Author

Why should I trust in the books of the NT to be true? When no one knows who wrote them ??

Discussion

51 comments

  1. Joseph Aaron says:

    There’s only one book in the New Testament whose author isn’t clear, Hebrews. The rest of it is written by Apostles and at least one historian/doctor (Luke)

  2. David Huckabay Jr says:

    To take a position that one knows who wrote the scriptures, Old or New Testaments, other than who the scriptures indicate who the human author is, is to place themselves as having higher knowledge than God. Anyone who places themselves above God and His knowledge and wisdom is doing exactly what Lucifer did.

    God is all knowing, all powerful. He intended His Word, the Bible, to be the primary communication path to us. And Satan wants to confuse and discredit the Bible.

  3. Garry Wienhurst says:

    Because we know who wrote them. The generations that were way closer to the original autographed copies identified them as such. And they were far closer to them in history then YOU ARE.

  4. Andrew Beltz says:

    Stop reading Bart Ehrman.

  5. Colby Helms says:

    Historically speaking it’s quite well attested to. Authorship isn’t necessary for it to convey legit history

  6. Burly Pilgrim says:

    Ignorance of the author’s identity in no way correlates with the veracity of the content.
    I don’t know who first said, “two plus two equals four”, but that doesn’t negate the truth of the statement

  7. Sam Piazza says:
  8. Steven Moncus says:

    We do know who wrote them.

  9. Mark August says:

    They are the most reliable set of books in history.

  10. Mark Frost says:

    Paul wrote more than half

  11. Robert Conrad says:

    We know who wrote them

  12. Mark Celio says:

    Of course we know who wrote them the people saying they don’t know are nonbelievers

  13. Lukas Dohnal says:

    Why ?? Your eternal life depends up on it !!

  14. Stephen Riggs says:

    Trust that God is able to preserve His word. Your foundation of faith rests not on scripture alone, but more on your daily, intimate relationship with God. Focus primarily on prayer and the Psalms. When you pray, allow time to sit in silence and listen for God’s voice. We tend to forget that He sometimes answers prayer immediately, but we have moved on to the rest of our daily routine. Also, ask God for guidance from the Holy Spirit.

  15. Paul Wanson says:

    Are you serious? “No one knows who wrote them”? This has been a widely-debated topic in the past and it’s always been shown that we do, in fact, know who wrote the NT books (all but one).

    Instead of making an ignorant assertion, do a little research before you post such things.

  16. Bob Francis says:

    Manuscript evidence over 5,000.00 copies. Church histories men like Polycarp & Clemente confirm apostolic authorship of books, or men with apostolic mentorship.

  17. André Catharino says:

    Not to mention the additions that these manuscripts had.. An example of this is Mark 16:9-20

  18. Jac says:

    I recommend these books.

    1. I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist – by Frank Turek
    2. Forensic Faith – by J. Warner Wallace
    3. Gunning for God – by John Lennox
    4. Alive – by J. Warner Wallace

  19. Samantha Finch-Finchley says:

    Edit: OP has expanded upon intent and meaning for Post. Any resources on NT credibility for and against(Scholarly articles very beneficial) would be helpful for all searching this thread. TIA.

    Looking at the responses of the OP to anyone providing info with references and links I’m guessing this person is not looking for truth but to try to prove others wrong or get them to think in his way of thinking…there is so much on the record out there archeologically, historically, and philosophically speaking to confirm why the NT is a trusted canonical entity that I have a hard time believing this is a genuine post searching for truth. Comments were made to those containing references with powerful information only for responses to be made immediately after giving the info no thought or consideration.nit really the mark of a truth seeker… Tread carefully my brothers and sisters in Jesus.

  20. Jacob Ragozzine says:

    Matthew and John were both disciples of Jesus. Mark was a disciple to Peter. And Luke was a disciple to Paul.

    All 4 our known

  21. Jim Maxwell says:

    Do you know who built your car?

  22. Joseph Dunbar says:

    Conduct a thorough “Cold Case l” file then make your decision ! Read this book and you’ll be convinced ….. if you’re one of the “Elected”

  23. Arthur Adam Haglund says:

    The authorship is known, except for the letter to the Hebrews.
    Your claim is that it is not known. the burden is for you to show this ignorance.

  24. Jim DeRicci says:

    I can’t believe some of these questions. It is almost universally agreed who wrote the vast majority of books in the New Testament.

