How many disciples did not write a book in the Bible?

Answer 1

A:Two of the New Testament gospels, seven epistles and the Book of revelation have traditionally been attributed to four of the twelve disciples of Jesus, suggesting that only eight disciples did not write a book in The Bible. However, it has been established that these attributions are not really correct.

The four New Testament gospels were all anonymous until later in the second century, when the Church Fathers sught to establish who probably wrote each of the gospels and assigned the first and last New Testament gospels to the disciples Matthew and John. However, modern scholars say there is no good reason to accept those attributions, determining that none of the gospels could really have been written be an eyewitness to the events described.

Epistles were written in the names of the disciples James, Peter, John and Jude, but not one of these epistles can safely be attributed to the named apostles. With the possible exception of the Epistle of James, scholars say they were written pseudepigraphically in the second century. Even as a group, these are unlikely to have been written by these disciples, if only because they do not call on the ascension of Jesus as evidence either of his divinity or of their own true knowledge and apostolic missions, although they could be expected to do so if the authors were indeed witnesses.

The Epistle of Jude clearly identifies itself as a work of the second century, telling its readers about the apostles as other people who lived in the distant past. 2 Peter includes most of Jude, and is therefore also a second-century work, as is 1 Peter. The Epistles of John are believed to have beenm written shortly after a split in the Johannine community, early in the second century. Only James could perhaps have been written early enough to have been written by any of the disciples (or by James, brother of Jesus), although as noted earlier it does not mention facts about Jesus that the author could have been expected to mention. In fact, James scarcely even appears to be a Christian epistle at all, mentioning Jesus only twice and in both cases the mention is thought likely to have been a later insertion into the text.

The Book of Revelation was once attributed to the apostle John solely because it was signed by a person called John, and the Church Fathers knew of no other Christian author called John so assumed it was written by the disciple. Modern scholars now call the otherwise unknown author of Revelation, 'John of Patmos'.

The clear evidence is that no disciple of Jesus ever wrote a book that we now have in the Bible with the possible, although unlikely, exception of James. The twelve disciples left us no written record.

AnswerBooks of the Bible were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, and Peter. Of these only Matthew, John, and Peter were disciples, which means there were 9 disciples who did not write any book in the Bible.