How many men wrote the books in the New Testament?

Answer 1

We do not actually know, although we can guess how many people wrote the New Testament.

If we rely on tradition and assign all the Pauline epistles to Paul, all the Johannine epistles and the Book of Revelation to John, and so on, we would arrive at about nine authors. However, the question is about how many men actually wrote the books, not how many men are traditionally credited with writing them.

• Regardless of who actually wrote the four gospels plus Acts (they were written anonymously), that gives us 4 authors.
  
• Paul wrote seven of the epistles attributed to him.
• Each of the pseudo-Pauline epistles (2 Thessalonians,Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus) probably had a different author, giving a further 6 writers, for a total of 11 so far.
• Hebrews had its own author
• James had its own author
• 1 Peter and 2 Peter were written by two different authors
• The three epistles "of John" were written by one author who calls himself "the elder" (eg 3 John 1).
• Jude had its own author
• Revelation had its own author, now known to scholars as 'john of Patmos' to distinguish him from the apostle John

That gives us a total of 18 primary authors of the books of the New Testament.