promise to the first truly great king, David, that he would always have a descendant on the throne ruling Israel. [00:03:23] But the history concludes with disaster, when the Babylonian armies wipe out the nation and remove the king from power. [00:03:34] Many Jews expected that in the future, God would fulfill his promise to David and bring a new anointed one and a new Messiah to rule his people, Israel. The Gospels are written to show that in fact, this new Messiah is none other than Jesus. See Mark 1, 1 John 20, 30, 31. [00:03:56] To be sure, Jesus was different from the kind of Messiah that other Jews were expecting. Rather than coming as a great king like David, he came as a prophet, speaking of the future king kingdom of God. He himself would bring this kingdom, not by being installed as king in Jerusalem, but by dying on the cross to bring salvation. This was a salvation not from the enemies of Israel, the Romans, but from the ultimate enemies of God, the powers of sin and death. Jesus conquered these alien powers at his death and resurrection, and he is returning soon as the King of the earth. [00:04:34] This is the message of the Gospels. It is a message that is portrayed in these books as continuous with the anonymously written history of Israel as laid out in the Old Testament scriptures. This can be seen, for example, in our earliest Gospel of Mark, which begins by quoting an Old Testament series of prophecies anticipating the coming of the Messiah and then introducing Jesus as the one to whom these prophecies pointed out. It can be seen in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which portray the birth of Jesus as a fulfillment of the predictions of Scripture, using imagery and language heavily dependent on Old Testament narratives to give their opening stories a biblical feel. It can even be seen in the Gospel of John, which begins with a powerful poem about Christ's coming into the world here at the end of time, in terms highly reminiscent of of the stories of the creation in the Book of Genesis. [00:05:32] Genesis in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [00:05:37] John in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [00:05:44] The Gospel authors, each in his own way, seem to be portraying the story of Jesus as a continuation of the story of the people of God Israel. He is the fulfillment of all that was anticipated by the authors and prophets of the Old Testament. And so is. It makes sense for these gospel writers to remain anonymous, as the writers of biblical history were almost always anonymous.