  25. David Richardson says:

    André Catharino, I could give you a scholarly argument, Andre, but I don’t think you are looking for one. Your words give you away. Liberal scholars constantly deny the genuine authorship of the Gospels and New Testament Epistles. That is nothing new. But you can read what conservative orthodox scholars say and examine their arguments. Instead, you come to a social media site and affirm flatly that we don’t know who wrote the New Testament books. Social media sites do not lend themselves to scholarly debate. There are places you can go online to get conservative evangelical scholarly opinion. You apparently know where to get the liberal and secular view, so you should be able to figure out how to access counterarguments. Again, I don’t think you are interested in counterarguments. You have already made up your mind. Since you have done that already, why are you asking the question on social media?

    Since you have decided that the authorship is questionable, I would suggest that you not believe the documents. That is your choice. Of course, competent scholars would disagree with you and the liberal scholars you are reading. But I have a question. Is anyone trying to force you to believe that Christ will reconcile you to God? Is anyone trying to force you to believe in the historicity of the New Testament? It would seem to me that that is up to you to decide for yourself, but I would look at some scholarship that disagrees with you. That is readily available to you

    If you feel, however, that the evidence is not sufficient, then reject the New Testament message. If you think there are no arguments for their authenticity, I suggest that you dispense with the New Testament and spend your time elsewhere. I have no trouble with that. Believe what you want to believe.

    But I am curious. Samantha refers to conservative scholars she has been listening to and reading who address the NT Canon. Your response is curious and belligerent. You say, “…if you are afraid of the truth don’t go down this road.” That appears to me to be as sexest and dismissive as it is threatening. It does not respond to her point. As a retired logic teacher, I am not impressed by such arrogant bravado. It is by no means an argument. It is a way of telling in a threatening way a woman with whom you disagree to “shut up.” That was your point, and Samantha clearly got your message.

    Andre, that lacks the civility and class. But Samantha did not respond in kind. She remained civil. She simply said that she did not understand your response and that her studies have led her to the conclusion that the NT is reliable. She was not trying to dismiss you or insult you. She simply attempted to engage in a civil discussion by sharing what she had gathered from scholarly resources. She even gave you a source: The Veritas Forum. It is a respected source that accesses learned, Christian scholars.

    But you would have none of it. Your next response was even more belligerent. You dismissed what she said by alleging, “…remember, who wins the war writes its own truth.” Incidentally, that little bit of impudent rhetoric is also a genetic fallacy. The documents cannot be reliable because Christians wrote them? That is what you are saying.
    Really? That is an embarrassing error of reasoning on your part and fails to respond to Samantha’s logical point. New Testament scholars would disagree with you. Do you ignore her point because you simply are a sexist, or do you have another reason for being so dismissive? We should now be turning your question around to ask, “Why should we accept what you say, Andre, when your feel free to use bad reasoning and fail to respect those with whom you argue.

    Do you doubt that Samantha has been reading legitimate scholars who disagree with your claims? Do you think that she cannot have a logical point worth your consideration? Are you saying that the evidence for the New Testament is less reliable than other historical documents that historians accept? And why do you dismiss out of hand someone who directly answers your question as if the source she offers to you is not worth your time? Andre, you claim to be a Christian who is looking for answers. I am sorry. Your writing projects a different image. It reflects the behavior a belligerent and dismissive anti-religious bigot.

    Now, it is a matter of indifference to me whether you believe the New Testament or not. That is between God and you. I am not responsible for changing your opinion. In fact, there are scholars who will agree with you; moreover, they extend a similar analysis to the Old Testament. But such people do not exhaust the intellectual landscape.
    There are good arguments for accepting the New Testament Canon, but that does not mean you will accept them. And as I have said, believe what you want to believe. But if you want to argue, come argue with me.

  26. Anthony Jimison says:

    Um they do? The only books of the bible where the author was unknown was Job (OT) and Hebrews (NT) the thing is it doesn’t matter who wrote them its are they consistent and do they fit the timeline. The author attributed doesn’t matter what matters is that the Holy spirit is the main author of all of scripture

  27. Jim Lee says:

    A great classic treatment is “The New Testament Documents…Are They Reliable?” by F F Bruce

  28. Ken Leeder says:

    Lee strobel books are good for explanations

  29. Patrick Yisrael says:

    Well technically….יהוה is writing them. He is the writer, the man would be the pen.

  30. Daniel Feher says:

    The gospels were probably written by Flavius Josephus as Roman propaganda directed against the Jews. Its definitely pro Roman literature.

  31. Tim Lewandowski says:

    You are correct. We don’t know the authors of the Gospels. It was the Catholics who gave the gospels their names. Most of the authors don’t identify themselves in their writings. So the church was guessing when they named them who wrote them.

