What eight people wrote the New Testament?

Answer 1

A:Most people are surprised to learn that we do not know who wrote most of the books of the New Testament. Certainly, the gospels are attributed to actual people (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), but those attributions only came about later in the second century, when the Church Fathers were attempting to establish who, in their opinions, probably wrote the gospels. Modern New Testament scholars say none of the gospels could have been written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed, and that we do not really know who any of the authors were.

The three Johannine gospels are traditionally attributed to the apostle John, on the assumption that John had written the gospel that now bears his name. As soon as we realise we do not really know who wrote the fourth gospel, we also realise we do not know who wrote these epistles.

The Book of Revelation was once attributed to the apostle John, merely because the author signed himself as John, but many of the early Church Fathers doubted the connection, and there is no good reason to accept that attribution. The author is now widely known as John of Patmos, to differentiate him from the apostle John and from the author of John's Gospel.

The epistles known as 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Judeare collectively known as the 'Petrine' epistles because they share a common theme and were all written during the second century, but not by either Peter or Jude.

The epistle of James could perhaps have been written by James, brother of Jesus, although this is unlikely.

The Epistle to the Hebrews was at one stage attributed to Paul, but he is clearly not the author. We do not know anything about this author.

That leaves the epistles of Paul, who is actually the only New Testament author of whose name we can be certain. Of the thirteen generally attributed to him (Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon), only seven are considered undisputed Pauline epistles: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Galatians, Philippians and 1 Thessalonians. The remaining epistles are generally known as the pseudo-Pauline epistles, as they were written, using his name, in the decades after Paul's death.