The Comprehensive Guide to Apologetics

Though these works bore the names of well-known individuals from the first-century, they originated much too late to have been written by eyewitnesses of the life and resurrection of Jesus. Not only did they lack eyewitnesses, but the authors were not able to interview eyewitnesses, as Luke did for his Gospel.

Whereas Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written during the first century, the alternative gospels were not written until the first half of the second century.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke were likely written somewhere from AD 40 to 70, and John was probably composed in the late 80s, or early 90s.

In John, we learn of firsthand details about Jesus’s life that are not recorded in the other Gospels, making John’s account 92 percent unique.

Matthew, Luke, Mark, John were written either by direct apostolic eyewitnesses (Matthew, John) or based on apostolic eyewitness testimony (Mark was based on Peter’s preaching, and Luke [Luke 1:1-4] gathered his information by interviewing eyewitnesses and traveling with Paul [Acts]).

So the chronological order of the Gospels is Matthew, then Luke, then Mark, then finally John.

Third, the early fathers left a clear record of the chronological order in which the Gospels were written. Clement of Alexandria (AD 150–215) wrote that the Gospels with genealogies (Matthew and Luke) were written before the Gospels without (Mark and John).7 They tell us always, and without fail, that Matthew was written first.

Second, from the earliest times (AD 125), while anonymous in their text, the Gospels bore titles on all their manuscripts: “The Gospel according to Matthew,” “The Gospel According to Mark,” “The Gospel According to Luke,” “The Gospel According to John.” No other names ever appeared on any of the manuscripts.

The first great church historian, Eusebius (ca. AD 260–341), as well as many other very early church fathers, left us a valuable record about the genuineness of the Gospels from which the church derives its information. Eusebius called the four canonical Gospels “the holy four Gospels” that were never once doubted by the orthodox church as coming f