Who ACTUALLY Wrote the New Testament?

Daniel McClellan (0:00)

At the end of one chapter, you have Jesus say, all right, well, let's get out of here.

And then the next chapter begins, and it's just Jesus sermonizing. It seems like some sermons were just inserted in there. And so-

Daniel Beecher (0:13)

I don't know, man, you've never tried to leave a party with my wife. You can say, let's get out of here, and then have lots and lots of talking before you leave.

Daniel McClellan (0:23)

And maybe they were drunk. Maybe they were like, but then, so, no, listen, listen.

Daniel Beecher (0:28)

Hang on, guys. Dude, let me just tell you this last thing.

Daniel McClellan (0:36)

Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Daniel Beecher (0:38)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Daniel McClellan (0:39)

And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are we doing today, Dan?

Daniel Beecher (0:53)

Good, good, we've got mysteries to solve this week. It's a whole week of whodunnits.

Daniel McClellan (1:02)

It's a have you seen this boy episode?

Daniel Beecher (1:06)

Yeah, this is gonna be good. We are going to figure out once and for all, sort it out, the answers that we come up with are final for who wrote what in the New Testament, because there's a lot of questions out there.

Daniel McClellan (1:24)

This is a controversial topic. Every time I bring this up, I know that there are people on YouTube who are going to dedicate videos to why I'm a moron.

So we're just going to lay those reasons out on the table right now.

Daniel Beecher (1:38)

Yeah, absolutely.

Daniel McClellan (1:39)

There will be no doubt regarding why I'm a moron after this episode.

Daniel Beecher (1:46)

And I'll be even more of a moron for just believing you. Yeah, so this is great.

Daniel McClellan (1:51)

That is the racket that we're getting away with here. Yeah, one day we'll even make money at it too.

Daniel Beecher (1:59)

Yeah, we'll see about that. I'm not counting my horses.

Daniel McClellan (2:02)

As the great poet said, today is not that day.

Daniel Beecher (2:07)

All right, so we're starting off with the very opening of the New Testament. We're going with the gospels.

Daniel McClellan (2:16)

The gospels.

Daniel Beecher (2:17)

And these gospels are named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, essentially after they're presumed authors. But we've talked about this a little bit before on the show.

That's probably not right.

Daniel McClellan (2:34)

Probably not.

Daniel Beecher (2:35)

All right, well, walk us through. Why are we saying that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are probably not the authors of these texts?

Daniel McClellan (2:44)

Well, there are a handful of reasons. We've got some internal and we've got some external things to consider.

First thing, and something came in my head, it was like, think of people you know named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Were these people running around in first century? I get that question a lot. Were these people really named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? And two things there.

One is that we borrow those names today from the Bible. So the fact that it sounds like a 21st century name is just because you are exposed to it in the 21st century, but they come from yonder. Additionally, they are English transliterations of usually Greek or Latin transliterations of what originate as Greek and Latin names. And Hebrew, so yes, they are perfectly natural first century CE. Syro-Palestinian names. So that is not a reason for rejecting their authorship of the Gospels.

Daniel Beecher (3:54)

The names themselves.

Daniel McClellan (3:55)

Yeah. But when we look into the Gospels, none of them explicitly say so-and-so is the author of this story that I'm about to tell you. The closest we get is that the Gospel of John repeatedly refers to, in the third person, to this beloved disciple as the one who's telling the story, the one who wrote these things.

And there are pretty reasonable reasons to say, well, the beloved disciple sounds an awful lot like John. But it requires triangulating from the other Gospels' lists of who the disciples were and all this kind of stuff.

Daniel Beecher (4:39)

Also, it's already creepy to be writing about yourself in the third person. That's already a little weird. Don't go referring to yourself as beloved then. Come on, man.

Daniel McClellan (4:48)

Just say, call me Ishmael.

Daniel Beecher (4:51)

That's right.

Daniel McClellan (4:52)

That's how you do it.

We're going to be honest. But there's an interesting thing. When we look in John at the very end, as you have kind of the wrapping up of the book, you have this statement. And this is the one who wrote these things. And we know that his testimony is true.