  32. Joel Postma says:

    um.. I dont know who wrote these posts either.

  33. Samantha Finch-Finchley says:

    If anyone is still looking for information on this I urge you to please visit my playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfClIfIdmaB6SWolWYs6UXiDMQrQfNULU that gives more information that many secularized historians and biblical scholars disregard and ignore (including the famous Dr. Bart Ehrman)

  34. Kent Wilkens says:

    Matthew wrote Matthew, Mark wrote Mark, Luke wrote Luke and Acts, John wrote John. Really simple actually.

    You do know that it was considered impolite in that time not to say who wrote a book?

    While so called “scholars” all say that we do not know who wrote the gospels, there exist NO gospels that are not titled as they are today.

  35. Ian Kronick says:

    As far as I know there is only one book that we don’t know who authored it. Hebrews.

  36. Harvey Ward says:

    Do you really want to know are you just stirring?

  37. John Eksted says:

    Because the Spirit of God testifies to their veracity to our spirit.

  38. Fisher Karam says:

    Only the word of God can convince you.

  39. Billy Myers says:

    This thread is not serious. He is not answering anyone’s question. He’s repeating the same things over and over. He read or watched a video, most likely with little to no objectivity. Came across something in his algorithm manipulated feed, something that jived with his implicit biases and served his confirmational bias, and subconsciously applied his emotional filters and called it proof.

  40. Patti Summerfeldt says:

    If you’ve ever read them you would know. Flawless inspired scripture and yes we do know who wrote them and how we got them 🙂

  41. Wesley A Austin says:

    Ummm…God wrote it

  42. Ron Holmes says:

    God wrote the Bible through 40 writers, possibly fewer or more depending on how one views the authorship identification in respective books (e.g., The Epistle to the Hebrews), in 66 books, across at least 1,500 years, and in both Near Eastern Ancient culture and the Greco-Roman culture of the first century. The singular message, the “scarlet thread” of truth that binds each of the books together as one, the witness of Jesus of Nazareth, and the witness of the Holy Spirit all converge to make the Bible, alone against all other revered texts, a revelation of God to Man.

    Scripture says this about itself.
    2 Peter 1:21 “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

    2Tim. 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness… “

    Isaiah 55:11,
    “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

    Proverbs 30:5 “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”

    Isaiah 40:8 “
    The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

    Psalm 119:89 “Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.”

  43. Wimpy Tan says:

    André Catharino

    if the NT is not TRUE the 12 Apostles themselves will contradict each other about God and JESUS

  44. Tonya M. Bechtold says:

    God told Moses, “Write this down!”
    When you write something with a pen, is the pen composing the message or are you? I hope that you would understand that it is you and not the ball point pen. I can’t look at my Bible right at the moment, but in either the first chapter of first Peter or second Peter, God tells us that the prophets who wrote these things down in our current Bible, went searching intently for the answers to the things that they were writing down because they did not understand them themselves, because the Holy Spirit was telling them what to say. All Scripture is God breathed …. from I or II Timothy.

  45. Tonya M. Bechtold says:

    It won’t harm you in ANY way to read the Bible! That way, you can prove it to yourself! If true disciples of Jesus are wrong, we die and we rot in the ground with everyone else. No harm, no foul. But, if you’re wrong, eternal torment awaits! Are you willing to put a bullet in the chamber and take that chance with your eternal soul?

  46. Dale Gillet says:

    WTH. Only one book in NT not 100% with described human offers, most likely Paul wrote Hebrews. All books can be checked on authenticity and accuracy of 99.9%, even with language difference.

  47. Jake Bello says:

    NT was inspired by the HS and written also by Holy men of God

  48. Rodel Amporias says:

    Actually we have sufficient evidence who were the authors of the New Testament. We have internal (from the Bible itself) and external (testimoniesbof the early Church and Church fathers) evidence. The early believers have the collection or corpus of the writings of the apostles such as Pualine, epsitles of Peter, James or General epsitles. Then corpus of the Gospels. Around 150 a.d. a wealthy merchant name Marcion believed that only Paul is true apostlebof Jesus and others are false. He went to Rome and attempt to convince the beleivers with his teachings. As result, bishop of Rome called a meeting to compile the genuine epistles of apostles from early Church. This compilation called Muratorian Canon. It contained 27 books of New Testament. The goal of this canon is to compile the authentic writings of apostles.

  49. Maxwell Cast says:

    The authors and writers of NEW TESTAMENTS ARE EYE WITNESSES OF JESUS..

  50. Kenneth Fox II says:

    This dumb question seems to get asked every few weeks.

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