the action of the Holy Spirit (Metzger 1987: 255). In other words,
the reasons for a text’s inclusion in the New Testament was its
doctrinal soundness, not its historical reliability.
As divinely inspired sources of orthodox teaching, the
texts in the New Testament possessed considerable authority (as
they still do for modern Christians). One reflection of this can be
seen in the names ascribed to various of the writings. We talk,
for example, about the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
or the letters of Paul, or the Revelationof John. But this does
not mean the same thing as when we talk about, for example,
theAnnalsof Tacitus or the Twelve Caesarsof Suetonius. That
Tacitus and Suetonius wrote those works is universally accepted
by modern ancient historians. This is not always the case with
the books of the New Testament.
Let us take the gospels first. None of them includes, within
its narrative, the name of the person who wrote it. The closest
we get to this is in the final chapter of the Gospel of John. After
a description of ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved... who had
reclined next to Jesus at the last supper’ (John 21.20), the text
states: ‘This is the disciple who is testifying these things and has
written them, and we know that this testimony is true’ (21.24).
At no point, however, is the name of this especially beloved dis-
ciple divulged. Indeed, there is a further problem: many scholars
regard the last chapter of the Gospel of Johnas a later addition
to the text, meaning that any information it gives pertaining to
the work’s authorship is entirely spurious. In spite of this absence
of precise identifications of authorship, the gospels were ascribed
to named writers already by the end of the second century. The
Gospel of John was attributed to one of Jesus’ disciples, John the
son of Zebedee (Mark10.35); the others were ascribed to Mark,
who had been Peter’s companion in Rome (1 Peter 5.13; cf.
Eusebius,Ecclesiastical History2.15); to Jesus’ disciple Matthew
(Eusebius,Ecclesiastical History3.24.5–6); and to Luke, one of
the apostle Paul’s travelling companions (Philemon24; Irenaeus,
Against Heresies 3.1.1). Thus the doctrinal authority of the
gospels was reinforced by the fact that they were believed to haveSOURCES AND THEIR INTERPRETATION
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