The Gospel Accounts Are Anonymous

This is the first debate I will be in that I personally issued, and it seems that I have a powerful opponent ahead of me. Anyways, let us get to the debate. To establish that the canonical Gospels are indeed written by their traditional authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I will defend three contentions that provide evidence that will lead us to the conclusion that the traditional authors did in fact write the Gospels. Contention 1: The writers of these documents were not later invented This contention would establish that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not later made up figures later after the canonical Gospels, and that they are in fact historical figures, and thus all I would need to do is connect their historicity to the actual authorship of the canonical Gospels to establish my point. Let me now prove it by providing historical references to them; 1 a) Matthew; Matthew 9:9; "As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named *Matthew* sitting at the tax collector"s booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. [1] Acts 1:13; "When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. " [2] 1 b) Mark; Colossians 4:10; "Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, and Mark qthe cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instruction -- if he comes to you, welcome him)," [3] Philemon 1:24; "as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. " [4] 1 c) Luke; Colossians 4:14; "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas send you greetings" [5] 1 d) John; Revelation 1:4; " John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits[a] before his throne," [6] I could give more references, but this shows that their names and characters are not later inventions by the early Church as their names appear right there in the New Testament, meaning that the idea that these names were later fabrications is completely incoherent. Contention 2: We have great historical evidence and early documentation of the authorship of the canonical Gospels Tertullian, an early Church Historian from 200 AD writes; "that the documents of the Gospels were written by the Apostles Matthew and John and the "Apostolic men of Matthew and Luke" -Against Marcion 4.2.1-2 [7] Irenaeus, in 180 AD, writes that Matthew wrote a Gospel among the Jews in their own style, that Mark, a disciple of Peter wrote a Gospel, and Luke who was with Paul also put forth a Gospel, and that John wrote a Gospel while residing in Ephesus -Against Heresies 3.1.1-2 [8] Clement of Alexandria, also in 180 AD, writes that the Gospel of Mark was done by the urging of Peter, and John wrote his Gospel last, thus validating these two in their authorship -Adumbrationes in Epistolas Canonicas on 1 Peter 5:13 [9] In an early Canon of 170 AD, we are told two things; "The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke. Luke, the well known physician. " "The third of the Gospels is that of John, of the disciples. To his fellow disciples and bishops, who had been urging him. " -The Muratorian Fragment [10] Preserved in the Ecclesiastical History, Papias is quoted on saying from writing in 125 AD, "This, too, the elder used to say: Mark, who had been Peter's interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord's sayings and doings. For he had not heard the Lord or been one of his followers, but later, as I said, one of Peter's. Peter used to adapt his teachings to the occasion without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord's sayings, so that Mark was quite justified in writing down some things just as he remembered them. For he had one purpose only--to leave out nothing that he had heard, and to make no misstatement about it. " [11] Contention 3: We have evidence against the idea that the traditional authorship of the Gospels was made up 3 a) Let us examine the Book of Hebrews, one of the books of the New Testament. Now, the Book of Hebrews was truly anonymous, and the early Church Fathers had to try to guess the person who wrote this document [12]. If the authorship of Biblical documents was being made up, including the canonical Gospels, we should also expect to see people making up the author of the Book of Hebrews 3 b) If the traditional authorship was truly a fabrication, we would not see people like Mark and Luke attributed to having written Gospels -- these two were not of the 12 Apostles, they did not witness Jesus, and they were not big figures in the foundation of the Christian movement. If anyone were to fabricate these names, we would expect to see more prominent names attributed to these two Gospels, such as Thomas and Philip, who were actual Apostles of Jesus and thus would lend the historical claims of these Apostles as more credible, rather than Mark and Luke. In conclusion, the historical evidence is in great support of the traditional authorship of the four canonical Gospels, which leads to the affirmation that these four people, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, truly did write the Gospels that they are attributed to. 1: . https://www.biblegateway.com... 2: . https://www.biblegateway.com... 3: . http://biblia.com... 4: . http://biblehub.com... 5: . http://biblehub.com... 6: . https://www.biblegateway.com... 7: . http://www.newadvent.org... 8: . http://www.newadvent.org... 9: . https://books.google.ca... 10: . http://www.bible-researcher.com... 11: . http://biblehub.com... 12: