What an administration!
VII. THE NEW TESTAMENT.
WHO wrote the New Testament?
Christian scholars admit that they do not know. They admit that, if the four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they must have been written in Hebrew. And yet a Hebrew manuscript of any one of these gospels has never been found. All have been and are in Greek. So, educated theologians admit that the Epistles, James and Jude, were written by persons who had never seen one of the four gospels. In these Epistles—in James and Jude—no reference is made to any of the gospels, nor to any miracle recorded in them.
The first mention that has been found of one of our gospels was made about one hundred and eighty years after the birth of Christ, and the four gospels were first named and quoted from at the beginning of the third century, about one hundred and seventy years after the death of Christ.
We now know that there were many other gospels besides our four, some of which have been lost.
There were the gospels of Paul, of the Egyptians, of the Hebrews, of Perfection, of Judas, of Thaddeus, of the Infancy, of Thomas, of Mary, of Andrew, of Nicodemus, of Marcion and several others.
So there were the Acts of Pilate, of Andrew, of Mary, of Paul and Thecla and of many others; also a book called the Shepherd of Hermas.
At first not one of all the books was considered as inspired. The Old Testament was regarded as di vine; but the books that now constitute the New Testament were regarded as human productions. We now know that we do not know who wrote the four gospels.
The question is, Were the authors of these four gospels inspired?